I stood there looking around uselessly until I realized the burglar could still be on my property, even inside my home.
I made a dash for my car, banged the door locked with my elbow, and drove back out to the driveway. At least if he or she came out of my house, guns blazing, I’d have a little protection, and I might be able to screech away down the street.
Call the police, said my logical brain. And tell them what? my other brain asked. That I was a petty thief myself, having absconded with boxes of papers and office material that didn’t belong to me, and now they’d been re-stolen? I supposed I could call the station, drag a couple of officers out here, and report that I was missing a few bags of used clothing and usable discards. I could list my old toaster oven, a pillow that was too frilly for my taste, and a stapler that I’d replaced with an electric version.
No, calling the police was out of the question. How inconvenient.
I started to formulate a Plan B.
There were three entrances to my garage-the first was through a door from my kitchen; the second was the electric roll-up door; and a third, side exit led to the narrow passageway outside where I kept my trash containers. The kitchen door, like the rest of my interior perimeter, was always alarmed when I left the house; the other two were not wired for security.
All I had to do now was open the kitchen door a crack and listen for a beeping sound. Beeping would mean the alarm was still set and my house had not been entered illegally; no beeping would mean someone had intruded. Or might still be rattling around in there. If everything worked properly, in the event of an intrusion, the alarm company would have contacted me. But the system had never been tested in that way-both good news and bad.
I tapped my steering wheel, thinking.
I made my decision based on one, trusting the security system and its monitors, and two, the fact that I had neither heard nor seen, nor had I smelled, any sign of an intruder since I arrived.
I got out of the car, picked off a large rake from the pegboard, and headed for the alarmed but unlocked kitchen door. I turned the knob as silently as I could and pushed the door in, the long, potentially lethal rake at the ready in my other hand.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I let out a breath. My home had not been violated. I entered the security code, the beeping stopped, and my heart rate returned to normal. I walked back out to the garage, to the side next to my treadmill, and examined the most likely point of entry, through the door between the garage and the side alleyway. Sure enough, the push button on the knob was out, in the unlocked position. I imagined how easy it had been to pick the skimpy lock. Bruce had been after me forever to install a deadbolt and had offered to do it. Too bad I’d told him I’d take care of it.
Back to the problem of the missing boxes.
Maybe a gust of wind had blown through, knocking the boxes to the floor. Never mind that boxes were sturdy and heavy, and that there was no cross ventilation available. Even so, I looked under the workbench and behind the water heater. I walked around my garage like someone who couldn’t remember where she’d put a large load of freight. Maybe I’d stuffed the cartons into the tiny area under the metal shelving that held seasonal decorations and archives from my teaching career, or behind the treadmill.
Of course, there was no sign of them.
I had to face facts. The boxes had been stolen. Re-stolen. Only Woody knew that I had taken them, and unless he’d been stalking me, he didn’t know I’d taken them off campus. Even if he did know, I couldn’t imagine the sweet old man making tracks to my house while I was at the police station and carting everything back.
Had Woody told someone? The dean came to mind. But even if she’d already found out that her appointed messenger had been preempted, I couldn’t picture her sending someone to break into my home to retrieve the material. She’d be more likely to have Courtney call me to her office at an inconvenient time so she could cluck her tongue at me in person.
The thought I’d been avoiding, that someone had been lurking, following my movements this afternoon, kept creeping back.
Each possibility was more unsettling than the next.
I sat on an old metal stool and leaned on the empty workbench, working hard to calm myself and think clearly. Why would anyone want files from a dead man’s office? For the same reason I did, to look for clues to his murder. Or to remove something incriminating.
At the sound of a car entering my driveway, I started and nearly fell off the rickety stool. I’d never been so glad to see Ariana’s happy face and animated wave as she exited her decades-old convertible.
“How come your car’s out here?” she asked.
“I hope you brought your herbs and lotions,” I said.
We sat in my den, sipping a special tea that Ariana promised would cleanse my body and my mind, as I told her the events of my day. Laying it all out for her helped me think more objectively.
I reviewed my meeting with Rachel and recalled how surprised I was to learn that she’d walked in on Keith after his death. It came to me again how horrible that must have been for her.
“Woody found the piece of cake and soda Rachel was taking up to Keith, sitting on a chair in his office. Why wouldn’t Rachel tell me she left the cake there?” I asked Ariana. “She told me a bigger truth, that she lied to the police. Why wouldn’t she tell me the whole truth? Why would she say she left the cake outside the door?” The rambling questions were for me more than for Ariana.
“Some people can tell the truth only in small pieces,” she wisely observed. “I wish I could see samples of everyone’s handwriting. I have a new book that shows how strong T-crossings and dark, dominant periods are indicative of someone about to explode in rage.”
I checked to see if she were teasing. She wasn’t.
I went through my harrowing interview with Archie and earned Ariana’s sympathy and a few more of the small anise cookies she’d made.
When it came to my visit to campus, I fudged a bit.
“I borrowed the files from Keith’s office,” I said, as an explanation for why Keith’s possessions had been in my garage in the first place. I wasn’t sure why I decided on the spot not to admit to the ruse I’d used to acquire the material, unless it was to corroborate Ariana’s theory that no one tells the whole truth all the time. I wondered if my skirting the facts would negate the effects of the herbal tea. “It’s creepy that they’re gone now.”
“I wonder where in the universe they are?” Ariana mused.
“In the hands of the murderer is my best guest. My big problem is what to do when the dean finds out I took them and then lost them.”
“I don’t understand why you can’t just outright tell the dean you want to help the police. What do you have to lose?”
I smiled. “Only my promotion to full professor.”
“Is there a lot of money at stake if you don’t get it?”
“A couple of thousand dollars at most. It’s the principle.”
“I knew that,” Ariana said.
“Thanks.”
“Not that I wouldn’t miss you, but I wish there were some place better for you. I mean, I know you love Henley but there must be other colleges where they have math departments and cooperative deans. This is Massachusetts, right? The college state?”
“Yes, there are other colleges, but not necessarily other jobs. Most colleges are cutting back on full-time faculty and using adjuncts.”
I explained the common practice of giving desperate, unemployed teachers the option of teaching for a flat rate per course. To put together a living, teachers would take on classes at several institutions. They ended up with a lot more work for a lot less pay.
“And no benefits, I bet,” Ariana added.
“You got it.”
“I’ll never understand academia.”
Sometimes I didn’t either.