"You have a diary?" Jack asked. "Am I in it?"
I ignored them both and carefully peeled back a torn flap of the cover, which looked like it may have been taped down in the past. The tape was missing, though, and the side of the paper was slit open just enough for me to reach inside and grab something paper with the tips of my fingernails.
Jack stopped me with a hand on my arm. "Lorraine, do you have any gloves?"
"Yes, hang on."
Seconds later, she was back from the kitchen with a pair of nitrile gloves.
"I use them when I have to clean out the drains."
I removed my fingers from the opening, almost shaking with urgency now, and pulled on the gloves. Then I reached into the opening again and pulled out a long, folded piece of paper.
"It's probably just his grocery list," I said, afraid to get my hopes up that whatever was on that paper would somehow exonerate both Lorraine and Nigel of any connection to Earl's death.
"Know a lot of people who hide their grocery lists?" Jack's voice was wry, but the warm understanding in his eyes told me he knew exactly what I was feeling.
"No time like the present," Lorraine said. "Open it!"
The paper crackled but didn't fall apart or anything when I gently unfolded it and spread it out on the table. I held the corners down and we all stared at it.
List of personal debts owing between members:
Beneath the title, again in Nigel's handwriting, was a short list of names and numbers. Some people I'd never heard of, and some I had, were listed as owing small sums of money to other people. For each debtor, there were only one or two names listed until we got to the bottom of the page.
Earl Packard:
Owed to Mark T.= $1500
Owed to Josephine = $750
Owed to Emeril P. = $2,000
Owed to Frank F. = $450
Owed to Beau = $1900
Jack looked at us. "Who is Mark J.?"
Lorraine made a flapping motion with one hand. "Oh, he left town forty years ago. He was too meek to have anything to do with this, anyway, and last I heard he's a grandfather and lives over in Pensacola."
I was still in shock over the second entry. "Granny Josephinegambled? AtNigel's?"
Lorraine laughed. "Oh, you should have seen her. She was Dead End's first real hippie in the Sixties. She was a wild one."
"GrannyJosephine?" I had a vision of the little old Granny Josephine bringing her jars of pickled green tomatoes to Senior Bingo while wearing hippie clothes and a peace sign necklace.
"You know, we were all young once," Lorraine said reprovingly. "Your generation doesn't have the patent on living wild and raising hell."
I thought about my usual "wild" Friday nights of sitting around in my pajamas eating pizza and watching a movie, and a little burble of laughter escaped my lips.
"What about Frank?" Jack pointed to the entry. "It's only four-fifty, but that was a lot back then too."
"Poor Frank," I said.
"May he rest in peace. Someday," Lorraine said.
Jack looked at the two of us, his face puzzled. "Someday?"
