“Thank you, I should be there by nine in the morning.”
“It’s a three-hour drive.”
“I’ll be there by nine.” They hung up, and the four of them breathed a sigh of relief. When they reentered the kitchen, the two women were sitting at the table, but all their notes had been cleaned up.
“I need to get back to the office,” Yvonne said as she rose from her chair, took her cup to the sink,rinsed it, but left it in the sink. “Robert and Lela will be staying here. How did you make out?”
“Ilsa Miller will be here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. She’s going to get the file from Cole, make a copy of everything in it for Duane to start his thing, and she’s going to read it.”
“Good, I’d like a copy of it.”
“I’m sure if you talked to Duane, he could send you a copy.”
“Yeah, I’ll call him when I get back to the office. If you have anything new to remember, tell Lela or Robert.” She left, with Agent Gregory on her heels.
“What now?” Myrna asked.
“Now, if you’re moving, we should go through things room by room and start packing. I find that if my mind needs to mull over something if I do busy work, I can let my mind wander while still doing another task.”
Pedro snapped his fingers and grinned when they looked at him funny.
“When Cole and I hooked up the trailer, he said that Shay had packed boxes in it.” He looked at them. “His girlfriend moved from Kentucky a month before we arrived, and still had the packing boxes.”
“I’ll go with you,” Robert said as he removed his tie, and jacket, and rolled up his sleeves.
The four of them worked the rest of the afternoon on going through the entire house, then they started in the attic to load the boxes up there in thetrailer. While Lela and Myrna saw what they were, the men did the carrying. At one point, Myrna took a box down herself, and instead of putting it in the trailer, she put it in her bedroom. When Robert disappeared, no one said anything until they paused in their cleaning up the last items and sniffed the air. They grinned and finished, then went down to clean up. As they walked into the kitchen, Robert was pulling a dish from the oven, slipped a tray in, and pointed to the table.
“Could someone set it?”
Myrna immediately went to the cupboards and as she got down the plates and glasses, Pedro was there. In under fifteen minutes they sat down to a delicious smelling meal.
“What did you make?” Myrna asked as she scooped up the red sauce, cheese, and noodles.
“Stuffed shells. They’re stuffed with meatballs or cheese. There’s also garlic bread.” He grinned as he passed her the basket. They ate in silence, then at one point, Pedro leaned back and studied Myrna.
“I’m not judging, but how did you accumulate so much stuff in the attic, but the rest of your house looks barren?”
“I grew up in this house. My mother got pregnant with me when she was a teenager. All I know about her is that she had me when she was seventeen, and she died of complications from my birth four days later. I came home with Grandma, she and Grandparaised me. When I was ten, Grandpa died, and it was just the two of us. Most of the things we loaded up today were from my mother’s time here. They were her boxes, and boxes from my grandmother’s family.”
“Ah, so it’s your history.”
“Yes, I thought I’d take it with me, store it, and when we’re not racing horses in the winter, go through it one box at a time. I’ll decide to keep or toss it then.” They all nodded and continued to eat. At one point she looked at the two federal agents and grinned.
“What?” Lela asked.
“Okay, you’re going to be sleeping in the spare room, Robert said he’ll take the couch. However, I need to tell you both something.”
“What’s that?” Robert asked as he began stacking the dishes, but stopped when Pedro gave him a look, and took over the task.
“This place has two bathrooms. Mine has its own hot water heater, however, the one in the hall shares one with the entire house. If someone is in the shower and the water at the sink out here is turned on, or the dishwasher runs, you’re going to not only lose pressure, but you’ll get either a blast of the opposite.”
“Opposite what?”
“If someone turns on the hot, you’ll get blasted with cold.”
“Ah, anything else?”
“Yes, it takes forty minutes for it to warm back up after the dishwasher runs, or someone else takes a shower. It was on my to-do list to get a new one, but if I’m moving, then I won’t have to. I’ll put it in the sale contract, and see if there are any takers, if not, then I’ll replace it.”
