Brooke peered through the other window but saw only a shadowy interior.
“Let’s look around back,” Lizzie said, leading them around the east side of the house. A lean-to roof jutted off the back of the house. The wooden floorboards groaned under her footsteps. A weathered broom, rag mop, and dustpan hung from nails, and a fishing pole and plastic bait bucket stood beside the door.
Lizzie rattled the door handle. “Locked.” She took a step backward and lifted the edge of the doormat. Grinning, she extracted a large brass skeleton key, which she fit into the lock.
“Stop. You can’t just break into the man’s house,” Brooke said.
“Technically, it’s not his house. Louette says he doesn’t even pay rent. Josephine just let him stay here as part of the job. So technically, it belongs to the estate. Also, he could actually be in here, hurt or passed out or something, so really, this is a welfare check.” Undeterred, Lizzie opened the door and stepped inside.
“Nobody home.” She popped her head outside the door. “Come on in. Don’t be so prissy. If he comes back and catches us, you can say I was the evildoer.”
Felicia looked at Brooke and shrugged. “Might as well.”
***
They were standing in a compact galley kitchen. There were exactly four wooden cabinets, their doors warped from humidity. An opened plastic Sunbeam bread bag on the Formica countertop held a moldy heel of bread, swarming with black ants, and a jar of store-brand mustard was open, with a butter knife stuck into it. A greasy plastic ziplocked container held only the red stringy rinds of a half pound of bologna. The small stainless steel sink held a used coffee mug, a teaspoon, and a plate. An ashtray on the counter was full of cigarillo butts.
Lizzie sniffed the air. “Yeah, this is C. D.’s place, all right.”
“It looks like wherever he was going, he decided to pack a picnic,” Felicia said.
They followed her into the small front room, which looked like it had been furnished with cast-offs from the big house. The sofa, a 1940s relic, had worn maroon tufted upholstery and another overflowing ashtray was perched on the arm. The glass-topped coffee table was part of an old wrought iron patio set. It was littered with file folders and photocopied news clippings.
Lizzie ducked into the adjacent room. “Here’s his bedroom. No sign of C. D., though.”
“We should get out of here,” Brooke said uneasily. “This doesn’t feel right.”
Felicia perched on the edge of the sofa and began sifting through the papers. “Hey. Looks like he’s been reading up on Josephine and the Bettendorfs. Look at all this stuff.”
“Let me see.” Lizzie sat beside her. She picked up a paper. “He’s been spending time in the library, going through the old microfiche issues of the Savannah and Atlanta newspapers, dating all the way back to the mid-1930s. I’m kind of surprised he knew to do that.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t strike me as the researching type,” Felicia agreed. Shelooked up at Brooke. “He’s gotten copies of the old property tax records from the Carter County courthouse too.”
“It’s a matter of public record,” Brooke said. Against her better judgment, she stepped into the bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was tiny, with worn wooden floorboards. The cracked plaster walls were bare except for a calendar from a marine supply store, the page turned to the current month. The old brass bed was unmade, covered with a cheap white cotton bedspread and a pair of lumpy feather pillows. A nightstand held an ugly, oversized lamp, an empty beer can, and the usual ashtray full of cigarillo butts. A pair of worn jeans hung from the doorknob of a narrow closet.
The drawers of a cheap wooden dresser facing the bed were pulled out.
“I feel like a Peeping Tom,” Brooke muttered.
But she looked inside the top drawer, which held balled-up crew socks and a folded stack of worn-looking white cotton briefs that had been pushed aside. An empty leather binocular case lay atop the briefs, and beside them was a half-empty cardboard box of bullets.
She felt queasy. “Hey, y’all,” she called.
Lizzie and Felicia approached and stared down at the cardboard box. “Nine-millimeter bullets,” Lizzie said. “I guess they’re for that holstered pistol he carries.”
“So wherever C. D. went, he left in a hurry, and he took binoculars and extra ammo,” Felicia said. “And a picnic.”
“And he probably lied when he told Shug he was going boat shopping,” Lizzie added. “But why? And where was he really going?”
“I think we should leave,” Brooke said, slamming the dresser drawer closed. “As soon as I get back to St. Ann’s, I’m calling Gabe. Something weird is going on here.”
56
Henry reached across the kitchen table and touched Brooke’s sparkly diamond-and-pearl-drop earrings. “Pretty!” His face and hands were smeared with spaghetti sauce, but at that moment something in his expression so closely resembled Pete Haynes it took her breath away. She caught her son’s chubby hand in hers, kissed it, then pretended to munch on his fingers.
He giggled, then presented his other hand for similar treatment, but the doorbell rang.
“Farrah’s here,” she told him.
