Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3 Page 30

  “Just keep your eyes open and leave if anything at the house makes you uncomfortable.”

  He was dismissing her comments about his work. He always worked too hard, and he never liked to talk about it. He’d worked too hard as a lineman for the electric company in Loveland, and he’d worked too hard since taking over Buckhorn’s last December. You’ll be forty in less than two years, she wanted to tell him. Forty is when heart attacks start to catch up with people.

  “I can’t just leave, I signed a contract.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Gene.” She put a hand on his arm. “I’ll be fine. Liz will be there too, remember. In fact, you can visit us if you want. Bring us some food or something. The Birches said I could bring any help I wanted.”

  “I might do that.”

  “I’ve got to run. I told Liz I’d pick her up at her house after I gather my things.” She kissed him, quickly and discreetly, and headed for the door. She paused as she pushed it open and turned back to Gene. He’d jokingly pointed out that she often did that—turned around for a last wave, a last smile, as though they might not see each other again and she had to freeze the moment.

  But he wasn’t looking her way this time—expectantly, with an affectionate grin on his face. Hands in his pockets, he was staring down at his father’s ornaments, rocking back and forth on his heels, unaware that she was at the door.

  6

  After Anna introduced Liz at the front door and the two wiped their wet shoes on the entryway rug, Bee Burdock led them up the main staircase to the second floor of Sparrow House. Pulling her luggage with her right hand and holding Jackson’s leash in the other, Anna scrambled to keep pace with Bee, who clearly wanted to be done with the bed-and-breakfast portion of her chores as quickly as possible.

  At the top of the stairs, Bee did an about-face, blocking Anna. “Please don’t roll your suitcase on the wood floors,” she said. “The floorboards are original to the house.” She waited as Anna dutifully retracted the roller handle on her suitcase. Standing just behind Bee, Liz grinned at Anna and gave her small overnight case a shake by the handle.

  Bee took a few steps down the hall, allowing Anna to catch up with her, then swung back again. “There are three bedrooms that way,” she said, gesturing like a flight attendant pointing out a plane’s exits. “Plus two baths and a small sitting room. Professor Karlson is in the last bedroom. I don’t think you’ll see much of him. Or the Birches, for that matter. They’re on the first floor.”

  She pivoted. “To the left, at your end, we have two more bedrooms, two more baths, and another sitting room.” She looked down at Jackson, who was standing obediently at Anna’s side. “Does he shed much?” she asked.

  “Just the ordinary amount,” Anna said.

  “How much is that?” Bee asked.

  “Would you like me to keep him out of the sitting rooms?”

  “I’d appreciate it.” Bee gave Anna a thin smile.

  Liz shot Anna a bemused look as Bee led them briskly toward the bedrooms. The apple-green walls were thick with paintings and drawings—no more than a foot between each frame. Blotches of unpleasant colors and black ink passed in a blur as Bee sped toward the end of the hall.

  The floorboards creaked like old bones as they walked, and Bee’s clacking heels, Anna thought, must have scratched them as much as any suitcase wheel ever could.

  “These are the attic steps,” Bee said, flinging an arm to her right. “They’re off-limits. And one of the sitting-room doors is there.” She pointed to the other side of the hall, but they had passed the door by the time Anna turned to look.

  When Bee reached the end of the hall, she opened the door on the left a crack and tilted her head at Liz. “This is yours, the Larkspur Room. And here, Anna,” she said, turning the doorknob on the room across the hall, “is yours, the Forsythia Room. Both have bathrooms, but only the Forsythia Room has a shower.”

  Bee stood in the hall between the two open doors, her hands clasped in front of her, pleased with herself for her succinct and practical tour of the house.

  “Thank you,” Anna said. She carefully—and slowly, so Bee could take note—set her suitcase on the floor.

  “A door in the Larkspur Room also leads to the sitting room,” Bee said.

  “Great,” Liz said, grinning at Anna.

  “Of course that means your bedroom is smaller,” Bee added.

  Liz shrugged.

  “I’ll let you two get settled. Are you planning to start work this afternoon?”

  “You bet,” Anna said. “We need to get right to it.”

  “Good. Paxton left a sheet of paper on the library table for you. He wrote down all the family members and dates he’s sure of.” Bee glanced again at Jackson. “Do you have dog food for him?”

  “In my suitcase. I’ll take care of feeding him and letting him out. He won’t be any bother.”

  Bee’s smile was more relaxed this time, and a tinge of relief crept into her voice. “Thank you. I’m very busy these days.”

  “Running a house this size must be a huge job.”

  Bee nodded, grateful that Anna understood. “It’s too much for one person.”

  “Have you heard anything about the groundskeeper’s assistant? Devin, I think?”

  “He’s very sick.” Bee released her hands and let her arms dangle at her sides. “So sick Paxton and Nilla left for Elk Park Hospital. They didn’t say so, but I think Devin may be dying.”

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry,” Anna said.

  “He’s only twenty-three,” Bee said, her brow lined in confusion. “I can’t imagine what happened. He was so healthy.”

  “He wasn’t hurt?”

  “Mitch said there wasn’t a mark on him. He was unconscious, that’s all.”

  “Twenty-three . . . ,” Liz said.

  “Yes,” Bee said, a faraway look in her eye. She shook her head, bringing herself back to the present. “I’d better get going. I’ve got dinner to make. Do you know your way to the library?”

  “Down the stairs and to the right,” Anna replied.

  “Let me know if you need anything. Dinner is at six o’clock. You don’t need to dress up, we’re very informal here.”

  Liz watched as Bee started back down the main staircase. “I didn’t bring any dress-up clothes anyway, did you?” She gave her bedroom door a push and went inside.

  “It didn’t occur to me,” Anna called after her. She picked up her suitcase and froze, her eyes riveted to a painting on the wall between her and Liz’s room. A creature with an orange, armless bottle for a body and a head that was part human and part pig stood in a flowerless garden, a look of piggy delight on its face. The painting was in an ornate gilded frame, as though it were precious, treasured. She couldn’t imagine who would value it.

  She leaned a shoulder against her bedroom door, pushing it open, then led Jackson into the room and dropped her suitcase to the bed. “Good boy,” she said, removing his leash. “No wandering around, now. And no shedding.”

  Forsythia Room, indeed. The walls were fiercely yellow. There were yellow picture frames dotting the walls and a large painting of a red-leafed tree, flat-topped like an acacia tree, above the bed. In the corner between two tall windows, one facing south and the other east, was a gold-colored armchair, a faded pink throw slung across its back. The room hurt her eyes.

  She went to the window overlooking the south grounds and pushed back the drapes, letting in the rainy afternoon’s soft gray light. Twenty feet from the rear of the house was a perfectly square flower garden, its outline formed by peonies, most of them still buds in the cool weather, and beyond the peonies, a forest of pine trees and aspens with spring-green leaves.

  She opened the drapes on the east-facing window then searched the wall by the door for a light switch. She found it, flipped it, then realized there was no lightbulb in the ceiling light fixture. If there had been, she doubted it would have worked. The fixture, anchored in a plaster medallio
n, was as old as electric lighting itself, but the cake-icing swirls in the ceiling’s plaster were unlike anything she’d ever seen on ceilings of the time period.

  “The Forsythia Room, eh?” Liz breezed in through the door, squinting and shielding her eyes with her hands. “I can see why it’s called that.”

  “How’s the Larkspur Room?”

  “More like the blueberry room. How are we going to sleep here?”

  “We’ll be too tired to notice. Speaking of which, let’s get to work. Let me hang up my clothes and grab my things.”

  “Me too,” Liz said. “Be back in a flash.”

  Anna scooped the clothes, already on hangers, from her suitcase and hung them in the oak wardrobe by her bed. In compensation for it being the only normal-looking object in the room, the wardrobe smelled of mothballs and dust. She left its doors open, hoping the odor wouldn’t cling to her clothes, then quietly closed her bedroom door.

  She retrieved her billfold from her purse and opened it to a photo of Gene. She felt lonely already—far away, as though she’d driven hours to another state, not half an hour to a house outside Elk Park. Something was worrying Gene. He’d been aloof lately, especially when she mentioned his work, and now he had a buyer for his house. Why did that make her uneasy?

  She slipped the billfold back into her purse and took out the yellow envelope she’d brought from home. It was exactly like the one Liz had shown her in the Buffalo. Someone was presenting her with more than a story, it seemed. She had a puzzle on her hands. “You know I like puzzles, Jackson.”

  At the sound of her voice, Jackson’s ears twitched and he padded to the door, waiting for her to open it. She slid the envelope into her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder, and pulled her laptop and empty file folders from her suitcase.

  With the afternoon light filtered through the clouds and shining at an angle through the window, the library was even darker than it had been earlier, and the lit sconces did little to dispel the gloom. Anna switched on a lamp on a small table by the library door and found another lamp on the chest by the window. She dragged it from its corner, butting it up against the red Buddha, and flicked the switch.

  Liz grunted. “It’s blood red.”

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” Anna said, looking back to Liz and patting the statue’s bald head.

  Jackson gave a short, low growl and hopped to the library’s single armchair.

  “Off, Jackson,” Anna commanded.

  “I do believe he sees me.”

  A man emerged from the sitting room and stepped into the library. His knowing voice, his slightly unkempt hair—more salt than pepper and too long for his fifty-something years—and his wrinkled green hoodie screamed someone used to spending much of his time with college kids. He had to be the professor Paxton had mentioned.

  “And that’s not Buddha, you know.”

  “I read that somewhere,” Anna said. “Real Buddhas aren’t fat.”

  “Exactly right.” A look of pleasant surprise flashed across his face, but as quickly as it came, it left. He wrapped his arms across his chest and the professorial tone returned. “That’s Hotei, a Chinese monk who lived fifteen hundred years ago. Although sometimes the statue represents Maitreya, the Christ-Buddha to come.”

  Anna bit her tongue. Christ-Buddha, indeed. Talk about an oxymoron. But she couldn’t allow herself to be sidetracked. There was too much work to do.

  “Then why do they call these statues the Laughing Buddha?” Liz asked, her attention already focused on her laptop’s screen.

  The man shrugged. “Who knows?” He held out his hand as he shuffled toward Anna. “Lawrence Karlson. I’m assembling the Birch Papers.”

  “Yes, Paxton mentioned you were working here.” She took his hand. “I’m Anna Denning and this is Liz Halvorsen. We’re working on the Birch genealogy.” Liz looked up and gave Lawrence a quick upward nod of her chin.

  “Um . . .” He gestured toward the stacks of books he had set aside then walked toward them and spread his hand across their bindings. “These need to stay here. It’s very important.”

  “Paxton told me about those, too,” Anna said. “I’ll be sure to put each one back in its place.”

  Lawrence tilted his head to one side. “Excuse me?”

  “I need the password for the wireless network,” Liz said without looking up.

  Lawrence, his hand still on the books, leaned sideways, peering around Anna. “It’s ‘EzraPound,’ all one word, capital E and P.”

  “Figures.” Liz typed the word and hit Enter. “Got it, thanks.”

  Lawrence straightened and looked squarely at Anna. “I don’t think you’ll need them. For the most part they’re bound copies of land deeds, tax assessment records, items like that.”

  “I never know until I look at something if it will be useful. You’d be surprised what a seemingly insignificant document can tell me.”

  A telephone rang in a distant room and Lawrence, in Pavlovian response, absentmindedly patted the back pocket of his jeans. “No,” he said, tightening his mouth. “I was told these would be left alone.” He scratched his head, his growing irritation overcoming his confusion. “That’s why I purposely put them here. So they wouldn’t be touched. I have a lot of work to do before this house is sold.”

  Liz stopped typing and leaned back in her chair. She cleared her throat, letting Lawrence know she was there too and she also had a job from which she would not be deterred.

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said, “but we’re on a deadline too. We’ve got four days to research the Birch family tree.” And to prove the house is haunted, she added silently. I’ve got a very full plate. “I’ll be careful with the books.”

  “Then I need to talk to the Birches immediately.” He scratched at his head again and moved slowly for the door. It was a feint. Mention of the Birches was supposed to intimidate her and bring her around to his point of view. He was hoping she would stop him before he made it to the sitting room next door.

  “Let me know what they say,” she replied. “And thank you for the password.” She dropped into a chair across the table from Liz and opened her laptop. It was best to let the Birches deal with the professor. She didn’t have the time. She was already feeling the pressure of her deadline, and she’d only just sat down to work.

  Liz waited until Lawrence left the room then said, “Where do we start?”

  “With Paxton Birch.” Anna examined the sheet of paper Paxton had left for her. There were only five family names besides his own on it, and birth and death dates for all but one of those names. It was a slim beginning, but a firm one, and in genealogy, firm won over slim.

  “What about coffee?”

  Anna peeked at her watch. “It’s after two o’clock.”

  “How late are we going to be up? Midnight?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “I think we should stoke the boilers.”

  “You’re right.”

  A loud thump from the floor above startled them.

  “Another body?” Liz asked, looking to the ceiling.

  “Possibly.” Anna stared upward, straining to hear more. Like the ceiling in her bedroom, the library ceiling was a tangle of swirls in semicircular shapes, all dancing about a central medallion.

  She stood. Was the dim light playing tricks on her eyes? No, there they were. Two handprints almost directly above her head. Not centered as such a decoration might be, and not repeated across the ceiling as a pattern.

  “What are you looking at?” Liz followed Anna’s gaze.

  “Do you see the hands?”

  “No. Wait, yes, there.” Liz pointed.

  Anna couldn’t take her eyes from the ceiling. She’d seen early-twentieth-century ceilings before, both plaster and metal, and they never incorporated hands. The swirls were off too. Much too free-form for the era.

  “Funny,” Liz said, going back to her computer.

  That’s not the word I would use, Anna thought. Why did the hands
bother her? Were there hands on her bedroom ceiling too? She told herself that she was overreacting, that her feelings of dread were nothing more than her anxiety over Gene. The hands had probably been left by a craftsman signing his work, the way people scratched initials into concrete. But would the original Birch, the wealthy man who had built this house, have allowed a workman to leave his mark on the ceiling?

  “I need to ask Bee for a high-beam flashlight,” she said.

  Liz looked up from her laptop. “Really?”

  “This room is too dark for all the hours we’ll be putting in. We can bounce the light off the ceiling after the sun goes down.” She left it at that. She needed Liz steady and clearheaded, not traipsing with her down crazy imagination lane. “I’ll ask for some coffee too, while I’m at it.” She held her palm up to Jackson, giving him her stay command.

  “Oh, and cream please.”

  “You got it.”

  Anna made her way through the sitting room and into the entryway. She’d never been shown the kitchen, but she reasoned it had to be on the other side of the house. She passed the central staircase, made a right, then followed the aroma of roasted chicken down the hall, past a closet and a formal dining room.

  “Bee?” she called out. Anna rounded another corner and came upon a wide, swinging door. She hesitated, listening for the sound of pots and pans or cabinet doors opening and closing. Hearing nothing, she knocked and pushed the door open. With a small gasp, Bee spun around. Her eyes were brimming with tears, and her face, at first creased in sorrow, hardened as she glared at Anna.

  Immediately Anna knew she’d made a mistake. This was Bee’s domain—the entire house was her domain—and she’d just intruded in the worst of ways. Asking what was wrong might only make matters worse. “I’m sorry . . .” she began.

  “What is it?”

  “I wondered if I could make some coffee.”

  “Fine. It’s over there.” Bee pointed to a corner of the kitchen, at an expensive-looking espresso machine, the kind impossibly difficult for the uninitiated to operate.