Ghost on the Case (Bailey Ruth #8)(62)

I pushed to my feet, began to pace. Gone was my exuberance when I first walked into Will’s Room. The silence of Rose Bower was crushing, not soothing. I glanced at the wall clock framed in a wagon wheel. Eleven o’clock and all was not well. It was the time of night for reflection, perhaps a summing up of the day’s successes, a preview of tomorrow’s challenges. My gaze scanned the framed quotes in needlepoint, stopped: Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

? ? ?

I looked for Ben Fitch in his bedroom, went downstairs through the stately rooms and the dim family rooms. In the study, I noted for the first time a gun safe in one corner. That came as no surprise. I wondered if Ben knew how to open it. I wondered if there was one gun or two or perhaps a single gun and another that was missing. I was about to give up my search, thinking perhaps he might still be at the Gilbert house, when I saw light shining from an open door at the end of a back hallway. I found a stairway and smelled chlorine.

Bright lights illuminated the basement swimming pool. Ben was midway down the center lane of the Olympic-sized pool. I admired his freestyle stroke. He reached the end, did a flip turn, started back this way.

Another lap and another and another.

I hovered near the end of the pool. His face as he turned for air was blank, unreadable, cheeks flushed with exertion. Perhaps he sought forgetfulness or perhaps he hoped to oust grief with sheer exhaustion.

The huge damp chlorine-scented basement seemed filled with loneliness and sadness.

? ? ?

George Kelly sprawled comfortably in an oversize recliner, booted feet elevated. Like most dark-haired men, his face had a heavy shadow of beard by late evening. His broad face looked confident and bold. His blue eyes were focused and intent. He scrawled a line with a blue felt pen. In his other hand, he held a half-full whisky glass. He took a sip. A muted football game, I assumed a replay, loomed on a wall TV screen. I nodded approval when I recognized the starred helmets of the Dallas Cowboys.

I hovered close enough to look at the legal pad. A listing of some properties in Latimer County, a notation to check whether the oil and gas leases were still current.

I took a last long look at George, who appeared relaxed and in charge in the big comfortable masculine room. I noted a gun safe in one corner.

? ? ?

Harry Hubbard slept in a T-shirt and Black Watch plaid boxer shorts in a queen-sized bed, a red-striped comforter flung to one side. His handsome face was slack in sleep, but appealing as a napping puppy appeals. The room was surprisingly tidy and pleasant. In his living room I found no books except for a collection of crossword puzzles. I opened his desk drawer, lifted out a checkbook. His recent bank statement showed several charges for overdrawn checks and a current balance of seventy-five dollars. I checked the entire apartment. No gun safe.

? ? ?

The walls in Alan Douglas’s living room were cream, the wood trim Chinese red. The room could have served as a furniture store display, everything matched, nothing out of place. A wall of books included several on quantum physics. A gun safe sat in the corner near a gray metal desk. A pen and pad lay on the desktop, perfectly aligned.

The only photograph was the night sky with faraway pinpoints of stars, cold and remote. Three paintings hung on one wall, large splashes of red and black, a tan maze, and a fiery eruption of molten lava brimming from a volcano.

Alan’s short-sleeved polo shirt exposed bony arms. His jeans were well-worn, washed so often the cloth was more white than blue. He sat in a wicker chair, one long leg crossed over the other. He held a book very precisely, using both hands. He looked scholarly with his short-cut brown hair and ascetic face and brown horn rims.

The life of the mind can engage and delight, but the room lacked warmth and cheer.

? ? ?

Todd Garrett hunched at a workbench in one corner of the bedroom of his condo. His stubby fingers showed surprising skill as he delicately arranged a bass fishing skirt on a jig. To one side lay a half dozen crankbaits. He softly hummed “Delta Dawn.” Instead of the defeated posture at his office, he was relaxed, looked like a somewhat heavy former football player with happy days on his horizon. Bass fishing can be all-consuming. There’s no time for regrets or heartaches when you are trying to outwit a clever and elusive fish. The assorted crankbaits meant Todd was drawn to the brushy shallows of the lake.

I found his gun safe next to a desk in the living room.





Chapter 13


I stood at the end of the pier in White Deer Park. I’d chosen to appear in a soft blue cashmere cowl sweater and white wool slacks and blue heels. But the style and verve of my outfit gave me no comfort. I watched streaks of pink and vermilion and royal blue herald sunrise. This was Adelaide’s oldest park. I’d stood here in 1942 when Bobby Mac was off in basic training at Fort Sill and I wrote him every day and none of us knew what would happen, what could happen. The big black headlines reported battles, the bombardment of Corregidor, the fall of the Philippines. There were Gold Stars in so many windows for the men who would not come home again. I’d stood here in anguish and fear and then hope.

I’d never stood here in defeat.

I’d done my best for Susan Gilbert. I began my quest cocky and confident. I was the late Bailey Ruth Raeburn, forever twenty-seven, red hair bright and shining, green eyes eager and curious, and I was an emissary from the Department of Good Intentions, here to protect the innocent.

The whoo of the Rescue Express blew through me. The engine rumbled. Wheels clacked on the rails. Coal smoke as acrid as a long-ago Pittsburgh steel mill swirled around me. Cinders sparked from the funnel.