(3T)Three Bedrooms, One Corpse Read online

  “And it was never the same people, never, any more than coincidence could explain,” Mother was saying. “I don’t think the houses had been shown by the same person—or to the same person—before the items were missed, any time.”

  “You all borrow keys back and forth,” I said. The Realtors nodded.

  “So anyone could have them copied and use them at his or her leisure.”

  Again, glum nods all around.

  “So why haven’t I read about this in the paper?” Distinctly guilty looks.

  “We all got together,” Eileen said. “Us, Select Re- alty; Donnie and Tonia Lee, Greenhouse Realty; Franklin Farrell and Terry Sternholtz, Today’s Homes; even the agency that deals mostly in farms, Russell & Dietrich, because we had shown some of the farm- houses.”

  “City people who want to say they own property in the country,” Mother told me, raising her eyebrows in derision.

  “And what happened at the meeting?” I asked every- one at the table.

  No one seemed in any big hurry to answer.

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  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  “Nothing was settled,” Idella murmured. Eileen snorted. “That’s putting it mildly.” “Lots of mutual accusations and a general clearing- house of old grievances,” Mother said. “But finally, to keep this out of the papers, we agreed to reimburse the homeowner for anything missing while the house was listed.”

  “That’s pretty broad.”

  “Well, there couldn’t be any signs of a break-in.” “And there never were?”

  “Oh, token ones, and the police came in at first. That Detective Smith,” said Mother distastefully. She was unshakable in her conviction that Arthur Smith had done me wrong and that Lynn Liggett had some- how stolen him from my arms, despite the fact that Arthur and I had broken up before he began dating Lynn. Maybe a week before, it’s true. And I’d only broken up with Arthur maybe twenty seconds before he was going to break up with me, so I could salvage some dignity. But what the hell . . . it was all over. “And what did he find?”

  “He found,” said Mother carefully, “that in his ex- pert opinion, the break-ins were staged to cover up the fact that the thief had entered with a key. And later on, the thief didn’t even pretend to break in.” “But there was no one to accuse—any of us could have been guilty or innocent,” Mackie said. “As usual, they checked me out first.” He wasn’t disguising his bitterness.

  “No one was showing any sudden affluence. No one was taking lots of trips to Atlanta to dispose of the stolen items, at least as far as he could tell. Of course,

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  we all go to Atlanta often,” Eileen said. “And I gather the Lawrenceton police force is not large enough to fol- low all the Lawrenceton Realtors wherever they go.” Would Arthur tell me any more? I wondered. Had he, for example, staked out a house that might be robbed? Had he had any suspicions that he couldn’t prove?

  “As far as we know, the investigation is ongoing,” Mother said with apparent disbelief. “The whole thing is still up in the air and has been for a long time, too long. We’re all sick to death of watching our every move for fear it’ll be misinterpreted. At least the talk about this isn’t so widespread that people are afraid to list their houses, but it may come to that.” “That would really hurt business,” Eileen said, and there was a reverent silence.

  “So who,” I asked, moving on to the vital question, “put the key back on the board?”

  Chapter Three

  A

  That question had to be asked and answered sooner rather than later, and I stuck my neck out to ask it because I was very interested in the answer. But you would have thought I was a policeman with a rubber hose, one who was furthermore holding their kids as hostages.

  “We have to find out,” my mother said. “Someone in this office got that key and put it back on the key board. No one here knew I was going to show the An- derton house this morning. I didn’t know it myself un- til last night, when Mr. Bartell called me at home. So it was likely the body wouldn’t be found for a long time—how often do we show the Anderton house? Maybe one client in ten can afford a house like that.” For the first time Debbie Lincoln opened her mouth. “Someone,” she offered softly, “could have come in when Patty and me were both gone from the reception area.” ~ 46 ~

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  Patty shot her a look. “We’re never supposed to both be gone from the reception area. But there was a period of maybe five minutes this morning when both Debbie and I were not there,” she admitted. “While Debbie was in the back copying the sheet for the Blanding house, I had to visit the ladies’ room.” “I walked through while no one was there,” Eileen said immediately. “And I didn’t see anyone coming in from outside.”

  “So that narrows the time someone could have come in by a few more seconds,” I observed.

  Mother said, “It would have to be someone who knew our system and could find the right hook for the Anderton key very quickly.”

  “Every Realtor in town knows where our key board is, and that we label every hook alphabetically,” Mackie said.

  “So you’re saying whoever returned the key is an- other Realtor, or one of you,” I pointed out. “Though I think anyone coming into the office could figure out the key board in seconds. But it does make more sense for a Realtor to have returned it, to have realized not having the key on the board would have alerted us much sooner than the key being there. It’s just bad luck for whoever killed Tonia Lee that Martin Bartell wanted to see some big houses this morning, and that he called Mother at home last night after the office was closed.” Again I was aware of my lack of popularity as the peo- ple around the table realized they’d just been boxed in. “All right,” said Patty defensively and illogically, “where is Tonia Lee’s car? Why wasn’t it at the Ander- ton house this morning?”

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  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  That was another interesting question. And one I hadn’t thought of . . . nor had anyone else in the room. “It’s parked behind Greenhouse Realty,” said a new voice from the door. “And wiped clean of fingerprints.” My old buddy Lynn Liggett Smith, making another of her silent entrances.

  “Your daughter-in-law told me to come on back,” she told my mother, who had a particularly nasty gleam in her eye. I didn’t think Melinda would be asked to an- swer the phones anymore.

  Lynn was a tall, slim woman with short brown hair very attractively styled. She wore little or no makeup, always pumps or flats, and plain solid-color suits with bright blouses. Lynn was brave and smart, and some- times I regretted that because of Arthur we would never be good friends. Lynn was also the only detective specifically designated “homicide” at the Lawrenceton police department; she’d served on the Atlanta police force before taking what she thought would be a lower- stress job. She hadn’t counted on Detective Sergeant Jack Burns.

  “When did you find her car?” Mother was scram- bling to regain her composure.

  “This afternoon. Mr. Greenhouse knew it was there this morning, but he didn’t think that was important, because he thought Mrs. Greenhouse had driven off in someone else’s car. He just plain didn’t know where Mrs. Greenhouse was, and when she didn’t come home last night, he thought she was just spending the night with someone else. I gather it’s common knowledge she was prone to do that sort of thing.” Lynn had made a little pun, and she gave me the ghost of a smile.

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  “But today Mr. Knight has told us that Mrs. Green- house’s car was in the driveway of the Anderton house last night, so she got there under her own steam. Some- one, presumably the murderer, drove that car to Green- house Realty and left it there out of sight of the street.” Lynn cocked her head and scanned our faces. The absence of the car would have been noticed by Donnie Greenhouse, just as the absence of the key would have been noticed at our office, soone
r or later. But the murderer had had bad luck, no doubt about it. “So,” Lynn continued, “who put the key back?” “My daughter brought that up, too,” Mother said smoothly. “We have decided that at one point this morning, early, someone could have entered the recep- tion area without being seen.”

  “How long a time would this one point have lasted?”

  “Five minutes. Or less,” Patty Cloud said reluc- tantly.

  “No one wants to ’fess up, I guess,” Lynn said hope- fully.

  Silence.

  “Well, I’ll need to talk to each of you separately,” she said. “If you all have finished your meeting, per- haps I could just stay in here? I’ll start with you, Mrs. Tea—No, Mrs. Queensland. That okay?”

  “Of course,” Mother said. “Back to your work, the rest of you. But don’t leave until the detective has a chance to talk to you. Rearrange your appointments.” Beside me Idella Yates sighed. She picked up her brief- case and pushed back her chair. I turned to make some remark and suddenly realized Idella had been crying

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  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  silently, something I have never mastered. I caught her eye as she dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief. “Stupid,” she said bitterly. Feeling rather puzzled, I watched her leave the room. If Idella and Tonia Lee had been friends, it would have surprised me considerably. And Idella’s reaction seemed a little extreme otherwise. I made my own exit wondering where I would wait for my turn with Lynn. My mother’s office, I decided, and started down the hall.

  A young woman was standing in the reception area. I vaguely recognized her as I went through on my way to the left-hand corridor that led to Mother’s office. “Miss Teagarden?” she said hesitantly. I turned and smiled with equal uncertainty.

  “I believe I met you at the church last week,” she said, holding out a slim hand. I jogged my memory. “Oh, of course,” I said, none too soon. “Mrs. Kaye.” “Emily,” she said, smiling.

  “Aurora,” I told her, and to her credit, her smile barely faltered.

  “Do you work here?” she asked. “At Select Realty?” “Not really,” I confessed. “It’s my mother’s agency, and I’m trying to find out a little more about how the business works.” That was close enough to the truth. Emily Kaye was at least five inches taller than I, no great feat. She was slim and small-breasted and dressed in a perfect suburban sweater and skirt and low-heeled shoes . . . and her purse matched, too. Her jewelry was small, unobtrusive, but real. Her hair was golden brown and tossed back from her face in a smooth, well-cut mane.

  “Did you like the church?” I asked.

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  “Oh, yes, and Father Scott is so nice,” she said earnestly.

  Huh?

  “He is so good with children,” she went on. “My little girl, Elizabeth, just loves him. He promised he’d take her to the park soon.”

  He what?

  All my senses went on full alert.

  “You’re so lucky,” she said.

  My stare must have made her a bit nervous. “To be dating him,” she added hastily.

  So she’d been doing some research. I was thinking a number of things, so many that it would have taken a long time to have completed each thought. Aubrey loved children? Aubrey had already visited his new parishioner and invited her little girl to the park? “You play the organ, don’t you?” I said thoughtfully. “Oh, yes. Well, not very well.” She was lying through her teeth, I just knew it. “I did play for the church in Macon.” Suspicion confirmed.

  “You’re—excuse me, you’re a widow?”

  “Yes,” she said briskly, to get quickly over a painful subject. “Ken died last year in a car wreck, and it was hard to live in Macon after that. I don’t have any family there, we were there just because of his job . . . but I do have an aunt, Cile Vernon, here in Lawrenceton, and she heard there was a teacher’s job available at the kinder- garten here, and I was lucky enough to get it. So now I’m house-hunting for a little place for Elizabeth and me.” “Well, you came to the right Realtor,” I said, trying to brighten up the conversation and not give way to my deep suspicions. I had a feeling that if I looked over

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  Emily Kaye’s shoulder, I would see the writing on the wall for my relationship with Father Aubrey Scott. “Yes, Mrs. Yates is so nice. I’m really looking seri- ously at a little house on Honor right by the junior high school. It’s just a couple of blocks from the kinder- garten, and there’s a preschool for my little girl nearby, too. Of course, I’d really like to quit work and stay home with Elizabeth,” she said wistfully. That writing got darker and darker. Sure she would. And to top it all off, that was my house, the house I’d inherited from Jane Engle, she was thinking of buying. She’d be right across the street from Lynn and Arthur and their baby.

  Aubrey would drop me and fall in love with this organ-playing widow with the cute little girl. No, I was being paranoid.

  No, I was being realistic.

  “Mrs. Kaye,” Idella’s sweet voice said, just in the nick of time. “I’m so sorry, we have to rearrange our appointment to see the house again.”

  “Oh, and I had my aunt keep Elizabeth just so I could see it by myself!” Emily Kaye said, regret and ac- cusation mingling in her voice.

  I was battling a tide of rage and self-pity that had torn through me with the force of a monsoon. And I would rather have died than for Emily Kaye to notice that anything was wrong with me.

  “Why don’t you just go ask Detective Smith if you could run over for a half hour and show the house to Mrs. Kaye?” I suggested to Idella, who was looking distressed at her client’s disappointment. My voice rang a little hollow in my ears, and I felt my expression

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  probably didn’t match my concerned words, but I was doing the best I could.

  “I’ll do that,” Idella said with unaccustomed deci- sion. “Excuse me just a second.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Emily told me with a warm sincerity that made me want to throw up. “I hated to ask Aunt Cile to keep Elizabeth this morning. I don’t want her to think I moved here just to have a free babysitter!” “Think nothing of it,” I answered with equal sincer- ity. I wanted to get out of that room so badly my feet were itching. Any minute I was going to slap the tar out of Emily Kaye.

  And why? I asked myself as I gave her a final, civil nod and glided off down the hall to Mother’s office. Because, I answered myself angrily, Emily Kaye was going to get married, she would marry Aubrey, and even if I didn’t want to marry him, I would once again be left. I knew I was being childish, I knew there was nothing logical about my feeling, and still I couldn’t help it. This was not my finest hour.

  It was time for one of my pep talks.

  It is better not to be married than to be married un- happily.

  Women do not need to be married to have rich, ful- filled lives.

  I didn’t want to marry Aubrey anyway, and I proba- bly wouldn’t have accepted if Arthur Smith had asked me. (Well, yes I would, but it would’ve been a mistake.) All relationships fail until you find the right one. It’s inevitable.

  The failure of a relationship to lead to marriage does not mean you are unworthy or unattractive.

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  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  Having told myself all this, I recited the list again. By the time Mother returned to her office, I’d com- pleted the circuit three times. Mother was not in the best of humor, either. She was fuming about the dis- ruption of the office, about being questioned again by the police, about the nerve of Tonia Lee, turning up dead in a Select Realty listing. Of course, she didn’t use those words, but that was the gist of her diatribe. “Oh, listen to me!” she said suddenly. “I can’t be- lieve I’m going on like this, and a woman I know is probably lying on a table somewhere waiting to be au- topsied.” She shook her head at her own lack of empa- thy. “We’
ll just have to put up with all this. I wasn’t crazy about Tonia Lee, God knows, but no one should have to go through what she must have.” “You did tell Lynn about the thefts?”

  “Yes. I let her draw her own conclusions. I’d already told her about the vases missing from the Anderton house. So I went on and told her about the pilfering that’s been going on. Of course, it’s more than pilfer- ing. Someone in our little group of Realtors is seriously dishonest.”

  “Mom, have you happened to think that Tonia Lee found out who stole the stuff from the houses? That maybe that was why she got killed?”

  “Yes. Of course. I hope the thefts had nothing to do with the murder.”

  “That would mean that a Realtor is the killer.” “Yes. Let’s just drop the subject. We don’t know anything. It was probably one of Tonia Lee’s conquests that did her in.”

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  “Probably. Well, I’m going to go home as soon as Lynn talks to me.”

  “You don’t have a feel for the business, do you?” Mother said reluctantly.

  “I don’t think so,” I said with equal regret. She reached across her desk and patted my hand, surprising me for the second time today. We are not touchers.

  “Excuse me,” Debbie Lincoln said from the door- way. “That woman wants you, Miss Teagarden.” “Thanks,” I said. I retrieved my purse from the floor and fluttered my fingers at my mother. “See you tomor- row night, Mom, if not sooner.”

  “Okay, Aurora.”

  That night, after I’d taken my shower and wrapped myself up in a warm robe, something that had been picking at the edges of my mind finally surfaced. I looked up a number in the little Lawrenceton phone book and dialed.

  “Hello?”

  “Gerald, this is Roe Teagarden.”

  “My goodness, girl. I haven’t seen you in a year, I guess.”

  “How are you doing, Gerald?”

  “Oh, pretty well. You know, don’t you, that I’ve re- married?”

  “That’s what I heard. Congratulations.” “Mamie’s cousin Marietta came to help me clean out her stuff after Mamie—died, and we just hit it off.”