Chasing Shadows (10 page)

“Well, good. Then you can stop worrying.” He cracked the last egg from a carton, separating it with one hand and tossing the shell into the garbage.

I started to answer, but that crazy moaning and banging in the pipes started up then, startling me and making me drop an egg. It smashed on the floor and I found myself flustered and embarrassed. Even though Ben was easy to work with, I still found that his speed and efficiency sometimes made me feel slow and clumsy around him.

“It's just an egg.” He smiled, passing me a roll of paper towel.

“I'm glad I'm not working with Carlotta today.” I
knelt to wipe up the spreading slime. “She hates it when I make mistakes.”

“Oh, no. My dear cousin Carlotta
loves
to see someone make a mistake,” Ben laughed. “It gives her a chance to be nasty, which is the thing she likes most in the whole world.”

Then he did a hilarious imitation of Carlotta, telling me I was a stupid girl, waving his hands in the air the way she did, and sighing in a deep, heavy way.

“You think it's bad working with Carlotta,” he added, “you should try
living
with her!”

“You two live in the same place?” I asked, astonished.

“We three,” he corrected. “Believe it or not, I'm crazy enough to share a house with Carlotta
and
Lisa. It's temporary, until we get the family business built up. Am I not the bravest man you ever met?”

I agreed that he certainly was, and he did another imitation of Carlotta, only this one was of her first thing in the morning, grouchy and dishevelled.

We were still laughing when Lisa appeared in the doorway a few moments later. I didn't know if she'd just arrived or if she'd come earlier and been in the dining room. Whatever the case, I sure hoped she hadn't heard Ben's impersonation. Since they were all related she might overlook Ben making fun of Carlotta, but it was different for me. I was an outsider, and already not her
favourite person, although I had no idea why she seemed to dislike me.

If she'd heard what Ben had said, she ignored it, turning her attention to me.

“The janitor was sick last night,” she said. “I need you to help out here. Come.”

I followed her to the dining room and was given brief instructions to vacuum there and then clean the bathrooms. Vacuuming was slow because I had to move all the chairs and then put them back. I could feel Lisa watching me, and I didn't doubt that she was thinking I was taking too long.

I was actually glad to get to the bathrooms, since I was out of her sight in them. It didn't take long to give the toilets a quick scrub with the brush and wash the sinks and counters. I sprayed the mirrors with foaming cleanser and shone them with a clean cloth. Peach air fresheners sat on the counters and I checked to make sure they didn't need to be replaced. Then the floors had to be mopped and I made sure the paper towel and toilet paper supplies were filled.

“I'm finished,” I reported back to Lisa, proud of the thorough job I'd done in both bathrooms.

She checked them and then told me to go back to the kitchen. If she was pleased with my work, she sure didn't mention it.

Because of the extra cleaning I'd had to do, the time left for my own tasks was cut down a lot, which meant I really had to hurry. Two o'clock arrived before I knew it and I still had a few things that weren't quite done.

“I'll finish up.” Ben waved away my concerns. “You're probably anxious to see what the police found out about your friend.”

He was right — I had been thinking about that. I thanked him, folded my apron, and managed to slip out the employee door without any more unpleasant contact with Lisa.

The walk to the police station took about twenty minutes from the restaurant so it was close to two-thirty when I got there. I asked for Sergeant Newman and was told to have a seat. By the time he came to fetch me, it was well past three.

“Sorry about the wait, Miss Belgarden,” he said, ushering me into a room with a desk and chairs. I seated myself and waited expectantly. To my surprise, he stopped in the doorway.

“Now, let's see, Officers Monray and Doucet went out on that call,” he said. “I think both of them are here at the moment. I'll just fetch whichever one I can find and let him fill you in.”

I waited another few minutes and then an officer came sauntering in.

“I'm Officer Doucet,” he said, shaking my hand.
He gave me a friendly smile and then flipped open a black notebook.

“Have you found out anything about Nadine?” I asked.

“It says here in my report,” he said, without answering my question, “that you had gone to Miss Gardiner's apartment before you filed a report with us. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Could you tell me again what you found at her apartment?”

I went over it in as much detail as I could think of at the moment, puzzled as to why he was asking me this. The thought of the spilled pop with my fingerprint in it popped into my head and I explained about that too. He didn't seem at all interested in that part, so I figured I was being a bit paranoid.

“Now, it says here that when you left Miss Gardiner's apartment, you didn't secure the door.”

“No. I left it the way it had been before,” I said. “It looked like it was closed tight, but it wasn't, not quite, and the lock hadn't latched. When I knocked, the door opened on its own.”

“Uh-huh. Well, when we went to investigate, we found the door closed and locked. We had to get the landlady to let us in.” He smiled briefly, and I wondered what weird performance he'd been subjected to
in order to gain access to the apartment. At least he wouldn't have been accused of being Mary Poppins.

“It seems that wherever your friend was,” he went on, “she'd gone back to the apartment between the time that you were in there and when we went.”

“Nadine was there?” I gasped.

“No, but she'd been there. In fact, I see that you checked whether she'd taken anything with her or not, and she hadn't at that time. That was pretty good thinking on your part.” He smiled again. “In any case, when we went, her suitcases were not in the closet where you'd seen them, and a lot of her clothes were missing.”

I sat very still, absorbing this news.

“Her makeup and toiletries were gone too.” He flipped the book closed again. “So, it looks like your friend is fine. Unfortunately, she isn't being very thoughtful about letting people know where she is, but she's been to the apartment to get some of her things.”

“But where
is
she?” I asked aloud, not really meaning to.

“Most of the time, in situations like this, there's a guy involved. Girl meets up with someone, they hit it off, and she up and goes off with him somewhere. She'll probably show up again in a couple of weeks or so, or she'll come for the rest of her things. Either way, you can stop worrying about her.”

He asked me if I had any questions. When I said I didn't, he stood, told me I'd done the right thing in reporting my concerns, and said he was glad things had turned out okay. He walked me to the door, where he shook my hand again and told me to come back and ask for him if I had any further concerns.

All the way home I told myself that I should be feeling a lot better.

I wasn't.

“You know what? I bet that the person who was at Nadine's door that night, when she said ‘What are you doing here?' was an old boyfriend!” Betts's eyes lit up as she offered her theory. “And the reason the old guy couldn't make out an answer was because … they were kissing!”

“Possibly,” I said, though I know doubt crept into my voice.

Betts and I were facing each other, seated on the big double swing in her backyard, where I'd gone after finding my own house deserted. I'd phoned Greg's place to tell him the news and to see if he had any ideas on the subject, but Dr. Taylor told me he'd been called into work.

“Yeah,” she said dreamily. “They could have broken up over some silly fight, like I did with Derek, but they always kept loving each other. And then, finally, he
couldn't take it anymore and he came crawling back, just like Derek did.”

The “romantic” image she was trying to paint didn't quite fit the way I saw her and Derek — the Squabble Champions! I tried to be fair and consider her idea on its own merits, aside from the unlikely comparison.

“So, how did he find her?” I asked.

“Huh?” Betts shifted back to reality with some difficulty. “What do you mean?”

“Nadine had just moved into a new apartment, remember? She didn't have a phone hooked up or anything yet. How would an old boyfriend have found out where she was living?”

“Uh, he could have asked a mutual friend.”

“Possibly,” I repeated, no more convinced than I had been earlier. “But then, why didn't she take anything with her when she first went off with him? Why wait a week to come and get her stuff?”

“I don't know. Maybe she didn't know how long she'd be gone the first time. Or maybe she had stuff kicking around his place from when they used to go out before. Or maybe he's rich and he just bought her new things to tide her over for a while.”

I was pondering these suggestions when she interrupted my thoughts.

“
Why
are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“That thing with your eyebrows.”

I realized I was arching my brows, though it had been entirely unconscious. I stopped.

“I know what it means, you know,” she went on. “You just assume automatically that I'm wrong. Probably you think you're the only one who can figure things out, just because you got lucky with a couple of other crimes. Well, you know what I think?”

“What?” I asked, startled at the sudden outburst.

“I think you're just inventing things in your head so you can run around playing the big detective.”

Betts's accusation was unexpected, and it stung. It echoed something Greg had said a while back, though he'd been teasing. I began to wonder if there was some truth in it. After all, the police were satisfied there was nothing to worry about, and they were trained for that sort of thing.

“Betts, I hope I'm not doing that,” I said, trying to keep from getting angry. “I'm just worried about Nadine, that's all. And I want to make sure she's okay.”

She shrugged. “Anyway,” she said, “like the cop told you, she went and got her stuff, and that had to happen since you were in the apartment, so there's really nothing to worry about.”

“I just wish I knew
when
her things were taken from her place, or if
she
was actually the one who got them.”

“Why, what's the difference?” Betts was clearly bored with this conversation and ready to move on.

“Well, what if someone else came and took her stuff, to make it look like she was okay?”

“Why wouldn't they just do that in the first place then? Why wait for a week or so?”

I didn't answer, but that was mainly because I was thinking. Maybe there was a way to find out if it had actually been Nadine who'd gone to get her things. It was just yesterday when I'd talked to the tenants who'd been at home, so it wasn't likely that any of them would have anything to add, but there were still the two apartments where I hadn't gotten a response. And there was the crazy landlady. It wouldn't do any harm to talk to her. Who knows, she could be clearheaded for a change.

Of course, there was a bit of a problem since Greg was working at the moment. I knew that Betts and Derek had plans in a little while, so she wouldn't be able to go along either. If I went alone
again
Greg was going to flip out, and I sure didn't want to have to hide it from him. I also didn't want to wait!

An idea popped into my head then. It was a bit devious, but basically harmless. I stood up and steadied the swing so I could step off it.

“I think I'll stop over at Broderick's to see what time Greg gets off work,” I said. “I guess you have to get ready for your date with Derek anyway.”

“Yeah.” She perked up a bit. “Well, I'll see you later. And stop worrying about Nadine, I'm sure she's okay.”

“You're probably right,” I agreed, trying to sound like I meant it. After all, that would be good practice for what I was about to do.

As soon as I got to Broderick's, Greg's face lit up like it always does when he sees me. I admit I kind of get butterflies in my stomach every time I see him too.

“Ah, fair damsel,” he greeted me, with a mock bow followed by a quick hug. “I thought you were at the mercy of your heartless taskmasters today.”

“I was, but it was a short shift. What time do
you
get off?”

“Not until closing,” he said, “so any sleuthing you have planned in that stubborn head is going to have to wait until tomorrow.”

“Actually, that's all over,” I said with what I hoped looked like a smile of relief. “I went to see the police after work and they told me that Nadine's fine. She's been to her place to get some of her stuff and everything.”

I must have looked convincing because Greg didn't even seem suspicious. He hugged me hard then and said that was
great
, and that I must be really relieved.

“Oh, yes!” I agreed, with my smile frozen on. Already, guilt was nagging at me. It wasn't as though I was actually lying to him though, was it? After all, that
was
what the police had said, and just because I didn't
necessarily believe everything was okay, that didn't mean
I
was right.

“So, I guess I can close this case,” I added innocently, “though there are a couple of things I want to find out — just to, you know, tie up a few loose ends.”

“Yeah? What kind of things?”