Charlaine Harris - Day Shift

Okay, this is what I’ve got to work with, Manfred told himself. “Arthur Smith was here this morning right on the heels of the newspeople. Lewis Goldthorpe’s accused me of stealing jewelry from Rachel. My client who died,” he added. “And as it turns out, she might not have died of natural causes. But they haven’t gotten all the bloodwork results back yet.”

“What do they suspect?”

“Arthur asked a lot of questions about her water bottle. I got the impression that he’d been told it might have had something in it that shouldn’t have been there.”

“Something you didn’t drop in?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t make a joke of this,” he said. “You know I didn’t. And I’m pretty scared, in case you couldn’t tell.”

Manfred expected her to say something cutting, but instead, Olivia simply nodded. “Okay, then the first step is to determine where Lewis has stashed the jewelry he says you stole. Because we’re going to assume that he’s hidden it. Why do you think he’s doing this? And where do you think he’s put it?”

“I’ve had a couple of hours to think about it. First, Lewis is crazy. But he’s also devious and shrewd, at least according to Rachel. She talked about him a lot. Lewis and his problems were the main reason she was so hung up on keeping contact with her dead husband.”

“Which you were glad to help her do.” Olivia didn’t exactly sneer, but Manfred thought it was a close thing.

“Yes,” he said evenly. “I was glad to help her. And it was easy to reach him. He was more accessible than a lot of spirits.”

Olivia’s mouth crimped in a skeptical line. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go along with that. To get back to the subject. Why does Lewis have such a hard-on for you?”

“First, because he never liked Rachel to spend money he thought she should leave intact for him. Second, because a lot of the advice Morton gave her was about curtailing Lewis’s schemes. And she followed that advice. Third, because Lewis became convinced I was angling to marry Rachel.”

Olivia raised a questioning eyebrow.

“No, of course not,” Manfred said. He tried a smile. “Rachel was a sweet woman, but she was older than my mother. Not my thing.”

“So you believe Lewis has stolen this jewelry and pinned it on you to get even. Also so he can sell the jewelry, I presume?”

“I believe Rachel hid it to keep Lewis from stealing it from her. That’s what she told me.”

“So she didn’t have it with her at all. When are you supposed to have gotten this jewelry?”

“Lewis is alleging that Rachel had it in her purse because she was going to get it appraised. He maintains that I rifled her purse before I called the front desk for help.”

“I was in the lobby when she dropped her purse,” Olivia said.

Manfred stared at her. “You were?”

“I helped her pick up everything. Me and some other people. And there was nothing like a jewelry case in there. So I know you’re telling the truth. I’m going to assume you didn’t even touch her purse?”

“No,” Manfred said firmly. “I did not.”

“I also assume the police tested it for fingerprints and didn’t find yours.”

“I assume the same thing.”

“Since she told you she’d hidden the jewelry — what did she have, by the way?”

“She mentioned diamonds and rubies, I think.”

“Okay, so she told you she’d hidden it from Lewis. Where might she have done that? It would almost certainly be at her house. When people hide things, they want to keep them close.”

“Since she’d been sick and she’d been staying close to home, that would be my guess, too. I hoped she would get a safe-deposit box, but I don’t think she did. She wouldn’t have said ‘hidden’ if she’d put the jewelry in a bank. She would have told me it was safe.”

Olivia nodded. “So, it’s in the house. You’ve been there, I hope?”

“Yes.” Manfred clearly didn’t recall the visit with any enthusiasm. “I didn’t want to go, but after our first face-to-face session, she insisted I see where Morton had lived.”

“Surely that’s pretty unusual?”

“Oh, absolutely. Usually, people are at least a little embarrassed about going to a psychic. But not Rachel. She wanted me to meet her family. She was so excited about being in touch with her husband again.”

Olivia had a strange half smile on her face. “So you actually met the family?”

“Yeah, I told Arthur Smith about it. I met Roseanna and Annelle, the daughters. I admit I was worried about what they’d think, that they’d picture me as some kind of gigolo. Lewis made a huge deal out of not meeting me. That time.” He told Olivia about the time Lewis had come pounding on the door during his next session with Rachel. “So after I met him, I wished I hadn’t. And let me point out that while I was at her house, the daughters didn’t bring their husbands or children. Again, I don’t blame them. They didn’t know what I’d be like.”

“That’s fascinating,” Olivia said insincerely. “What I really need to know is the layout of the house.”

“It’s big,” Manfred said. That had been the thing that had struck him most forcefully. He had never been in a house that large. “It’s six thousand square feet, she told me. It’s two stories. It’s in a long, narrow, lot. There are surveillance cameras on the front yard and the backyard.”

“Gated community?” Olivia had brought a small notepad, and now she was writing in it.

“Oh… no. It’s in Bonnet Park, like Vespers is. But the neighborhood where Rachel lived is really old and snooty. Her house is set back from the street, with tall hedges on both sides between it and the neighbors. There’s a swimming pool in back, below the terrace.”

“Can you draw me a layout of the ground floor?”

Manfred thought about that. “I think so,” he said. “I didn’t go in every room, of course, but I did kind of a sketchy house tour. Once she got me there, Rachel wanted to show me every room. It was awkward… for everyone but Rachel.”

Slowly, Manfred drew the plan for the ground floor, with many erasures. It contained the formal living room, a dining room, a family den, the kitchen and pantry, and a game room, plus two bathrooms; one off the game room, and one between the kitchen and the family den, with a doorway onto the hall. “The terrace and pool are off the French doors in the family den,” he said, “but there’s also a hall that runs the length of the house and leads right out to it. Of course, that’s where the pool house is, to the right of the swimming pool. There’s a U-shaped driveway out front for visitors, and a driveway that goes all the way behind the house for family. I guess there’s a garage back there. I forget.”

“You have a good memory,” Olivia said.

“I’d never been in a house like that.” He could remember how impressed he’d been and how he’d struggled to look as though he took all this absolutely for granted. He remembered, too, how hard all this space and opulence had been to reconcile with Rachel Goldthorpe, who had been such a comfortable woman to be with, just like any grandmother he’d see at a church or a Denny’s.

“Okay, what about the second floor?” Olivia looked at him expectantly.

“I’m sketchier on that. I just walked through really quickly. I didn’t want to scare the daughters, so I was paying more attention to having a good conversation with them, telling them a little about my own family, trying to put them at ease.”

“Someday I’d like to hear about that,” Olivia said.

“When you tell me about yours, I’ll tell you about mine,” Manfred said. Olivia gave him a very hard look, and he knew he’d hit a nerve.