Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

One desk had a picture of Lindsey on it. Bill’s. My Clue-playing abilities never ceased to amaze me. Setting my keys on the heavy duty industrial carpet, I riffled through papers, opened drawers. No accounting books. Nothing that looked the least bit incriminating at all.

Working fast, I checked Russ’s desk as well. The man was a neatnik, I’d give him that. Tam would have appreciated his organizing. I looked for a financial file among the hanging files but couldn’t find one.

Bracing myself, I opened the closet door on Russ’s side, hoping nothing—namely a dead body—fell out on me.

It had been that kind of day.

There were several work shirts hanging on a rod, and shelves above and below that held office supplies. Printer paper, file folders, envelopes, and the like.

Quickly, I crossed the room to Bill’s closet, turned the handle.

It was locked.

Why? What was in there?

My mind jumped again to dead bodies.

Pushing that thought away, I wished I’d brought my purse in. My credit card would have come in handy right about now. Kevin had once shown me how incredibly easy it was to bypass a simple lock.

And this one was simple.

I didn’t bother checking my hair for a bobby pin—I never used them. I thought fast.

The desk. It would have paper clips. Sure enough, they were in the top drawer. An economy-size box of them. I grabbed one, unbent it.

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A second later the lock released.

Slowly, I opened the door.

“Ewww.” I stepped back.

Not a dead body, but almost as bad.

Mushrooms.

I shuddered.

Two small barrels of them took up two-thirds of the closet floor. There was an empty space on the left side that looked just the right size for another barrel. Shelves started above the barrels, right about thigh high, and went all the way to the ceiling. They were filled with everything from humon-gous jars of fat-free mayonnaise (ewww) to cans of chick peas, black beans, barley, and lentils (double ewww).

It was a storage closet.

Not an accounting book to be found. And I looked. Behind cans of mandarin oranges, bags of rice, spice tins. Despite myself, I even poked around the mushroom barrels.

If Bill had taken the accounting books from Greta’s house, he hadn’t brought them here. Not that I could find them anyway. Maybe he’d kept them at home? Less suspicion that way.

The office doorknob jiggled. My stomach lurched.

“Why is this door locked?”

Bill. Oh God.

“I don’t know.”

Noreen.

I looked around for a place to hide. My gaze hit on the closet floor. I might be able to make it . . . if I squeezed.

Hard.

“How odd,” Bill said. Muffled, his voice sounded menacing.

I ran over to the light switch, flipped it as I heard a key sliding into the lock. I fairly dove into the closet, became a contortionist, and closed the door behind me.

It was dark. Very dark.

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And oddly chilly.

And smelly.

For a second I had a panic attack about my deodorant again, then realized the smell wasn’t coming from me. It was the mushrooms.

I shuddered again. Mushrooms and I just didn’t get along.

Not since my mother made beef Stroganoff when I was six and forced me to eat every revolting bite. It probably had more to do with my mother’s cooking than the mushrooms themselves, but it had scarred me, and my stomach, for life.

I didn’t know a lot about mushrooms—just that I didn’t like them—but weren’t they supposed to be stored in a refrigerator?

Or a cool, dry place like a storage closet? my inner voice asked.

I told it to be quiet, because I should have realized that myself. I really hated being wrong.

The office door swung open, its hinges in need of WD-40.

I held my breath, afraid Bill and Noreen could somehow hear me breathing. Despite the coolness, sweat trickled down the side of my head, tickling my ear. I rubbed it on my shoulder.

I heard a click, and light suddenly filtered through the cracks in the closet door as the overhead fluorescents in the office clicked and popped, giving me just enough hazy illu-mination to make out shapes.

When I started to see spots, I finally took a deep breath, but was suddenly overcome by the same claustrophobic feeling I experience when I scuba dive. I gave up holding my breath and opted for closing my eyes. I practiced Lamaze breathing again.

When it came time for me to have a baby, I’d be all set.

Babies. Bobby.

I gave myself a mental shake. This wasn’t the time!

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Leaning my head against the closet wall, I wished I hadn’t given up on gymnastics when I was a kid. Flexibility and I didn’t get along. My knees screamed, my back ached, and something dug into my back. A bracket for the shelves. My thighs tingled—the beginning of a Charlie horse.

I tried to flex my foot and nearly kicked the basket of mushrooms. I stayed put. What was a little pain?

I could handle it.

“Has anyone else been in here?” Bill’s voice was so clear, so loud, he had to have been standing on the other side of the door.

“Not that I know of.” Noreen’s voice sounded strained, stiff.

What was she doing here? She must have been notified by the police that Greta had died. Wouldn’t she be at the house?

At the hospital where they’d taken the body for an autopsy?

Not that she could do much at either place.

“I, um, might have locked it.”

Riley? I stiffened, and regretted it immediately.

I bit my lip against the pain of the Charlie horse and kneaded my thigh, trying to get rid of it, all the while wondering what Riley was doing with Bill and Noreen. Wasn’t he working the register? How long had I been in the office?

Holding my watch up to a sliver of light, I realized I’d been snooping for fifteen minutes.

“When I came in to get, uh, some cash register tape earlier. My mom always makes me lock up when I leave the house. Habit. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Bill said.

My mind raced. Had Riley just called me his mom? Had I been hearing things? Had I been sniffing too many fungus fumes?

His mom.

Tears gathered in my eyes, and I looked up, trying to keep Digging Up Trouble

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them in. Something taped to the underside of the bottom shelf near the mushroom barrels caught my eye. I squinted, trying to make it out.

I didn’t dare move, but from where I was it looked like a manila envelope.

“What’re you doing down there?” Bill asked.

“Tying my shoe,” Riley answered. “Not so easy with this splint.”

“Need help?” Noreen asked.

“Nope. Got it. Thanks.”

“You need a ride home?” Bill asked.

“No, my mom’s coming,” Riley said.

There it was again. Mom.

My heart produced a weird warm and fuzzy feeling, and I basked in it for a second before I stiffened again.

I barely held in the Owww as my thigh spasmed. Tears did come, but it was from the pain, not any kind of lovey-dovey maternal feelings.

The spasm eased, the pain lessened, and I remembered why I had stiffened in the first place.

Riley. Lying. Not just about me not being there yet to pick him up, but about locking the door in the first place.

Why?

Did he somehow know I was in here?

How?

As quietly as I could, I felt my pockets.

No keys.

They were sitting on the floor next to Bill’s desk!

Right near where Riley had “tied his shoes”? I hoped so.

“I think I’ll just go get something to eat while I wait for her.”

Ewww. Eat something? From here? Had I taught that boy nothing?

“You need to call her?” Bill asked.