Day Shift

24

Olivia made it through lunch at the Cracker Barrel by the skin of her teeth. She hated the merchandise room, she hated the false harking back to a re-created past reflected in the wall decor, and she hated Barry and Manfred because they were oblivious to the fluffy sweatshirts and silly souvenirs and the faux farm implements. They simply enjoyed the food, as Suzie and Tommy did. Their waitress looked exhausted but kept smiling, and Barry told Olivia that the woman was a single mother and had two jobs to keep afloat.

“I don’t want to be obliged to pity my server,” Olivia snapped.

Barry turned his attention back to his menu pointedly. “Then don’t. I just didn’t want you to jump down her throat because she was slow bringing your coffee.”

“So you go around being Mr. Compassionate?” Her voice was low but sharp.

He flinched. “No,” he confessed. “Not always.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“Listen, I can tell you’re mad at me for something I really can’t help. But see if you can rein it in for today, all right? I’m not telling anyone any of your awful little secrets.”

Olivia wanted nothing so much as to punch him in the face. “Be quiet now,” she said, her voice so low and intense that people near them actually turned to look. “Really, really, be quiet.”

Suzie said, “Everything okay here? You young people! Mind your manners!”

“Says the ex-hooker,” Barry whispered, and suddenly Olivia wanted to laugh.

“Hey, Tommy, you need some more tea?” Manfred was down at the other end of the table, and he’d been very solicitous to Tommy and Suzie the whole meal. Maybe because he wanted to pretend she, Olivia, wasn’t in a total rage? Olivia took a deep breath and reconciled herself to the fact that she could do nothing about what Barry had learned from her thoughts. But, she reassured herself, I can kill him if he ever tells anyone. What about when he leaves? He might find my father and tell…

She glanced sideways at the man next to her. She didn’t want to have to kill Barry, but she might have to. It would be a pity. She could see so many times a gift like his would come in handy. If only somehow she could immunize herself against it!

“Is there anyone you can’t hear? At all?” she asked, picking up a roll and taking a small bite.

“Vampires.” He cut up his ham with precision. “And it’s hard to hear people who can turn into an animal. Texas is better than Louisiana. Not so many of either one.”

“And yet you have enemies here in Texas.”

He chewed and swallowed. “Enemies with long memories.”

He was reminding Olivia that she had a hold over him, too.

It was still true that if you didn’t go looking for vampires, you’d have a good chance of never seeing one. But every large city had at least one vampire-oriented nightclub and a house or two where vampires were known to nest. For those reasons alone (the company of their own kind, the profitability of simply being undead, and the safety of numbers), it was hard to find a vampire who preferred to live on his or her own in a rural area; Lemuel was an exception. But he was an exception in more than one way. He didn’t have to have blood. He could take energy instead, a sip here and a sip there, just enough to keep him going.

He could take from other vampires, too. And he defended his area vigorously.

That was why most undead would not come within miles of Midnight, unless they had to come to the pawnshop for something rare. Lemuel would not leech from a customer of the store.

“You won’t be bothered by your enemies while you’re in Midnight,” Olivia said. “At least, when Lemuel is there.”

“But he’s not. Any idea of when he’ll return? I’d like to stay to see Granddaddy settled in a real nursing home. With more supervision. But I’m not going to die to make that happen.”

“Of course not,” Olivia said. “He’s had his turn.”

Barry said, “When you put it like that, doesn’t make me sound too good.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But it’s the truth.”

He lifted his shoulders, let them drop. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You better take Tommy to the men’s room. You never know what kind of conversation he’s going to have with another customer.”

Barry went with Tommy while Olivia took Suzie to the ladies’ room and Manfred paid their bill. Olivia, glancing back at the wreck of the table, thought, I didn’t know old people could eat that much. She remembered her own grandmother picking at the food on her plate. But her grandmother had been ill… her last illness.

Manfred and Barry loaded Suzie and Tommy into Manfred’s car this time, and Olivia drove alone. The solitude was a huge relief. She listened to Yo-Yo Ma the whole way into Dallas. It cleared her mind and calmed her. She felt much better when they stopped for the final briefing, which took place at a filling station in Bonnet Park. But by then, she’d come to a decision.

“I have to go in,” she said.

Everyone stared at her, but that didn’t bother Olivia. She was used to it.

“But the maid might recognize you, you said yourself,” Manfred said. “And I know Lewis would recognize me.”

“Give me ten minutes at a Goodwill and she won’t know me,” Olivia promised.

“Where are you going to find a Goodwill around here?” Barry waved a hand. “I don’t care if you come in or not. But I have to be out of Dallas by dark, and I’m not kidding. So if you’ve changed your mind, fine with me, but get your ass in gear.”

“Okay, give me thirty, and I’ll be back.” She’d spotted a wig shop five blocks south, and she went in there first, emerging with short black hair. There was a consignment shop a block away, and she came out of it in a pair of very tight jeans and a tank top and sandals. She put on a lot of eye makeup with the help of the rearview mirror.

When she got back to the filling station, she found Tommy and Suzie sipping icy drinks while Manfred filled his gas tank and Barry stared at the sky and his watch alternately. There were hours of daylight left, but it was easy to see he was genuinely anxious.

Whatever he’d done to engender this terror, it must have been something pretty awful. Barry grew more and more interesting. It’s a real pity I hate to be in the same room with him.

Manfred did a double take, and Barry raised one eyebrow in an irritating way. Tommy said, “You look smoking hot, young lady.”

Suzie grinned. “I used to wear jeans that way,” she said. “Believe it or not. But I was never tall like you, honey.”

“So, do you think she’ll recognize me?” Olivia said.

“No,” Manfred said. “I don’t know why you changed your mind about risking it. But I’m sure the maid won’t know you.”

“Okay, let’s recap,” Olivia said briskly. She felt much better, now that she knew she could take action. If there was one thing she wasn’t good at, it was sitting and waiting. “We go over to the Goldthorpe house. You, Tommy, tell the maid, Bertha, and/or the asshole, Lewis, that Morton Goldthorpe had borrowed some books — rare books — from you. Naturally, they’ll be in his study, or library, or whatever they call it. Lewis will already have gotten a letter from Manfred’s lawyer stating this. I don’t know how Lewis will react. He’s a little crazy, after all.”

“And when we’re up there?” Tommy said. “On the second floor?”

“In the elevator,” Suzie added hastily.

“When you go up to the study in the elevator, take your time looking. Pick out some likely books and tell him those are yours. Rick here is going to be listening in to Lewis’s brain, to try to pick up information about the whereabouts of some jewelry.”

Suzie and Tommy were clearly confused by this information. Tommy stared at Barry as if he had two heads, while Suzie made a sound best described as “Tchah!”

Since Olivia didn’t want to address their skepticism, she decided to ignore it. “I’m going to be studying the layout to see if I can pinpoint good places to search if I have to return.” If? When. No matter who lay in wait for her, she’d have to get back in the house. Olivia actually felt a little excited as she thought of whom she might encounter this time. She’d be so ready for them. They wouldn’t have a chance.

She’d kill them all.

Leaving a visibly anxious Manfred behind, they drove to the Goldthorpe house in silence. Suzie made one comment about how nice the neighborhood was, which no one could argue with. Tommy seemed to get more and more ornery, as if he were thinking himself into his role as a disagreeable old fart. (Olivia didn’t think that was such a stretch for Tommy.) Barry, beside her, seemed detached. He was not as invested in this, and he was only interested in completing his role and departing a few hundred dollars richer.

Bertha answered the door. This time, the gardener was on a tall ladder in the foyer. He was replacing a bulb in the light fixture that hung down from the two-story ceiling. Bertha looked frazzled. Maybe having Lewis for a boss wasn’t working out very well. Given Lewis’s paranoia, Olivia was a little surprised he’d kept her on. Perhaps the answer lay in the FOR SALE sign they’d passed in the front yard.

“I’m Thomas Quick’s grandson,” Barry said, smiling pleasantly. “Mr. Lewis Goldthorpe should have gotten the letter from Mr. Quick’s lawyer yesterday, saying Mr. Quick needed access to the library today.”

Bertha stared at him, a crease between her brows. “I don’t know,” she said. “Let me call Lewis. He hasn’t said anything to me about this. Please wait here.” She shut the door in Barry’s face, and he turned to Olivia. “She’s not happy,” he said. “Lewis has been acting crazy. She’s nervous all the time. Visitors make him more nuts.”

You don’t have to be a mind-reader to know that, Olivia thought. “By the way,” she said, “my name is Amanda today.” It had been awfully careless, not thinking of that until now.

“Crazy man, huh?” said Tommy. His voice was loud and angry. “I want my books back!”

Tommy was a method actor, apparently.

“Yeah,” said Suzie. “We need our books back. They’re worth thousands! How come we didn’t get a notice from Morton’s estate when he died? That’s what I wanna know!”

“Hams,” Barry said, amused. But he said it very quietly.

“They’re living it,” Olivia agreed.

The front door flew open again, but this time so abruptly that it almost banged against the inside wall. Lewis was framed in the opening. Behind him was the maid, clearly unhappy and worried. The gardener was descending from the ladder, and he seemed to be glad as hell to be coming down.

Lewis was brandishing a piece of paper. Olivia was delighted to see it was the bogus letter from Manfred’s lawyer. “What the hell is this about?” Lewis demanded. He wasn’t exactly screaming, but his tone was not conversational, either. “My father never borrowed any books from anyone! Much less you!”

“Sir,” said Barry with quiet dignity. “This is my grandfather, Tommy Quick, who was a friend of your father’s. He’d just like to reclaim his property. He was really grieved to discover his friend Morton is dead, and he found out only because he read the obituary of Morton’s widow. Please respect his age and grief.”

It was as though he’d slapped Lewis in the face. The man got very quiet and still, so abruptly it was even more shocking than his previous pugnacity. “You’re saying this man was my father’s friend?” Lewis gave Tommy a very sharp once-over. “All right, come in. It’s very hot outside. And these two… ladies… are?”

“I’m Rick’s sister Amanda. This is my grandfather’s intended, Suzie Lee.” At the last second, Olivia had realized she had no idea what Suzie’s true last name was, and she’d supplied one on the spur of the moment. Suzie looked up at Lewis with a smile, and Olivia had to admire the old woman’s adaptability.

“I hope you don’t mind me coming along,” Suzie said, generating so much charm that Olivia almost had to take a step back. “Tommy and I go everywhere together.”

“Let me go turn off the television,” Lewis said abruptly, and vanished. When he reappeared, Bertha abruptly retreated to the back of the house. It was clear the maid was washing her hands of the situation.

Her son — he must be, their mouths and eyes were so alike — was folding up the ladder and giving the newcomers a comprehensive stare, starting with Olivia’s tight blue jeans. But he left, too, carrying the ladder carefully down the hall to the back of the house.

Good. Now there were no witnesses, whatever happened.

Lewis reappeared, so changed it was like he’d taken a hit of laughing gas. He’d morphed into the gracious master of the manor. “There’s an elevator right back here for you, if you’d prefer,” he said. If he’d had mustaches, he’d have been twirling them. “I often take it myself.”

“Thanks,” said Tommy gruffly. “The little lady has a problem with stairs.”

Every effort had been made to make the tiny elevator unobtrusive. Even the door was designed to look like a real wood door. Olivia said, “I’ll just take the stairs.”

She met them at the top and confirmed that the elevator door was right by the study door. She was smiling when the elevator door dinged open and they all appeared.

Lewis’s new hospitality made Olivia deeply suspicious, and her anxiety was confirmed when she caught Barry’s expression. Behind Lewis’s back, he made an urgent face at her. She didn’t know exactly what it meant, but nothing good. She went on full alert.

Tommy got off the elevator with extra care and turned to extend his hand to Suzie. She took it with a smile. Somehow, in the Goldthorpe mansion, they looked smaller and frailer and less in control of their destinies than they had in the Midnight Hotel. Tommy seemed to be aware of it, too. In a patronizing tone, he said, “This is a nice house, young man.” He looked around him in a lordly way. “I haven’t been here in years,” he added, perhaps thinking that he should have visited at least a few times if he’d been such a good friend of Morton’s.

“I’m so glad you like it,” Lewis said smoothly.

Obviously, Lewis suspected they weren’t what they seemed. Olivia didn’t know what he suspected or what to do about it. For the moment, she decided to go along with the plan. Lewis was not a good pretender. She was.

“I’m really sorry about your mom,” she said. Lewis’s glasses winked as he swung his head around to glare at her.

And she saw Barry blink and look away, just for a second.

Lewis was more dangerous than he seemed, apparently.

“She never took good care of herself,” Lewis said brusquely. “She was getting forgetful, too. She was hiding things from me.”

“Hiding things,” Olivia echoed in a murmur with just a hint of a question in it.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “She was getting very… well, paranoid, I’m afraid, and she decided I was after her jewelry. Poor thing,” he added unconvincingly. “I miss her so much.”

“Of course,” Barry said. “Grandpa, can you see the books you loaned Morton? Look carefully. We don’t want to leave one behind.”

Tommy had gone to the shelves to begin his “search.” Suzie began a stilted conversation with Lewis about estate taxes, which only went forward fitfully, because Lewis was watching Tommy like a hawk. Did he think Tommy would try to stuff books down his pants?

Olivia looked around her, registering fact after fact. There was not much furniture. The room was lit from a window on the west wall, casting a pool of light on the large polished desk and the imposing chair behind it. There was an easy chair with a small table and lamp, and there was a huge globe standing in one corner of the room. It hadn’t been visible from the door on Olivia’s previous visit.

Olivia wondered if the globe was Morton Goldthorpe’s idea or if some decorator had told him every man should have a globe in his library. Maybe a bit of both; it was a beautiful thing. The desk was handsome, too; cherry, she thought. The shelves on the south and north walls were stocked with books interspersed with a tennis trophy or two, some business awards, and family pictures. From those pictures, it was evident that Morton had been older than Rachel by at least ten years. He looked very proud of his wife and his children in those portraits of a time long past.

Olivia had the oddest feeling as she looked at those faces, including that of the boy who now stood before her grown into a peevish and unstable man, greedy and grasping. The couple must have been happy in those long-ago days, surely. They must have looked forward to meeting the people their children would partner up with, to loving the grandchildren that would result. How could it be that such anticipation would crash and burn so spectacularly in Lewis’s case?

Had her parents ever looked at her, counted on her to comfort their old age, to present them with the little representations that would carry their name forward?

Not my mother, Olivia thought certainly. Not even she would be capable of such hypocrisy. As for her father, who knew? He’d proved himself capable of such willful blindness that there was no telling how far he’d deceived himself.

And for the first time, in the middle of a job and in a sunny room of a mansion she’d never visit again, Olivia thought, If he’d had any balls at all, he’d have killed my mother when I told him what she’d done. I wouldn’t have had to do it myself. It was a truth that came at the worst possible moment.

“I see your father was interested in Rex Stout,” she said, almost at random. She had no idea who Rex Stout was, but there were many books with that name on them, and they were all together, and they looked old.

“He has a complete set of first editions,” Lewis said with massive indifference. “I’m trying to find a buyer for them.”

“Those are hard to come by,” Olivia said, trying to sound like she gave a shit.

“Yes.” Lewis’s limited patience was trickling away.

Olivia’s brain was telling her to cut and run, that this was a fiasco. She wondered if Barry’s was saying the same thing. There was a certain tension in the way he stood that alerted her. No such danger message had reached Tommy and Suzie, who were shuffling along the shelves, industriously looking for the fictional loaner books.

The front doorbell rang downstairs, and Lewis’s head jerked in that direction. It was a busy morning at the Goldthorpe house. Olivia heard Bertha’s plodding footsteps cross the foyer and the sound of the front door opening.

“I wonder who that can be?” Lewis said malevolently.

Tommy’s head jerked around. He said, “Suzie, honey, these are the books.” He pulled three books from a lower shelf, and Olivia could see they were a set because the bindings matched.

“The History of Geography and Judaism in Western Europe,” Suzie said. “Of course! It’s been so long since you read them.”

She was pretty convincing. Olivia almost believed Suzie spent her leisure time reading. Wait, she’d mentioned wanting to go to the library in Davy. Maybe it was true. Olivia dismissed that as irrelevant and concentrated on her job. The desk was an obvious place to search for the jewelry. Possibly it had a secret compartment, though those were usually easy to find. She looked hard at the shelves. She was sure Lewis had been all over them. Even if his sisters had already cataloged everything in the house, which she didn’t believe, Lewis would still want to run his own inventory because he was so convinced that the house was his.

“I’m surprised you’re selling such a beautiful place,” she said, and Lewis glared at her. “Not my idea,” he snapped. “My sisters want to sell the place and divide the proceeds, though I offered to buy them out.”

Not at fair market value, I’m sure, Olivia thought. But she shook her head in apparent amazement at his sisters’ inexplicable stubbornness, while she looked from the desk to the shelves. The books were all aligned on the forefront of the shelves, not pushed back against the wall, so there was plenty of room behind them. But would that be a very safe place to hide anything? Only temporarily. Hadn’t Rachel told them something else, at the séance?

The leather chair — nope. A table at its side, only a single shallow drawer. Nope. There were cabinets below the bookshelves on the north wall behind the desk. That was somewhere to look. Maybe one of the books was hollowed out?

Suddenly she had a great idea, a wonderful idea, just in time. There were two sets of feet mounting the stairs, and Detective Sterling, Bonnet Park PD, came into the room. Another man was with Sterling, and Olivia pegged him instantly as a cop.

Lewis smiled triumphantly.

Well, damn. This was not her day.

It had seemed so important to see the study for herself. Now she realized it had been stupid, though she was sure she’d identified the hiding place of Rachel’s jewelry. While she was wondering if she could possibly go unrecognized, Lewis practically precipitated himself at the detectives.

“So glad to see you, guys!” Lewis was beaming from ear to ear. “I’m delighted you came so quickly.” He pointed at the Midnight party in a dramatic way. “These people are frauds.”

“I beg your pardon,” Suzie said. She was unexpectedly fierce. “How dare you say that? We came to retrieve Tommy’s books. Fraudulent, my…! We haven’t done a single thing that’s incorrect or illegal.”

If Olivia hadn’t been so busy being mad at herself, and also elated, she would have been tempted to laugh.

Barry was looking intently at the policemen. He said, “I’m sorry Mr. Goldthorpe has caused you so much trouble today. We did send a letter ahead, telling him we would be coming. He could have called our lawyer if he had an issue with our visit.” Barry looked very serious, very distressed, and not at all guilty of anything.

Olivia thought, He’s reading their minds. Follow his cues. She tried to stand a little behind Barry. She was aiming for inconspicuous but not suspicious. It was a fine line.

Detective Sterling was definitely taken aback. Maybe he’d expected guilt, embarrassment, flagrant con artists; instead, he’d gotten feisty older citizens, an indignant grandson, and a quiet sister. Versus the demonstrably unstable (but Bonnet Park citizen) Lewis Goldthorpe. So he did what Olivia figured she would have done. He played for time to evaluate the situation.

“I’m Detective Sterling and this is Detective Woodward,” Sterling said. “We’re from the Bonnet Park police. You are?”

They all introduced themselves and shook hands, just a bunch of citizens who were completely aboveboard.

Detective Sterling had no choice but to follow through. Though Olivia was no mind-reader like Barry, she could tell that he had misgivings about this whole situation. “Mr. Goldthorpe has complained about your coming here today. He maintains none of these books were loaned to his father, who’s been dead some time now. Since his mother died only recently, he’s very sensitive about strangers making claims on the estate.”

“Which I would definitely agree with,” Tommy said. “If I were saying that I’d loaned my buddy books worth a lot of dough. But these books, about the faith of our people, they are worth nothing but some sentiment, gentlemen. Sentiment. Not money. And I’ll tell you here and now, if this man here, Lewis Goldthorpe, if he tells me sincerely he’ll read these books and learn from them, I am not going to stand in his way. My Suzie and I are deeply, I say deeply, offended by these accusations, and we are leaving now, with or without my books. Calling the police, young man? Your father would be astonished at you.”

Tommy did offended dignity very well, if a little in the Foghorn Leghorn manner. Their little party began to move to the door of the study in a tight formation. Suzie clung to Tommy’s arm, looking frail and tremulous, and Barry did his best to look offended, and Olivia strove to be invisible. She thought for one moment that Detective Sterling looked at her curiously. Would he figure out she’d been at Vespers?

But he didn’t try to stop them. They reached the elevator. And crowded on. And punched the button to go down. It took for-fucking-ever for the doors to close. Olivia swore to herself the whole time.

Lewis began shrieking at the detectives.

“Bad move, Lewis,” Olivia whispered. Then they were on the ground floor and the doors opened. Bertha and her son were nowhere in sight. The coast was clear. Moving a little faster than they should have been, considering the offended dignity they were trying to project, they got through the double front doors, all the time hearing the voices of the detectives, determinedly calm, counterpointing with the shrill tones of Lewis, demanding that they be stopped and searched and questioned and thrown in jail. And all manner of other things.

Then they were out into the scorching heat.

“Let’s slow down a little,” Barry suggested. “Tommy, hold on to the railing, okay? Suzie, let me give you a hand.” Tommy didn’t put up any protest, and neither did Suzie. Olivia swung around to get to the bottom of the steps in case they fell, standing ready to catch them. But despite the fact that Tommy and Suzie were both visibly angry — or maybe just excited — they managed the few steps down with no problem, and then all four of them crossed the gravel to the car. The detectives’ sedan was parked behind them.

A whoosh of heat came out of the opened car doors, but they weren’t going to wait for the car to cool. They climbed in, Barry and Tommy in the front, Suzie and Olivia in the back, and then they were going down the driveway.

“Whew,” said Suzie. “That little fucker! Someone should clip his nuts off.”

“If he has any,” Tommy said.

Olivia couldn’t stop the giggle. After a second, Barry joined her.

They’d gotten away with it.

“But we didn’t find out where the jewelry is,” Tommy said.

“Yes, we did.” Olivia smiled to herself. “I know where it is.”

“Where?” Tommy demanded. “Hey, I think I deserve to know!”

“You do, but I have to tell Manfred first,” she said. “This is his deal, after all.”

“How are we gonna get ’em, now that he knows what we look like?” Suzie said. Suddenly they were a gang of jewel thieves instead of a group of newly met misfits.

“We’ll think of something,” Olivia said.

“After we get out of here,” Barry said brusquely, and they all agreed it was time to leave Bonnet Park.