“Let’s continue.” Lightfoot led the way back into the main room.
Cruising slowly around the showroom, Mrs. Gold’s eyes grazed the shelves and end tables, the lamps and lampshades, the bulbs and fixtures.
“See anything out of place?” Barnes’s brow was low, like a bull. Not an attractive look on a red, freckled, baby face. Made me wonder why he was in such a snit. Did he have plans? A romantic liaison? Wrestling on the DVR and beer in the fridge?
Mrs. Gold ignored him as she continued her perambulation. “Nothing here . . .” She raised her two knotted index fingers and began to point at each item on each shelf.
I shot a glance at Lightfoot, who was making notes while Mrs. Gold did her counting thing. Pleasant caught my eye and wiggled her eyebrows as if to say, Ain’t she a piece of work?
“Ma’am.” Barnes did a lousy job of sounding neutral. “You don’t have to count every item on every shelf at this very moment. You can check what’s here against your inventory records at your leisure and give us a call. See?”
Worry settled across her brow. “Tomorrow?” She glanced at the shelves and swallowed hard.
Barnes straightened, his expression lightening. “Yes, ma’am.” He turned toward the door.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday. You’re going to take my call on a Sunday?”
“We could return your call on Monday?” Lightfoot made his way to her side from across the room. “But if you prefer to give us your report this afternoon, I’ll stay with you.” He gave Barnes a meaningful glance.
Straightening her narrow shoulders, Mrs. Gold declared, “I would prefer it.”
“You two go back into town,” he said to Barnes and Pleasant. “Make sure everyone’s minding their manners.”
“Yes, sir.” Barnes was out the door, faster than a jackrabbit running the hundred-yard dash.
“I’ll have my radio handy, if you need me.” Pleasant touched her hat and gave Mrs. Gold a big smile. At the door, she took one last glance around the store and shook her head in bemusement.
Mrs. Gold moved into another back room. Lightfoot and I dragged behind. “You think someone actually broke in?” I didn’t see anything out of place other than the amount of time we were spending following the old woman around her store.
Lightfoot looked thoughtful. “Doubtful. Though I figure someone or something did make the alarm go off.” We entered the windowless storeroom, which was lit by a large bank of fluorescents, and observed as Mrs. Gold made her way through the stacks of unopened boxes. Shelf to shelf, item to item.
“The perpetrator might be closer than you think.”
Maybe she wasn’t truly afraid. Perhaps the call to the sheriff’s department had more to do with being alone since the death of her husband. My throat tightened. I understood loneliness that would make someone act that way. In the darkness of my apartment with Lenny curled up beside me, I sometimes thought of how close I’d come to being married, someone’s other half. And though those times were rare, those memories still caused me to shed a tear or two if I’d had a glass of wine with my tamales.
Lightfoot shadowed Mrs. Gold while I took the opposite side of the room. On my half, the shelves were filled with boxes, and inside the boxes were odd bits and pieces. One held filaments, another cords. Then there were the paper bags filled with nails, screws, magnets, and clamps. My nose began to itch and I sneezed. If anything or anyone had disturbed this junk, it was most likely a spider.
“Here’s where it should be.”
I shook my head to clear my hearing. “What?”
Lightfoot raised a hand to quiet my chatter. “Are you positive? Do you remember when you last noticed it there?”
She held her hands in the air as if holding an imaginary box. “So wide. About eighteen inches by twelve inches. Impossible for it simply to evaporate into thin air, Detective.”
“What was inside?”
I inched closer.
Rubbing her chin, she closed her eyes briefly. “It wasn’t bulbs or knobs.”
“Yes?”
Was that Lightfoot allowing his voice to exude impatience?
“They were yellow, red, black, and green for Christmas and the holidays.”
“Hmm.” Lightfoot was making notes.
“The green ones are for use in one’s garden or greenhouse. That kind of thing.” She smiled at me kindly.
“What are we talking about?” I asked.
Brow furrowed in disapproval, Lightfoot gave me a narrow-eyed glare. “Continue, Mrs. Gold.”
“Dear girl, we are discussing extension cords. High quality, long lasting, durable, made in the U.S. of A.”
“Extension cords like you pick up in the hardware store or Brookshire’s.”
Her mouth tightened as she placed her hands on her hips. “I just explained that these were not those. These were highest grade, premium—”
“Extension cords.” Lightfoot thrust his notebook and pencil in his jacket’s outer pocket. “That’s it? You’re sure.”
“I didn’t say that was all. I said that box and its contents are missing for sure.”
I glanced at my watch. We didn’t have all day, not if I was to make it back for dinner service, which was strictly nonnegotiable. Unless I wanted my name whited out of the family Bible. I pulled out my phone to do an online search of high-grade, premium extension cords.
“Make your call in the other room.” Lightfoot’s scowl reminded me of my favorite English professor at UT, who had no patience with phones in his classroom, often belittling the guilty party in front of the entire lecture hall.
I gave him a look that I hoped conveyed I was up to something far more serious than a missed text message. I returned to the main room and found a strong signal. Could these better-made cords electrocute someone? And in what circumstances?
My phone was taking forever to load. As I stood cursing modern technology, Lightfoot and Mrs. Gold joined me. Mrs. Gold was stifling a yawn behind her hand. She tightened her fur coat and flipped the collar up around her neck.
“You can call me tomorrow, if you like.” Lightfoot locked the back door.
“You’re too kind. Of course I
