Crunch Time

Boyd and our police escort carried our boxes into the house. Overhead, the clouds had cleared without our having a storm. The late-afternoon sun was shining. The weather was cool for just after three o’clock.

Some cops, undoubtedly those with the day off, had begun arriving. Despite all that was going on, I felt safe walking down the Bertrams’ driveway. One of the investigators told me Tom would be arriving within the hour. Good, I thought. I had a lot to tell him, as did Boyd.

Beside me, Yolanda glanced up at the hulking ruins that constituted Ernest’s burned house. Once her gaze had snagged on it, she couldn’t take her eyes away from the place.

She was shaking, so I put my arm around her. Ferdinanda still looked grim.

Yolanda said quietly, “I wish Ernest could be here. I feel as if this is all my fault.”

“None of it is your fault,” I replied. “Let’s go inside.”

To my surprise, the first person I saw upon entering the Bertrams’ house behind Ferdinanda was . . . Father Pete.

“The Bertrams invited me,” he said hastily. When Yolanda drew back, Father Pete moved forward to embrace her. “I came early. I am hoping you will forgive me, Yolanda. I know you have been through a rough time, and I didn’t mean to startle you in the grocery store. I am absentminded.” He hesitated. “You have been a good friend to Goldy. I hope I can be a good friend to you.”

Yolanda said, “That would be nice. And of course I forgive you.”

Ferdinanda, unforgiving, rolled toward the kitchen. I wondered if, in the pastoral business, a 50 percent success rate was considered good.

“Do you know where Penny Woolworth is?” I asked Father Pete.

“In the kitchen. She has been working very hard here, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. The last time I was in this house . . . well, never mind.”

I glanced around the living room. The upholstered brown furniture was what the discount houses call “Early American.” It was old but freshly polished, and the worn orange wall-to-wall carpeting had been vacuumed. There was no clutter. Penny must have performed a miracle.

SallyAnn, greeting guests, winked at me and then hustled over. “Thank you so much for sending your friend. I’ve thrown away more junk, and donated more out-of-style clothing and shoes, than I even knew I had.”

“Did you find anything valuable?” I asked.

“My sanity,” she replied, then left to say hello to more folks.

The kitchen was gleaming, and there was plenty of counter space. As Yolanda began unloading our first box of food, she opened a refrigerator that was half-full . . . and sparkling. Ferdinanda pulled drawers wide to find utensils. Penny herself, a bucket of soapy water at her feet, was washing the kitchen walls. SallyAnn was nowhere in sight.

“Penny?” I said. “It doesn’t look as if you needed us after all.”

Her face shone with sweat. “You’re right. I was in a panic the first hour. Now I’m almost done. There are two clean bathrooms with new towels in them, and one clean bedroom, the master, where people can put their coats.”

“Thank you so much,” I said. I slipped the four hundred bucks into her jeans pocket. “You’re the best. How many sacks of discards did SallyAnn end up filling?”

Penny stopped scrubbing and shook her head. “Five. They’re in my pickup. I’ll take them to Evergreen Christian Outreach on my way home. But get this: There are another five full garden bags stacked in their trash shed, out by their garage. When I go home, I’m sleeping for twelve hours straight, or until Zeke calls me tomorrow, whichever comes first.” She lifted an eyebrow and lowered her voice. “What do you think of the decor?”

I looked around at mismatched but clean canisters, large wooden salt and pepper shakers, and a garage-sale rack with half-full bottles of spices and herbs that didn’t look as if they’d been used in a decade. The pictures on the walls were decoupaged cards, pictures of tiny mice clinging to autumn leaves, kittens snuggling, puppies playing. I whispered, “Well, it’s different from Kris’s.”

“And from Marla’s, and from nearly every other house I do. But they have money. SallyAnn told me. She just hates to clean. So I’m taking them on, even after Zeke comes back.”

“You are good,” I said, “and I am so thank—” My eyes caught on something. “What is that?” I pointed to a framed print from Sesame Street. “They don’t have kids, so what gives?”

“Oh.” Penny’s tone was offhand. “I didn’t find it until we removed about a ton of stuff from that counter. It’s a picture of Bert and Ernie, you know? I think John Bertram’s old partner gave it to him. You know, the partner was called Ernie, and the cops call John Bertram Bert—where are you going?”

I dashed into the living room and looked around for Boyd. It really couldn’t be that simple, could it? I hadn’t even processed it when SallyAnn first told me about the nicknames. But when I saw the picture, it seemed to make perfect sense. “Where’s Sergeant Boyd?” I asked a couple bringing in a covered casserole dish.

“Uh,” said the man, a tall fellow whom I vaguely recognized. “On the patio, I think. Having a beer.”

I thanked him and raced outside. Boyd, his right hand around a can, was giving advice to John Bertram, who was trying to start the propane grill. Boyd was laughing.

“Sergeant,” I said, my voice urgent. “I need you. Please?”

Boyd’s shoulders dropped, but he put down his beer and followed me. “Where are we going?”

“I need you to show me the crime scene. I mean, where Ernest was shot.”

Boyd exhaled but moved in front of me. John Bertram’s paved driveway was wide and long and led to the detached garage where he kept the numerous cars and trucks he was ostensibly working on. We walked down the driveway until we reached the field of boulders that stretched upward, to the left, between the Bertrams’ place and Ernest McLeod’s spread. Boyd turned and began climbing across rocks and over wild grass.

Finally he stopped. Nobody had followed to see what we were up to. For that I was thankful. This was a bit morbid.

“Here,” said Boyd, pointing to the gravel service road used by the fire department to reach otherwise inaccessible stands of trees. “He’d come down from his house. He must have heard something, or was suspicious, so he detoured onto this road. Then, we think, he turned back up toward his house and came into this field of rocks. Still, whoever was tracking him found him anyway. The cancer had weakened Ernest, we figure, so he couldn’t move so fast anymore. But he must have heard something and turned around . . . the killer shot him in the chest, then dragged him out of sight of the main road.”

I turned in a complete circle. There were boulders and pine trees, the Bertrams’ long driveway and big detached garage, their low-slung house, the main road, then uphill, to more boulders and evergreens, and the ruins of Ernest’s house.

“Say he didn’t detour down this road,” I said. Boyd looked skeptical. “Bear with me. Let’s say Ernest knew his house was being watched. So before someone could break in there, he put evidence incriminating Sean and Humberto into his backpack, with the intention of hiding it in John Bertram’s garage. Then imagine that he said to Ferdinanda, ‘If anything happens to me, ask Bert,’ not ‘ask the bird.’ And then Ernest, aka Ernie, walked down here and hid something at John Bertram’s place.”

“Goldy,” said Boyd, with doubt in his voice, “we don’t think so. There were no footprints, and nothing was dropped—”

“But it rained, and then it snowed. Any footprints would have been rinsed away.”

Boyd was still dubious. “Well, if there was anything hidden in John’s house, it’s probably in the bottom of a trash bag, if it’s there at all. Your friend said she’s been cleaning for several hours. John Bertram and Ernest McLeod were polar opposites in the let’s-keep-things-tidy department.”

I turned again, less sure of myself. My gaze swept across the vista. Ernest was neat; John was not. Ernest McLeod had left Saturday morning to walk into town. According to Ferdinanda, he had his camera, wallet, and other belongings in his red backpack. The backpack had not been found. SallyAnn hadn’t mentioned it, and Penny certainly hadn’t.

The detached garage was a quarter-mile away. Say Ernest sensed he was being followed, and wasn’t sure he had the strength to escape whoever it was. But he went ahead and made his stop first, then wended his way back up through the boulders in the direction of home. . . .

Nobody had cleaned in the garage, or, as far as I knew, even looked in there for Ernest’s backpack. It was too far away from the crime scene.

“May I search John Bertram’s garage?” I asked Boyd eagerly.