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Chapter 19
I'd made a reservation at the Opelika Holiday Inn Express for the night, but after the stressful, quiet aggression of my conversation with Angela Steele, I felt a need for better spoilage. I went instead to a lovely Bed and Breakfast on College Street in Auburn. There a mild-voiced hostess soothed my distress, and I laid down my bulging overnight bag and my quivering anxiety in a small cottage on the back of the property. I stretched out on the bed, closed my eyes, and pondered what to do next. If anything, my intuitive suspicions of the Prescott family were more intense, my inner warning buzzers going off – something was awry, somebody was deceptive. But what? And who?
My mind kept returning to the two women, standing in a semi-dark house in full cleaning gear. It didn't look like a house that was habitually deep-cleaned. Why were they both cleaning house on a Monday afternoon? Do neither of them work? And why was Angela Steele adamant that I not speak to her mother? What was she afraid I would be told?
My room dimmed as the afternoon progressed and the shade of the live oak trees deepened. I drifted into sleep. I woke at nearly 6:00 p.m., hungry and wondering what to do next. I knew I wanted to talk with Mrs. Prescott again; her daughter's warning had only peaked my interest. And although it made me scared to think it, I wanted to see inside that house, to roam around and find out more about Angela and Desiree, who together were preventing me from doing my job and putting the woman they said they both loved, to rest.
I stopped in Sonic and ordered a burger and fries and a lovely, creamy Chocolate Hazelnut milkshake for supper. Loud college students buzzed around the place, lively and fun-loving. I wondered about somber Desiree. Did she ever have this fun life? She seemed only to have been at her mother's beck and call, and perhaps her aunt's. Did she long to escape, as Anita had failed to do, to get away from the despair of such a sad family? And why – oh, why – did a family feel so compelled to lie to me, a funeral home director whose only desire was to help them?
A stubbornness grew in me as I nibbled on my French fries. I would not let them win, would not let them conceal and deceive. I wrapped the remaining hamburger in its foil cover, tucked it into a bag on the passenger seat, mourned the melting of my shake, and backed out of Sonic. Only the fries were finished one at a time as I drove out to Angela Steele's home once more. Perhaps I needed to be more direct. Perhaps I should be more aggressive, even accusatory.
But there was no need. When I arrived at the house no one was there. The Toyota Camry was gone. After parking Simone two blocks away under a spreading pecan tree, I returned and approached house. I walked around the house boldly, knocking on each door. I peered into some of the windows. Nobody was home. When I found the front door locked, I went around to the back again. There must be a key hiding somewhere. I tried all the flower pots, most of which were broken and cradling dead vegetation. A few loose bricks revealed nothing when overturned. Then my eye glanced on the windowsill beside the porch where I was standing. It was a bit of a reach, but I could just touch the key lying there. I inserted it in the lock and turned. The door opened silently.
As I entered the porch and laundry room a memory flashed into my mind, a memory of Desiree Steele's words to me on the phone. “I ain't got no car.” She's used that as the reason she couldn't come to the funeral home to speak with me. “I ain't got no car.” But certainly her aunt's car had been at the house in Peace Valley. The Toyota Camry was there, and then it was gone, and I'd assumed Desiree had driven it away. Then it appeared here, behind the house in Opelika. Did she drive it or didn't she? Was it her car or Anita's? Why tell me she has no car to drive, and then proceed to drive it all the way to Alabama?
The Steele women were frustrating me more and more. I stumbled my way through the dark kitchen, afraid to turn on any lights. Why were they cleaning today? What would two women want to clean the most? I examined the kitchen first. Angela Steele was nothing like her tidy sister. This home was disheveled and neglected. Most of the cabinet shelves were bare of food, with only a scattering of canned goods and plastic dishes. The refrigerator contained spoiled milk, a tub of hummus, some shriveled garlic and onions that had turned soft and begun to grow, a plate of hard pizza, and some mayonnaise. The milk smelled. But from the light of the open refrigerator I could discern the food crumbs and dirt in the corners and under the cabinets, the filthy dish rag hanging on the stove, the splatters of food encrusted on the counters, the sink full of days' old dirty dishes.
This was not a house that had been been deep-cleaned that day. What were those women cleaning? Certainly not the kitchen. I walked through the shadowed living room, past the front door, and down the dark hall. As I entered the bathroom on my right the aroma of bleach overwhelmed me. If Karen hadn't taught me how to transform my cell phone into a flashlight, I'd have seen nothing in this room. I held the beam of light in front of me and began a slow inspection. New towels hung straight and fluffy on two racks on the wall. The shower was pristine – not a stain, not a hair, its curtain scoured white. The toilet had been scrubbed, a new roll of paper hung unused, and the entire unit wiped down, although no cleaning wipes were in the trash can, which held a new plastic bag but no trash at all. The floor in particular was utterly unsoiled, as if someone had scrubbed every grout line with a toothbrush. I leaned over and shone my phone light in the crevices and had to admire the cleaning skills of Angela and Desiree Steele.
The sink and mirror were the same. There was nothing to find here, and everything. A bathroom this clean must have needed it, and badly. A woman who kept a bathroom this clean and a kitchen that dirty was either deranged or had something in her bathroom to hide from prying eyes. I was more determined, more intrigued.
The hallway was lit somewhat by ebbing sunlight shining through the windows in the front door. I walked its length, past one messy bedroom, another tidier one, and a third at the end used for storage. This seemed promising, so I roamed around, reading the hand-written labels on the boxes and bags. Clothing, out-grown clothing, linens, yard-sale items, Mrs. Prescott's belongings and childhood keepsakes were bagged and boxed in this room. Tired now from my adventure in crime, I sat on a large plastic tub and foraged through a box of family photos.
Maude Prescott was easy to spot; she looked much the same. She smiled nervously holding a baby, helping a toddler ride a bike, tying a sash on a prom dress, then holding a grandbaby. The family didn't have many photos, and most were Polaroid or Instamatic shots, faded and curling around the edges. I found no pictures of Desiree past infancy, with a few photos of Angela, who looked much younger but thin and anxiety-ridden like her mother, holding the baby awkwardly on her bony hip. She couldn't have been older than fifteen. The backgrounds of these shots were always weedy lots, decrepit cars, or falling-down trailers. It showed a family life full of hardship and stress.
In the bottom of the box, which I had to inspect using my phone light, I found at last a small booklet of photographs, including a few of the twin girls about thirty-five years earlier. They were identical with curly blond hair and round faces. In the photo, they'd been propped on a brown, tattered couch, one baby leaning on the other. They wore red bibbed rompers frilled around the thigh, and chunky leather Mary Janes. Scribbled under their feet on the photo's edge were “Anita” and “Angela.” Angela, whose face was wrinkled in anxiety and anger, was leaning against Anita and clutching at her romper. Anita's face was placid. She was the bigger of the two, but a thin plastic tube ran from her nose, across her cheek, and disappeared into her hair. I remembered that Maude Prescott had given away this baby because her medical needs were beyond the family's ability to cope.
Other photos of the twins showed them swaddled together in a metal bassinet, cuddled in a stroller on a brilliant, sunny day, sleeping on a hospital baby blanket laid on matted shag carpet. Maude's hands were always on the girls, holding them, keeping them together. In one photo Anita, whom I could now recognize by her larger size, was noticeably blue and languid. She looked unwell.
I didn't know how much time had passed since I entered the house, and a sudden dread of panic overwhelmed me that I might be caught here by the women. I closed the box, stood up, and exited the room. The setting sun shone even more strongly down the hallway from the front door as I walked its length. Something – I don't know what – caused me to turn around one last time and look at the hall. That's when I saw my footsteps quite distinctly on the carpet there, my paces as I returned from the back room, only those returning steps. They were darker than the surrounding carpet. I stood and studied them, mystified. What could that mean? I walked slowly back down the hallway, avoiding the dark footprints. They started just outside that storage room, in the middle of the carpeting. I stood and looked at that first footprint I'd made. Then I bent over and touched it. I touched all the carpet around it and found that a portion of it, right in the middle of the hallway carpet, was wet.
This was something to ponder, but I felt I had no time to ponder. Anyone could look in the front door of the house and see me, standing there, staring at the floor. Why was it wet? On my knees, I inspected with my hands and found a round portion of the carpet, about eighteen inches by twelve inches, to be damp but not soggy. It was carpet that had been cleaned and blotted dry, but not spilled on and forgotten. At last, in addition to the pristine bathroom, I'd found another place in the house the women had cleaned. But why? What stain was here?
My knees hurt, so I sat my bottom on the carpet and rested for a moment. Getting back up would be a challenge, as it always was. I'm 5'6” tall, and comfortably over 200 lbs., and getting my body up or down any distance, for any reason, is quickly becoming a least-favorite activity. I put my hands behind me on the carpet, rolled my head around to stretch out my neck, and found myself looking up. Above me was the familiar rectangular panel of a pull-down attic staircase, its string dangling far over my head.
The damp carpet circle was exactly where the bottom of the attic stairs would be, when lowered down. I sighed. Something had come down those stairs, something requiring cleaning. I couldn't turn back now; I knew what I had to do. I clutched the pull-string in my hand and lowered the stairs. They made the metallic, musical creaking that such stairs do as I lowered the bottom set of rungs down to the hallway floor. As I studied the carpet now, it was clear the soiled portion was at the base of the stairs. Again, I pulled out my phone light and examined them before I ascended.
The thin wooden treads were scraped and scuffed and several had splinters ripped from them as if heavy trunks had been hauled up and down. Probably, they had. I didn't know what I was looking for as I crept up the stairs one at a time. Blood? Hair? Skin? A weapon? I rolled my eyes at myself at that thought – why would there be a weapon here, when Anita Wagner's body was found unassaulted two states away? My mind was running away with me! I placed one hand on the rickety railing and then the other on the upper ledge of the attic opening, slowly raising my line of sight into the pitch black heat of the space overhead. I raised my phone light to illuminate all my fears, but there were none. The attic was nearly empty. A battered plastic Christmas tree leaned drunkenly against the sloping roof line. Its tinsel trailed across the floor to me. Several smashed glass decorations lay around, along with stacks of newspapers and a few old magazines. I climbed through the opening and sat on the edge of the floor, my feet dangling onto the steps below. What had fallen from this space, down these stairs, and caused a stain on the hallway carpet?
I turned slightly and noticed a cardboard box behind me, positioned perfectly for someone who might sit just where I sat, legs dangling just as mine were. The box was full of partially empty liquor bottles: gin, vodka, rum, a little whiskey, and a small glass. I reached behind me and picked up the rum. Cruzan Black Strap Molasses. I unscrewed the cap. A fine sweet aroma wafted out. So – someone sat here, drinking privately. Angela? Who was she hiding from? Desiree? Or perhaps it was the other way around? That seemed more likely. What had caused the stain? A bottle, fallen down the stairs and smashed at the bottom? That answer was within reason, but then why were both of them cleaning it up, if one had wanted to hide the drinking from the other?
I sighed and looked down. On the end of one of the stair treads, wedged next to the metal hinge that allowed the stairs to lower, something flashed at me as my phone light passed near it. I reached down and felt an object, small and hard. It was a rough, clear gem stone. I held it in my hand, turning it over like a coin. It was cheap, a decoration on a tiara perhaps, or a dance costume. Or even a dress or shirt, I thought, as I weighed it in my palm. A bit heavy for a bodice. But, I mused, it would be perfect on a shoe. Then my mind raced back to another house, another set of stairs, and a shoe perched jauntily at the top of those stairs just as I sat perched here. Only at that house a dead body had lain at the bottom of the stairs instead of a smashed bottle of liquor.
A meaningless coincidence, I thought. My mind was racing into illogic and drama again. I gazed at the simple piece of cheap plastic in my hand. How could it be significant? It wasn't. But … but, I thought. I can't be sure. I can't be absolutely sure until I compare it to Anita Wagner's shoes back at the funeral home in Peace Valley. The gem stone slipped into my skirt pocket. I went down the stairs one at a time on my bottom, closed the contraption up again into the ceiling, flipped off my phone light, and turned to leave. On a whim, I crouched down again to look at the damp area. I leaned over as far as I could and smelled it. They'd done an amazing job. Liquor is a strong aroma, but it was entirely gone. Rather I detected only a scented rug cleaner, probably Resolve. I pressed my fingers into the pile and a few faint bubbles rose to the surface. They hadn't quite completed the rinse. And as I knelt there at the foot of the stairs a strange, disconcerting feeling twinged in the pit of my stomach, a tingle, a feeling I was beginning to recognize in myself that I disliked intensely. A hidden, native instinct in me knew that this was a place of death – this little spot in a hallway. I drew my hand away quickly and stood up. If the soul could smell, there was a whiff of spiritual decay in that place.
I made my way gingerly through the house, onto the porch, and out the door, replacing the key in its hiding spot. There seemed nothing else to see. The back yard was vacant of trees or shrubs or flower beds, a sagging chain-link fence the only ornament along a far border. The only other object in the back yard was a battered trash can next to the stairs where I stood. The thought then occurred to me that people throw away things they intend to conceal, assuming that when the item is in the trash it has then effectively disappeared. I looked around; no one looking out a neighbor's windows could see me here. I lifted the lid of the trash can and untied the bag on the top.
The first thing I found was a can of Resolve carpet cleaning spray. Under it was an empty bottle of bleach, some Pine Sol, a worn-down scrub brush, and many wet paper towels. Beneath that was another plastic grocery bag, tied closed. I worked the knot open and revealed the contents. Under more wet paper towels, stained brown and red, was a box and some plastic containers. The box read: Clairol. Natural Looking. Nice 'n' Easy. Light Warm Auburn.
I sat in my car for a good half-hour pondering all I'd seen. I suppose it wasn't a stretch to assume both Anita and Angela might use the same hair color. But for them both to have colored their hair within a week of each other? Perhaps. And the gem stone? And the shoes? And what about the tattoo? Had anything I'd seen today helped me uncover my conundrum concerning the tattoo?
As I drove back to my Bed and Breakfast I discovered I was exhausted. I didn't even want to eat dinner, so I knew I felt awful. I returned to my snug cottage, drank a little can of V-8 juice from the mini-frig for dinner, and fell into a dead sleep on the bed. I did not wake until 6:30 the next morning.
Copyrighted by M.K. Christiansen
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