Baylin House (Cassandra Crowley Mystery) Read online

  Bea Morgan answered the door. There were deep stress lines around her eyes and she looked tired; Cassie hoped all the excitement last evening hadn’t given Rosalie a restless night.

  “I know I’m early,” she apologized. “I could wait out here on the porch if that’s a problem?”

  “No, no, you’re fine, Miss Cassandra. Miss Rosalie’s been up and working for a couple hours already. Come right in, she’ll be glad to see you.”

  “Did Dorothy let you know she was leaving?”

  “Oh, yes, she and Miss Rosalie have spoken on the phone several times this morning.”

  Cassie followed Bea through the archway into the kitchen; really wanting to ask if Bea had seen the news report last night, maybe even recognized the Detectives. But she wouldn’t bring it up while they were in Rosalie’s hearing distance.

  “Good morning, Cassie,” Rosalie called happily when Cassie came into the kitchen behind Bea.

  Rosalie looked wonderful in a pale pink shirt that made her complexion glow. Her full red hair gathered neatly into a clip at the base of her neck, with just a few of those wispy curls that insisted on springing around her face. On the table in front of her was an old manual typewriter with a sheet of paper half covered in black print. Two more pages, completely covered in her single space typed lines, lay on one side, an opened package of fresh typing paper next to it.

  “Good morning,” Cassie replied, feeling rather dumbstruck to blend this bright-eyed alert woman, already so involved in her work, with a first impression of Rosalie Baylin last night that she was on a fast downward spiral on her deathbed.

  “Sit there on the end next to Miss Rosalie,” Bea suggested. “You’ll need that electric plug for your computer won’t you?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Cassie glanced down to locate the outlet, and worked her way between the table and the wall.

  “Did you have breakfast?” Rosalie asked. “Bea has more sliced peaches if you’d like some?”

  “Oh, no, thanks, I ate at the hotel,” Cassie mumbled. She was still struggling to absorb the difference in Rosalie’s appearance between last night and this morning.

  She slid the laptop and everything else out of the satchel, and concentrated on setting up. Then she came face-to-face with the sticky note left on the keyboard: Need R’s childhood detail.

  Uh-huh. For now she just moved the note out of the way.

  Bea turned to the sink full of dishes.

  “Did you sleep well last night Cassie?” Rosalie asked when their eyes connected. “Dorothy said she didn’t sleep at all. I hope she didn’t keep you up, too?”

  Cassie shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything from Mrs. Kennelly until I got out of the shower this morning and found a message waiting.”

  Bea chuckled low in her throat. Rosalie glanced at her with a warning frown. Then she began a steady clack-clack-clack-clack on the manual’s keyboard.

  A few minutes later Bea draped a dishtowel over the rack of dishes drying on the drain board, and left the room. Then there was no sound but the keys of Rosalie’s typewriter.

  A full hour passed; Cassie was making slow headway, retyping the early pages into more coherent text in the computer file. It was too soon to approach the list of questions. And Cassie really didn’t want to break whatever concentration Rosalie had in her control.

  After another hour, Cassie needed a short break -- her neck had kinked and a spot above her shoulder blade felt like someone was pressing a hot poker against her.

  “Rosalie, I need to stretch a bit and to use a restroom if you’ll tell me where to find it?”

  “Under the back stairs,” Rosalie said without looking up.

  Cassie squeezed out from behind the table and went to the back hallway. Bea Morgan was coming out of the laundry room with a load of folded towels.

  “Bea, have you heard any more about what the police wanted with Brady Irwin?” Cassie kept her voice low and followed Bea into the bathroom where she put the towels in a storage cabinet.

  “No,” Bea whispered, shaking her head. “And please, please, don’t say anything to Miss Rosalie about that business.”

  “No, of course not, but you said you speak to the men by phone every morning. Didn’t he tell you anything when you called him?”

  Bea peered down the hall toward the kitchen. When she was comfortable they could not be overheard, she whispered, “Brady just said they talked to him. That’s all.” Then she left to go back to the laundry.

  Cassie used the bathroom, did a few squats and shoulder rolls to loosen up, and rejoined Rosalie in the kitchen. A fourth page lay on the new finished stack now. Whatever Rosalie was working on this morning was clearly an emotional subject. The intensity of her keystrokes said it was important.

  Cassie was reaching for the new pages when the doorbell rang. She flinched, but there was no change in Rosalie’s clack-clack-clack rhythm.

  Bea moved past the archway toward the front door. A few moments later she came into the kitchen and laid a business card on the table. Rosalie glanced at it. She took a resigning deep breath, letting it out with a slow shake of her head as she slid the card toward Cassie. “We’ve been getting a couple of these a week lately,” she said. “The word is out and the alligators are circling.”

  Cassie picked up the card and read – Burch Realty, Cordell County Specialists in Commercial Properties.

  “The word is out?”

  “My health problem, and our Business License,” Rosalie said in a tone indicating she considered both as mere nuisances. “The license is on hold again over some kind of status that has to be cleared, a couple new complaints about one thing or another --Harvey has been trying to take care of it.”

  Cassie swallowed and kept her expression neutral. Rosalie might think it was just a nuisance, but a Business License problem was bad news to Cassie. “What kind of complaint can anybody make that holds up the license renewal?”

  Rosalie gave a cynical laugh. “When people are small minded, they make up anything to cause trouble for others. Last year a neighbor filed complaint with the Health Department that our septic tank wasn’t properly maintained. She claimed we had raw sewage floating into her yard.”

  “Yuk!” Cassie shuddered.

  Rosalie grinned. “It was false. We’d had a hard rain that week, and the tank was full, but it wasn’t leaking. There was nothing in the neighbor’s yard, either. The Health Inspector was aggravated that he even had to come out to look for it. He knew it wasn’t our fault.”

  “But he held up the license anyway?”

  “Not at all. He signed off the day he came out here, but it took a whole month to get all the paperwork straight. Our license renewal was held up until it was all cleared. That’s the way it works down here.”

  And probably everywhere else, Cassie thought to herself.

  “Harvey’s already fixed everything he can,” Rosalie quipped. “They’ve been out to inspect and sign off, but apparently there’s one more for some stupid new code that went into effect this year.”

  Rosalie shook her head and went back to typing; clack-clack-clack-clack-clack.

  The reference to code lingered on Cassie’s mind. New code requirements can have astronomical costs if an older building can’t be grandfathered exempt. About the only time that happens is when the code has something to do with safety.

  Cassie thought about the size of the fund set aside to produce Rosalie’s autobiography – at least twenty-thousand just to pay Cassie’s travel and per diem expenses. Plus the salary, and who knew how much to physically produce the books themselves, and advertising – wouldn’t all that have been enough to hire a contractor for the needed repairs? It should have been enough to tear the place down and rebuild it from scratch!

  But Cassie already knew saving Baylin House wasn’t important to Dorothy Kennelly. She was interested only in some big secret.

  Around ten-thirty Bea returned to the kitchen. She slid a big soup pot from the refrigerator to the stove
and quietly peeled and sliced a bowl of vegetables at the sink and added them to the pot. Rosalie continued typing clack-clack-clack-clack.

  No one spoke or even paid attention when they heard a rattling car in the driveway moving past the kitchen window.

  Chapter Eight

  The back door off the service porch opened and slammed, and then the inside door opened. Harvey made eye contact with Bea. After a short nod, they went upstairs together. Minutes later Bea returned and resumed her attack on the pile of vegetables at the sink.

  Harvey came through the kitchen wearing mechanic’s coveralls, and went straight out the service porch door without a look or a word to anyone. Rosalie stayed focused on her typewriter, apparently finding nothing unusual in any of it.

  Cassie picked up the pile of new finished pages. Rosalie hadn’t numbered them, so Cassie put small digits in the upper corner starting with 94, glancing through each page of text as she slid it under the back of her working set. By pages 99 and 100 Rosalie’s sentences were run together. On page 101 her first three sentences ran half the page with no break and no punctuation. Cassie read it twice without success; her brain refused to make sense of it. She tucked it in the back and returned to the earlier pages she had already figured out.

  Before noon Bea’s pot of chicken and vegetables on the stove had filled the kitchen with a wonderful aroma that made it even harder to concentrate. Cassie was about to ask if they should take a break when she heard male voices outside the kitchen window. Harvey’s voice she recognized. The other man she did not.

  Rosalie glanced up listening to them. She tilted her head and sighed, smiling. But as she listened, her smile became a sad and painful smile, an expression that reminded Cassie of the way her grandmother smiled when she told Cassie that Muggs had died. Muggs was a mixed breed dog about the size of a beagle. He was Aunt Winefred’s dog before Cassie was born, and still lived with Grandma Crowley when Cassie was old enough to think of him as her own. He died when Cassie was nine, and when Grandma Crowley had to tell her he was gone, she had that same tender sad smile. “Death is a fact of life, Cassie,” Noreen Crowley told the child truthfully. But her sad smile said she wanted it to not hurt so badly.

  That was the way Rosalie looked at the door when it opened.

  A man about Rosalie’s age, seventy-something, stood in the doorway. He glanced at Bea tending the stove, then at Rosalie who was leaning back from her typewriter, smiling expectantly at him. He was handsome; tall and straight, thin but not gaunt, dressed in summer weight khaki shirt and trousers. His hair was thick and stark white, combed neatly. Nice face with chiseled features, nice eyes when they finally rested on Cassie for a thoughtful heartbeat.

  Instinctively she smiled hello.

  But he didn’t return the smile to Cassie. His gaze went straight back to Rosalie. They could have been telepaths having a whole conversation the way their eyes stayed locked on each other. Rosalie continued to smile, and tipped her head slightly. He nodded once, and then he backed into the service porch and returned outside.

  When he was gone Rosalie closed her eyes and took what sounded like a ragged breath.

  Cassie noticed how intently Bea was watching her.

  “Who was that?” Cassie asked.

  “That’s Emmet Pine,” Rosalie said as she opened her eyes. “I invited him to come and have lunch with us. He’s very shy and probably won’t talk much today, but I’d like him to get to know you.”

  Emmet Pine! Cassie had just read that name – he was one of Rosalie’s charges sent from Oakwood.

  “Oh . . . Okay.” Cassie wasn’t sure why Rosalie wanted this Emmet guy to know her. She would have preferred not to be personally familiar with any of the men she was reading about; especially not while the police suspected one of them in a homicide case.

  Rosalie began typing again. Bea slid a pan of rolls into the oven, and almost immediately, the aroma of baking bread mingled with the already scrumptious smell of chicken soup. Cassie’s stomach felt like it was twisting around inside itself. Her jaws ached and her mouth watered like Pavlov’s Dog.

  Finally Rosalie pulled one last page from the typewriter and sniffed the air. “It smells like time to put our work away, doesn’t it?”

  God did it ever!

  “Would you tell Harvey I’m ready to wash up for lunch?” Rosalie said to Bea, who was filling small bowls with fresh cut fruit from the refrigerator. To Cassie she said, “You can use the hall bathroom again, they’ll take me to the one in my bedroom.”

  Bea went outside through the service porch door, and returned a moment later with Harvey and Emmet. Harvey hung his mechanic’s coveralls on a hook in the service porch before he came into the kitchen.

  Emmet carried in two folding chairs. He stood aside while Harvey gently helped Rosalie to her feet and slid his arm around her waist. She snaked her own arm around Harvey’s waist, and together they moved a few cautious steps out of the way. Emmet added the chairs to empty spaces at the table, positioning one next to Rosalie’s chair, and the other on the end of the big table, opposite from Cassie.

  As Harvey and Rosalie moved across the big kitchen Cassie could see Rosalie was walking, but only one leg made the stride of a full step. The other leg moved just slightly before Harvey tugged on her waist to swing the other side of her body forward. A couple more steps and their heartbreaking three-legged dance took them around the corner of the archway into the living room.

  Rosalie didn’t appear to be in pain; Cassie was grateful for that.

  Without a word, Emmet placed the old manual typewriter on the floor in the corner. Then he disappeared through the archway in the same direction Harvey had taken Rosalie.

  “He’ll use the upstairs bathroom, Miss Cassandra. You go ahead and wash up now,” Bea said.

  Cassie saved her files and closed the laptop, gathered the typed pages, and slid everything into the satchel. Then she leaned it in the corner next to the typewriter and squeezed from behind the table.

  She passed Emmet in the living room on her way to the hall bath; he glanced at her and nodded politely. She did the same, and let it go at that.

  When everyone was seated, Emmet was in the folding chair next to Rosalie, Harvey on the end, and Bea across from Rosalie. Cassie sat alone at her end of the big table; not exactly excluded from the group, but not much a part of it either.

  Rosalie made the formal introduction, explaining – or maybe she was reminding him, because Emmet didn’t seem surprised by any of it – that Cassie was here for a short while to help with the book that Miss Dorothy says will earn money to help Baylin House.

  Emmet gave Cassie the same polite glance and nod as they’d exchanged in the living room. And that was that.

  Harvey and Rosalie talked about a new crop of vegetables they should plant before fall. Bea added her suggestions, and it sounded like the garden had doubled in size in the year since she came to work here, and that it provided a considerable amount of their fresh grocery supply. They all expected another harvest before the winter storm season; it was just a matter of what would grow best this late in the summer and be ready to pick before everything rotted from too much rain.

  Cassie paid attention even though most of the conversation was over her head. No one in Cassie’s family ever grew anything. She had lived all her life in the Las Vegas desert; groceries come from the grocery store, not from the back yard.

  Harvey described some work he was doing to the car to keep it running longer.

  “I should put a note in my next request to Margaret that we need a newer car,” Rosalie said.

  “We need a new washing machine more than a different car if she can find any money to spend,” Harvey reminded. “I can fix the car we’ve got. A different car would have problems I don’t know about.”

  Rosalie pursed her lips, processing his suggestion. “Well, if you think that’s best,” she acknowledged. “We do need a new washing machine too.”

  “Who is Margaret?” Cassie as
ked.

  Harvey grunted his disgust and kept his head down.

  Rosalie waved a hand, minimizing his objection. “Margaret is the finance manager who keeps track of money in and out of the Baylin House charity account.”

  Harvey growled, “She’s an airhead who can’t find--”

  “Harvey . . .” Rosalie warned.

  Cassie understood how he intended to finish that sentence, but she didn’t give it a lot of value. It would probably curl her hair to hear what he thought of her after showing up with Dorothy last night.

  “How did Margaret get the job?” Cassie wanted to know.

  “Well, it was sort of inherited since her mother-in-law took care of it first. I met Edith Goodman in 1968 when I went to the Petroleum Club Ladies Auxiliary to apply for assistance.”

  “Edith Goodman I recognize,” Cassie said. “You wrote about her in those first pages you gave me. She did some major fundraising to help.”

  “Yes, she did. And she was a good friend, too. Her little committee kept us operating above expectation for a good number of years. Even for a while after her husband passed away, but eventually it became too much for her.”

  “That must have been hard,” Cassie offered, wanting to sound sympathetic without changing the subject. “So then Margaret took the job . . . ?

  “In a way, yes, I guess that’s when it was official. Margaret and Cory were here for Mr. Goodman’s funeral, but they stayed only for the day, flew in that morning, and I think flew back to the east coast that same night. They didn’t actually move here until the next year when Edith fell ill and needed someone to help with the house and everything.”

  Harvey grunted.

  Rosalie threw him a warning look. “Margaret was Edith’s helper in the Auxiliary while Edith was still alive. When Edith passed, I’m sure the membership thought Margaret was the most logical person to continue. No one else wanted it. But it’s been a hard transition for us with Edith gone. Margaret just doesn’t have the fundraising skills that Edith had.”