“You brought gloves?” I whispered.
“Of course, dear. This isn’t amateur hour.”
The total lack of self-awareness in that statement probably added an extra zero to my lifetime of future therapy bills.
I followed my dad to the next room. This was the bathroom, and a quick check didn’t turn up anything interesting—a beach bungalow-shaped nightlight, a tin plaque on the wall that said POOP DECK, the toothpaste spatter of someone who was none too particular about their aim. The little room was cramped, and we had to twist and turn to get around each other. It smelled likeartificial cherry thanks to the air freshener crystals in a plastic tub on the toilet tank, and we found absolutely nothing helpful.
The third door stood open too. A quick glance told me a woman was staying here, which meant Colleen. She had a single suitcase too—it was dingy and battered, with a big crack running across the front. The clothes in the bag looked casual and well worn. A couple of bras hung from the bedframe, and the smell of drying laundry suggested she’d washed them in the sink.
“Not exactly how you’d expect a wealthy widow to live, is it?” my dad asked.
“Maybe she’s frugal.”
My dad gave me a look that suggested: a) he knew I was arguing purely for the sake of being contrary; and b) he knew I knew he was right. I chose not to engage with that look, and instead, I said, “Do you have an extra pair of gloves?”
He did. My dad, like Talon Maverick, had a trace of Boy Scout in him—always prepared. Always. Even that time Talon Maverick disarmed a nuclear bomb with nothing but his trusty multi-tool. Inside the White House. At the bottom of the president’s hot tub. On the Fourth of July.
I did a quick rummage through the suitcase while my dad searched the closet (side note: I had to use the flashlight on my phone, since I’m not a professional burglar like my parents). I didn’t find anything interesting, so I moved over to the dresser. When I opened the top drawer, I stared.
Junk.
It was full of junk. Paper, for the most part. And most of it glossy. It all appeared to be theater-related stuff. Playbills. Flyers. Even a few photos. My mind jumped back to the mayor’s house, and the framed theater memorabilia that had been shattered on the floor. It only took me a moment to spot Colleen in the pictures. A few minutes of scanning the playbills helped me link her to another name—Joan Wilkinson.
Movement at my elbow startled me. And then I said, “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“That’s her, isn’t it?” my dad asked. “That’s Colleen.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think that’s why—”
“She murdered the mayor!”
I said a few choice things that had never made it into the Portland Community Theater production ofSpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical(starring Joan Wilkinson as Sandy Cheeks).
My dad didn’t even seem to hear me. “That’s why the house looked like it had been burgled,” he continued. “Colleen—aka Joan—must have realized the mayor, with her love of local theater, had recognized her. She went to confront her—perhaps to silence her. And then, when the deed was done, she removed any evidence from the mayor’s collection that might reveal her identity.”
It’s interesting when you can literally feel a stroke approaching. Somehow I managed a strangled “Yes. I know. I figured it—”
“Patty,” my dad stage-whispered as he hurried out of the room. “I figured it out!”
I said words. Choice words. I said them clearly and articulately, for the benefit of a crocheted pillowcase with a lighthouse design. And then I stomped—quietly—back toward where my parents were conferring.
“Take a look at this, Dashiell.” My mom indicated a black leather case that was now open on the bed.
It held tools that I’d associated with books and libraries—a bone folder, a set of awls, needle and thread. There was also—less common in the book repair industry—a small vial of a dark liquid and an old-fashioned fountain pen.
“That’s got to be—” I began.
“Iron-gall ink,” my mom said over me. “For the forgery!”
Have you ever lived your own personal nightmare? In slow motion? In a kitschy beach rental?
“InDon’t Forget the Milk,” my mom said—oblivious to my incipient breakdown—“there’s a forged will, and I remember when I was doing my research that it’s very important to get the materials right. That’s why he would have needed an ink that would pass a cursory inspection and at leastappeargenuine. The paper too, of course—forgers usually source that from other books, ideally from the same period.”
“Great job, sweetheart,” my dad said. “It’s all coming together.”
“Nothing’s coming together,” I snapped. “We already believed the book was a forgery. And we suspected one of them killed the mayor.”
My parents gave me identical looks that said: a) they didn’t like that tone; b) they knew I was being stubborn; and c) they expected a change in attitude, pronto.
