Philly Stakes by Gillian Roberts

Author:Gillian Roberts [Roberts, Gillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Untreed Reads Publishing
Published: 2012-02-04T13:00:00+00:00

Nine

“FOUND ALL KINDS OF STUFF,” MACKENZIE SAID, KICKING UP DUST.

“There’s a woman next door,” I said. “You’d better take a statement from her.”

“The witch?” he asked, still digging around. “Servino talked to her, and so did five other guys.”

“She said nobody did.”

“She calls every day. Maybe every hour. The precinct and headquarters. She is not an easily satisfied citizen.”

I was no longer amused by his ridiculous digging. “We’re looking for a list, not liquified ornaments,” I reminded him. “And I was thinking—Sasha took pictures that night. Even if we can’t find the list, maybe some of the people in her photos could be identified. What do you think?”

“Worth asking her. Why haven’t you?”

“Because she’s out of town.”

He looked at me as if he knew she was somewhere she shouldn’t be, doing things she shouldn’t be doing, with someone she shouldn’t be with. I was tired of his attitude toward her. “I’ll leave a message tonight,” I said. “Now—enough fun and games in the dirt. Clausen had a study somewhere. He went to get something from it when I was here for a meeting. It seems a more logical place to look.”

He shrugged and sighed. He was having fun and I was spoiling it. “They aren’t all ruined. Some are real interestin’. Look over there where I put them.”

The needlepoint cover on the piano bench had become history, but its frame made a nice nest for Mackenzie’s treasures. “I know what your pockets must have been like when you were a little boy,” I said, lifting shapeless lumps and bumps of metals, precious and otherwise. The golden ornaments had been paint. I should have realized that all along, but the house had overwhelmed common sense. Now the Mackenzie collection featured hardened puddles of tin and lead.

“Mackenzie, this is silly. Clausen’s study or his night table would be better hunting grounds.”

“You have no patience,” he mumbled.

“It’s junk. Who wants melted drummer boys? And if anybody does, let them pick through themselves.”

“What about this?” he asked.

I shrugged. It was a crystal, with its wire hanger burned away, but who cared? Who cared about any of it—a gray snowflake of something like iron? A colorless lump that might have been anything? An oversized duck head?

Is there such a thing as a double think, as in a doubletake?

“Mackenzie?”

“You’re right.” He wiped his filthy hands on his jeans. “Time to move on. That was fun, though.”

“About this duck.”

“Must have sentimental meaning. Kind of funny looking. Heavy, too, for an ornament.”

“It’s not an ornament. Not for a tree, anyway.” I turned it over. The base of the head, the duck’s neck, was hollow.

Mackenzie shook his head. “Body’s missing?”

“Not a duck body. Something long and round that burned.”

“Like a cane,” he said softly.

“Exactly like a cane.” I could see him, the ghost, tapping Alexander Clausen on the shoulder. He had held the cane up high and used the head of it—I remembered a flash of silvery metal, maybe even a beak.

“Maybe it was ornamental,” Mackenzie said.

“It wasn’t. He could stand without it, but not walk.

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