Ice Pick in the Ivy Read online

  “Dinner is ready,” he called out. “Do you want to eat there or make your way to the kitchen?”

  “Kitchen please.” She grabbed the crutches Nan had gotten her from somewhere, and, no, she’d not asked where, and made her way to the kitchen. Doreen stopped and sniffed the aroma and cried out, “Spaghetti!”

  “Absolutely. Now sit down and get that leg up,” he ordered. “At least this way you’ll have enough leftovers until you’re cleared to walk again.”

  She beamed and immediately obeyed. Anything for spaghetti. “I really appreciate the leftovers.”

  He walked over, bearing a heaping plate of spaghetti and, oh joy, … meatballs as well. “Oh my,” she whispered softly, staring at the plate in rapture.

  “You know how they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach? Now I don’t know that for sure about all men, but it’s definitely the way to your heart.”

  She nodded but didn’t waste time talking. She forked up part of a meatball and some noodles dripping with sauce and took her first bite and closed her eyes.

  There was an odd silence. She opened her eyes to find him staring at her. That was a new look on his face, but the look in his gaze was universal.

  He dropped his focus to his own plate, breaking the moment.

  But it would be a long time before she forgot the heat in his eyes.

  Chapter 3

  Thursday Morning …

  Yes, finally freedom called. She woke up bright and early, knowing today was the day. She’d promised Nan and Mack she’d behave and stay off her ankle until today. And she didn’t know what her problem was, but she couldn’t break a promise once made.

  But today was Thursday, and she could walk on her ankle. She noted only a slight stiffness to the movement, but, other than that, it felt great. But she’d go easy. No running or long walks for a few days. She’d ease into those.

  She got dressed and went into the kitchen. She’d have to ask Mack to move her mattress back upstairs when he came by next. She fed her animals, which made them all very happy. With her first cup of coffee she stepped out onto the deck and walked to the water’s edge, absolutely loving the fresh air and the soothing sounds of the water, her trio glad to be outside as well. It was a beautiful sunny morning and an absolutely gorgeous day. She looked at how her little creek had turned more into a river here as it neared the lake itself, and the river was quite a bit higher than she had expected. Also a lot faster moving now.

  She studied the little bridge and frowned. Mack must have fixed it because the broken boards were gone. All of them it seemed. The bridge had brand-new flooring. She smiled. He must have done that this week, while taking care of her. She wondered how he managed that without making any noise. She’d have to ask him later. And thank him.

  She turned slowly and made her way carefully back to the café table on her veranda, testing her ankle. All good, she thought. Then she sat down, only to wince as something poked her hip. She reached inside her pocket to find the metal pieces Thaddeus had found before her tumble into the water.

  She’d forgotten about them. After Mack had helped get her home, she’d quickly changed out of her wet clothes and Mack had done laundry for her. She’d been living in dresses all week. Until this morning …

  At least the metal pieces were clean now.

  With her coffee gone, she walked back inside, refilled her mug, then came out and picked up her shovel. She’d missed her garden all week too. No one came to weed her beds. And she had Millicent’s to do tomorrow too, if she was up to it. Which she already planned to do. After weeding one bed, she checked the discharge from the sump pump hoses that lay stretched across her yard, but no water came from them. With that reassurance, she returned to her gardening. She studied the two little tags once more and then shoved them back into her pocket. Just as she went to pick up the shovel again, her phone rang. “Good morning, Nan.”

  “My, don’t you sound better,” Nan said. “Are you outside?”

  “I feel better too. And, yes, I’m out working in the garden.”

  “Well, that’s much safer than catching robbers and murderers,” Nan said. “How about tea?”

  “Sure. As much as I’m enjoying being outside, I’m always good for an excuse to leave the work and visit you.”

  Nan laughed. “I think you’re a workaholic. But why don’t you come down? One of the residents here dropped off a huge basket of veggies. I’d love to share.”

  “Perfect. I’ll walk down now. My ankle could use a short walk to loosen it up.”

  “I’ll put on the teakettle.”

  Nan hung up, and Doreen looked down at the two animals at her feet, with a side glance at Thaddeus, still on her shoulder. “What do you think? Shall we go for a walk to Nan’s?”

  She quickly locked up her house even as Mugs barked and raced back down to the creek, heading to the path that would take him around the corner. Goliath sauntered along beside her, as if to say, Well, I don’t have anything better to do. Thaddeus was happy for any chance to visit. “Visit Nan. Visit Nan.”

  Smiling, Doreen walked back down beside the creek, loving the way the water gushed beside her. The bank was still several feet above, even though the water overflowed the rocks. It was just beautiful. She looked back to where the old ratty fence had been at the creek side of her property, wondering again what it would take to put a bench there. She didn’t have any real lawn chairs or outdoor furniture, something to withstand the sun and the bad weather alike, but it would be nice to have something close to the creek, where she could sit and have her coffee. At least sit long enough to relax and to take a few moments off. Something was just so delightful about the sunlight bouncing off the water as it ran beside her.

  She walked along the creek, turned the corner, and headed toward Rosemoor. With Nan living there since she’d handed over her house to Doreen, Doreen came to visit on a regular basis. So much had happened in the couple months that she’d lived in Kelowna, BC. Not just all the cold cases she’d been involved with but also selling the antiques, emptying the house. Yet it would still be months and months before everything was sold, and the transactions completed, and she had a check in her hand from Christie’s.

  Before the auction house could sell it all, some of the furniture had to be refinished. Some of the paintings needed a heavy professional cleaning. Everything was getting spruced up and ready for photographs for the catalogs, but Scott had warned her it might take longer than the three months—at the earliest—that he’d originally thought. As long as she was doing okay, that three months was fine; four months was even fine.

  But, if it went too much longer, she wasn’t sure. So far though, everything had come up roses, and she was seriously happy with the way things had worked out. Her house was basically empty. She had reorganized the last few pieces of furniture left. She had an old bed to get rid of in the spare bedroom. Thinking of that, she brought out her phone and jotted down a note to contact Mack about a dump run. As she walked forward, Mugs barked. Huffing, he picked up his pace and ran, and she looked up to see Nan, standing at the edge of her little patio, waiting for her and the animals.

  Chapter 4

  Thursday, Just Before Noon …

  Doreen lifted her hand in greeting and smiled as she pocketed her phone again. Nan waved as she bent down to greet Mugs, who’d raced up to see her. Goliath sauntered closer, not quite as eager or open about his affection, and yet his love for Nan was still there for everyone to see. It did Doreen’s heart good to see how much the animals loved Nan. And Doreen thought it probably did Nan a lot of good too. Who was she kidding? These animals did Doreen a lot of good as well. Nothing like knowing you were loved. Not to mention the fact that Nan’s and Doreen’s relationship was unbelievably wonderful now too. They’d been separated a lot over the years, mostly as Doreen grew up with her mom and then throughout Doreen’s disaster of a marriage.

  She walked along the flagstones, stepping over the little lip to her grand
mother’s patio, before bending to give the beautiful woman a hug.

  “It’s so lovely to see you,” Nan said gently.

  “Lovely to see you too,” Doreen said with a smile.

  “How is the latest injury?”

  Doreen shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ve got a bruise still. In truth, I keep forgetting about it until I poke it somehow.”

  “Maybe, but you’ve got to make sure you look after yourself,” Nan scolded.

  “I will,” Doreen promised. She sat down at the little table as Nan gently fussed over Thaddeus, who had hopped off Doreen’s shoulder and walked across the table to greet Nan. He appeared fascinated by the treats awaiting the humans on the table.

  “You said vegetables,” Doreen said with a chuckle, as she eyed a plate of cookies. “And those cookies are monstrous.”

  “That way, when you only have one,” Nan said, “you’re actually getting something. You don’t need more than one.”

  “So you’re trying to trick your eyes. Is that the main idea?”

  “Maybe, but when you only get one cookie, and it’s small, it’s depressing.”

  “Making them the size of four cookies defeats the purpose because, for whatever reason you were told to only have one, this will hardly be the correct answer.”

  “Psshaw,” Nan said with a wave of her hand. “What do those dieticians know anyway?” She picked up a cookie and handed it to Doreen. “Now, you enjoy yours.”

  While Nan poured their tea, Doreen accepted the large cookie and stared at it in fascination. “How does it even stay in this shape?” she asked. “This thing’s got to be five inches across.”

  “If you can’t eat it all, you can take it home,” Nan said.

  “I thought we were splitting it.” Doreen raised her horrified gaze to Nan.

  “No,” Nan said with a smile. “I’ve got my own cookie.” She pointed just to the other side of the cut flowers—at another big cookie, just the same as Doreen’s.

  Doreen chuckled. “You are incorrigible,” she said in a lightly scolding voice.

  Nan grinned. “We’re conspirators in crime. And that’s the way it should be at my age—a cookie is a cookie.”

  “Well, not if it’s the equivalent of five cookies,” Doreen said, eyeing the monster in front of her. The trouble was, she was looking at it with absolute joy. “I really want this cookie, but I’m hoping halfway through that I’ll get full.”

  Nan laughed. “But you know what it’s like when you have a cookie. Once you start, you have to eat the whole thing.”

  “No, you already told me that I could take it home, if I couldn’t finish it,” Doreen said, “so that’s what I’ll do.”

  Nan chuckled. “We’ll see how you do.”

  At that, Thaddeus walked closer and lowered his head to her cookie. “I’m pretty darn sure you’re not allowed to have chocolate,” she said. But a piece of walnut stuck out one side. She gently broke it off and gave it to him.

  He attacked it with great pleasure.

  “This is a really bad habit,” she scolded Thaddeus.

  Thaddeus eyed her cookie as she lifted it to her lips. “That’s all you get,” she snapped. Thaddeus ruffled up the feathers around his neck and said, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”

  “Be good,” she said, “or you’ll go down on the patio with the others.”

  As a response, he squatted down, so he was basically sitting with his tail feathers dripping off the edge of the table. She laughed, looked over at Nan, and said, “We’ve created monsters between us.”

  Nan laughed. “And I love every one of them.” She added a little milk to both their teacups and said, “Have you recovered from that last case yet?”

  “I asked for three days of peace and quiet,” Doreen said with a chuckle. “And somehow, ended up with almost a week after falling off that dratted bridge. So yes, I’d say I’d recovered. In fact I felt so good this morning, I started digging in the backyard garden again.”

  “I wish you hadn’t,” Nan said. “You needed time to let that ankle heal.”

  “I would have stopped if there’d been any pain and there wasn’t. I think the ankle is fine now.” She dug into her pocket and brought out the two little metal plates and placed them on the table. “Besides I have a new puzzle. The day I fell, Thaddeus brought me these. I had them in my pocket but only found them after they went through the wash and I put these pants on today.”

  Nan picked them up and looked at them in surprise. “Oh my, I know somebody who did this.”

  “Did what?”

  “Those numbers are a date,” she said, “and that’s a name.”

  “What is that name? Kelowna something or other?” Doreen asked. “I figured it was a company.”

  “Well, it kind of is. But not really. He tried to make a go of repairing and sharpening tools and stuff like that. He had these little metal plates made up out of tin, and he stamped them with his mark and dates. Interesting that Thaddeus found them.” She raised her gaze. “Where did he find them?”

  “He brought one to me, so I don’t know where he got that one. Then he took me to a spot where the second one was. I presume it was close to the first one, on the opposite side of the creek, almost down to the lake.”

  “Interesting.” Nan replaced the two little metal plates in front of Doreen. “Something’s rattling around in my brain, but I can’t remember what it is.”

  Doreen nodded and kept working on her cookie and her tea. She had hoped seeing the pieces would nudge Nan’s brain to fire in the right direction, but sometimes Nan’s memory wasn’t so good. After a moment, Doreen asked, “How have you been this morning?”

  Nan smiled. “Like you, bored. All that excitement with your last cold case was awesome, but it’s time for you to get a new one.”

  Doreen groaned. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m pretty sure Mack figures I’ve caused him enough trouble.”

  “What you’ve done is solve multiple murders. And that needed to happen. Who knew we had so many criminals in this town?”

  “Who knew?” Doreen repeated with a nod. “You said I should come to quiet sleepy Kelowna and relax and retire in this peaceful town. And yet here I am in the middle of complete chaos.”

  Nan chuckled. “I’m not apologizing. I’m too delighted to have you close.”

  Doreen laughed. “Good, because really I might have been totally bored without all these cases. They’ve kept me … I would say, they’ve kept me out of trouble, but they’ve had the opposite effect instead. I’ve been in trouble with each one of them, but they have kept me busy.”

  “And you’ve had so much going on,” Nan said, “with the house alone.”

  Doreen laughed. “Scott said they have to fix a few of the furniture pieces, and the paintings needed to be professionally cleaned.”

  Nan nodded, as if she expected that. “They obviously want to show the furniture and the artwork in the best light. You won’t get the best price when they auction your things unless they are in such a pristine condition.”

  “I never considered that,” Doreen said, “but it does mean the money could be delayed.”

  “It’s always delayed,” Nan said, reaching across and patting the back of Doreen’s hand. “Whenever they say three months, just automatically double it.”

  Doreen groaned. “I was afraid of that.”

  “Are you okay for money?”

  Doreen shrugged. “I will be. I mean, I’ve been thinking of using some of the money I have to take care of repairs, like redoing the deck out back. But I don’t want to spend that money yet, if I don’t know when I have more coming in.”

  “Good point,” Nan said. “You should still have some money in that bowl, or did you take it to the bank?”

  “No, I didn’t get it to the bank yet. Some of it I should keep at the house. I still have the cash you gave me last time. I’ve done pretty well so far. I had a few groceries to buy, plus a few bills to be paid, and it felt goo
d to get them paid too.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Nan said. “You’d think some of the residents here would have helped you out as a thank-you.”

  “Most people don’t know if they should thank me or ask me to leave town again,” Doreen said candidly. “I’ve stirred up quite the hornet’s nest.”

  “Particularly with Darren.”

  “I know. Between his grandpa getting into his own mischief here at Rosemoor, so the administrator calls Darren directly, and being a local cop under Mack’s direction, I guess Darren gets twice the trouble when I solve a cold case. And that’s still an ongoing process.”

  “Maybe,” Nan said, “but I’m sure everybody will be much happier knowing all these murderers have been caught, and all these poor victims have come to light, so the families can get the truth of the matter, then can mourn and hopefully move on.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Doreen said, “because mourning the death of a loved one taken too early would be terrible.”

  “I hear you,” Nan said. “And losing someone is very difficult as it is, even when old age takes them. But the bottom line is, you’re doing a wonderful job, and all these people thank you.”

  “No, I’m not sure they do, and I certainly get an awful lot of odd looks as I move around town.”

  “Those odd looks,” Nan said, “could just as easily be because you’re walking around with all the animals.”

  “Well, that’s true enough,” Doreen said. “Particularly after this last case, I’ve completely changed my perception on being homeless.”

  “No,” Nan said. “Your perception was never off.”

  “Anyway”—Doreen thought about the fact that she was here now—“you know I wouldn’t change my life at this point, don’t you?” She gently grasped her grandmother’s hand. “I’m so delighted to finally have time to be with you.”

  Nan’s fingers squeezed hers tight. “And you brought joy to this old woman’s heart. The fact that you bring me immeasurable amounts of excitement and something else to think about other than growing old is just an added bonus.” The two women smiled at each other.