Cynthia Thomason - Your House or Mine?

Wade waved toward the back door where his dad was silhouetted against the kitchen lights. “Will do, Pop.” He set the plate on the floor of his patrol car, backed out of the drive and headed toward Ashford House. His dad was ornery, but he was also right.

MEG LOOKED DOWN at the mess she’d created in the middle of the parlor and released a long groan of frustration. She’d opened every drawer in every end table, desk, and cabinet and pulled out a mountain of paperwork chronicling her aunt’s life. She’d scrutinized each scrap and found receipts dating back to the 1940s, warranties from companies that had long since gone out of business, and phone numbers that consisted of only four numbers on note paper that had yellowed with age. But she hadn’t found the deed prepared just four years ago.

She stepped carefully among the debris of her aunt’s past, hoping that maybe this time she’d see the legal document she’d missed on first inspection. “There has to be a copy here somewhere.”

Disappointed, she sat heavily in a frayed old wing chair and grimaced at the chaos of paper that marked a fitting end to a demoralizing day. Besides the fruitless result of her investigation, she’d discovered after a brief tour through the rooms, that Ashford House was in need of numerous repairs. The wainscoting was rotted and mildewed. The wallpaper was dry and peeling. And the windows—Meg decided that nothing short of a miracle kept the cracked and scratched panes in the frames.

At least the frantic search for the deed during the last two hours had kept her from reflecting on the fragile state of the home’s security and the fact that she was completely alone in the rambling old house. She tried to push the creaks and moans of the ancient framework to a far corner of her mind, but realized that the eerie sounds would probably translate to a sleepless night.

“Damn. Where is that deed?” she said, “and why didn’t I request a final copy for my own records when it was prepared?” She had a copy of the original document somewhere in her house in Orlando, but it was an unsigned facsimile Amelia had sent to her so she could check the wording for accuracy. Without Amelia’s signature, it was worthless.

In spite of the run-down state of Ashford House, Meg wanted it now more than ever. This place was like a member of her family, one she could count on when others had disappointed her. She couldn’t give up on it or toss it aside just because its hair had turned gray or its old bones were brittle.

She stood up and went to a front window. Beyond the limited sphere of the porch light, the yard and surrounding acreage were fading into the bleakness of a moonless night. The trees already seemed like ghostly specters in the descending darkness. Meg told herself that in time Ashford House would feel like home again.

She started to turn away from the window when she noticed headlights twinkling through the shrubbery lining the driveway. Someone was approaching the house. Moments later, the Mount Esther patrol car pulled in front of the house and Wade Murdock got out. He had a plate in his hand.

Meg’s stomach tightened into a knot as she stared at the litter on the parlor floor. She’d become so involved in the search for the deed that she’d forgotten the deputy had promised to bring her supper. She certainly couldn’t let him see that she’d been rummaging through the house like the desperate woman she was. Absolutely not. She had to show that she had the same strength of conviction as he did. She raced to the front entrance as he rapped lightly. Opening the door just a crack, she said, “Oh, hi.”

He held the plate out to her. “I told you I’d bring some spaghetti.”

She nodded, took the plate, and set it on a foyer table. “Yes, yes, you did.”

“You might want to nuke it a little in the microwave. I think Mrs. Ashford has one.”

“Oh, she has one, all right. The control pad looks like the instrument panel of a 747.”

“I guess that’s one of the things she bought in the last few weeks,” Wade said.

“No doubt. Well, thanks for the spaghetti. I’ll give you the plate back tomorrow.” She started to close the door.

“You’re welcome,” Wade said. Instead of leaving, he raised up on his toes and peered over her shoulder.

“Is something wrong?” Meg asked.

“No. I was just wondering if you’d gone through any of the boxes.”

Meg maintained a narrow opening in the doorway. “Not yet, but I’ve seen evidence of Aunt Amelia’s shopping all over the house. She’s decorated one of the bedrooms upstairs in a jungle motif complete with a fake fur Zebra-striped comforter on the mattress. Somehow it doesn’t seem like her taste, but I suppose there’s a lot about my aunt that I don’t know anymore.”

As if determined to chat, Wade leaned against the jamb preventing Meg from shutting the door. “I suppose you’ve noticed that the house needs a little fixing up,” he said.

Wade Murdock was an expert at understatement.

“I promised to do some of that work for Mrs. Ashford,” he continued. “But lately I’ve been concentrating my efforts on the barn. It needs a lot of attention, too.”

“I haven’t been inside the barn,” Meg admitted. She shifted from one foot to the other. Did Wade intend to chat half the night away? If he did, Meg wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She definitely didn’t want him to see the clutter in the parlor, but it was kind of nice having a lawman on the property to offset some of her fears. Still, Meg couldn’t forget that she and this particular lawman had a huge, three-story Queen Anne obstacle sitting between them.

After a few moments of silence, Wade finally said, “I guess I’ll be going then.”

“Okay. Thanks again.”

He stepped down from the veranda and walked away. Meg was about to close the door at last, but suddenly the subtle creaks of Ashford House were snuffed out by a tremendous crash originating somewhere in an upstairs room.

Meg flung the door wide, ran onto the porch, and screamed, “Deputy Murdock!”

He was already tearing back to the house. He rushed by Meg and burst through the open door. “Stay here,” he ordered as he took the stairs two at a time.

Meg watched him until he disappeared upstairs. Then, her heart pounding, she clutched her arms under her breasts and tried to obey the deputy’s instructions. It was no use. She chose the more appealing protection of Wade’s presence over the blackness of the landscape around the house. She darted inside and followed him up the stairs.

He snapped his attention to her while his back was flattened against the wall outside the bedroom where Meg had slept as a child and where she’d put her suitcase earlier. The room still had a comfortable, cozy appearance, but that was before Wade stood outside the threshold with a weapon in his hand.

Wade waved her back with the barrel of his pistol. She interpreted the look he gave her to mean he wasn’t pleased that she’d ignored his orders. Her breath coming in short gasps, she crouched down in the door frame of an adjoining room and watched as Wade slowly slid along the wall toward the open door. Oddly, a beam of light sliced across the threshold and into the hallway.

Pivoting with one giant step into the open doorway, Wade pointed his weapon with two hands and announced his presence. “Police,” he said with a resounding and authoritative tone. And then he dropped the weapon to his side and expelled a long breath.

Meg scurried up behind him and tried to see over his shoulder. “What is it?”

“The lamp fell from the nightstand,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s shattered.”

That explained the strange spear of light. “It must have been the wind,” Meg said, remembering that she’d opened the window a few hours ago.

Wade secured his weapon in his holster as he moved into the room. “Maybe. But unfortunately the lamp isn’t the only casualty.”

Meg understood what he meant as she followed him inside. She covered her mouth with her hand and whispered, “Oh, no.”

Wade scooped up a lifeless bird from the floor. And then he poked his fist through the corner of the window screen revealing how the bird had gotten inside.

“The poor thing,” Meg said. “I didn’t notice that tear earlier when I opened the window.”

Wade looked around the room and then down at the bird. “Just as I thought,” he said. “This is definitely the work of Mr. Cuddles.”

Meg gaped at him. “The bird has…had…a name?”

“Not the bird. The cat.”

“Cat? What cat?”

Wade pointed over Meg’s bed to the floor on the other side of the room. There, peering up at both of them with piercing golden eyes was a long-haired champagne-colored feline, whose insolent expression clearly indicated that he was not happy about two humans invading his space.

“My aunt never had a cat,” Meg said.

“She does now. I forgot to tell you. She bought Mr. Cuddles from a private breeder over in Lake City a few weeks ago.”

Meg closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Don’t tell me…with your money?”

“I suppose so. He’s a purebred Persian. Anyway, either the maid or I have been feeding Cuddles since Mrs. Ashford’s accident, but with all the commotion earlier, I forgot, so the ingenious fellow went into the trees to do a little grocery shopping.” He regarded the casualty of Mr. Cuddles’s appetite still in his hand. “This poor bird was intended as supper. I guess Cuddles misjudged his entrance into the bedroom and knocked the lamp over which in turn scared the sparrow right out of his jaws.”

Meg had never been a cat lover and was even less so now that she realized she would have Killer Cuddles to take care of until arrangements could be made for his adoption. Her sympathy definitely lay with the poor mangled sparrow. She glared at the cat. “I hope you’ll eat spaghetti, Cuddles, because you’re not getting so much as one bite of this poor bird.”

She caught Wade’s smile out of the corner of her eye. He folded his long fingers over the bird and headed for the door. “I’ll show you where the cat food is,” he said, “and then I’ll do something with the victim.”

“Thanks.” Meg started to follow him out the door but Cuddles strutted in front of her, his head high and the end of his tail twitching with an arrogant indifference to her presence. She trailed the cat down the rear staircase and into the kitchen.

Meg didn’t know what Wade would do with the dead bird once he went out the back door. But she was glad she had the job of feeding Mr. Cuddles to occupy her mind. The cat attacked his bowl of food with relish, including the special cat treats she spread on the floor next to his bowl. If she had to endure days in the house with only this sullen cat for company, she was determined to do her best to make friends with him.

After a few minutes Wade returned. He pulled out a chair for Meg and said, “Now you. Sit. I’ll go get the spaghetti.”

He came back with the plate, set it in the microwave, and deftly pressed a few buttons on the control pad. When he set the food in front of her, Meg realized her mouth was watering. She twirled a few strands around her fork and took a healthy bite. “This is good.”

“I’ll tell Pop you said so.” Wade stood watching her for a few moments as if he was uncertain if he should stay or go. Finally he opened a drawer, withdrew some masking tape and said, “I’ll fix that screen upstairs tomorrow. For tonight you might want to patch up the hole with this.”

She took the roll of tape. “Okay, thanks. But, under the circumstances, if you don’t want to fix the screen, I’ll understand.”