Short Fuse
© 1992/2016 by K Pelle
Chapter 20
Dick Fairchild sighed. "I hope there's something in here that you folks can see that I've missed, perhaps something that ties this burglary in with the rest of the things that have been happening to you over the past few days."
When we walked inside, I had to stop for a moment. The house smelled all wrong and I could see Shannon's nose wrinkle as well. The place still reeked of smoke, but that was complicated by smells of fresh paint, glue, and a lot of other strong odours. It shouldn't have been a surprise, and yet it was.
"I'm sorry Shannon, but I'm not going to be able to stay in here. If I do, I'll get sick to my stomach. Besides, I can't help anyway," Cindy said quickly, then she headed for the door, with Arlene only a step or two behind her.
"Dick, what do you want us to look at?" I said shortly. "But, let's make this as fast if we can, okay? This stench can't be healthy for anyone."
"Well, the only rooms that didn't have smoke damage and that weren't cleared of furniture and your belongings are the bedrooms and the bathroom. I suppose they were all closed off tightly at the time of the fire and I understand that the cleanup crew had them completely taped off before the break-in happened. The stench shouldn't be so bad in them even now though, since we closed them off after we did a quick investigation last night," he led the way to Shannon's room.
"Just remember, don't handle anything that will take fingerprints, because we still need to get the print experts in here," he said as he opened the door.
Both Shannon and I stopped and stared at the mess, while Dick tried to follow us inside, in order to be able to close the door.
"Move on please, I want to keep the smell out as much as I can," he said and he had to press on my shoulder to get me to step forward.
There was some odour in the room, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the hallway had been. However, it wasn't the smell that had cause me to stop in surprise, instead it was the mess that had astonished me. Shannon is very tidy, so normally her room is neat as a pin, but right then the room seemed to have been hit by a cyclone. It looked as if each drawer and every container in the room had been emptied, then all the contents had been kicked around the floor to make as much of a mess as possible.
Both Shannon and I instantly looked up at the shelves that were mounted high on the wall above the headboard of her bed and at the rows of Barbie dolls all standing in their boxes on those shelves. It was surprising, but it didn't look as if any of those had even been touched.
"Well, it looks like they missed the Barbie dolls on the higher shelves," I said quietly.
"We noticed that, but then we saw that they were all in sealed boxes with the plastic coverings still on them," Dick said quietly. "We suspect they were looking for something that was hidden recently and probably hurriedly, so they might not have even noticed those."
Shannon nodded, then walked over to her dresser and looked at the display case she'd talked to Dick about last night.
"Well, the Barbies in the display case all look okay and the plastic faceplate is still undisturbed," she turned to us with a small smile. "But it looks like someone really wanted to mess with everything that was in my drawers and the storage containers that I kept under my bed."
That was an understatement. Every drawer or container in the room had been opened and dumped out, so most of her things were scattered around on the floor. Even the bed looked as if it had been crudely made.
"Daddy, I didn't leave my bed as messy as that," she said sharply when she noticed where I was looking.
With a frown, she stepped close to the bed and grabbed the cover to flip it straight, then jumped back with a squawk as feathers and stuffing seemed to explode out toward her face.
"Don't touch that any more," Dick barked. "I'll open it slowly so we can look at the damage if you want."
I thought it was totally strange for a man to put on surgical gloves to handle bed coverings, then I realized that he wasn't handling this like it was an ordinary burglary either. But then, what did I know about investigating burglaries – perhaps he thought there might be finger prints or other evidence on those sheets and bed covers? There was something about this that seemed completely strange to me though. Why would he go to this extent to investigate a burglary when nothing of any major importance to Shannon seemed to have been stolen and why would the burglars make such a mess during their search for whatever they wanted?
As he pulled back the sheet and blankets, we could see that the mattress and even the pillows had been slashed, torn and ripped wide open. Whoever had done it must have thought there was something hidden there that they could find easily with a knife and a quick inspection. Shannon moved over and pressed against me.
"Daddy, this is creepy!"
"Well, whoever did it must have thought that someone had hidden something in your bed," I offered the only idea I could think of as I wrapped an arm around her shoulders as a reassuring gesture.
"Inside it?" she squeaked, her voice almost childlike. "You mean inside my mattress? Why in the world would anyone do that?"
"Okay, I'm going to get a crime scene team out here," Dick said shortly. "Let's have a look in that spare bedroom, then perhaps we'll have time to go to the other house too?"
"I don't see why not," I said quietly. "Can Shannon go outside now, or do we need her any longer?"
"No, I think your help is all I need for the rest of the house and thanks for your help, Shannon."
"You're welcome, and thanks for letting me get out of the stink and this mess so soon," Shannon said shortly, then ran out of the room, then out the front door, slamming it closed behind her.
"I wish she hadn't found her bed like that," Dick shook his head. "That's not good, because it would scare most people."
"Well, thanks for letting her leave right away," I said with feeling. "It did upset her, but I'm betting it angered her more than anything. That was an almost new mattress and she liked it a lot, but now it's ruined."
"I hope you're right, anger is a lot easier to handle than fear is," he said shortly. "Before we leave this room, where did she keep that jewel box you mentioned her having?"
"Oh, on her dressing table, over there," I pointed. "That table lamp sat on top of it. In fact, you can just make out the shape of the box in the dust that . . ."
"Don't touch that lamp!" Dick said shortly as I took one step toward the dressing table. "I thought I told you; don't touch anything. There might be finger prints there and besides that we can get a close estimation of the size of the box from the dust pattern that was left behind."
"But I described it to you," I protested.
"It's better if we get a size estimation ourselves and compare it to your description," he sighed softly. "Let's close the door to this room, then go look at the master bedroom next."
"Well, if they chopped up the mattress on the beds in there, it wouldn't be a great loss," I said in a smart aleck tone as we walked down the hall. "I had planned on replacing the two small beds that Claire insisted we buy a few months ago anyway. I want to replace those with one larger bed so I can stretch out at night."
"I don't think they did anything in here," Dick said at the door as he used a blade of his pocket knife to cut the tape sealing the door. "We checked this seal last night, then didn't even bother opening it because it was still sealed."
"Oh hell. The door's even locked," he said as he rattled the knob. "Do you have a key?"
"Oh, that lock? A long thin screw driver or just about anything long and thin will open it. The lock opens by just pushing a release with any long object that fits inside the hole in the door knob,"
"Oh, one of those in-house locks," he nodded, unfolding a long thin blade on his knife.
In seconds he was opening the door, then he reached out an arm to stop me from entering the room. Instead we both stood at the open door and stared inside. Both beds had been destroyed, the mattresses were torn wide open, even the fabric of the box springs had been slashed, the pillows were ripped, and there was stuffing all over the floor. The two dressers had all the drawers pulled open and dumped, even the closet door was ajar and all the clothing was lying on the floor.
"But the door was still locked and sealed tight," Dick whispered in disbelief.
"Well, they couldn't come in that window. It only opens about four inches at it's widest," I glanced at the tape that had sealed the door. "Look at that, there are two layers of tape. I suppose they broke in, tore the room apart, then sealed it up and relocked the door after they were done. Either the security people or the men doing the house repair must have left a roll of security tape behind."
"Considering the mess they left behind them, they probably didn't find what they wanted here," Dick growled. "We're still not disturbing any of this though, the crooks might have left some clues in there, but we'll leave that to the crime scene squad and the finger print experts."
"Like Shannon said, this is creepy," I felt a shiver run down my back. "Why the heck would they rip up our beds like this. It doesn't make sense and almost looks like they got angry, then did as much damage as possible for no real reason."
"Well, furniture gives you lots of opportunities for hiding places to smuggle things," Dick shrugged. "Have you bought any new furniture lately?"
"No, not other than those two beds and Shannon's mattress, but I think Granny Leech bought a new chair a while ago," I headed for the front door, wanting to get out of the house myself.
"I think Mrs Leech's house should be our next stop and it might be an idea if it was fairly soon," he said. "I'll just call in and get the crime scene squad on it's way over here."
"We'll meet you there," I sighed, feeling that this whole exercise had been a waste of time.
"You'll find an officer there already, but wait for me before you go in."
"Sure, no problem," I headed for the car as he paused to lock the front door behind us.
Arlene was standing at the car with one arm around each of the girls.
"That wasn't what any of us expected," she said shortly. "Did you find any more damage?"
"Yeah, they tore up the master bedroom too. I think Dick decided that if they tore that up, it would be useless to even look in the spare bedroom or the bathroom, so we left those alone for the crime scene guys."
"Daddy, what were they looking for, more jewels?" Shannon asked quietly. "And why would they cut up a brand-new mattress like that? If you hid anything hard in that, you'd feel it when you went to bed."
"I don't know. I really don't and I haven't even got a guess what they were looking for or how whatever it was might have been hidden," I sighed as I walked around the car to the driver's door. "Dick wants me to look around Granny Leech's house with him, but none of you has to go inside if you don't want to."
"Will it be all torn up like my bed was?"
"No Shannon," Arlene said as they all got into the car. "There will have been a guard there twenty-four hours a day. In fact there'll be a guard there now and there will be someone on guard there both night and day, until the investigation is completed."
"Because Mom and Granny died there, right?"
"Partially, but mostly because it seems that a crime might have been committed there and the department will want to get to the bottom of it," Arlene answered, but she gave me a meaningful look as she spoke.
I didn't say anything, but I did return her glance. Everyone was relatively quiet for a few moments, then Shannon swore softly.
"Shannon, is something wrong?" I asked instantly.
"Oops. Sorry, I didn't mean to swear out loud," she said quietly. "I'm sorry if I offended anyone."
"Hey, tell me what you were swearing about, maybe I'll join you," I tried to grin, but knew it was a weak attempt. "I'm just a little annoyed myself. Today has not been the best day of my life."
"Well, those . . . those . . . those PRICKS handled my panties and my other underwear," Shannon spat. "They threw everything on the floor and everyone has probably been walking on my nice clean panties."
"Oh, you won't have to wear that underwear ever again," Arlene said quickly. "I'm sure your Dad will buy you new panties and bras, and if he won't, I will."
"Oh, I think the insurance company will cough up some money for that too," I added sharply. "I pay them enough in premiums that they had better cough up the money for something piddley like that. On top of that I'm sure they'll do it because their guard wasn't there to stop the break-in. I'm more than a little bit annoyed with them over that and a couple of other things I noticed while we were in the house just now bothered me as well. That break-in should never have happened and your stuff should have either been cleaned or replaced anyway. I'll bet everything in your room would still smell of smoke, even if the door had been kept closed tight from day one."
"Daddy, I don't want the clean-up people touching my Barbie dolls. I'll clean those if they need it," she said vehemently. "I think we should have taken them away when we were there."
"I don't think Dick would have let you do that, Honey," Arlene said softly. "Not until they check them all for finger prints."
"Well, I want to take them out of there before those cleaning guys get their mucky hands on them," Shannon insisted. "Can't we do that, Daddy? Maybe Detective Fairchild would let us take them if you asked him nicely?"
"I think there'd be a better chance of him letting you do it if you asked him, Shannon," Arlene turned to her and smiled. "Of course he'd probably be more willing to do it if you had a quick look in your Grandmother's house."
"Oh, I was going to do that anyway," Shannon growled. "I want to see those . . . those bastards that broke into my room in court if I can and maybe I'll notice something at Granny Leech's house that will help Detective Fairchild catch them."
"I'll go in with you if you want me to," Cindy offered. "I was just upset by the smell at your house. It upset my tummy and I almost upchucked."
The two girls started to chat more quietly at that point. Meanwhile, Arlene seemed to be thinking, which left me to my thoughts as well. I admit that I was trying to think of anything that would seem like an reason for someone to break in and steal something out of Shannon's room. I really couldn't understand why they'd do that to her though. I was sure it had to be something that Claire might have left in the house, yet considering the way she had packed up and run off, the chance of her leaving something behind that might have been important to her seemed very, very slim.
I suddenly realized that I'd missed a turnoff as I was concentrating on that puzzle and had to go around the block to backtrack on myself. That took enough time that Dick Fairchild was already parking as I pulled up and parked behind him. He was walking over toward the gate to the yard as Shannon and I got out of the car.
"The crime scene squad has been through this house for fingerprints and everything like that," he stated abruptly as we met him at the gate. "They're on their way to your house now, because I rather suspect that this young lady would like to get her doll collection out of her room before the insurance people get in there to clean up the mess."
"Oh, thank you!" Shannon smiled at him. "I really don't want anyone that I don't know handling my Barbies."
"Well, you've been cooperating with us so well, that I thought it only fair," he smiled at her. "If you can help your Dad and me look through your granny's house, I think the crime scene squad should be almost done with a small room like yours by the time we're done here. Then you can go take your dolls away and store them in a safe place."
"Oh, that would be wonderful," she bubbled and threw her arms around him in a quick hug.
I grinned at his discomfort as he flushed slightly, then patted her on the back.
"We'd better get a move on, if you want to get all that done and still be able to make that lunch date," he broke away after a few seconds.
Shannon took my hand then and we followed him to the house, stopping for just a moment as he spoke to the security guard before unlocking the door and going inside. As he closed the door behind us, I realized that Arlene and Cindy had stayed in the car.
I was surprised at how undisturbed everything looked in Mrs. Leech's house. It was as if she had just stepped out and was coming back, but the place did smell stale, probably because it had been sealed up for several days. Shannon squeezed my hand tightly as we walked into the living room and saw the new rocker/recliner. We both realized that was probably where Granny Leech had died.
"We cleaned out the perishables from the kitchen before they started to smell," Dick said quietly as he came to a stop and looked at us. "Other than that we've been trying to leave the scene as much the way it was as possible. We want you to look around and see if anything here is out of place."
I nodded along with Shannon.
"The thing is I wasn't exactly welcome in my mother-in-law's house, because she disliked being close to almost any man," I said quietly. "Shannon is the one who might notice things being missing or out of place."
"There's nothing in here that looks to be out of place, and there's nohing new," Shannon said almost instantly. "Well, except for her new chair and you already knew about that."
"I'll have someone look that over carefully, since the break-in at the other house seemed to concentrate on the furniture," Dick said, making a note in a little book. "You're sure there's nothing else in this room that is new or has been moved or shifted around?"
"Not really," Shannon answered. "Granny was really fussy about putting things back where she felt they belonged and I don't see anything that was moved. I don't see anything missing either."
Room by room, we went through the little house, even looking into the bathroom. The last room of all was the second bedroom that had always been locked whenever I had been in the house. So I'd never been in that room at all and Shannon admitted that she'd only been inside it once or twice as Dick opened the door.
I was astounded at what was inside. It was a little workshop of sorts and when I looked at it closely, I realized that it wasn't just any sort of workshop, instead it was a jeweller's workshop. I'd never really seen anything quite like it before, but I wasn't really paying attention to the room itself. I was staring at a box that was sitting on one of the worktables with its lid was wide open.
"Shannon, isn't that your jewel box?" I asked.
"Unh huh," she nodded, grabbing my hand again.
"That's the box that was missing from your room?" Dick snapped.
"Unh huh, I guess Mom must have taken it," Shannon admitted. "I wasn't in my room after the fire, remember? Maybe Mom decided she didn't want me to have the jewels if she was leaving, but she didn't have a key to the box, only Granny and I did."
"Well, the box was sitting open like that when we found it, and all that was in it was a note," he reached over and handed a small slip of paper to Shannon. "We think it's in the old lady's handwriting."
It was in Granny Leech's scrawl and all that was written there were five words: "The Princess and the Pea."
"Does that make any sense to you? Is it a clue or is it anything that has to do with your family?" he asked.
"The Princess and the Pea is a fairy tale, or perhaps you could call it a parable," I sighed softly. "It means that we know why the break-in happened at our house and why Shannon's bed was slashed to bits."
"What? How do you figure that?"
"The fairy tale is about a princess who can't sleep because her bed had a lump in it," Shannon almost whispered. "Maybe the crooks thought Granny Leech meant that she'd hidden my jewels in my bed?"
"Wait a minute," I growled. "That doesn't add up. How would the crooks have found out about this note if the house has been guarded since the first officer arrived on the scene and broke in."
"Damn!" Dick said as he stared at me. "You're right."
"If I'm right, then you have a leak somewhere."
"Oh HELL!" Dick snapped. "Oops, pardon me Shannon."
"It's okay," she smiled. "I've heard worse language. The thing is, I don't really understand Granny's note. Do you think she might have meant her bed?"
"I doubt it," I frowned. "If your Mom brought your jewel box over here, then it was because she didn't know how to open it and . . ."
"And she would have hollered and screamed at Granny until Granny gave in and opened it," Shannon nodded, then her eyes popped wide open and she stared at me. "Maybe Granny substituted fake jewels in my jewel box and hid the real ones. Of course Mom would have assumed that what Granny had hidden was still at our house, but I'll bet she thought she'd killed you and burned down the house, so she wouldn't dare to go back to get whatever Granny hid."
"She would have been extremely angry if she believed that," I nodded, then looked at Dick. "Didn't you say that you found some fake jewels here and a will that left everything of Granny Leech's to Shannon? That combination would have driven Claire completely mad."
"Yeah, we found some jewellery here. We confiscated it for now, but it turned out to be fake," he nodded slowly. "That pretty well explains almost everything, except how the burglars found out about the note."
"Not everything," I said shortly. "It still doesn't explain the suicides. I think there is still something haywire about that, because it just doesn't sound like something either Claire or her mother would do."
"Are you sure of that?" Dick frowned deeply.
"Yes, quite sure," I sighed softly. "I wouldn't say they were happy people, or even satisfied people, but they were both very stubborn, so I just can not see them giving up and taking their own lives. That just seems totally out of character for either one of them, and I knew them both for sixteen, almost seventeen years. After all I lived with Claire for over fifteen years and I don't think I've ever met a more stubborn or opinionated woman in my life."
"Excuse me Daddy, but can we go?" Shannon looked almost in tears.
"Oh, yes, I think that would be okay and I want to thank you both for your help," Dick said as he led the way back through the house. "I'll go back to the other house with you and we'll get the fingerprint crew to release your Barbie dolls as quickly as possible."
"Thank you," Shannon whispered.
She was holding onto my hand as we walked outside and she seemed to me to be at the point of tears, so I hurried to get to the car. When we were there, she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly for a moment before slipping into the back seat. By the time I'd gotten around the car and into the driver's seat, I realized that Arlene and Cindy had swapped places, so Arlene was in the back seat now and holding Shannon in her arms. Shannon had her head buried against Arlene's shoulder, while Arlene looked up at my reflection in the rear-view mirror.
"Shannon needed a cuddle," she mouthed silently and I nodded.
Dick was already in his car and accelerating away, so I followed. For a few moments, no one spoke.
"Thanks," I overheard Shannon whisper.
"No problem," Arlene answered softly. "Hugs and cuddles are a necessity of life at your age."
"I got my share while you were inside," Cindy said, turning in her seat to look back. "But at this time of the month, I don't know who needs the hugs more, Mom or me?"
"Be sure to remember that, Dad," Shannon said quietly.
"You can remind me, okay?"
"Hah, don't worry about it, Shannon. I'll remind him myself," Arlene snorted. "Now to change the subject, my curiosity is driving me nuts. Why are we following Dick and going back toward your house?"
"Detective Fairchild is going to let me take my Barbies," Shannon said quietly. "The insurance people are going to have to fix up my room now too. Since I don't want the cleanup guys handling my collection, Detective Fairchild is fixing things so that as soon as the fingerprint guys have checked them for prints, I get to take them away."
"I see. Did you find anything that he was interested in inside the other house?"
"Yeah," I answered shortly, then told her about finding Shannon's jewel box and the note, then explaining how we thought it tied in with the break-in.
"Oh no!" Arlene said instantly. "That means there has to be an information leak somewhere in the police force and probably in the detective department."
"Well, either in your department or in the people who are hired to provide security. I'm more suspicious of them, especially since the break-in at the house happened when the security person just happened to be late."
"Oh, yes, good point. Did you mention that to Dick?"
"Not yet, but I will as soon as we get back to talk face to face."
"Why not call him on the cell phone while we're on the way?"
"Because I thought about that and came to the conclusion that cellphones aren't all that safe. After all they are radio signals and that means anyone with a radio tuned to the right frequency can listen in."
"But they're relatively new and . . ."
"And it's mostly cops have them so far, right?" I interrupted. "Which means that really smart crooks would catch on and find a way to intercept the signals so they could hear what's going on when the cops talk to each other on their cellphones."
"Damn," Arlene said softly. "There go the open conversations we've been having. I wonder about that though. They said when we bought them that they were all at a slightly different frequency and that they worked by having very weak signals with ID codes and stuff like that."
"Mom, if one person is smart enough to make something like that, isn't it natural that there would be somebody else smart enough to be able to figure out a way to listen in?" Cindy demanded.
I grinned to myself, but didn't say a word. Cindy had said almost exactly what I had been thinking. In fact after a moment, Arlene agreed with her. I was surprised after that though, because no one spoke again until we pulled up at our house. Dick got out of his car and hurried inside.
"I wonder what put a bee in his bonnet?" Arlene asked.
"I don't know, I suppose I should wait out here until he comes back, should I?"
"Why? After all it's our house," Shannon said firmly and headed for the door.
"Wait up. Shannon, wait!" I called, but she ignored me, so I was several paces behind her as she went inside.
I found her standing face to face with Dick and she was annoyed.
"What do you mean, I can't go into my bedroom? You said I could get my Barbies and that's what I want to do."
"Honey, the crime scene squad are handling them very carefully, but they have to check each box before they will let anyone take them out of the room," he said quietly and looked at me almost in desperation.
"What are they checking for? Termites?" she squawked.
"No, Honey. They're checking for fingerprints and they're checking that all the boxes are sealed up tightly," he chuckled. "They are hurrying and since it still stinks in this house, I think we should wait outside, okay?"
"Oh heck! Okay, I guess," she went stomping back outside.
"We might as well go too," he said looking at me. "I don't want to get a headache from the smell of this damn glue myself."
"Well, while no one is around, I was thinking of a couple of loopholes that you might want to check," I said quietly.
Then I explained my thoughts about the security guards and about the cell phones.
He looked at me appraisingly, then pressed a hand to my back steering me toward the door. "I'll check out both ideas," he said quietly. "Now I think you should go talk to your daughter for a moment. The print crew will be a few minutes, but they're going to let me know when they finish."
I went back to the car and leaned back against the fender, because Shannon was talking to Arlene rather quietly and I didn't want to break in. However they came over to me in a minute or two.
"We were thinking that we should put all the Barbies in the trunk of the car for now, what do you think?" Shannon asked.
"I suppose, I thought maybe you'd want to take them somewhere safe after we get them because the sun is very warm today and they might get quite hot in the trunk of the car."
"Daddy, could we take them up to the cabin with us? I want to clean off all the packages really carefully and maybe Cindy could help me do that while we're there."
"Unh huh, I would like to help with that," Cindy said quietly.
"But, we have to go downtown to have lunch with Jaro," I protested. "Do you want to leave them locked up in the trunk of the car all afternoon, baking in the sun?"
"Couldn't you call him and meet with him a bit later?" Cindy asked quietly.
"Well, he did leave the time open. I suppose I could call him, but I hate the idea of driving all the way up to the cabin, then coming right back, only to have to drive back to the cabin again later in the day."
"Could I make a suggestion?" Arlene asked with a twisted smile.
"Always, especially if you can think of a way to save me from driving the Malahat so often," I winked at her. "I consider that stretch of road to be one of the most dangerous sections of highway in the province."
"Well, why don't we phone Santos and Noreen, then have them pick up Chinese take out? Noreen could borrow Mom's big Styrofoam cooler and pack everything in that, then she could ride with Santos and show him how to get to the cabin?"
"But they don't know each other," Shannon said, beating me to the punch.
"If they drive up to the cabin together, they'll know each other by the time they get there," Arlene grinned.
"Are you playing match maker?" I laughed.
"Yes, I guess I am a bit," she chortled. "My sister needs a good guy in her life, so I'm trusting you, since you told me that your friend is such an outstanding character."
"But he's in a wheelchair, won't that put Noreen off?"
"Not after she's talked to him for two minutes," Arlene laughed aloud. "You may have noticed that she likes the same kind of guys that I do, and I like him. I did from the moment I met him."
"I don't know," I hesitated, then looked at Shannon. "What do you think, Punkin?"
"Are we talking about Uncle Santos?"
"Yes, Arlene calls him by his real first name, while I use his nickname," I grinned at her.
"Unh huh, I understand," she nodded her head vigorously. "I think maybe they would suit each other, once they got over the hump of Noreen seeing him in a wheelchair and he got over how much she looks like Cindy's mom."
"You're a bunch of romantic females," I sighed. "What happens if they don't hit it off?"
"Well, it wouldn't be any worse than a bad date, Daddy," Shannon giggled. "As it is, Noreen could bail out at the cabin or Jaro could leave her there with us if either one couldn't stand the other one. That way they'd only be together for an hour or so, but I'll bet you that they won't fight. I think they'll get along swell."
"Well, I suppose I've done sillier things, but I don't know when," I shook my head. "So, how do we go about doing this?"
"Well, I don't think it should be a complete surprise to either one of them," Arlene said quietly. "Why don't I phone Noreen and you phone Santos, I mean Jaro, and we can check with both of them to see if they have anything else planned or have any objections? Then we can make arrangements for how and when, and all the other little details."
"Why don't we set it up and give them each other's phone numbers, then they can make the arrangements?" I asked. "That way they can at least feel somewhat in control."
"Dave's right," Cindy snapped. "You can't run Noreen's life for her Mom."
"Now Cindy, I don't run her life."
"Oh Mom. Sometimes you try to run everyone's life," Cindy snapped back as she turned and walked away.
"I'll go after her Daddy," Shannon offered, "She's just touchy because of things."
"She's got PMS is what it is," Arlene said quietly to me as Shannon ran off. "We did warn you that this would happen."
"Yeah, you did," I nodded. "Now about this date or whatever you want to call it between Jaro and Noreen, we need to set things up before we call either one of them. Just exactly what are we going to do?"
"Like you said, let's call them and see if it's okay?"
"Okay, who goes first?" I laughed uneasily.
"Well, I think you should phone Santos and explain about Shannon and her dolls. That way you can lead up to the idea of having him come up to the cabin."
"And?"
"Well, I'm going to bet he suggests bringing takeout with him," she grinned. "He is that kind of guy isn't he?"
"Yeah, but I'm not sure about introducing Noreen into the mix and do you think she'll go along with the idea?"
"I can convince her," Arlene sounded confident. "I'll tell you what, after you've invited him up to the cabin, tell him that you're giving the phone to me to tell him directions, okay?"
"All right," I sighed, feeling like I was stepping off a cliff as I pulled the cellphone out of my pocket and dialled Jaro's number.
Even though I was right there and listening to her, I'm not sure how Arlene did it, but ten minutes later, it was all arranged. Jaro was going to pick up Noreen at the Chinese restaurant when he picked up the food, then they were going to drive up to the cabin. Even the food was already ordered, on my charge card.
Arlene was bright and chipper, but while I was standing there, I was feeling like I'd been run over by a steam roller. Arranging someone else's life is not my idea of fun, but on top of that I thought perhaps the fumes from inside the house were affecting me as well. Whatever it was, I really didn't want to sit around much longer because I could almost feel the stares of all the neighbours who were watching us. I was hoping the girls would return soon and that Dick would let us get Shannon's Barbie Dolls, so we could pack them up and get out of there.
Right then I was feeling extremely annoyed, because the police wouldn't even let me enter my own damn house! Intellectually, I knew it wasn't Dick's fault, but at that moment the needs of the crime scene investigators didn't seem to matter to me, instead some deeply hidden segment of my psyche was feeling that it had been violated. Shannon's and my possessions had been mauled, damaged and destroyed, but right at that moment I wasn't even being allowed to look at them, let alone try to clean up or repair the damage that had been done.
I don't think I had ever felt so damn frustrated in all my life, yet I had to try to hold my temper and remain civil to those around me.