Question number two (not as important but way more aggravating) was, did he really think I wouldn’t notice? Unfortunately, I knew the answer to that one. Jack was a guy. He assumed women were dumb, and that I would be left so starry-eyed from getting kissed, I wouldn’t pay attention to anything else.
How wrong he was!
Unfortunately, though I was itching to have at it, I got a little sidetracked in my quest for the truth. No sooner had Jack gone than a bus full of visitors showed up from the Rocky River Senior Center, and after that, the day was not my own. The old folks kept me running, and by the time four o’clock rolled around, all I wanted to do was go home and take a nap.
Unfortunately, a private detective’s life is never that easy.
In an effort to satisfy my curiosity, I locked the front door of the memorial and headed up the winding staircase to the ballroom. I tugged on the door.
Yep, it was locked.
So it was my imagination that made me hear what I thought were noises coming from inside. But not my imagination about the CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC sign.
Thinking, I batted the little sign back and forth and watched it swing from the red velvet rope where it was hanging.
“Jackson McArthur, history teacher from Lafayette High School, Hammond, Indiana.” I mumbled the words to myself, my mind racing and every one of my thoughts leading to the same place.
Within a couple minutes, I was at my desk in the administration building, asking myself the same question I’d asked myself back at the memorial. Namely, just how dumb do guys think women are?
Because for one thing, there was no Jackson McArthur in the Hammond, Indiana, phone book and I know, I know . . . he could have had an unlisted number, and for all I knew, a guy as gorgeous as Jack needed one or he’d have every woman in town panting at his front door.
For this, I was willing to cut him some slack.
But I wasn’t done with my computer search, and what I found should come as no surprise.
See, that’s the beauty of the Internet. It took me less than a couple minutes to find out there is no Lafayette High School in Hammond, Indiana.
I could have obsessed about the whole Jack thing.
I did obsess. At least for a while. Obsessing about who Jack really was and what he really wanted was a far better way to keep my mind occupied than thinking about Ball Cap Guy and looking out my apartment window every ten minutes while I muttered fervent prayers that I would not then (or ever) see him outside looking back at me.
But really, though I am very good at it, even I can obsess only so long. By the next morning, I’d convinced myself that worrying about the doughy, stuttering man who’d come to see me at the memorial would get me nowhere. I would be careful at work. I would be smart when I went out and pay attention to who was around. Thus assured that I would also be safe, I concentrated on the mess that was the rest of my life.
Every time I tried to sort out the facts, I came back around to the same three things:
President Garfield said there was commotion in the memorial.
Jack turned over the sign.
Marjorie was dead.
And detective that I am, I had to ask myself if those three things were related.
It was kind of hard to get my brain around the whole thing, especially since I didn’t have much help. The president was good about complaining, but he couldn’t offer me any information as far as who was hanging around the memorial or what they were doing there. And certainly, Jack wasn’t going to tell me what he was up to.
That left Marjorie.
The thought actually crossed my mind to try and communicate with her spirit. Truth be told, in the course of investigating other cases, I had tried this with a couple other victims, and never with any success. Which wasn’t what kept me from trying again. I am, after all, a redhead, which means I don’t give up easily.
But there was the little matter of Marjorie’s not-solikable personality. She was a total and complete pain, and I wasn’t going to take any chances. I mean, just imagine what might happen if I was able to bring her back and then she wouldn’t leave! Spending the rest of my life listening to her nattering on about how she was related to James A. Garfield was not something I wanted to even think about.
With the possibility of talking to Marjorie off the table, I knew I had only one choice: I had to think like her. Scary, yes? But once I convinced myself that there would be no filmy head scarves involved, my nausea disappeared and I carried on with my plan. The next morning, I called Ella and played up the fact that I had to pick up my car from the mechanic and how I’d be in to work only it wouldn’t be until a little later. No worries, she told me, she would simply send Doris over to the memorial.
