“I’ve known Nick for four years, and all that time, he pooh-poohed Marjorie like everyone else. He was only nice to her because she was his father’s only sister, and the only living relative he had left. All those claims about how she was related to the president? Nick was sure they were nothing but a lot of bull. He never cared a thing about any of it. Not the books or the pictures or all that presidential crap she has all over her house.”
“And then . . . ?”
“Then it was like someone flicked a light switch. You know what I mean? After the funeral, we went back to Marjorie’s, and it was like watching someone take over his body. Like he got possessed with Marjorie’s spirit or something.”
Not a pretty thought. I shivered.
Bernadine tugged on her bangs. “All of a sudden, he’s obsessed with President Garfield, too. He reads about him in books. He checks out websites on the Internet. He goes over to Marjorie’s and he stays there for hours and hours and he doesn’t come home. And he’s not helping me with the wedding.” She slapped one hand against the table. “The wedding is next Saturday.
“I can’t believe it’s happening. Not now. Not when the wedding’s just one week away. But I’ll tell you one thing . . .” Bernadine slugged down the rest of the Black Velvet and slammed the empty glass on the table. “It’s going to stop. Or there’s not going to be a wedding.” Her outrage lasted only so long. The next second, her big blue eyes filled with tears and her bottom lip trembled. “Oh, my wedding! I don’t want to cancel my wedding. It’s the most perfect wedding in the world . . . and . . . and I want to marry Nick. I just don’t understand what’s happened to him.”
That made two of us.
Because if everything Bernadine said was true, Nick was suddenly as obsessed with James A. Garfield as Marjorie ever was. And the one and only time I talked to him . . .
Well, I knew I wasn’t remembering it wrong.
The time I talked to Nick Klinker, he made it abundantly clear that he thought Marjorie’s Garfield collection was nothing but a bunch of junk.
I was back in the car and driving to Marjorie’s neighborhood in no time flat. The reason, of course, was self-evident: I needed to talk to Nick Klinker.
About his sudden and irrational interest in James A. Garfield.
About his aunt.
About his aunt’s murder.
A full plate for a Wednesday afternoon, and there was still the little matter of how I was supposed to be at work that day. Not to worry, I called Ella and talked my way out of it with a story about my poor car and how there was more wrong than just the tires. I was stuck at the mechanic’s, see, and with no way to easily get back to Garden View.
Ella bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Which she might not have if she’d been paying attention and had heard the traffic noise in the background.
That taken care of, I parked in front of Marjorie’s nondescript house, hurried up the steps, and rang the bell.
No answer.
If what Bernadine told me was true, Nick had to be there. He was spending all his time there. He was suddenly a buff, a devotee, a Garfield maniac.
And I wanted to know why.
I tried the bell again, and when there was still no answer, I went over to the picture window that looked out over the front porch and pressed my nose to the glass.
There’s something about obsession that sticks in the mind, and Marjorie’s fixation was pretty far out there. Try as I might to forget it, the weirdness of everything I’d seen on my last visit was imprinted on my brain. I remembered exactly how the living room was arranged. That’s why I knew things had been moved.
All the pictures had been taken down from the walls. (And just a reminder, all the pictures were of Garfield.) They were stacked on the red, white, and blue plaid couch.
All the books were piled on chairs.
All the knickknacks were heaped near the fireplace, including the oil lamp I’d nearly toppled over while Marjorie and Ray were arguing in the den and the vase filled with those old-fashioned hat pins that I had knocked over.
It was obvious Nick had been through everything with a fine-tooth comb, sorting and inventorying and stashing away. It was not so obvious why.
Thinking about it, I turned—and nearly jumped out of my skin when I realized Marjorie’s neighbor, Gloria Henninger, was right behind me. So was Sunshine.
