The Last Room to Search
Chapter 18
It was still the afternoon and Lee was waiting anxiously for Amanda to arrive in the library. He couldn't wait to see her to tell her about Olivia claiming to be in the library at the same time Dean supposedly had been in there reading during the early morning hours before the murder of the maid.
Or at least that's the reason Lee gave for wanting to see Amanda.
Meanwhile, Amanda was rushing down the hallway, excited to tell Lee about Liz admitting that her husband had been gone from their bedroom in the early hours before Eunice had been murdered.
Or that's the reason she convinced herself as to why she was so excited.
When Amanda finally arrived at the library, both eagerly spoke at once:
"I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!" they stated at once as each of them looked at the other in surprise.
"WHAT?" they asked in unison.
They exclaimed together again: "I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!"
"Okay, let's stop sounding like a choir," Lee calmly stated, "You go first; I'll go second."
"Alright, fine," agreed Amanda.
Eventually they had both updated the other as to their discovery.
"I'm more confused than ever as to who could have killed Eunice," Amanda discouragingly stated.
"Tell me about it," Lee concurred, "and unfortunately, if we don't solve this case soon, the police captain will be returning to take over the case."
"I know, but we've already seemed to have exhausted every avenue. We've searched everywhere," she tiredly sighed.
And that's when Lee got his idea.
"Actually, not everywhere," he pointedly told her, "there's one room we haven't searched."
Amanda was puzzled, "Really? Where?"
"Eunice's room!" he announced.
"The victim's room?" Amanda repeated. She then lowered her voice, "but, Lee, didn't you say the police captain ordered us beforehand not to go in there, just before he sealed up the room with police tape?"
"The police tape isn't made of steel, Amanda. It can be easily broken!"
"That's not my point. I don't think-"
"I KNOW what your point was, Amanda, but, remember, I'm in law enforcement, as well. I do have some authority, you know!"
"What kind of authority is that? Yelling and stubbornly holding your ground until you get your way?" she sarcastically asked.
He nonchalantly shrugged, "Hey, if it works!"
"Not with me it doesn't!"
"So I've noticed." he admitted and then asked, "And are you done giving me a hard time?"
"Noooo, and for the record, Lee, I'm not giving you a hard time... you've clearly earned it!"
This time he laughed out loud and once again, he thought how much he enjoyed her company.
"Anyway, I'm headed over to Eunice's room—you coming or what?"
"I'm coming, but please note that I'm not the one who always gets us into trouble!" Amanda insisted.
They walked down to the servant's quarters, which was located below the first level of the Estate, in a modern basement, through a lit hallway. They stopped right in front of Eunice's room. The door was covered by crisscrossed strips of yellow police tape.
Amanda sounded doubtful again, "I don't know about this, Lee." Her eyes nervously darted left and then right down the hallway, "You know how I don't like to do illegal stuff."
"Then why are you working for the government?" Lee sensibly responded back as he reached out and ripped away the strips of yellow police tape, letting them flutter lightly to the floor.
"There," he finished, gesturing towards the fallen yellow tape, "And now that you've seen my arduous method of getting through official police tape, please file it away in that secret cabinet of your brain."
Any other time she would've smiled, but instead, she hesitantly asked, "You don't think we can be arrested for this, can we?"
"No," Lee stated as Amanda relaxed, "Wait...let me make a slight correction...I can't be arrested being that I am a fully authorized agent, but you? That's a whole different story!"
She swallowed, "Really?"
"No, I'm joking!"
He peered closer at her. She came across as seeming almost...pessimistic today, if that was possible, "Relax, Amanda. If worse comes to worst, and the police question our methods or accuse us of doing something illegal, we'll just let Billy fix the mess. He lives for that kind of stuff!"
"I don't know if I can say that about him, Lee. It seems that whenever we don't follow the rules, he ends up yelling really loud afterward!"
Lee shrugged, "Don't be scared if he yells at us, Amanda. Be scared when he hovers and whispers. THAT'S when you know you're in big trouble!"
Again, he was unable to make Amanda break into a smile. Not even a little bit.
"Heyyy, you sure everything's okay?" he asked as he concernedly felt her forehead.
At his initial touch, Amanda felt a warmth enter her body, so she stepped back. There was no way she was going to tell Lee about breaking up with Dean now.
"I'm perfectly fine, Lee! This is just my doing-something-illegal face!"
He observed her for a bit and then decided, "Okay. Then let's go inside," he suggested, at the same time opening the door to Eunice's room.
They entered and looked around.
Eunice's room was a combination of Deidre's messy room and Dean's organized room. It was obvious that Eunice was a packrat with all the knick-knacks and souvenirs all over the place. Yet, it seemed as though there was a rhyme and reason to how she stored the items. Everything seemed to have its own place.
Lee hadn't taken more than 5 steps when he heard a gasp come out of Amanda. Lee instantly whirled in her direction.
"What!? Amanda! Are you okay?"
She pointed towards the dresser, "Chewy Chubby Bars!"
His eyes followed where she was pointing. Sure enough, all five bars were sitting out in the open.
They both went over there and before Lee could react, Amanda had already grabbed one, and began unwrapping it.
"Amanda, what are you doing?"
She's took a bite, "I'm sorry, Lee, but I've only had a piece of toast all day and I'm starved!" she explained through muffled bites.
"So you had to have one of the candy bars right this very minute?"
"As you can see, there's still four left," she rationalized, while taking another bite, "besides, I really needed some cheering up!"
"Yeah, I noticed that... about you needing to be cheered up, that is," Lee scrutinized her carefully, "You sure you're okay?"
Amanda had no idea why she admitted she needed cheering up. Something about him always made her want to open up. Her mother had that same quality as well.
"I'm fine. I guess I'm just freaked out because we're in a murdered person's room," she quickly made-up.
"Really? Because it obviously didn't affect your appetite!"
She gave him a look, "Funny. But you have to admit, it isn't exactly a laugh riot in here. Besides, what would the police want with these chocolate bars, anyway?"
"It's called evidence, Amanda. They'd want to know that Eunice had stolen them, as well as the white scarf, too!"
Amanda tilted her head, "So you now know for sure that Eunice was the one who took the scarf?"
"Up until now, I didn't know, but now it makes sense. Take a look at all this stuff in this room," Lee reasoned, "It's all trinkets and small items in here, things that would be easy for Eunice to lift and put in her pocket. A scarf would be the perfect addition to her collection, as well the chocolate bars."
"So on top of blackmailing, she steals small objects from everyone as well."
"That sounds about right," he sighed, looking around, "and it'll be impossible to figure out what's hers and what belongs to others."
Amanda broke off another piece and put it in her mouth. Then she held out the bar to Lee, "Want some?"
Lee smiled, "No thanks. I don't need cheering up at the moment," then he added, "And as far as stealing your scarf, I'm theorizing now that in the morning hours of her murder, Eunice had probably been carrying your scarf in her pocket or in her hand when she encountered the killer. I don't think the killer brought a murder weapon. He or she just improvised with any nearby object, and so the scarf would be the weapon to use on Eunice, after she had been tasered."
"Oh my gosh, that's morbid," Amanda shuddered.
"But it's good that we're beginning to slowly put the pieces together."
Amanda nodded, "You're right. We sure will have a lot to report to the police about!"
"Whoa. Wait just a second there, Amanda," he cautioned her, "Remember, we won't be able to tell the police everything we've done and know. For instance, we can't let anyone know that we've been snooping around in the other people's rooms."
"We can't?"
"No. We'd be accused of invasion of their privacy, something that spies have been trained to ignore, but not the police. So if we told the police everything we knew, the next people we'd be talking to would be our lawyers!"
"So, what can we do for now?"
"Continue our investigation and forget about the ramifications until later."
Amanda lifted a brow, "Another spy lesson I need to learn, per chance?"
"No, it's my way of life: never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after!"
"Said a person who never had kids!"
"Touché, Amanda. And you're right. I've only learned how to care about myself in this world."
There was a dejection in his tone.
"That's not true, Lee," countered Amanda, "I know you, and you do put people ahead of yourself. You've shown me how much you care about this country, the Agency...and...and my welfare as well."
Amanda was saying it with total sincerity as she looked up at him with grateful eyes. The pleasant stirrings he got whenever he was near her were getting to him now.
But he had to remember that she was with Dean.
And even a cad like himself wouldn't cross that line.
Plus he needed to switch his attention back to the case again.
He cleared his throat, "Let's say we stop with the chatting and get on the search, okay?"
Amanda nodded.
They separated to different areas of the room and continued going through Eunice's stuff, knowing they would never be able to determine which items were stolen and which items were actually hers in the short time they had left to solve the case.
"Aha!" Lee exclaimed.
"Find something of interest?" Amanda asked, about to give up on her side of the room.
"I think so. Come over and have a look!" Lee surprisingly announced.
Amanda left her spot and crossed the room. She noticed Lee holding up a steel case, which was the size of a shoe box, with a rusty lock in front.
"I see there's a lock but I don't see a key anywhere," Amanda observed, as she looked around.
"I don't see a key, either...no, wait!...oh, look! The key was right in front of us the whole time!" Lee claimed, as he held up a random hammer.
Amanda rolled her eyes, "The list of doing-things-illegally just keeps getting longer, doesn't it?"
"What can I say? I like to live dangerously."
"For me living dangerously means mixing my light and dark clothes together in the wash!" Amanda acknowledged as he smiled and aimed the hammer.
BAM!BAM!BAM!
Lee gave the lock three hard hits with the hammer before he was able to break the lock.
He opened the lid of the steel box and they both peered inside.
There were only two items—several bundles of money and a stack of papered receipts clipped together.
"Well, I think we've recovered the blackmailing money," Amanda commented, "but what's that other stack of papers?"
Lee took it out to look at it more closely. On top of the sheets was a post-it note which read, "E's receipts."
"Seems as though Eunice loved playing the ponies," Lee told her, "these are horse racing receipts from the Saratoga Race Course!"
Amanda gave an understanding nod, "So that's another reason why Eunice was blackmailing everyone—she was feeding an addiction."
"Seems to be so."
He then put the receipts back and closed the steel case. Lee then took the lock and put it in his pocket so the police would think the case came unlocked.
"You find anything else of interest?" she asked.
Lee looked around again at all the various knickknacks, "No, but it's too bad Eunice settled for being a heartless blackmailer, because she could have had a future selling second-hand items."
Again, there wasn't even a peek of a smile from Amanda and Lee was really getting worried as to what was wrong with her.
"Amanda, you sure everything is-"
"I'm fine, Lee! Just fine! I'm just anxious to leave," she impatiently stated as she held up her hands, "Plus I think I may need to wash my hands as well. I think I touched something jellylike and I don't want to think about what that could be!"
"Let's go then," Lee stated, as he headed to the door.
"Okay, but just a sec, and I'll be right behind you!" she promised.
Wondering what would bring on her delay, Lee watched as Amanda promptly grabbed three of the four remaining candy bars off the dresser and stuffed them in her pocket.
Then she explained in all seriousness, "I'm leaving one candy bar behind as evidence for the police...once we report that the candy bar had been stolen, that is."
"How considerate of you," Lee drolly commented, "And just think how excited they'll be when they bag that one very exceptional candy bar as real evidence, inside one of those clear plastic bags of theirs! It'll be like the heavens opened up for them!"
Amanda laughed at his investigative humor and wondered why working on a case with Lee always put her in a good mood, even when she was feeling down.
.
.
Please review
