Chapter Three: Old Age And Treachery Will Overcome Youth And Skill

Chanda's grandmother's house—no, now it was Chanda's—Chanda's house was an old, rambling place that was a hodge-podge mélange of styles, much like Lily's but a little less cohesive. The main part of the house was late Victorian; it even had a widow's walk, despite being quite a way from any body of water. The front lawn had a couple of old statues with faded paint and a couple of even older maple trees, big and healthy. They probably look gorgeous in the fall. The minivan in the driveway and the Prius behind it looked extremely incongruous.

The bell was an old-style pull bell that made me think of the Addams' family house (though it didn't pull out for a yard and then yank you back against the house). While I waited for someone to answer the door I looked around the front grounds. I could picture Charlie doing cartwheels and back springs across the length of the lawn; the trees were big enough and strong enough to support old-fashioned rope swings… Maybe we'll end up with a kid like Lee-Lee or Ellie, a big reader…

I broke off that thought with another. Oh, come on. Think of your books. Think of Ducky's books. The kid doesn't stand a chance.

The house had great insulation or soundproofing, because other than the faint peal of the bell, I heard nothing until Chanda opened the door. Then I heard plenty.

The first noise was a child's voice, screaming, "That's not fair! That's not fair!" Second child's voice, just a keening, hiccoughing wail. Third was an adult's voice, female: "Chanda, really, now—"

And Chanda, snapping over her shoulder, "No, Mother, both of the girls have a time-out, and unless their bottoms are parked on those chairs for the full time, the clock is not running! Hi, Sandy, come on in. If you want to take them to the park and lunch, fine, but first their time-outs must be completed, please come out of the hall!" Except for the comment to me, said in a normal voice, everything else was a tone of severe irritation and shot toward the hallway that ran past the main staircase.

I followed her into the foyer. Down the hallway I could see both girls sitting on small plastic chairs that decidedly did not go with the house. Lee-Lee was holding onto her chair with both hands and squirming, still crying. Ellie had her arms folded and was drumming her heels on the floor. A woman about ten or fifteen years older than I stood nearby, wringing her hands.

"Mother, leave the girls alone! Eleanor, stop banging your heels on the floor. That is not acceptable." Her tone was measured and firm. Ellie picked her feet up and slammed them smack down of the floor, glowering at her mother. But she stopped thumping her heels like the little drummer boy on speed.

Her face hidden from the kids, Chanda rolled her eyes expressively at me. She grabbed her mother's elbow and steered her away. "Chanda—" her mother said pleadingly.

"No, Mother. If you cannot respect my discipline choices, then you cannot be around the children. I can't force you to follow my rules when the girls are at your house, but at that point, you will deal with the chaos." Her voice was low, but firm. "But here and—" She broke off. "Lee-Lee, your timeout is over, you may get up, now."

There was a scrape of plastic on wood, then slow steps down the hall. Still making snuffling noises, she stood in front of her mother, looking like an old-time convict minus the ball and chain. "I sorry I hit Ellie," she said around tiny 'hic's.'

Chanda squatted down to eye level. "I am sorry," she gently corrected.

"I AM sorry I hit Ellie."

"You apology is accepted. What rule did you break?"

"Don't fight."

"Right." Chanda gave her a hug. "And remember, if you do get a time-out, if you just sit down and you aren't popping up and down from your chair, the time out goes much faster." Lee-Lee nodded. "And when Ellie gets up, you need to apologize to her, too." Another nod. "Okay, scoot upstairs and get your backpack." She scooted.

Lee-Lee was still upstairs when her sister was released from prison. That conversation was longer.

"It's not fair! She hit me!"

"And you hit her back."

"Yes!"

"So you both broke the 'no fighting' rule."

"But she hit me first!"

And around and around they went. Chanda was way calmer than I would have been, finally accepting Ellie's grudging apology and hugging her. By then her sister was downstairs; they apologized to each other, hugged, and Grandmother got the circus on the road.

Oh, my god, what if I dohave twins? Triplets! Oh, jeez, three kids, two parents, outnumbered and outgunned!

I drew a shaky breath. I can't do this. I can't do this! I'm fifty-one, not twenty-one or thirty-one, I'm too old for this!

"Boy, oh, boy," Chanda muttered. "There are some days… I should have stuck with gerbils."

I laughed weakly. Am I crazy? I won't be able to do this! I didn't even like to baby-sit in high school. "What happened?"

"I'm still not sure what precipitated the squabble, but Leigh Anne hauled off and slapped her sister. Before I could get over there, Ellie had popped her right back. Just a normal summer day in the Davis household," she said drily. "Oh, god, when does kindergarten stat?" she added plaintively.

"Not soon enough, I guess."

"And I'll probably have a fit when she does go off to school," she laughed. "So. Come with me… You want the nickel tour, first?"

"Sure."

The house reminded me of Lily's on the inside, too—big, rambling, higgledy-piggledy and stuck together all catawampus. To be brutally frank, Lily's was in better shape; I think the house had declined with Chanda's grandmother. But it looked like it was still sound and well worth the effort to rehabilitate it. (It explained the stack of how-to and repair books she'd bought.) Like Ducky's, there was an attic upstairs and a basement down. Five bedrooms upstairs, two down; it looked like there had been more rooms upstairs and walls had been knocked out to change the configuration over the years. Back downstairs: study, living room, ancient kitchen that was in the process of entering modern times. Very nice dining room (you could comfortably seat twenty). You could see the seams on the walls where the house had been expanded, the change from plasterboard to wood to brick—a little weird, but an odd charm.

"This place is great!" I said enthusiastically as we tramped around the back yard. "What's that?" I pointed off. "Mother-in-law cottage?"

Chanda looked uncomfortable. "That was the original garage. There are even two stalls from when it was the carriage house."

I'm sure my eyes lit up. "Cool!"

"Creepy," she countered. "I can't wait to convert it to something useful. And cheerful." Okay, it was a little rundown but not that bad… She laughed at my confused look. "I always thought of that as my own haunted house."

"Really?"

"Mmm. My grandfather died, oh, way back when I was a kid. Gave a ride to a hitchhiker, they think, and he was robbed, left dead in the car. Shot."

"Oh, my god. I'm so sorry." I felt like a real jerk.

"I was a kid, not even Ellie's age. I didn't even realize what 'dead' meant until later. They towed his car back from the impound lot. Grandmother couldn't stand to see it—but she couldn't bear to get rid of it. Her brother or a neighbor or someone put it up on blocks. Until we went in, I don't think anyone had been in there since 1974."

"Holy cow. Spider heaven." I shivered. (I hate spiders.)

"Yeah. Jerry cleared all the brush and trash from around the building. We're going to turn it into a crafts room or playhouse or… something. We're not sure, yet." She caught my glance at the building. "Wanna look?"

I hesitated about a nanosecond. "Sure." I may be scared of spiders but I'm a snoopy bitch.

I felt like a little kid peeking where I shouldn't. The windows were crusted with dirt inside and out. Jerry or Chanda (or both of them) had cleaned off some of the outside crud, but the putty holding the glass in was ancient; I'm sure they were worried that too much scrubbing would push the glass out of the frame.

But even with the dirt and what looked like parachute silk covering the car, I could see it was gorgeous. I got as close as I could to the glass without touching it. "Oh, my god! Your grandfather drove that?"

"Yeah," she laughed.

"I'm sorry, I just can't put 'grandfather' and 'T-bird' in the same sentence." The nose of the car was right by the window; the make was unmistakable, despite the heavy shrouding.

"He was pretty young when he died." She cocked her head. "So was my grandmother, really, when you look at it. Seventy-six, I think."

Ducky's going to be sixty-five this September… I hugged myself against a sudden chill. Yeah, and his mom is ninety-nine. Better gene pool.

"I know someone who would—" (Urk. Not 'kill!') "—love to take this off your hands—if you're selling," I quickly added.

"This someone would be willing to buy a car someone was murdered in?"

"Maybe." I don't work MCRT. Tony DiNozzio deals with murder on a regular basis, maybe it wouldn't freak him out.

She gave me a skeptical look, then glanced at my feet. "You've got closed-toed shoes on; want to go inside?"

Spiders. Lions and spiders and bears, oh, my! "Sure," I said recklessly.

The padlock on the door was brand new. "We had to cut the old one off, it was solid rust. Plus, we couldn't find the key. We want to keep the kids or any larger critters out until it's safe," she explained, pushing one door to the side. It rolled back with a grinding screech.

Musty, dusty, dirty. The two horse stalls had been turned into storage, wood shelving two and a half feet deep on all sides. All manner of paint cans, garden treatments, poisons and crap lined the shelves. Yeah, perfect place for kids. "You're going to need the hazardous waste disposal number."

"Yep. Already called them."

The building was wired; old fluorescent shop lights were hung from the ceiling and big outlets dotted the walls, fat conduits running in all directions. Even with the car at the other end of the former carriage house, it was extremely anachronistic.

We picked our way through the dirt and debris. "You're right. This would make an awesome workroom. Plenty of room for that loom you want to build."

"Rebuild. It was my great-great aunt's. It's shoved in a corner in the attic. Jerry is not looking forward to dragging it downstairs."

I cautiously poked around the car. The tires were gone; the poor car was up on blocks, looking so sad… "Why didn't anyone drive it? This is a fabulous car."

"My uncle didn't want it… my mom didn't want it…"

Yeah… I can understand not wanting to drive the car your husband or father was murdered in. But hanging onto the car was just… kind of morbid. "I'd've taken it to the scrap yard and watched them turn it into a doorstop," I said half to myself.

"That's what I thought all those years… but I kinda like the car. Don't know that I want to drive it—but I'm glad it wasn't flattened."

"If Tony doesn't want it… I'm sure he'll know someone who does."

We took the long way back to the house, Chanda pointing out the now-tamed rosebushes ("They were ready to take over D.C. Jerry called the whole mess Audrey. Every time we came outside, he'd say, 'Feed me, Seymour.' I cut them back before anything else because I was sick of hearing Little Shop of Horrors every time I came outside."), the gazebo that was covered in ivy and something with the ignominious name 'blue potato bush' but sporting glorious purple blossoms, and the odd plot with light dirt in a sort of winding pattern and darker blobs in the holes.

"It was an herb garden in a Celtic knot pattern," Chanda explained. "The herbs were half wild and half dead; we just cleared it out and we'll probably do flowers in the knot pattern again. Nobody needs that many herbs," she laughed.

"Yeah, that is a pretty big knot."

"Okay. On to the library!"

We were busy chatting as we walked back to the house (she laughed like crazy when I told her I was getting married, admired my ring and said she couldn't wait to meet Ducky); consequently, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going; thus, I slammed my foot into some sturdy piece of furniture just outside the edge of my peripheral vision.

"Ow! Shit!" I gasp-whimpered, hopping back.

"Oh, Sandy! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes, did I break it?"

"Take your shoe off, I'll—"

"No, no, the table!"

"Not likely," she laughed ruefully. She twitched back the fringed cloth to reveal a waist-high safe.

My throbbing foot was forgotten. "What the hell is that? I mean, obviously it's a safe…"

"Yep. Also my grandfather's. It was too heavy to move, Grandmother was afraid to get rid of it because she didn't know what was in it, so she just covered it up."

Covered safe, covered car—a shrink could have a lot of fun with that. "Why didn't she just open it?"

"It was Grandfather's safe. She didn't know the combination."

Simple question, simple answer. "Oh." I squatted down, admiring the curls and flourishes. This sucker was as old as the house and probably as heavy as the T-bird. "Aren't you curious about what's inside?"

"Insanely." She hunkered down next to me. "I made up all sorts of stories—my grandfather was a spy, there were secrets that would bring down a foreign power—or he was working on something that would replace gasoline—remember, this was during odd and even days."

"I remember," I said drily. Ray had an odd plate, I had an even one; we swapped gas once a twice a month because of gas rationing. During the second odd/even ration we both had odd plates—but my next-door neighbor had an even plate and so did Barb, so we all made do.

"Alas, Grandfather was neither an inventor nor a spy." She smiled a little sadly. "He was an accountant."

I was still fascinated with the safe. "You try his birth date?"

"Yep."

"Grandmother's birth date?"

"Yep."

"Anniversary?"

"Yep?"

"Kid's birthday?" I suggested desperately.

She looked surprised. "No. I don't think so." She reached forward and spun the dial. "Mom is November… fourteenth… nineteen… fifty…"

She's only six years older than I am? Now I'm depressed.

She tried several versions—month, day, year; day, year, month; with the nineteen, without the nineteen. "Okay. Uncle Chris is 1948. Um… March—third? Yeah. March third." She spun the dial again and I admired the fact that she could pull her uncle's birthday out of her memory. I have a cheat sheet in my day runner—including my birth date. (I actually forgot it once. Embarrassed? Beyond measure.)

"Nope."

"Grandkids?" I suggested with little hope.

:"I was the only one when he was alive… nope," she sighed, after trying her own birth date.

"You may have to get someone out to open it up. A pro," I said, standing up and reflexively dusting off my butt.

"I'll put it on my list," she laughed. "How's your toe?"

I wiggled my toes. "Seems okay. Books?" I followed her to the library, a room we had breezed past earlier. I stopped in the doorway, almost quivering. "Oh… Wow…" Built-in bookcases on every wall. Books of every shelf. Not quite the library from Beauty and the Beast… but close.

"My grandmother was a teacher. Grandfather was a hobby engineer. Both were voracious readers. Neither of them ever parted with a book."

"Looks like nobody parted with a book in about a hundred and fifty years." Unfortunately, a lot of the older ones were falling apart. Damn.

"We are a 'book' family, that's for sure."

"You don't want to keep any of these?"

"Oh, we've already culled what we want."

There were empty spots around the room. If the shelves had been packed (given there were random stacks of books in front and on top of the shelved books, I'm sure they had been), they had picked out at least eight or ten Xerox boxes full of books. "Um… you want me to cherry pick or just take it all?" There was a desperate note in my voice; even at a quarter a book, I was looking at ten or fifteen grand, easy, if I took it all. Maybe twenty. I couldn't afford all of these books, but, boy, did I want them. (There were a couple of hundred in the history section that Evvie would pee her pants over.)

"Please," she said earnestly. "Take them all. The family has gone through the books, we gathered them all into this room—"

"There were more than this?"

"Oh, tons more. Attic, basement, new garage, all of the bedrooms…"

"You have a price?" I steeled myself.

"We were hoping… seven-fifty?"

I must not have heard her correctly. "Seven-fifty?"

"Seven?" she countered.

"You mean seven hundred and fifty dollars?" I said carefully.

"Yes?" she said hopefully.

Okay—a bargain was one thing; outright theft was another. "Chanda, surely you remember enough from working at the store that you know that's an insanely low-ball figure."

"Well, Jerry and I figure we have a few options. Yard sale—pass. We did that when we packed to move back here and we came 'this close' to a divorce. Donate to charity—some don't even take books, we'd have to box them up, it's a hassle. Sell them to a bookseller—yeah, it's worth more, and if we were talking to someone else, heck, yeah, I'd ask for more. But this keeps it in the family, as it were, you get a good deal, they get out of our hair, and everyone is happy."

Okay. But my conscience wouldn't let me rip her off. "Um… two thousand-five?" I was going to have to replace the heating in the house before winter; I might put up with the eccentricities of the system, but I couldn't expect a tenant to do so.

She gasped a little. "Really? That much?"

"Chanda, I should be arrested for highway robbery!"

"I'll take it, I'll take it," she laughed. I whipped out my checkbook and she clapped her hands in delight. "Oh, Jerry said not to go lower than five hundred. Wait 'til he hears this!"

Laughing, I called Evelyn and made arrangements to meet at Chanda's Sunday morning. "Six," I said weakly, counting Chanda's fingers. Packing books at six a.m. Whimper.

"Let me know if you ever get that safe open," I added as we hugged good-bye. "I'm curious as hell. Hey!" I snapped my fingers. "Was he in the service?"

Chanda thought for a minute. "Yeah. Marines, I think."

"Maybe his date or discharge? That would stick with a fellow."

She looked at me with mild sarcasm. "Like I'd know that?"

I shrugged. "Research?" I suggested.

"In my copious spare time," she said wryly.

I gave her thumbs up. "I have faith in you, kid." I hopped into the van.

/ / /

"So! How is the mother-to-be?"

At Abby's voice I turned alternately red and white, gasped, choked and managed a squeaked, "What?" So much for secrets!

"I said," she said slowly, "how is the bride-to-be?"

Oh. Bride. My guilty conscience had swapped words. "Clearly scatterbrained," I said with a weak laugh.

"So, when is the big day?"

"When we know—you'll know."

"Halloween would make a cool day for a wedding!" Her eyes sparkled. She perched on the corner of the counter.

"Do you see Ducky having a Halloween wedding?"

"Yeah! Duckman has weird and wonderful tastes. Not that you're weird and wonderful—I mean, you're wonderful, you're not weird—"

Once again, I wondered if they had dated in the past. (Once again, I declined to ask.) "Okay, can you see his mother at a Halloween wedding?"

She pursed her lips. "Hmm. Good point."

"So. What brings you into the book oasis in the middle of the week? And so early?" It was just barely three-thirty. "You get canned? Or they send everyone home early?"

"Asked for it. Got it. Geoffster and I are celebrating the end of finals." Her eyes got a gleam in them and her smile moved from cunning to absolutely feral.

My mouth fell open slightly. I must be misinterpreting in addition to mishearing. "You and—you're dating Geoff?" I whispered. Her grin grew. "But you're—what—twelve years older than he is-!"

"Get 'em young, train 'em right," she whispered back. "Besides—Ducky's older than you—"

"Yeah, but the difference between fifty-one and sixty-four isn't that big. But do you really think a fifteen year old should date a twenty-eight-year-old man? Skip that, I forgot to whom I was speaking," I said at her wicked look. Mental note. Abby does NOT baby sit our kids. Not past two, anyway.

"Okay. That's a little young," she admitted.

I raised an eyebrow. Understatement.

"Well… I was over eighteen," she said with a wink.

"You were eighteen—and 'went with' someone who was thirty-one?" I euphemized. I was both fascinated and appalled.

"Actually, he was sixty-five and—Geoffy!" she squealed. She slipped off the table and clomped over to where Geoff was emerging from the stacks.

Her hug made him drop the stack of books he was carrying. "Hey, Abs."

I averted my eyes. That wasn't a kiss—that was half a step off of resuscitation or a tonsillectomy using a tongue as a scalpel. After a long time, I called out, "Get a room!" Thank god there were no customers at the moment.

The bell over the door jangled; please, please, come up for air or take it into the break room! "Good afternoon, dear."

"Ducky!" I was half-relieved, half-delighted. Okay, half-relieved, all delighted. "What, NCIS close for the day?"

"It seems that way. Abigail and I are both on call until five, but the agents are all working cold cases; our services were unnecessary." He cast a glance to the side. "Really,Abigail," he chided, bemused. A giggle was his only answer. "How do you feel?" he whispered.

I smiled and shrugged. "Fine," I mouthed.

"I stopped by to see what you would like for dinner. What time will you be home?"

"Valerie and Randy are closing, so… seven-ish. And—hmm. Dinner." I wagged by jaw back and forth, thinking. What sounds good… Heck, everything he makes is good.

"We're doing Benihana," Abby chirped, helping Geoff gather the fallen books. She followed him to the computer reference section and started shelving books. "How 'bout Japanese?"

"Benihana is marginally Japanese. It's Americanized Japanese," Ducky corrected. "It's more entertainment than authenticity."

"I know," Abby said cheerfully. "We're going for the entertainment."

Before or after? I couldn't help thinking. From the sly smile on Ducky's face, his thoughts were along the same line. "Oh! I would love—" the phone rang. "To answer the phone," I laughed. "Papyrus, Cassandra speaking—"

"Hey, it's me, Chanda. Mom found grandfather's date of discharge."

I sat up. "And?"

"Nope."

"Darn." I drummed my fingers on the table, but no ideas came forth. "Can Ziva break into safes?" I asked Ducky.

He looked startled and then laughed. "Probably. She is a young lady with many talents."

Abby poked her head out. "Safecracking?" she asked with interest.

I gave them all a short version of that morning, emphasis on the safe.

"Hmm… that old, it's either going to be really easy or really difficult," Abby said. She brightened. "Hey, can we just blow it open?"

There was a laugh in my ear. "We'd like to know what's inside."

I repeated what Chanda had said. "True," Abby sighed.

"Perhaps the combination is linked to a hobby," Ducky suggested. "His lowest golf scores?" he said, voice a little louder.

"Didn't golf," Chanda said.

"Didn't golf," I repeated.

"Highest bowling scores?" Abby called out.

"Didn't bowl. No sports at all that I remember being mentioned."

"No sports at all. What was he interested in?" I asked. I punched a button, putting her on speakerphone.

"Computers. Electronics. Gizmos. Technology. Old family story, he bought one of the first microwave ovens, back in the 60s. Grandmother refused to set foot in the kitchen until he took it away, she was sure they'd glow in the dark." There were varying laughs from most of us; Abby just shook her head in an, 'oh, get real' movement. "Let's see…" There were clattering noises from the phone. "The top of the piano still has a bunch of old pictures. Uncle Chris in the Scouts… Grandfather working on a rocket with Uncle Chris in the back yard… Grandfather building, um, god knows what in the garage… Grandfather working on the T-bird… Mother in school choir… Everyone in front of the Christmas tree… Grandfather and his team at JPL…"

That caught our attention. "JPL?" I repeated. "I thought you said he was an accountant."

"He was. But he worked with some of the early computers, writing software, accounting software."

"Did he work for IBM? Maybe it was the birthday for the founder of IBM," I suggested flippantly, remembering our earlier attempts.

"No, he was an independent contractor. He was way ahead of his time. He knew computers would revolutionize the workforce."

"And he was right! I mean, look at how we need computers," Abby said. "I can't fathom doing my job without computers!"

"Very slowly," Ducky teased.

"Grandfather even built his own computer at home. What a monster that was."

I laughed. "What was his name, Steve Jobs, Senior?"

"I went to buy computers and they said, "A million bucks—for a brand-new mainframe IBM,"—now, that price really sucks," Geoff's voice floated from the stacks.

I picked up the song. "So I looked at all the pictures and I chose to build my own, for you can build a mainframe from the things you find at home!"

"Top forty song, Geoffy?" Abby teased as he emerged from the hard sciences area with an armload of books. He shrugged as she took half of the stack and started shelving them.

"Filk song," I explained. "I hired him at a science fiction convention."

Ducky grinned. I had introduced him to filk on a long drive to a weekend getaway, but I hadn't taken him to a convention. Yet.

"It was either that or Uncle Ernie's used computer Babbage's birthday bargain bash," he sang. I had taught him well.

"Once-in-a-lifetime discount deals, all sales are final and strictly cash!" I finished.

"Ah, yes. The father of modern computing," Ducky said with a nod.

"I'm impressed." I was. The depth and breadth of Ducky's knowledge just astonishes me sometimes. "I only know the name because of that silly song."

"Maybe it's Babbage's birthday," Abby suggested with a laugh.

There was a snort from the speaker. "Like I'd know that off the top of my head? I had to hunt down Grandfather's date of discharge."

"Thank god for the internet," I said cheerfully. "We can look it up—"

"December 26, 1791."

Even Ducky looked surprised. We all stared at Abby, and there was silence from the phone that clearly meant Chanda was staring in shock, too.

"You know Charles Babbage's birthday… off the top of your head?" Ducky harked back to Chanda's comment.

"Doesn't everyone?" she asked cheerily. We looked at each other in amusement. "Okay, okay—it was on the 'famous birthday list' on my page-a-day calendar last year and it stuck with me because I thought, 'December 26, I bet he got gypped on Christmas presents,' and I remembered 1791 because that was the year the Bill of Right was ratified—"

No wonder Abby and Ducky get along so well.

"It worked."

Abby broke off and we all stared at the phone. "It worked?" I repeated.

"Uh-huh."

We waited, the silence broken by rustling noises. "What's in there? I mean, anything you feel comfortable telling us about?" I added quickly. For all we knew, it was his stash of Playboys. (Of course, vintage Playboys were collectible items, nowadays.)

"Money? Jewelry?" Abby suggested. There was a small bang. "Photosensitive chemicals?"

"Sorry. I dropped the ledgers."

"Ledgers?" I said.

"Uh-huh. Accounting ledgers. They say "duplicate—Quartermaster" on them. Ledgers and journals… and a briefcase…" There was a click, then a second click. "Unlocked. I guess he figured locked briefcase in a locked safe would be redundant."

"What's in it?" Abby asked excitedly.

"Um… disks. Computer disks. Big disks."

"How long has this safe been closed?" Abby asked suspiciously.

"1974."

"We're not talking three-and-a-half hard shell, are we?" Abby said, brow knit.

Chanda laughed shortly. "No. Square. Black. Circle in the middle."

After the fight to get to them, now I was curious what was on those disks. "I don't know if I can read them… but I still have a real floppy drive along with my three-and-a-half on my tower at home." Now everyone was staring at me. "What?" I said, a tad defensively.

"Nothing, nothing," Abby said quickly.

"Yes, I still have my old Betamax," I said tartly. "Still works, too, so—hush."

Abby was all but bouncing up and down. Actually, she was, a little. "I wanna see the disks! I love antiques."

Ducky smiled. A kinda sneaky smile. Okay, maybe I would pursue the topic. Later.

"I can bring them over to the store," Chanda suggested. "Mother just dropped off the girls, though," she added hesitantly.

"Bring 'em along. They're good kids."

"How soon they forget," she muttered. "Okay. Be there in twenty."

As Chanda hung up, Abby grabbed Geoff's hand and looked at him pleadingly. "Our rez isn't until seven. Could we please stay?"

"Sure," he laughed. "I'm curious, too."

/ / /

The girls were in a much better mood than they had been that morning. (Grandma probably took them to McDonald's.) I made quick introductions, making sure to include the girls. (It used to cheese me off as a kid when I was overlooked by the adults.) Ellie was polite, Lee-Lee silent, trying to stand behind her sister. "May I get some books? May we get some books?" Ellie asked with a quick correction.

"Oh, I suppose so," he mother said, sighing in mock-resignation.

Ellie grabbed her sister's hand and started to run off, then stopped. "The sign says 'parent must accompany child,'" she said, giving me a worried look.

I waved her off. "That's for the parents of kids who can't behave in public. You have permission to be there without your mother."

Looking quite pleased with herself, she and Lee-Lee walked quickly around the corner, heading for the kids/YA area. Within seconds I heard a stack of little kid books topple over. (Don't ask me how I knew. They sound different. They just do.)

"Sorry!" came wafting back. An adult, not Ellie; a customer who had joined us while Chanda was en route. "We'll pick them up!"

"Thanks!" I called back.

There was a high-pitched giggle and an answering adult laugh, followed by, "You silly goose!"

Goose.
Gosling.
Duck.
Duckling.

"So, what do we have," I asked briskly, pushing the thought aside.

"Ledger books. Journals. Most are accounting—" Chanda opened her book bag and brought them out. "The last one is a journal-type journal, tracking the work they were doing installing the computer system at Quartermaster."

"Why is that name familiar…?" I muttered.

"They were around years before I moved here. They were a sort of mail-order Fedco," Ducky explained.

"Fedco?" Abby asked, nose wrinkling.

"Imagine Costco—but only for federal employees," I explained. "But Costco wasn't around back then. There was Fedco and… Fedmart, I think."

"Oh."

"Quartermaster sold to anyone, they only had one warehouse—out here. Located in Virginia, I believe. I remember they were one of our suppliers when I worked for the Los Angeles Coroner's Office. Even with shipping charges, they were less expensive than local suppliers."

"You remember that this far down the road?" I teased.

"It was mostly the name that stuck with me."

"And the disks?" Abby interrupted.

Chanda pulled the briefcase up to the desk and opened it. I had a perfect vantage point from where I was sitting; the others crowded around her, peering over her shoulders. We all stared at the contents for a long moment.

"I'm… gonna… call… McGee," Abby said slowly.

"Do you have smelling salts?" Ducky asked me.

I shook my head. "I may go buy some while we wait, though."

-3-

"Do It Yourself" by Bill Sutton

"Uncle Ernie's Used Computer…" by Steve Savitzky