Chapter Thirty-Eight

I knew exactly where I was going and it wasn't into the bathroom. The night I searched the house for Joe when I didn't believe Angel after she said he wasn't home, I discovered which of the several guest rooms Angel had laid claim to.

Lucky for me, she chose one of the rooms next to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. I quickly and quietly opened the closed bedroom door after I remembered to close the bathroom door. My thinking cap continued to work at top speed like it use to, when it reminded me to close the bedroom door behind me, too. With any luck, it would continue to work with me. Perhaps even tell me exactly what it was I was looking for.

Catching Angel in an outright lie is what gave me the idea to have a closer look inside her bedroom. The room was tidy. No clutter. No dust. Nothing much in the way of personal treasures brought from home. The only way I knew I was in the right room was because I saw skinny clothes hanging in the closet the night I searched the house.

Quietly, I began pulling out dresser drawers. Undergarments were neatly folded and spread out enough that I could see it was pointless to waste time carefully lifting bras and panties to check underneath. The rest of the drawers were the same way. I took a minute to let my eyes sweep over the room, while I asked myself where, among the few pieces of furniture, I might find something.

My eyes steadied on the full-sized brass bed. I was smiling as I hurried over to it and began lifting corners of the mattress. Under the third corner, I found it. Or something. When I pulled out what looked like an old hardbound address book, I thought I heard someone on the stairs.

I held my breath and listened. All was quiet. Then I hoisted up my dress and stuck the book down the front of my panty hose. It was risky to press my luck by not leaving while the coast was still clear, but I just couldn't resist taking another look inside the closet.

The door creaked as I started to pull it open. I paused, then moved it a little more. There was no light inside, which made it very difficult to see much more than clothes and shoe boxes hanging over the edge of the shelf above the clothes rack. My eyes strained hard against the near darkness. When I looked toward the one end, a different shaped box stood out.

"A wig box," I said aloud in answer to my own question of what kind of box it was.

I started to reach up for it when behind me I heard, "Fay, everything all right up there?"

A ball of fear landed in my throat, temporarily cutting off my breath. I tiptoed over to the bedroom door. I knew I was taking a big chance opening the door a crack. If Angel was standing at the foot of the stairs, she'd see me. But I really didn't have a choice.

When one eye peeked through the crack, it saw the coast was clear. So this old gal wasted no time slipping out into the hall and into the bathroom. I flushed the toilet, remembering the sound of the toilet water draining down the pipes can be heard in the kitchen. Then I took a quick look in the mirror that was attached to the back of the bathroom door. The little book I had tucked in my panty hose didn't jut out from my loosely fitted dress from any angle I checked.

I was at the bottom of the steps before I remembered I forgot to close the closet door. Should I go back up or not?

"There you are," Angel said as she posed in the kitchen and hall doorway.

"What a relief," I said, my hand going to my stomach and touching the book as I started toward her. I said a quick good-bye to Joe with a promise to stop by the next day, then I headed for the door.

"You take good care of him now, Angel," is how I bid farewell to the meticulous young woman who glared threateningly from that hall and kitchen archway.

I probably never will know why Angel kept her bedroom, and self, spic-and-span clean, but didn't dirty her hands with the rest of the house. Of all things, that is what I was thinking when I drove off.