“I remember her telling me about that,” said Mom. “She wanted to build there someday but was waiting to see what would happen with Milo’s strip mall plan. She didn’t want to live next to a business area, but she also didn’t want to sell and help him in his quest for more space.”
“All right. Gary needed money and had land he couldn’t sell because Sara wouldn’t sell hers.” Dad ticked the points off on his fingers. “Milo really wanted both plots of land, and Sara stood in the way. She was getting threats from someone about her séances, and had recently come up against Tish when applying for her certificate,” Dad said. He looked at his fingers and shook his head.
“Don’t forget the séance she did just before she died. She basically accused someone in that room of being a murderer,” Diana said.
“There’s only one thing to do,” said Vi, looking around the table.
I didn’t want to know what she had in mind, but she was unstoppable.
“We’re having our own séance,” she said, and crossed her arms.
“Wicked!” Seth said. His grin spread, and his eyes snapped with excitement.
22
Vi claimed that a séance would be most effective in a place where Sara felt comfortable. She was quickly backed by Mom and Diana. We were going to break into Sara’s house. We waited for Alex to finish at work, because he didn’t want to miss out.
It was after nine o’clock when Seth and I approached Sara’s house through the woods. I felt a bit like a SWAT team member except that what we were doing was against the law, and my backup team consisted of tarot readers, Wiccans, pet psychics, and a dentist. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if we got caught. Certainly I wouldn’t have to make a decision about Ann Arbor; that would be the least of my problems. Even though Sara didn’t have any neighbors close by, Tom had given strict instructions to leave cars parked several streets away and to come through the back to avoid having any neighbors or drive-by traffic notice us. He was our lookout.
We arrived in groups of twos and threes. The rest of the crew had gone ahead of us.
Seth tensed as we neared the back door, and I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you think they’ve cleaned up in there?” he whispered.
I shrugged. “I hope so, but I don’t know.”
“You go first,” he said. He hung back and pushed me toward the house.
I hesitated at the door, took a deep breath, and then swung it open. There was no sign of the violence that had occurred a week earlier. I breathed out slowly and sent a quick thank-you to whoever had cleaned up, and signaled Seth to follow.
Mom was in the kitchen and rushed to meet us at the door. I hadn’t described Sara’s body lying on the floor to Mom, so she didn’t have the same aversion to the room as Seth and I did.
“You have to stop her, Clyde.”
“Who? What are you talking about?” I pried her hands off my arms.
“It’s your aunt. It’s not bad enough that we’re in the same house where Sara died, now she’s going through her things.” Mom took a shuddering breath. “She’s in there ‘tossing’ Sara’s office. She claims Tuffy told her Sara spent a lot of time there in the past few weeks.” She pointed through the kitchen to the small office beyond.
Diana stood on the other side of the desk from Vi and Alex and cast worried glances our way. Vi had opened every desk drawer and rummaged through it.
“Here’s something!” she said, and waved a sheet of paper. She handed it to Alex.
“Vi, what are you doing?” I said. I had hurried in to stand next to Diana.
“I’m searching the scene of the crime for clues.” She continued to search when Alex said that her find was just a flyer for window cleaning. There was a phone number on the back that Vi thought we should track down.
“It’s probably the Pizza Shack number. The police already did this,” I said.
She looked at me doubtfully.
“Well, they didn’t do a very good job. It doesn’t look like they touched the desk.”
“They probably left it the way they found it, which is more than I can say for you,” Mom said from the doorway. She took a step forward and then stopped, clutching her protective amulet.
“Oh, please. They either didn’t look or they just opened and closed the drawers hoping something would jump up and down screaming, ‘I’m evidence!’” Vi punctuated this statement by making the flyer jump up and down.
Seth giggled. Diana smiled. Alex flipped through the bottom file drawer.
“Here, let me do that.” I started around the desk.
Alex held up his hand to stop me. “Look at this. Sara had copies of old newspaper clippings stuffed here under ‘Taxes 2007.’”
He pulled out the copies and we all leaned forward to look. Vi cleared her throat as we read the headline: “Hunter’s Death in Greer’s Woods Ruled an Accident.”
“What’s she doing with these?” Vi looked up, her eyes bright and wet.