“And one of the floorboards in his office was pulled up.”
“Wow, I noticed the rug was pulled back, but I missed seeing the floorboard.”
“You were looking for Jesse, not trouble.”
“True. But I don’t get it. I can’t believe a burglar would go to all that trouble. It must’ve been Jesse. He had to have been really desperate to find something he lost. I wish he’d called me. He’s not that strong anymore.”
“Was he an angry man?” Eric asked.
“No. I mean, he went on a rant once in a while, but it was usually over a barking dog or something the town council did. He would never do anything violent, though, like pound his fist through a wall. Like I said, he wasn’t that strong.”
“It wasn’t done with a fist. Someone used a sledgehammer.”
I shook my head, perplexed. “What should we do?”
“We shouldn’t do anything,” he said tightly. “You’re going to take Jane back outside and I’m declaring this place a crime scene.”
*
“A crime scene?” Jane repeated, once we were relegated to the front porch and the police began searching Jesse’s home for possible clues. “But why?”
“Did you see the mess in there?” Had she been so distraught that she hadn’t noticed something so obvious? “Someone tore Jesse’s house apart. And now he’s dead. The police need to figure out what happened.”
Her eyes widened. “You think Jesse saw someone break in?” She lowered herself into the porch chair and absently brushed her hair back from her face. “That might’ve been enough to give him a heart attack. Do you think that’s what happened?”
“The thought did occur to me.”
“If that’s true, it means that he was literally frightened to death.” She stared at me. “That can’t be possible. It’s too awful.”
I couldn’t think of a thing to say that would make her feel better, so I just nodded in agreement.
“Besides, he looked so peaceful.” She cringed. “Oh, what a horrible cliché.”
I didn’t mention that I’d thought the exact same thing earlier when I first saw him.
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions until the police know something for sure.”
“I can’t sit here doing nothing,” she said, gripping her hands together.
“It’s just for a little while,” I said soothingly.
“Oh, don’t act so calm and collected,” she snapped. “You have a worse time sitting still than I do.”
I chuckled inwardly. At least she hadn’t sunk so deeply into despair that she couldn’t get riled up about something.
Jane and I had been best friends since kindergarten so we knew each other almost too well. She was right. Sitting out here doing nothing would drive me insane as quickly as it would her.
It probably wasn’t a good time to mention it to Jane, but I couldn’t wait to get together with Emily, Marigold, and Lizzie, and talk this awful situation out. Even in the worst circumstances, we could always come up with ideas to make things better. Maybe one of them would have a theory to offer. Would they agree that Jesse had been searching for something? Or had his house been burgled? By whom? Maybe the five of us could do a little snooping—I mean, investigating—around town to find out more. We’d gotten pretty good at it, thanks to my own run-in with crime a while back.
“I hate knowing that poor Uncle Jesse died alone,” Jane murmured. “Can there be anything sadder?”
I reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“I should call Mr. Bitterman,” she said. “That would give me something to do.”
The Bittermans owned the local funeral home and had been serving the dead people of Lighthouse Cove for three generations. Blake Bitterman ran the place now with his son, Bryce, who’d gone to school with us.
“Wait a few minutes before you call Bitterman,” I said. “Eric might want to bring in the county coroner.”
“But if he does that, it means he thinks Jesse was . . .” She pressed her hands over her mouth, unable to say the word.
Murdered.
We were both silent with our own thoughts for a moment, until I returned to the subject I’d touched on before. “Jane, you did see how badly the house was torn apart, right?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I saw it. And I refuse to believe Jesse would do that to his own home. Sure, maybe he left the Sunday paper around for a few days, but that was about it. Most of the time, he was a stickler for neatness.”
“I know. And you didn’t even see the rest of the place. I walked down the hall, and all of the rooms have been searched. Someone was in a real hurry, because the drawers and closets and cupboards were all open and things were tossed everywhere. Eric told me that someone broke through the wall in Jesse’s bedroom and pulled up a floorboard in his office.”
“Who could’ve done that? Because it wasn’t Jesse.”