Gone But Knot Forgotten Read Online Free PDF Page B

the matching duvet. Black dots also covered the carpet and every other surface. I looked closer. Dead flies scattered like dark cornflakes around the room. My stomach revolted and I ran to the guest room just in time to puke in the white toilet.
    At the sink I swished water in my mouth, rinsed my face, grabbed a yellow towel, and regarded myself in the mirror.
    Calm down, Martha. Take a yoga breath. You can do this.
    I moved down the hallway toward Harriet’s room, noticing that the dead flies also littered the dark hardwood floor. I stepped gingerly across the dotted beige carpet to a door standing wide open and forced myself to look inside a closet as big as my bedroom. The shelves and hangers filled with women’s clothes lined three of the walls. I found no trace of a man’s clothes or belongings.
    A built-in bureau stood in the center of the closet. Nearby, a huge section of broadloom had been removed where Harriet’s body must have lain. A dark, greasy spot stained the exposed subflooring. Clearly I’d have to replace everything before the house could be sold.
    At first glance, the closet seemed orderly, just the way Harriet would have left it. When we were girls, she often borrowed the cool pair of jeans with the hole in the knee from my closet. She used to chide me for being disorganized and messy. “I can never find anything in here,” she’d complain.
    On closer inspection, a few items lay on the carpet, and a floor-length gown hung out of place between her jackets and coats. Someone had searched this area after Harriet’s death. How long after?
    I stepped carefully around the missing carpet. Some nice pieces of ladies’ costume jewelry sat in the top drawer of the bureau, but the expensive pieces listed on the insurance rider were absent. Also missing were any items belonging to Nathan. Why didn’t Harriet keep something of his as a keepsake—a watch or a pair of cufflinks? After all, she kept everything of Jonah’s.
    Harriet would’ve been mortified for anyone to see her home in such a revolting condition. I retrieved a vacuum cleaner from the linen closet at the other end of the hallway and spent the next half hour getting rid of the fly carcasses. Before I left the house, I gathered up the mail from the foyer and carried the boxes to my car.
    On the drive back to Encino, I reviewed my next steps. Make an inventory of every item in her house. Arrange for the appraisal of her possessions. Hire an estate manager to organize a sale. Hire Crusher’s guys to secure the house in case the intruder decided to return.
    The question of the absent housekeeper bothered me. Why hadn’t she discovered poor Harriet’s body? I needed to call Abernathy.

C HAPTER 5
    By the time I returned to the San Fernando Valley, Larry the Locksmith had locked his doors and I was too tired to hunt for another key shop. I headed straight for home and last night’s salad from Trader Joe’s.
    Bumper meowed and scolded me for my late arrival, so I let him sit next to me on the sofa while I ate with a plastic takeout fork. He sniffed at my clothing, jumped up on the back of the sofa and nosed my hair. Then he yowled and leaped to the floor, staring from a distance. Bumper possessed a keen and discerning nose. Although I didn’t detect unpleasant odors in Harriet’s house, the scent of death must have hitchhiked home on my body.
    After retrieving the boxes of mail from the car and dumping them in the living room, I headed straight for my second shower of the day. Then I climbed into my cozy blue flannel pajamas, sat on the sofa wrapped in a blue and white quilt, and wrote a to-do list with a call to Abernathy at the top. I reached his voice mail.
    â€œMr. Abernathy, Deke, this is Martha Rose. You were right about Harriet’s house being disturbed. Someone’s been inside. The private Brentwood Security Patrol has been useless. I’m arranging for