Part One

Twenty-two-year-old Diana Lynch looked up at the facade of the run-down old house and unthinkingly hunched her shoulders. At one time, she could see, the building had been quite a grand place, though not on the scale of her parents’ home. Now, it appeared unloved and neglected. The tall windows that overlooked the street were dirty and the paint peeled around them. The many plants and shrubs were untamed and threatening to fill every available space.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” Trixie demanded, from the front porch. “Aren’t you coming in?”

With a glance, Di sized up Honey’s reaction to the house, seeing trepidation in her friend’s expression.

“Yes, we’re coming,” she answered, while reaching over to give Honey’s arm a squeeze. “We’re just… admiring the outside.”

Trixie snorted. “You don’t need to be tactful with me. It’s a mess.”

Neither of them contradicted her, but instead followed her inside. They were confronted with an interior every bit as neglected. Bold geometric wallpaper in tones of olive and cream lined the foyer, peeling or buckled in many places. A different pattern, in pink and silver, peeked out from underneath here and there. The carpet had, perhaps, once been pale brown shag-pile. Doors opened on all three sides of the foyer and a set of stairs ascended to the next level.

“Come on,” Trixie urged, shutting the door behind them. “Let’s look around. I just know we can make this a great place to live.”

Some time ago, an elderly great-aunt of Trixie’s had died and, to her astonishment, left her a legacy. Trixie had grumbled at the wording of the will, which had made it abundantly clear that Great Aunt Helen chose her as heir because she expected Trixie to die an old maid, but had accepted the piece of property offered. She had taken one look at the condo and at once put it on the market. Within weeks, it had sold and Trixie had purchased the house in which they now stood. She had not allowed anyone to see her new property, or even know where it was located, until the keys were in her hands.

Di shared another sympathetic look with Honey as they followed their friend through one of the doorways. They were confronted with more ugly wallpaper and dirty carpet, along with a selection of furniture that the previous owners’ tenants had not wanted enough to take with them. The theme repeated all through the house: everywhere was dirty, worn and neglected.

“What have we gotten ourselves into?” Honey whispered, as they trailed behind Trixie up the stairs.

“We didn’t actually agree to live here with her,” Di answered. “We only agreed to come and look and see if we could.”

Honey shook her head. “That doesn’t make any difference at all. You’ll never convince her to let us out of this!”

Di was very much afraid that Honey was right. She raised her voice and asked, “How much money did you have left over from the sale, Trix? Is there much budget for the renovations?”

Trixie hesitated with her hand on another door handle and Di’s heart sank.

“Well… actually, there’s nothing left. I kind of had to take out a loan – it’s just a small loan – to pay for the house.” Trixie tried to look nonchalant, but the brittle tone of her voice betrayed her real feelings. “I just couldn’t help it… I don’t know what it is, but the house kind of… speaks to me, I guess. I just knew it had to be mine.”

In that moment, Di knew that she could not back out. “I guess we’ll just have to make the best of things, then, won’t we?”

Trixie responded with a bright smile and led them into another dingy room. Honey, on the other hand, looked as if someone had kicked her.

A couple of hours later, while Trixie ran some errands, Honey and Diana met at their current home to form a plan of action. A little over a year ago, when they found that they were the only Bob-Whites remaining in the state of New York, they had made a pact to stick together if at all possible. When each of the three had been offered a post-graduation job in the same geographical area, they had taken it as a sign and jumped at the chance. Their plan to share an apartment had only been altered when Trixie received her windfall.

“I can’t live in a place like that,” Honey announced, as Di’s kitten walked along the back of the sofa, swiping each of them with her fluffy tail. “That carpet must be twice as old as I am, for one thing, and I don’t think anyone has cleaned anything in that house for at least a decade!”

Di nodded and scooped the chocolate point Birman onto her lap. “One good thing that I’ve been thinking, though, is that this isn’t a Bob-White project, so Bob-White rules don’t apply.”

Honey raised an eyebrow. “Which rules do you mean?”

A smile spread across Diana’s face. “The no-money-you-haven’t-earned rule, of course. If my father wants to give me a thousand dollars’ worth of cleaning as a house-warming present, I’ll take it!”

Her friend sighed in relief. “What a brilliant idea. I’ll call my father right away and let him know what I need.”

“Wait,” Di urged, as Honey pulled out her phone. “I think we’re going to have to be at least a little sneaky about this, or Trixie won’t accept our help.”

“Either she accepts our help, or she accepts that I’m living somewhere else!” Honey answered. “Di, I’m not going to live there when it’s like that. I know it’s not really anything like it, but it reminds me too strongly of Jim’s uncle’s old place, and that reminds me of the fire and that horrible night and waking up the next morning still smelling of smoke, and that reminds me of nearly losing Jim, and–”

“You don’t want to be thinking about those things,” Di finished for her, seeing that the list was liable to go on and on. In her lap, the kitten’s deep blue eyes closed as Di scratched its ears.

“Exactly. So, either Trixie agrees, or the whole deal is off.” Honey nodded once, in affirmation of her own words. “The lease of this apartment is in my name; I can stay on here if I choose.”

“Well, I think we’re going to have to tread carefully, then, because I’m pretty sure that Trixie’s relying on both of us being there to pay the bills. Even if it’s a small loan, she’s got to make the payments every month.”

Guilt flooded across Honey’s face. “Oh! I didn’t think of that. She isn’t earning all that much just yet, so maybe she’ll get into difficulties if I’m not there to help, and then she’ll lose the house and it’ll all be my fault!”

Di reached over and patted her friend’s hand, to the kitten’s annoyance. “I don’t think it’s that bad. Her father’s a banker. Surely, she must understand how loans work.”

Both of them pondered this point for a few moments, then burst into giggles. This was too much for the little cat, who removed herself to the end of the sofa, turning her back on her mistress.

“Or, not,” Honey amended. “Okay, so we need to make this work for everyone. What is it that you think we have to do?”

Diana thought for a moment, then grabbed a paper and pencil. “First, we need to convince her to get rid of that carpet,” she decided, jotting that down and embellishing it with a little swirl. “The horrible wallpaper, too. And to get it clean – and I mean really clean.”

“New bathroom fixtures,” Honey added. “Maybe a new kitchen.”

“She’ll never agree to that!” Di wrote down the other ideas, but left off the last one.

The apartment door flew open and Trixie breezed in, asking, “Has anyone seen my notebook? I’m sure I had it yesterday, but it’s not in the car now and I really need one of the addresses I wrote in it.”

Before she had taken two steps into the room, the kitten had jumped from her perch and crouched under the coffee table with her tail well tucked away.

“Next to the phone,” Di answered, even as she whisked the paper she held out of sight.

“Great,” answered Trixie, snatching it up. “So, what are you two doing?”

They exchanged a glance and made the silent decision that Di should answer. “Oh, we were just discussing the things we’ll need to do before we move in. What do you think about taking up the carpets?”

Trixie shrugged and headed for the door. “I was thinking of leaving them. I don’t have the money to replace them, so I guess we’ll just have to vacuum them well.”

Honey gave a slight cough. “I don’t think that will work, Trix.”

With a casual wave, Trixie was gone, not even replying to Honey’s statement.

“Well, that went well, or at least, as well as could be expected,” Honey noted.

Di leaned over, observing a pair of blue eye peering from beneath the coffee table. “Come here, Coco,” she crooned. She was rewarded with the sight of a sweet little face over a pair of dark paws tipped with pure white. She scooped up the kitten and snuggled against her soft fur. To Honey she added, “Leave it to me. I’m sure I can get her to agree to a few changes, so long as I go about it the right way.”

Honey nodded. “Okay, but I’m not going to live there until it’s clean.”

“Don’t worry, neither am I.”

The first step in Di’s plan to make the house liveable was to convince Trixie to do something about the carpet. With this end in mind, she began researching how much it might cost. The following Saturday, the three girls put on their oldest clothes, tied back their hair and went over to the house to begin the clean-up. In the days since Honey and Diana were last there, Trixie had hauled out all of the junk and left it on the curb with a sign that declared it to be free. Almost everything had disappeared, to Di’s astonishment.

“Those crumbling, old chipboard shelves?” she asked, incredulous. “Why would someone take them?”

Trixie shrugged. “I’m just glad they’re gone. So, where should we clean first?”

Di gave her a long look. “Uh, Trix, I don’t think it’s really time for cleaning, yet. There’s still more work to be done.”

“What sort of work? I told you, I have no money left.”

Honey and Di shared a glance. Honey took a step forward. “Trix, we understand that you’ve committed yourself financially as much as is possible and that you can’t afford anything more and that you don’t want to take charity and that you’d rather wait and earn the money for yourself, through hard work and determination, and we both admire and understand that, really we do, but you also need to understand that we’re not living there with that carpet. Do you understand me, Trixie? I can explain it again, if you don’t quite understand, which I really hope isn’t the case.”

Trixie looked as if she was going to argue, so Di cut in.

“We’ve sorted it out between us. You can choose what you want done – it’s your house, after all – and we’ll pay for it, up to a certain dollar amount. We’re not suggesting you let Honey’s mother redecorate for you – though I’m sure she’d love to – just let us bring it up to a standard that we can live with. Please.”

“I can’t–” Trixie began.

Honey interrupted. “It’s your choice, Trixie: either you let us help, or we stay where we are.”

She hesitated for a minute, turmoil clear on her face. “You really mean it, don’t you?”

The other two shared a look, then answered together, “Yes.”

Trixie sighed and looked away. “Okay, I guess. But you can’t go over the top. I’ll let you do something about the carpets, but that’s it.”

“We just want it to be a nice place to live,” Honey assured her. “You’ll have plenty of time to change things how you want them later.”

“So, how about if we go inside and see what we can get started on,” Di suggested.

Trixie gave each of her friends a long look. “You two have more plans, don’t you?”

Di tried to arrange her expression into innocent outrage, but felt that she had not pulled it off. Across from her, Honey broke out in nervous giggles.

“I don’t know why you’d think that, Trix.” Honey took a couple of steps towards the door. “Come on. Let’s get started.”

By the next weekend, Di and Honey had worn Trixie down to the point that she gave in about replacing the wallpaper. After that, they convinced her to let each of them redecorate their own room and the bathroom that the three of them would share. From that point, it was easy enough to get her to permit Honey’s father’s house-warming gift of professional cleaning and Di’s father’s gifts of some help in the garden and professional movers.

By the time they were due to move out of their shared apartment and into Trixie’s house, it almost seemed like a different place altogether.

“I don’t know how I let you two talk me into all of this,” Trixie grumbled, as she wended her way through the piles of furniture and boxes that were being carried in by the movers. “Where did all of this stuff come from, anyway? We didn’t have this much stuff.”

“My parents gave me some furniture,” Honey explained. “It’s all spare things they didn’t want.”

“Mine, too,” Di added, looking around for somewhere to put down the table lamp she had just brought from her car. “Mummy sent two of these, since she’s just bought new ones. Do you think they’d look nice in here?”

“Yes, definitely,” Honey answered. “I can’t wait for everything to be inside so we can start arranging things.”

Trixie glared at the pair of them and stalked out. At once, Honey’s enthusiasm seemed to evaporate.

Di put the lamp on the floor and gave her friend’s arm a pat. “She’ll be okay. I don’t think she really minds as much as she seems to.”

A guilty look flitted across Honey’s face. “I’m wondering if we took things a little too far. I mean, it looks great, but it’s a lot more than we intended to do. I’m thinking we got a little carried away.”

“Maybe a little.” Di bit her lip. “I’m sure she’ll be okay. We just need to give her some time to adjust.”

Honey’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Just don’t tell her that some of these things are new – I don’t think she’d ever forgive us.”

“They’re our things,” Di objected. “And, as far as I know, all of the new, new things are going in our own rooms. Everything that I’ve contributed for the common areas is used.”

Honey nodded. “Me, too. Still… she’s not happy about this and it makes me feel a bit low.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Di repeated. “We’ll just go easy on her. Agreed?”

Honey only nodded.

A few weeks passed and the three settled in to their new home. The renovations continued to be a touchy subject, but since none of them were talking about it, their friendship didn’t seem to be affected. The two conspirators breathed a sigh of relief and got on with the business of living.

The next disturbance to their lives began in a small way. Diana was at home alone one morning, the other two having left earlier than usual. Just as she was about to leave the house, she noticed that in changing handbags, she had missed some essential items. She ran lightly up the stairs to return to her room and collect them. Reaching the top of the flight, she stopped short.

At the other end of the hallway sat her kitten, Coco, a look of intense concentration on her face. Di watched as Coco’s eyes appeared to track something from one side of the hall to the other. At the same moment, Di felt a sudden chill and she shivered.

“What is it, sweetheart?” she asked. “I didn’t see anything.”

The cat turned to her mistress, mewed, and walked the length of the hall to rub against Di’s leg. Di reached down to stroke her, then shook her head and continued into her room. Scooping up the rest of her things, she strode back into the hallway. Coco was staring at the same place as she had earlier.

“Is something wrong?” Di asked.

The kitten continued to stare.

With a shrug, Di went downstairs and left the house.

“I know this is where I left it,” Trixie was moaning, as Di returned to her room that evening. “It can’t have walked anywhere by itself.”

“Well, I didn’t take it,” Honey answered, “and I’m sure Di didn’t, either. Why should either of us? And I’m sure that no one else has been here.”

“So, you think it was the cat?” Trixie wondered, sounding incredulous. “That widdle bitty kitten got in here and took the heaviest book that I own?”

Honey giggled. “Of course not. She’s far too pure and innocent to want to read about criminals. And anyway, you know how she runs the other way whenever you come near; she won’t set foot in here – ever!”

Di took a few more steps until she was standing in Trixie’s doorway. “What’s wrong?”

Trixie heaved a put-upon sigh. “You know my big, blue book?”

Di nodded, remembering the massive tome in question. “What about it?”

“It’s gone! I know it was here this morning, but can you see it now?”

For a few moments, Di cast her gaze around the room. The level of messiness was enough that she had to concentrate on her task, but not so much that the book could be concealed by random objects.

“It doesn’t seem to be here. Have you looked around the house?”

“For almost an hour.” Trixie looked around for something to throw and began tossing things in random directions. “It doesn’t seem to be anywhere.”

“Come and have a cup of coffee,” Di suggested. “Then, I’ll come and help you look. Maybe you just need a break for a few minutes.”

Trixie scowled at the ceiling for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Maybe it’ll be easier to find once I stop looking so hard.”

The three went down to the kitchen together and Di made the coffee. As they sat around the table chatting, a loud thump sounded from upstairs. Trixie jumped to her feet, sloshing coffee onto the table. She abandoned her cup and gave no thought to the spill, but ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs, two at a time. Her friends followed her at a more sedate pace.

“What? How did this happen?” Trixie demanded of no one in particular.

Near the far end of the hallway, her big, blue book lay open, right in the middle of the floor. Behind Trixie, the other two came to an abrupt halt.

“I’m sure it wasn’t there before,” Di declared, though her voice sounded hesitant. “I would have seen it when I came up.”

“I don’t see anywhere it could have dropped from,” Honey added. “And, if there’s truly no one else here… well, I can’t see how it got there.”

At that moment, Coco padded out of one of the spare rooms, which opened from the far end of the hallway. She stopped and stared at something that seemed to be right above the book. Di gasped aloud and her hand flew to her mouth.

“She’s doing it again!”

Honey looked from the kitten to Di. “Doing what?”

Di nodded to her pet. “One day, when I was here by myself, I saw her watch something – something that I couldn’t see – go from that side of the hall to the other, and right about the same place, too. Look, she’s still watching something and I can’t see anything there.”

Trixie took a few steps closer, glancing in each doorway as she passed it.

“What are you doing?” Di demanded, in an outraged whisper. “There’s something really freaky going on here. Why are you going closer?”

“I want to see what page the book is opened at,” Trixie answered. “Maybe it might give us a clue to what’s going on here.”

She reached the book and kneeled beside it, shivering slightly with a sudden chill. Her brow furrowed as she studied the exposed page.

“What does it say?” Honey wanted to know.

Trixie was just about to answer when a breeze sprang up and flipped a page from right to left. Instead of just text, the next page also had pictures. The words she had planned to say flew from her mind and her jaw dropped.

“Hey! That kind of looks like–” She broke off abruptly. “Actually, no it doesn’t. Uh, it’s a case study on a mismanaged investigation.”

“When? Where?” Di asked sharply.

Trixie shrugged. “It doesn’t give a location, other than New York State. It doesn’t give an exact date, either, but from the context it looks like it was about sixty years ago.”

Honey looked thoughtful. “What was mismanaged about it?”

“Just about everything,” Trixie replied. “They didn’t pay attention to the actual evidence, but went off on wild tangents and arrested the wrong person three times – three different people, that is – and let the real perpetrator get away, even though it should have been pretty obvious from the start who it was, and they could have arrested him on any number of occasions.”

“Why does the book have a case in it that’s so old?” Di wondered. “Couldn’t they pick something more up-to-date?”

Trixie shrugged, Snapping the book shut, she scrambled to her feet. “Probably all of the investigators on this case are dead and can’t complain about how they’re talked about. The chapter is about mistakes in investigation. You probably don’t want to point out the mistakes of living people in the way that they’re dealt with in this chapter.”

“And you’ve never read this before?” Honey asked, frowning.

“Of course, I read it before.” Trixie had, by this time, tucked the book under her arm. “I read it when I did the course this was the text for.”

Di took her attention off the cat and regarded her friend instead. “But it’s not what you wanted the book for now?”

Trixie shook her head. “No, I needed to look up something different. I started reading it this morning, but I had to leave, and I wanted to finish tonight. I’m going to do that now, okay?”

Di glanced from Coco – who had lost interest in the proceedings and was wandering into Di’s room – to Trixie and then to Honey. “But what about whoever put the book there? Aren’t you going to help look for intruders? What if there’s someone here, hiding?”

“Do you really think that skittish little cat would be wandering around like that if there was someone else here?” Trixie asked, waving the matter away. “I’m sure there must be some other explanation, even though we can’t think of one.”

After she had entered her room and closed the door behind her, the other two shared a long look.

“She’s only skittish around Trixie,” Honey noted, referring to Coco, “and we both know it’s because Trixie hurt her once too many times by being careless.”

Di nodded. “That’s true, but she does have a point – Coco isn’t scared. In a way, that makes me feel better.”

Honey smiled and gave her a half-hug. “Me, too. But let’s have a look around anyway, and see if there’s anything out of place.”

They searched for nearly half an hour, but found nothing.

Continue to part two