Chapter 15 – It Takes More Than Two to Tango (Part II)

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“That horrible man!” the woman burst out. She lurched such that it almost seemed as if she might drop the phone again (Agent Toller even tensed to catch it before it hit the ground) but her grip had become so tight her knuckles went white. “I aught to go over there and flay him alive if he’s gotten my Bertrand into any sort of trouble. Why I have a mind to—”

A triple-beep twittered from further inside the house and stopped her. The emotions crossing her face stopped instantly and her mouth scrunched up with intense concentration. The tweeting bleep went off again and her jaw dropped.

“My bread!”

She turned from the door and rushed back into the house. This left Warren and Toller behind at the door, staring at nothing and wondering what just happened. From beyond their view, presumably the kitchen, the sound of glass scraping on metal followed an indecipherable series of complaints. Then perhaps a metal pot hit a counter or the floor with a loud crash, and a wobbling cymbal rattle until it finally came to rest.

Agent Warren peeked through the door into the home.

What he found inside made the home look more like a ghost town than a space lived in by people. The plush, apricot carpet continued away through a doorway—that could have been a dining room—and receded away into two hallways. The living room, easily visible through the door, contained almost no furniture to speak of save a small black Ikea coffee table, a vase of wilting roses in the center, and a lumpy couch covered in a white sheet. The white walls were bare of any adornment, no photos, no tacky landscapes framed, absolutely nothing.

In fact, the largest looming thing in the entire living room happened to be a mid-sized plasma screen TV set up with the couch facing it. The remote sat lonely on the couch in a deep indentation near the center.

Agent Warren glanced at Toller, she shrugged at him.

“You’re finding this funny, aren’t you?” he said.

“Oh, you’re great with the ladies,” she responded, snickering under her breath.

The scraping and banging in the kitchen subsided and a loud sigh followed. Although the beeping had also stopped, a low grinding whrr still echoed through the house.

“Oh! FBI, if you’re still here you can come in,” the woman said over the din.

Warren looked inside skeptically and Agent Toller made an “after you” gesture. So, he gave her a sour look and walked into the almost-vacant abode.

When they entered the kitchen, they found Ms. Whitaker standing over a greenish breadmaker with small white wisps of smoke coming out of it. “My husband, my Bert,” she said, “bought me this contraption and no matter how much I told him I didn’t need it. And no matter how much Food TV I watch on how it works, I just cannot get it to work. If only I were a little more like Emeril. Bam. You know? Now he can cook.”

She threw down a hand towel onto the counter and sighed again.

Unlike the living room, which would have been a poster-child for Empty Home & Gardens, the kitchen looked like a grand parade of appliances, utensils, cutting surfaces, cooking surfaces, and cookware that would have made even the best chef jealous. Cupboards, drawers, and counters seemed positively spilling over with equipment, the countertops were granite and the cabinets some sort of rosewood teak. For the forlorn atmosphere of the rest of the house, the kitchen looked demonstrably out of place.

Although, from the looks of it, barely any of what the space had to offer had ever been used.

“So, handsome FBI man, can you tell me what trouble that horrible Harwood has gotten my husband into?” Instead of looking at him, Mrs. Whitaker went to unplug her bread maker and carry it to the sink. Warren moved to intercept her and offered to carry it; she backed away and let him lift it into the sink.

Agent Toller winked at Warren after he gave her a look. He gave her a curt “go away” nod with his chin and she set her jaw.

“If I may interrupt,” Toller said. “I need to use the restroom. May I use yours?”

“Oh you poor dear,” the woman said. “Of course you can. It’s just down the left hallway, first door on the right. You can’t miss it. Smells like lilacs and winter.” Her voice suddenly became stern. “Now you don’t go poking around my house. I’ve seen Law & Order and I know that sometimes you people do that.”

“I have no intention of disrespecting your privacy,” Toller said. “Thank you for letting my use your restroom.”

After Agent Toller exited the kitchen, Mrs. Whitaker turned to Warren and her stern look quickly replaced with a glowing smile.

“Please tell me my husband isn’t into anything nefarious,” she said. “He loves me dearly and…well, as you can see, wants to make me happy, but it can get expensive. He’s been drawn into schemes before by that Professor Harwood. I cannot stand the arrogance of that man. Making my Bert work long hours on projects nobody cares about.”

Warren washed his hands off in the sink to get some of the dough off them that had sloughed over the sides of the breadmaker and accepted the offer of the hand towel from Mrs. Whitaker.

“What kinds of projects?”

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