“Maybe we should turn our headlights back on,” I suggested. “You don’t want to fall down in the dark.”
“Maybe we should wait till we’re safely in my yard,” she said, as she lifted up the crime-scene tape. “Unless you’re afraid of falling down. I have eyes like a cat since my cataract surgery.”
We slunk along Weaver’s front walk and then down the sidewalk until we were in front of Annabel’s yard. Then we both straightened up, turned on our headlights, and strolled up the walk to her front porch.
Dr Ffollett was waiting just inside Annabel’s front door.
“Where have you been?” he hissed to Annabel. “I got here with your groceries and the house was empty and the door open! And what’s she doing here?” He glared at me.
“She’s been over at Mr. Weaver’s house, snooping,” I said. “And although I disapprove of the snooping, I’m here to make sure we have our stories straight, in case anyone spotted her over there and called the cops. How about ‘we thought we saw something suspicious, so we went over to check it out.’ Work for you, Miss Annabel?”
“Works fine,” she said. “Thanks.”
“You didn’t,” Dr. Ffollett groaned.
“So now what?” I asked Annabel.
“I have no idea.”
“I’m going to send Stanley the picture I took of that memo,” I said. “As soon as I get someplace where there’s a cell phone signal. Or I’ll show it to him tomorrow.”
“You think it’s significant?” She sounded eager.
“No,” I said. “But it’s the only even mildly interesting thing we found.”
“True,” she said. “Why would a bank that’s dying to sell a millstone round its neck turn down a legitimate offer?”
“You’re sure your offer was competitive?” I asked.
“I—we made several increasingly large offers,” she said. “Our last one pretty much asked them to name their price. And they know we can afford it.”
“Are they your bankers?”
“I’d sooner trust my money to a pack of hyenas,” she said. “But banks have ways of finding out these things. They knew.”
“So it’s puzzling,” I said. “Let’s see what Stanley can find out. Can you get us copies of your correspondence with the bank?”
“Of course.” She walked over to a small secretary desk, flipped down the hinged desktop, and sat down in front of it. She selected a pen from a small blue-and-aqua pot—more Biscuit Mountain Art Pottery, I was sure—and pulled out a five-by-eight-inch three-ring notebook with an elegant flowered cover.
“Our attorney has all the paperwork,” she said. “I’ll write a note asking him to make copies for you. Dwight can drop it off with him in the morning.”
As she spoke, she was writing down something in the notebook. I suddenly realized I was Miss Annabel’s equivalent of my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe.
It was almost like watching a much older version of myself. Although I doubted I’d ever learn to keep my notebook as clean and tidy as Annabel’s. Well organized, yes, but scruffily so. I could never hope to write as neatly and precisely as she did.
She pulled out a sheet of notepaper and began penning her note, while I looked on. She had fine, old-fashioned copperplate handwriting, and when she occasionally printed a word, for emphasis, her printing had the same elegant, calligraphic quality as Dad’s, as I’d noticed before on the emu inventory. Was there a genetic component to handwriting style? Would Cordelia’s printing have looked even more like Dad’s? And why hadn’t I gotten a little more of that particular gene?
Annabel finished her note, and was reaching for an envelope when she noticed me looking over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to hover.”
“I don’t mind having someone watch me work on my memorandum book.” She tucked the note in the envelope as she spoke, and licked and sealed it. “Just don’t ever touch the notebook. Drives me insane.”
“I feel the same way,” I said, patting the tote that currently held my own bulging three-ring notebook. “Ask me to do something, fine; but hands off the notebook.”
She nodded with matter-of-fact approval, as if I’d made the only sensible reply—and the one she expected of me.
Something suddenly clicked. Not just the fact that she had a fraternal twin of my notebook. The similar way our minds worked. Her fierce anger at Grandfather. The disconnect between the timid Annabel others described and the strong, forceful woman I’d come to know.