Free Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels by Mindy Starns Clark

bureaucrat Mr. Litman, everyone seemed rather grateful that I had saved them some grunt work by locating the actual scene of the crime.
    And, apparently, there hadn’t been anyone in the area watching me after all—or if there had been, they had certainly managed to get away without being caught or even making any noise. As for the smell of bleach, it had dissipated by the time the police and I got back to the scene of the crime, and no one seemed quite convinced that what I thought I had smelled actually existed.
    “The mind plays tricks on you,” one of the cops had said to me with a shrug, though at my insistence he did check with headquarters just to see if there had been reports of any chemical spills in the area tonight, perhaps from a truck or a ship or a nearby factory. There hadn’t been. Still, I knew what I had smelled. The acrid odor that had hit my nostrils tonight was indeed the smell of bleach.
    For now, putting it all out of my mind, I padded to the kitchen in fuzzy slippers to make myself some warm milk, jumping from one foot to the other as it heated in the microwave. While I was waiting, I noticed the red light on my answering machine, so I pressed the button to hear that there was one message, from about an hour ago.
    It was Tom.
    “Hey, Callie,” his voice said into the empty kitchen, “it’s me. I’m sure you’re wondering what happened. What can I say, except that I’m really, really sorry. You know I wouldn’t have missed seeing you like that without a very good reason.”
    I leaned forward on the counter, listening.
    “It’s personal. Sort of a family emergency. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about it. Guess you’re not there now.”
    He sounded a little lost, kind of sad, and I deeply regretted I hadn’t been here to take his call. I was still upset, and somewhat confused, though I did have to admit that just hearing him talk made me feel warmer inside. As always, in his voice there seemed to be a strong undercurrent of what wasn’t being said that was nearly as important as what was.
    “Okay,” he continued, “I guess maybe I’ll try you again later. I hope you made it home from the airport all right.”
    I touched the answering machine, wishing it was that easy to reach out and touch him.
    “I’ve got my phone turned off, so you won’t be able to get me. I’ll have to call you back. Bye, Callie.”
    That was the end of the message. I listened to the dial tone for a moment and then reset my machine, somehow reassured despite the fact that he had given me no new information. I took my cup from the microwave, clicked off the light, and went back to the bedroom. The bed was toasty warm when I got there, and I climbed under the covers and leaned back against propped-up pillows. Sal jumped up from the floor and settled in her familiar spot against my leg. I sipped my warm milk, reached for the bedroom phone, and dialed Harriet’s number.
    “Did I wake you?” I asked when she answered.
    “Oh, puh-leeze, you know what a night owl I am. What’s up?”
    “I heard from Tom.”
    I described his brief message, and then we tried to decipher it. I wondered aloud if maybe someone was ill or had died.
    “Then again, maybe it was a good thing,” Harriet said. “There can be good family emergencies.”
    “Like what?”
    “Maybe his mother won the lottery. Maybe his sister decided to get married on the spur of the moment.”
    “His sister’s already married, isn’t she?”
    “I think she’s divorced. I’m not sure.”
    We tossed around more ideas, good and bad, until eventually the conversation drifted to other things. I considered telling Harriet about the events of my afternoon, but I knew she didn’t like mystery, intrigue, or murder. The fact that I had been face-to-face with a dead man several hours earlier would be a bit extreme for her, so in the end I kept it to myself.
    “Hey, enjoy the time off while it lasts,” she said, steering the conversation back to Tom’s