Journaled to Death

by Heather Redmond

  He offered her a blank stare and nothing more. Mandy’s gaze flew past the skateboard on her mushy winter lawn – why? – checked his video game T-shirt for signs of rips, his elbows for signs of trauma, and finally found what she was looking for on his knees.

  ‘You skinned your knee,’ she exclaimed, picking up his skateboard and handing it to him. ‘Let’s just wash that out and put a bandage on it.’

  He stared down at his bloody skin with mild interest. ‘Is it bleeding?’

  Mandy glanced at the blood dripping down his leg. Couldn’t he tell? Was he freezing to death? She hooked her hands under his armpits and helped him up. ‘We’d better get you inside. Is your mother home?’

  ‘No, just Emilee.’

  Mandy shook her head in disgust. Emilee was Aiden’s twin sister. They were too young and foolish to be left home alone. Yet another parenting fail for Crystal. She felt bad that Crystal’s husband had left her in order to pursue any other woman that might have him, preferably several at a time, but she had to do better with her kids.

  ‘Come inside and we’ll get you cleaned up.’ She put her hand on his shoulder to guide him in. ‘What were you doing up here anyway?’

  He didn’t answer, just dropped his skateboard right on the remains of her blue ivory Hosta. Mandy wanted to move it to the lawn, but then Aiden put one foot on the stair and immediately moaned and clutched at his knee. She took her concrete steps two at a time and pulled his hands away, afraid the bleeding had gotten worse.

  ‘Let me see,’ she encouraged.

  He pulled his hands away. ‘It hurts!’

  He’d made things worse, having scraped off the drying blood. Fresh droplets welled up. ‘Come on.’ She hauled him up, half-supporting his sturdy eighty-pound weight. Glossy tears dribbled down his cheeks.

  Her front door squeaked when she unlocked it and pushed it open. The hinges needed oil. ‘Let’s get you into the kitchen. The best light is in there.’

  ‘Can I watch TV?’ he asked.

  ‘No, the kitchen doesn’t have a television.’ She had to encourage him past the forty-inch TV screen in her living room, a reminder of her marriage, and walked him through the dining room into the kitchen. ‘Sit here.’

  She pointed to a stool tucked under a counter along the back wall. Only then did she remember the crime scene in the hallway behind the wall. She’d brought this child into a home that needed a crime scene cleanup. Reacting like a mom wasn’t always the right approach.

  ‘Stay,’ she commanded, pointing at him after he climbed onto the stool. She hurried into the bathroom and grabbed her first aid kit off the top shelf and brought it back into the kitchen.

  She needn’t have worried about Aiden exploring. He’d helped himself to a tin of shortbread on the counter. Crumbs dusted his lips.

  ‘Yum,’ he said, taking another huge bite.

  She let it go. It wasn’t her job to discipline Crystal’s badly behaved children. She merely needed to minimize their presence on her property. When she lifted the lid of her kit, she saw the anti-bacterial ointment was missing, so she wet some paper towels and wiped grass off the wound. At this time of year, no dirt had gotten into it.

  ‘Why were you skateboarding on my lawn?’ she asked, as she dabbed a fresh spot of blood away.

  ‘Mom yells at me if she sees tracks on our lawn.’

  The little creep thought he’d use her lawn instead. Nice. ‘It works much better on the pavement.’

  ‘Mom doesn’t want me out of the yard.’

  ‘Then you should stay on your property,’ she pointed out. ‘My yard isn’t your yard.’

  He didn’t say anything, just grabbed another piece of shortbread.

  Oh well. She didn’t need the sweets in the house anyway. They’d been a Christmas present from an elderly neighbor, but Vellum didn’t like the coconut flavor.

  ‘Please stay out of my yard.’ She opened a big square bandage and carefully applied it over the wound. ‘It should stop bleeding soon.’

  ‘Huh.’ He tried to peel away the edge.

  ‘Don’t touch it, Aiden,’ she scolded. ‘You want it to heal. Don’t check it until bedtime, OK?’

  He looked at her quizzically. She thought he was going to ask something about his wound.

  ‘Is the body still here?’ he asked.

  Her hand shook. She turned away and dropped the bandage packaging into the trash can, hiding her upset. Had he been over here trying to get a look at the corpse? The Roswells all needed therapy. ‘No, Aiden. I’m sure you’re curious, but he is long gone.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I’m not sure. That’s for his sister to decide.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means he has a sister who will be in charge now.’ She closed the lid of her kit, ready to put it back in its spot in her bathroom.

  ‘Is she a jerk too?’

  ‘What, honey?’

  Aiden screwed up his greasy lips. ‘He had it coming.’

  ‘You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,’ she chided.

  Aiden crawled off the stool. ‘Ryan was a jerk. I hated him.’

  ‘Did something happen?’ Mandy followed him as he walked through the dining room toward the front door.

  He shrugged. She touched his arm before he could open the front door. ‘Is there something I should tell the police?’ she asked gently.

  He smiled sweetly at her, exposing the tip of an adult-sized canine tooth that hadn’t quite come in yet. ‘No.’

  He went out the front door. ‘You’re welcome for the bandage,’ she called as he went down the steps, hoping that would remind the child to say thank you – but no.

  She watched until he’d disappeared through the bushes supposedly separating her property from the Roswells’. At this time of year, they didn’t have enough leaf cover to make them impenetrable. Maybe she needed to plant something spiky like Japanese bayberry. If he really hurt himself here, like broke a bone, Crystal would probably sue her.

  Had Ryan yelled at Aiden for crossing over to her lawn? Probably. Still, she was horrified that a ten-year-old would call an adult a jerk. Had she known Ryan at all?

  A breeze washed over her, making her shiver. She shut her door and went down the steps, feeling for her car keys. Time to move her car into the driveway. She jumped down to the sidewalk and walked around the house, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth. A fast-moving, navy-blue truck came around the corner behind Linda’s house as she went to her car. She stood by her bumper, waiting for it to pass. The light hit the side of her car oddly.

  Oh no. Had her day just gotten even worse? She didn’t have her phone with its flashlight app, so all she could do was run her fingers along the door. Nothing felt wrong, but when she reached the space in between the door and the metal above the bumper, she felt more air than should have been there. Someone had clipped her car.

  ‘This is why I should never park here,’ she muttered to herself. Another irritation to lay at the feet of her Roswell neighbors. They were a relatively minor headache, but still, one she didn’t need. She opened her door, hearing a creak from the metal as it bent against the damaged part, got in and drove into her driveway.

  The floodlights in the back came on, and when she hopped out she saw the damage. Nothing that made the car undrivable, though the area around the left headlight wasn’t entirely intact. Pushing this latest issue to the back of her mind, she went in so she could look up crime scene cleanup companies and order their services. But first, she’d better email her insurance company.

  This sort of thing was exactly what made journaling useful. A handy, simple place for to-do lists, checklists and the like, along with an easy method of tracking task status, what needed to be moved to a different day, or month, or even year, was heaven-sent for days like this. If she hadn’t needed to leave her journal in a crime scene, of course.

  Mandy lived by her lists, and her brain felt like scrambled eggs without that journal. Inside her b
ack door she went past the freezer and her bill-paying table in what had originally been a tiny mudroom, then walked into the kitchen. The house didn’t seem disturbed. The police must have focused their efforts on the basement.

  She did a quick search through the main floor of the house. Her phone had been removed from the stand and taken as evidence. She snatched up her journal and cradled it. The police had left it alone, but this experience told her she needed to stop using her own personal journal for shooting her videos. From now on, or at least starting next month, she’d keep two separate ones. Maybe she’d even give the one from the video away in a contest. Some of her fellow vloggers awarded prize packs with every video. She’d been too cheap to do it, but she also hadn’t tried to get free merch from the suppliers. Might be time to wave her follower numbers in front of Scribbles That Matter, Leuchtturm1917, Tombow, and other suppliers. Also her fellow online craft shop owners. Everyone traded product reviews and cross-promoted. No micro businesswoman was an island.

  She opened her journal and jotted these quick thoughts on her February brainstorming spread, then updated her to-do list. The house’s silence bore down on her. She missed Vellum.

  Ignoring loneliness and hunger pangs, she went into her bedroom and opened her laptop. In the next half hour, she made an appointment for a cleaner to come, then emailed back and forth with her insurance company, verifying the damage to her car wasn’t enough to be worth a claim. The crime scene cleanup should be claim-worthy, though she’d have to pay her deductible. She debated starting dinner.

  Instead, she decided to let her mother feed them. The last thing she did was creep into the hall and grab her laundry basket. It had been knocked over, but the clothes were still there. She tossed them all into a garbage bag and went out the back door.

  Linda was just getting out of her car and waved from her driveway across the street. ‘Time for a cup of tea?’

  Mandy hefted her garbage bag and approached her friend. ‘I feel like a weirdo, going into your house with my unwashed laundry.’

  Linda laughed. ‘Is your washer broken?’

  Mandy shuddered. ‘It’s in the basement.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Linda said sympathetically. ‘Mine’s in that little room off the back steps. Do you want to use it?’

  Mandy shrugged. ‘I was going to use my mother’s, but sure. It’s so strange not having my phone. No one can reach me and demand anything.’

  ‘Where is Vellum?’

  ‘My mom gave her the key to her house. Hopefully she’s over there. I should go supervise.’

  ‘I’ll make the tea while you get your laundry going. You’ll be out of here in ten minutes.’

  Mandy followed Linda through the back gate onto her property. ‘Did you hear anyone hit my car in the last hour? I had to park it alongside my yard and someone clipped it.’

  ‘Bad idea,’ Linda said. ‘Sorry. The teenagers around here are terrible drivers. Must be all the weed.’

  Mandy shrugged and told her about the Roswell drama as they walked up the back steps. She glanced at Linda’s hot tub and felt a pang of desire. What she wouldn’t give to climb into that hot warmth with a glass of chilled wine about now, even in February.

  Linda unlocked her back door, then reset her security panel. ‘Do you want me to have George look at your car?’

  ‘That would be super neighborly of him.’ Mandy wondered if she should get some security on her house, but it probably wouldn’t have saved Ryan from whatever had happened. She had to keep reminding herself he was gone.

  Linda pointed to the washer then went into the kitchen. ‘I’ll give him a call.’ Her home layout was similar to Mandy’s, without the sunroom addition. Mandy and Cory had decorated their home in a Neo-Victorian style, back when they were a two-income household. Linda had gone for country French décor. Lots of blues and yellows, with Provençal linens on the dining room table.

  When she’d been married, there had been a lot of Hindu religious and cultural artifacts in cases, but Sanjay had taken them all when he left. Linda didn’t seem to mind. She hadn’t replaced any of the glass cases that used to line the walls, saying she liked the empty space.

  Mandy emptied her bag into the washer. When she entered the kitchen, Linda handed her a ten- and a five-dollar bill.

  ‘For Vellum,’ she told her.

  ‘Thanks.’ Mandy felt her face go red. ‘This is so embarrassing. I’ll get it back to you as soon as I leave work tomorrow.’

  ‘No rush,’ Linda said. ‘The tea should be ready by now.’

  They sat down at the little iron table in the kitchen where Mandy’s extra counter was located. Linda poured the tea and Mandy doctored hers with sugar to give her stomach something to feed on.

  ‘Did you call your insurance company?’ Linda asked.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not worth a claim. It will just raise my deductible.’

  ‘It’s drivable?’

  ‘Yep, just one more thing I have to deal with. I’ll have—’ she paused. No, she couldn’t have Ryan look at it. The one semi-reliable man in her life was dead. Tears burned her eyes. ‘Thanks for asking George to help me.’

  ‘But Mom, I have to go to school,’ Vellum moaned as she handed her phone to Mandy on Friday morning in her grandmother’s kitchen.

  ‘I’m just going to post a quick note on our video channel, and a live video on our social media,’ Mandy said. ‘I’ll be done before you finish breakfast.’

  ‘I hate breakfast. Unless it’s dinner.’

  ‘Put something in your belly,’ Mandy said. ‘Hear my mom voice?’

  Vellum stuck her tongue out at Mandy, then picked up an orange from her grandmother’s fruit basket and peeled it.

  Mandy signed out of Vellum’s accounts and into the Mandy’s Plan accounts. After she posted her notice about a death in the family, she fluffed her hair and stood in front of her mother’s spotless refrigerator.

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetie, can you record me?’

  Vellum rolled her eyes. ‘I’m on the clock, right?’

  ‘Sure. For two minutes.’

  Vellum fiddled with her phone.

  ‘Make sure when you’re done you set the video to post on all of the social media accounts,’ Mandy advised.

  ‘I’m not new at this,’ Vellum groused.

  ‘Of course not,’ Mandy said. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Lights, camera, action!’

  ‘Hello, friends!’ Mandy said brightly. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t been posting on Mandy’s Plan this week. We had a death in the family and I lost my phone. Crazy, right? Then last night my parked car was hit. Is something in retrograde?’ she laughed lightly. ‘We’ll be up and running again as soon as I have my phone situation sorted. Lots of great content coming. Swipe up to visit our video page!’

  Vellum turned off the recorder. ‘I’ll add the swipe.’

  ‘Thanks, hun.’ Mandy checked the pocket of her coat and pulled out Linda’s money. ‘Look at this. Cash!’

  ‘Yes!’ Vellum snatched it. ‘Movie time. When do we get to go home?’

  ‘Tonight, I think. I have to run over to the house and let in the professional cleaners. I assume they’ll be done by the time I get home from work.’

  ‘It’s not like anything really gruesome happened.’

  Mandy’s stomach gurgled uneasily. She’d never be able to handle an orange right now. ‘The police processed the scene, whatever that means. I couldn’t bring myself to go down the steps so I went through the basement door and took a quick peek. It’s a mess, lots of fingerprint collection material all over the place. They searched everything and pulled up some of the flooring on the stairs. Evidence, I suppose.’

  ‘Was the door busted open?’

  ‘No,’ Mandy said.

  ‘Are you going to change the locks?’

  ‘I can’t afford it.’

  ‘Security system?’

  Mandy sighed. ‘I can’t afford it.’

  ‘Are we safe?’ Vellum shivered. />
  ‘The door to the basement from the outside has a different lock to the upstairs door. Even if Ryan gave out keys to everyone, they can’t get to us if we keep the door from the upstairs to the basement locked.’

  ‘Can we add more locks?’

  Mandy nodded. ‘Sure. We can add a chain lock and one of those bolt locks on our side of the door. That way no one can get in.’

  ‘Cool.’ Vellum gave her a one-arm hug. She smelled like her orange.

  The scent brightened Mandy’s mood. ‘I’ll walk you to the bus stop.’

  ‘You didn’t eat breakfast,’ Vellum pointed out.

  Mandy grabbed an apple. ‘The difference between us is that I can eat at work. Lots of choices.’

  ‘All the coffee you can drink. So good for you, Mom.’ Vellum snorted. ‘And you should switch from dairy milk.’

  Mandy laughed. ‘I hear you.’

  They went outside. Seattle offered up a typical misty morning. Light fog diminished the landscape and the drizzle bit at Mandy’s cheeks. At the corner, they waited for a cluster of cars to pass.

  ‘What am I doing?’ Mandy groused. ‘You pick up your bus on this side of the road.’

  Vellum laughed. ‘It’s hard to sleep on a strange bed. You’re in a daze.’

  ‘That and no breakfast yet.’ Mandy punctuated her words with a savage bite into her apple. They turned back and walked up to the bus stop. Vellum went to a private school, paid for by her Moffat grandparents, who’d insisted on it.

  A couple of other teenagers were waiting there, so Mandy refrained from any embarrassing displays of affection and went back across the street to her house. She passed by her front steps, admiring the lattice work on her arched entryway. A white van was parked just in front of the steps. She read the name on the van. The crime scene cleanup people had arrived.

  The mid-morning coffee bar slump had just begun when Detective Ahola showed up, alone this time, his hair covered in a slouchy blue cap. He still looked more handsome than anyone had a right to be. Mandy dropped her cleaning supplies into a bucket, wishing she’d been in a more elegant pose, and went to the cash register.

  ‘Trouble on Pill Hill?’ Mandy asked.