Mom and I stayed on our own property, but stepped outside and moved as far across the lawn as we could and still be on our property. We hid behind the rhododendron bush.
Matt rang the doorbell. I counted to ten before the door swung open, and he stepped back. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but soon Matt stepped off the porch and moved to the back of the house, entering through a side gate. Mom and I moved to our backyard and peered through holes in the fence.
“Keep your finger pressed on the emergency button on your phone,” Mom whispered. “I don’t put it past them not to bash Matt in the head and add him to Rusty’s remains.”
“Shhh.” I had a firm grip on my cell phone.
Matt peered into the wood chipper, then looked into the black bag at his feet. He shook his head and glanced our way. I could see the movement of his shoulders as he sighed deeply. What lie had they told him?
We ran through the back door and waited for Matt in the front room. He entered without knocking. “It’s squirrel blood. They kill squirrels when they won’t stay out of their bird feeder.” He raised a hand at our protests. “I told them it was against the law, and they promised not to do it again. As for the body … it’s a mannequin. They’re cleaning out the attic in that old house and rather than crowd the landfill, they chop things up in some effort to help the environment.”
“Then where is Rusty?” I lifted my chin. “I seriously doubt the blood trail in my backyard is from a rodent.”
“Show me.”
I led him to the backyard and showed him the drops of blood. He made a call asking for forensics to come out and take an analysis, then hung up and turned to me. “I’m sure Rusty will show up. He’s a wanderer.”
“He’s never left without finishing his work.” I glanced toward the Edgars’ house. “He eats his meals with us and doesn’t go home until dark. Something is wrong. I feel it in my gut.”
“Are you sure it isn’t your over-active writer’s imagination brought on by the episode this morning?” He tucked a strand of hair that had fallen from my ponytail behind my ear.
“I’m positive.” I stepped back out of his reach. If he couldn’t take me more seriously, then he had no right to make tender gestures toward me.
Hurt clouded his eyes. “I’ll call you later. Forensics should be here within the hour.” He whirled and marched away, his shoulders slumped.
My heart lurched a bit, knowing I’d hurt his feelings, but he had also hurt mine. There was something wrong with Rusty’s disappearance whether the Edgars played a part or not, and I didn’t like having my intuitions brushed aside as if they weren’t important.
Voices from the other side of the fence, prompted me to put an eye to a peep hole in the wood slats. Herman gestured wildly, his wife’s gaze darting toward our house. She shook her head and marched away. What I wouldn’t have given for a device that allowed me to hear over a longer distance.
“I’m sure they know if it was us that called Matt,” Mom said beside me. “If they are the killers, then we’re in more danger than before.”
“If Matt thought they killed Mrs. Lincoln and Torie, he wouldn’t leave us alone.” I hoped. At the very least, he would assign an officer to sit outside our house, right? “Which cake did you make for the Edgars?”
“The lemon one.”
“I think it’s time for me to deliver it with an apology.” I straightened. I didn’t know what I would say, but I was a writer. I worked with words every day. Surely, I could come up with something plausible to say.
“I’ll need to frost it real quick.” Mom raced into the house.
Fifteen minutes later, I rang the Edgars’ doorbell and waited. This time I counted to ten before the curtains twitched, then another ten before Cecelia answered the door. I plastered a smile to my face, knowing Mom watched closely from our yard.
“Well, if it isn’t the residential nosey neighbor.” Cecelia crossed her arms across her bony chest. “Can’t you stay to yourself and mind your own business? Now, we’ll most likely be fined for killing rodents.”
“I’m sorry. My mother has a tendency to jump to conclusions.” I inwardly apologized for throwing Mom under the bus. “We’ve brought you a cake for the inconvenience.”
She snorted and took the cake, then slammed the door in my face. I’d accomplished nothing. Spirits low, and still worried about Rusty, I headed home and told Mom what I’d done.
Instead of getting angry, she agreed I’d done the best thing. “We can’t have all the neighbors mad at the same person, now can we? This way, maybe they’ll be more willing to talk to you, like Mrs. Henley is with me.”
I doubted it, but slung an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “You’re the best. I don’t deserve you.” I turned as Angela pulled into the driveway. She was home early.
After turning off the ignition and exiting her car, she marched toward us. “Can you stay out of trouble for one day? I swear, you’re all the station is talking about. Our family is nothing but a big joke. It’s embarrassing. Can’t you tell a real body from a dummy?”
I bit my tongue rather than spouting off that I was looking at the world’s biggest dummy at that moment. “It was an honest mistake.”
“Whatever. I was so mortified, I pretended to be sick and came home early. I’m taking a bath and holing up in my room. Where are the kids?”
Mom and I shrugged.
Angela huffed. “I can’t even rely on my family to watch my children.”
“Were we supposed to?” Mom asked. “They’re either in their room or roaming the streets as usual. I wasn’t aware you’d enforced any rules for them. They know where home is and what time to eat. Other than that, your sweet darlings avoid us like the plague.”
Angela stormed into the house. Seconds later, her screeches reached us as she shouted at her little darlings for still being in bed.
“She needs to find something for them to do during the summer,” Mom said. “It isn’t good for them to sleep so much.”
“I think they stay up all night playing video games.” With one more glance toward the Edgars house, I followed Mom inside ours.
Angela screamed for a few more minutes before slamming the bathroom door.
“Is she gone?” Cheyenne opened her door a crack.
“You’re safe.”
“Good.” Cheyenne stepped out of her room wearing the shortest shorts I’d ever seen and a tube top. “I’m going out. I’ll be home by supper.”
My mouth fell open. “Aren’t you getting dressed first?”
“I am dressed. A group of us are going to the lake.” She banged on Dakota’s door on her way. Soon, he followed wearing board shorts and a tank top.
It wasn’t my place to tell them to ask for permission. At least we knew where they were going and the approximate time they would return. Still, I would suggest to my sister, once she was speaking to me again, that she put a GPS on their phones.
I headed for my office and closed the door. I didn’t have as good of a vantage point for keeping surveillance on Herman and Cecelia from there, but could see most of their property and still keep an eye on the road and several of the neighbors. My gut told me there was more to Rusty’s disappearance than him simply wandering off for a while. Maybe it was an innocent reason, but I couldn’t rest easy until I knew more.
A door slammed across the street. Mrs. Henley dashed off her porch and into her van. The garage door rose, she drove in, the door closed, and two minutes later, the door rose again and she backed out. Only this time, there was a slumped over figure in the front seat.
It was hard to tell whether the second person was Rusty or not. Either way, they didn’t look conscious. I reached for my cell phone to call Matt, then thought better of it. After all, I had no grounds on which to call him. It wasn’t against the law for someone to park outside their garage then drive inside to pick up a passenger, only suspicious.
Why couldn’t I have normal neighbors like everyone else in the w
orld? I shifted my gaze east. Herman stood in his driveway and watched as Mrs. Henley drove away. Once her van was out of sight, he tossed the cake I’d dropped off into the trash receptacle on the curb.
18
Later that evening, I sat on the porch swing, laptop on my lap and stared at the genealogy charts I’d made of my neighbors. This was where I knew the answers to so many questions laid. The fact that I couldn’t find a single thing on the Edgars irritated me like a tick embedded in a hard to reach place.
Not to mention how much it rankled that they threw away the cake Mom baked without taking a single bite. Maybe they thought we had poisoned it?
Mary Ann raced up the sidewalk, leaped up the steps, and landed with a plop on the seat next to me. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“Rusty has disappeared. Sources say his mother is hiding him.”
I prayed that was the truth. We’d know better once Matt got the results of the blood analysis. “Who are your sources?”
“My ears, when my brother is talking on the phone to his police buddies.” Her teeth flashed in the moonlight. “I’m a great eavesdropper.”
“I guess you heard how I made a fool of myself.” I closed my laptop.
She giggled. “It’s all over the precinct how you’re not only a nosey neighbor romance writer, but prone to vivid acts of imagination. The Edgars have filed a complaint against you.”
“Good for them.” I sighed and leaned back in the swing, setting it into motion with my toe. “Something about them bothers me. Like, who are they? I can’t find any record of a Herman and Cecelia Edgars.”
“Leave them alone.” Matt hopped over the railing and booted his sister off the swing so he could take the space next to me. He moved my laptop to a small wicker table beside the swing. “Are you still mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you.” I scooted over a fraction of an inch.
He laughed, startling bats from the magnolia tree in our front yard. Mary Ann shrieked and ran into the house. “If I knew that was how to get rid of my sister, I would have tried it a long time ago,” he said. “Little sisters can be a pest when big brother wants to spend time with a pretty woman.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” In fact, it would get him everywhere. I scooted back to his side and snuggled under his arm. “I was never mad at you. But something fishy is going on in Oak Meadow.”
“We’re in agreement on that.” He rested his cheek against my hair. “I can’t tell you anything more than to stop antagonizing your neighbors before you put yourself in danger. I’m on it. Trust me.”
I wanted to, I really did. But I had gotten myself so deep in an effort to write a new book, that I really wanted to see how it all ended. Not that I wanted to be foolish and endanger myself. Maybe I could work behind the scenes, so to speak, and do my investigating on my laptop instead of pounding the pavement. “Mom will be very disappointed.”
“So will my sister, and they will both be fine.”
“What reason could there be for someone to be invisible on the internet? I’ve tried searching for them and they have no online footprint at all.”
“Stormi.” His sigh raised my head and inch, then lowered it with his exhale.
“It’s for research.”
“Sure it is.” He shifted on the swing. “Hypothetically, they could have changed their names for any number of reasons, but mainly in order to hide.”
What reason would the Edgars’ have to hide? Maybe they were in the Witness Protection Program. I fought against the urge to straighten. Being a novelist, I was also an avid reader and this new thought wasn’t totally out of left field. In fact, it held more merit than any other point I could come with. The problem now was, how could I find out? I couldn’t exactly march into the FBI headquarters and demand an explanation about my unfriendly neighbors.
“I can hear the wheels turning in your head.” Matt tilted my face up to his. “What are you thinking?”
“That the Edgars are in the Witness Protection Program.” His stiffening told me all I needed to know. I grinned and scooted against the opposite end of the swing so I could see his face better. “Don’t worry. I won’t say a thing.” But … they must have tipped off someone very dangerous to want to hide in Oak Meadow Estates. I resisted the urge to rub my hands together. Somehow, they were connected to the deaths of Mrs. Lincoln and Torie.
What if those they were hiding from had found them and the murders were meant as a warning? If so, why not go straight to the Edgars? Why kill innocent people? It had to be something else. Oh. I jerked upright. “They know something and those after them can’t kill them until they get the information.”
“What are you talking about?” The full moon gave enough illumination for me to see his frown.
“It’s for my book.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie.
“You’re digging into dangerous territory, Stormi.” He stood. “I don’t think we should see each other until this case is over. I’ve already said too much. Anything more and you and your family will be in harm’s way.” He left a kiss on my forehead, branding his lips on my skin, then left.
What just happened? The summer evening took on a definite chill. I wrapped my arms around my middle as Matt strolled down the sidewalk and out of sight. Tears stung my eyes. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? He had told me to stay out of things, and whether I intended to or not, I didn’t have to push the issue. I felt a little better reminding myself he only said until the case was over, but what if he forgot how hot things ran between us? Maybe the old adage of absence makes the heart grow fonder wasn’t really true.
A loud bang from next door startled me out of my musing. I glanced through my front window to see Mom and Mary Ann flipping through sheets of paper. My Taser lay on the coffee table in front of them. If the Edgars had filed a complaint against me, I couldn’t very well climb through the shrubs and go nosing around, could I? Unless I didn’t get caught. I bit my bottom lip. No, it would have to be someone else.
“Mom?” I pushed open the front door. “Where are the cats?”
“Under the table where they always are, why?” She cocked her head. “What are you planning?”
I scooped Ebony into my arms and kissed his dark face. “You’re going to help Momma, aren’t you?” I glanced at Mom and Mary Ann. “One of you will have to go after him, and maybe catch a peek through the window of the house next door and report back what you find.”
“You’re going to sacrifice your cat for a story?” Mary Ann looked aghast. “That’s brilliant.”
“I’m not sacrificing him.” For goodness sake. What kind of person did she think I was? “We’ll leave the back door open. He never wanders far. The poor thing hates the outdoors, but the neighbor doesn’t know that now do they?”
“Oh, daughter, you have a wicked mind. I’ll do it. You’re not allowed over there.” Mom grabbed the cat from me. “My Taser is in my pocket, and I’m ready to go.”
Suddenly my plan seemed like a very bad idea. “Don’t get caught, okay?”
“I’ll do my best. If I get arrested, you’re going down with me” She cooed to my cat and scuttled out the front door. Mary Ann and I followed as far as the front porch.
Ebony tried to scoot past us, but Mary Ann firmly closed the door. He meowed and shot around the corner of the house. “I’ll get the back door,” Mary Ann said.
Soon, she had rejoined me and Mom’s loud whispers of “Here, kitty kitty,” rang through the neighborhood. Her voice got softer the closer she got to the Edgars’ kitchen window.
“Ebony is already safely in the house,” Mary Ann said. “You know your animals well.”
Yes, I did. I also knew enough not to let Sadie out. Her whines and scratches at the door told me how unpleased she was. Not that she would be much of a deterrent to anyone wanting to harm me, but she usually made more noise than Mom and I combined.
“I can’t see Mom.” I leaned over the banister, trying to peer through the h
edge separating the two properties. I meowed, hoping to draw her back into view.
“That’s the worst impression of a cat I’ve ever heard.” She popped her head over the bushes. “Quiet down.”
I shrieked and fell headfirst over the railing into a tangle of arms, legs, and scratchy branches. When I tried to crawl out, my hair entangled with a leafy branch, imprisoning me. “Mary Ann,” I hissed. “I’m stuck.”
“What?” She leaned over in the same place I had fallen.
“Be careful. I fell and can’t get out.”
She giggled. “Want me to call Matt?”
“No.” I cried, knowing coming to rescue me was the last thing he wanted to do. “Come help me.”
She climbed over the railing, as nimble as a monkey, and crawled to my side. “Hold still. You’re really in a bind.”
I thought she was going to pull my hair out by the roots. “Ow!”
“Shhh.” She soon had me free and back on my feet. “You make enough noise to scare away a bear.”
Mom made her way to our side. “They’re dragging stuff from the attic into the living room. I couldn’t see anything through the kitchen window, so I moved to their porch. I didn’t see the cake I baked them anywhere.”
Oops. “They threw it away.”
“What?!”
I clamped my hand over her mouth. “They’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care. I want my plate back.” She yanked free and marched to their front door.
Mary Ann put her arms around me. “What do we do if they drag her inside?”
“Then, we’ll call your brother.” Upset with me or not, Matt wouldn’t say no to saving my mother.
The front door opened after Mom banged several times. I couldn’t hear what was said, but knew from Mom’s hand gestures and arm waving that she was giving them a piece of her mind.
Herman stepped off the porch and marched to the trash can. He fished inside and came out with Mom’s plate. On his way back, he spotted us in the bushes. He shook his head and handed the plate to Mom then slammed the door after him.
Nosy Neighbor: All 7 complete Nosy Neighbor cozy mysteries PLUS: 2 short Christmas stories (A Nosy Neighbor mystery) Page 12
