Window of Guilt

by Spallone, Jennie

“He was social action chairperson for his fraternity during college.”

  “Congratulations. FYI, we’ve closed the book on the death of Shakia William’s ex-boyfriend. There’s no evidence linking him to your summer home or that of Helga Beckermann.”

  Laurie slammed the detective’s desk. “So we’ve got nothing.” She yanked open the glass door. “You get any new info, Detective O’Connor, let me know.”

  *

  A stocky hockey player lumbered towards another player. Sandy Schaeffer rolled her eyes. “Larry has trouble stopping once he’s in motion.”

  “Don’t we all,” said Laurie. “Your impromptu e-mail invite worked out perfectly. I was coming up to Oconomowoc anyway.”

  “I could lose my job for talking to you again without permission from my supervisor.”

  Together, they watched a tall young woman block the puck. The group home shift manager jumped to her feet. “Way to go, Becca! I need to clear the record on Arnold.”

  “I’m listening,” said Laurie.

  “Last time you were here, you asked if anybody disliked him. Our regular housekeeper was out sick back in June. A substitute housekeeper and her son filled in for the month. The choice of housekeeper was a fluke.”

  “She a local?”

  “Elizabeth Grabowski and her son live in Chicago.”

  “There’s lots of locals who could use the money.”

  “No doubt.” They watched a dark skinned teen in a wheelchair hit the puck.

  “Is the Grabowsky family related to the executive director?”

  Sandy Schaeffer shot Laurie a wary glance. “This wasn’t such a good idea after all. I need to get back to my flock.”

  Laurie’s shoulders tensed. “Now you blow me off? If you got something to say, say it.”

  The group home manager started towards the hockey rink. “I apologize.”

  “Are the housekeeper and her son related to Arnold?” Laurie called out. Her question echoed through the stadium.

  27

  Laurie and Mitzy made their way up Helga Beckermann’s rickety porch steps.

  “Your neighbor should be real thrilled to see us on her doorstep at 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday night,” said Mitzy.

  “You don’t want to be here, freeway’s clear this time of night.” Laurie rapped on the scarred wooden door.

  “Hallo?” came an accented voice from behind the closed door.

  “It’s Laurie Atkins. I came to retrieve my key from Mrs. Beckermann.”

  Some furious whispering behind the closed door. Finally, the door edged open, revealing a middle-aged woman. She pressed a key into Laurie’s palm. “This not good time to chatter.”

  “Anything we can do to help?” asked Laurie.

  A sliver of a voice rang through the night air. “Send her away. She brings me bad luck.”

  “Me?” Laurie asked incredulously. “I’ve never done anything to harm her.”

  “It better you go,” said the other woman. She thumped the door shut.

  “We can come back tomorrow,” Mitzy whispered to her friend.

  “No way.” Laurie rapped on the door again. “Please let me in, Mrs. Beckermann. I need to talk to you.”

  The door swung open. Her elderly neighbor stood in the entrance, her hair uncombed, her eyes mournful. Arnold huddled behind her. “You got your key. Why do you keep harassing me?”

  “Something was wrong with your bell. We had to bang on the door.”

  “Your bell is broken, grandma,” Arnold confirmed.

  Helga waved her hands towards Arnold. “Out of here.”

  Arnold scooted down the hallway.

  The elderly woman turned back to the door.

  “That’s kind of dangerous, isn’t it? Considering…”

  “…A young man was found dead in my driveway?”

  Laurie’s face paled. “This is my friend, Mitzy. She’s a former investigative reporter.”

  The elderly woman nodded. “To what do I owe this unwelcome interruption?” Helga said, pointing them to a green fabric chair across from her card table.

  Laurie took a seat at the edge of the chair. “I wanted to apologize for our family causing you so much grief.”

  Mitzy looked at Laurie questioningly.

  “Mrs. Beckermann believes the body was moved to her property from another site.”

  “Yeah,” said Helga. “Yours.”

  “Must have been a real shocker to find a dead body in your driveway,” said Mitzy.

  “You know it. My address is printed clear as day above my garage, just like hers. She finds a dead body on her property, so she dumps him off in my driveway.”

  “That’s nuts!” said Laurie.

  Mitzy guffawed. “As if her overweight body could drag the dead weight of a grown man down a country block without collapsing herself.”

  Laurie gave her the evil eye.

  Helga Beckermann squinted. “No denying she could lose a couple of pounds, but she’s capable of dragging a lanky body down the road.”

  A surge of adrenaline broke through Laurie’s benign façade. “Ryan and I have attempted to be respectful neighbors, Mrs. Beckermann, but you’ve bludgeoned our every courtesy.”

  “Now your parents, they were neighborly from day one. The summers we spent barbecuing, boating, and basking in the sun. Together, we watched the fields change from open farmland to summer cabins to million-dollar homes. It was a sad day when your mother and father divorced, even sadder when your father died.”

  “My husband and I did nothing to incur your disdain.”

  “You’re always lording them princess words over people.”

  “Wait. You despise Laurie because you dislike her word choices?” asked Mitzy.

  “Bigger shocker is my grandson still pines over this woman,” Helga spat.

  “How is that my fault? I’ve never said more than ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ to Arnold.”

  “Any other horrible mistakes she’s made?” Mitzy asked, tongue-in-cheek.

  “She sends her boy to overnight camp, yet brings him home every night.”

  “It’s Rory’s first time at overnight camp,” said Laurie. “I’m breaking him in slowly.”

  “And that husband of yours. Always whiling away his time at the lake.”

  “That husband of mine is recovering from heart by-pass surgery. He’s under doctor’s orders to take it slow.”

  “You never offered me money to keep an eye on your tenant. But then you people like to hold on to your money.”

  “You people?” Laurie felt her face grow hot.

  “Everyone knows that to Jews, money is like a precious child.”

  “Now, now, let’s don’t stereotype,” said Mitzy.

  “When my father was on his deathbed, he told me to enlist you to watch over the house. Ryan and I offered you a monthly fee. You refused compensation.”

  “I agreed to watch your father’s property because I respected your parents. You don’t have to pay me to do something that comes naturally.”

  “Yet we sent you a check every month.”

  “Only that first year after your father’s death.”

  “The envelopes came back unopened,” said Laurie, her voice rising.

  “I didn’t need the money.”

  Rage coursed through her veins. She fixed Mrs. Beckermann with a piercing stare. “You’re fired.” Laurie stomped down the front steps, steering clear of random nails that budded through the weather-torn wood.

  “You didn’t hire me, you can’t fire me,” Helga called after her.

  “Hey, wait for me!” Mitzy rushed after her.

  As she waited for Mitzy to catch up, Laurie pondered about the umbilical cord that connected the old woman to her family, as well as to the dead boy.

  *

  “Excuse me?” came an accented voice from above.

  Laurie pivoted on the bottom stair. There stood the middle-aged woman who first answered the door.

  “I apologize for how Mrs. Beckerma
nn act tonight. Brother buried today.”

  Laurie and Mitzy exchanged glances on the stairs. Strange that no one had come back to the house following the funeral.

  As if reading their minds, the housekeeper continued. “After cemetery, people eat lunch at restaurant with Mrs. Beckermann. Niece and husband come by for short time, then leave.”

  “How do you know Helga?” asked Mitzy.

  “She get me temporary housekeeping job at group home.”

  Oh my gosh, thought Laurie. This must be the woman who Sandy mentioned.

  Helga appeared at the top of the stairway. “That sure was a mistake.” She shuffled up to the housekeeper. “You got two minutes to finish up with these people, Elizabeth.” Tossing her head in disgust, the older woman headed back into the house.

  “Helga is your employer?” asked Mitzy.

  The housekeeper’s demeanor relaxed at her departure. “Twenty-five years ago, I work for her and her brother when they live in Chicago.”

  Laurie blew out a deep breath. “She kept in touch with you all this time?”

  “Elizabeth!” called Helga from the other room.

  “I go now.” The housekeeper scurried back into the house.

  28

  Tossing her hooded jacket onto a dusty wooden chair, Laurie hoisted herself onto the mosaic tiled countertop and opened the kitchen window to air the place out. Gazing at the snow-swept front lawn, she proudly grinned at the For Rent sign featuring her name, as well as Coldwell Banker Real Estate. She’d had the insight to acquire a dual license to practice real estate in Wisconsin as well as in Illinois.

  Laurie kicked off her fur lined gray boots and rubbed the soles of her feet. It was darn cold in this neck of the woods and she’d forgotten to adjust the thermostat. That task had been Shakia’s responsibility during her two years of graduate school.

  Laurie groaned. One more task to put on her annual “To Do” list.

  She’d endured so much this year, from her shaky marriage to the discovery of a dead body. Then there was the state exam. Her persistence had enabled her to land a career in the lucrative real estate market. A perfect profession for a mom who desired to be home for her child after school. Back in Chicago, she wouldn’t be working today. Saturday was the Sabbath, meant for prayer.

  Try as she might, Laurie still couldn’t fathom how Ryan dealt with the daily boredom of sitting around the house over the last twelve months. Sure, he washed the dishes, cleaned the floors, walked Rory to school in the mornings, and did the laundry. He’d recently signed up to volunteer at Rory’s school, and he worked out at the gym two to three times a week. Other than that, Ryan did nothing but sleep. Dr. Radcliffe said he was perfectly fine to go back to work, but Ryan resisted.

  Peering into the crystal ball of her early childhood, she saw her mother and father joking around the kitchen table over coffee and bagels. There was little laughter in their own home. Ryan feared suffering another heart attack. Just when financial quicksand threatened to bury them, enter Superwoman Realtor!

  Laurie propped a poster-sized For Rent sign in between the screen and the window pane. Not that anybody could read it a half-acre away from the road. An experienced realtor would have confined her signage to the yard. But extra signs never hurt anybody.

  The blue and white cardboard sign pitched forward from the window ledge. Laurie hadn’t thought to bring masking tape along. She sat up quickly and bumped the top of her head. Ouch! She shrieked, her ears ringing. The ceiling above the double sink was deceptively low.

  Massaging her crown, Laurie jumped off the counter and headed for the tool drawer. Thank goodness for Norman. Her father-in-law was the only mature adult in their family. Age was no indicator of wisdom, especially when it came to her own parents. Happily married for thirty-five years, they’d split apart like a Kit Kat bar when she was sixteen years old, after her mom confessed to a youthful fling she’d experienced early on in their lives as soul mates.

  In every marriage, Love and Pride duked it out. If Love hung in there for the duration, the couple had a chance, but if Pride won the trophy, it was time to scatter the seashells. Her mother hadn’t bothered to wait for sandy beaches, planting her independence flag in Phoenix while dad retired to Palm Beach.

  Rummaging through the drawer next to the stove, Laurie spotted a package of pink and yellow Post-its. She hoisted herself back onto the counter, this time ducking her head. Painstakingly, she attached a portion of each yellow and pink Post-it to the windowpane, and the other portion to the sign. Just like her marriage, it would temporarily hold. Although their sweltering arguments had healed into mere blisters, Ryan’s recent confession threatened to fan those flames into a wildfire.

  Holding her breath, Laurie gently let go of the FOR RENT placard. It immediately fell onto the kitchen counter. No matter. A quick ride to the local hardware store would provide her with the materials to finally secure the placard. Her knees were getting stiff anyway. Just as she prepared to inch down to the floor, she heard a buzz coming from above her head. How weird. Mosquitoes usually didn’t birth this late in the fall.

  Laurie scooched back onto her knees and directed her gaze towards the skylight above her head. She checked the windowpane. Nothing there. Her knees were aching now. One of the smoke alarms probably just needed a new battery. She prepared to scoot off the counter. Yet the faint buzz continued, one lonely bee in an empty forest. This time she focused just above the windowpane.

  Laurie’s heart quickened. A pinkie-finger-sized black device was mounted, almost invisibly, above the window frame. Hesitantly, she clicked its minuscule button. A tiny screen lit up like a video camera. Her body started to tremble as she envisioned her private life being taped. Who would have bugged her house? Then she remembered Shakia’s futile attempt to rid herself of her stalker boyfriend. How she’d given Laurie’s cell phone number to the police in case she was attacked.

  Did she really want to play voyeur on Shakia and her dead ex-boyfriend? Pinpricks of anticipation filled with dread punctured her chest. Inching closer, Laurie eyeballed the video streaming silently across the miniature screen. What she saw made her blanch. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Pride smirking in the drain.

  *

  Laurie burst into the darkness to greet Mitzy, who was striding up the long driveway. Three stars twinkled in the Saturday night sky indicating the Sabbath’s conclusion. “Thank goodness you’re here.”

  Mitzy extracted herself from her clutches. “Had to break off a reconciliation date with Jeff. You owe me big time, lady.”

  Laurie’s eyes darted back and forth. “Ryan moved the body.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “He loaded the body into our wheelbarrow and toted it away,” Laurie screamed.

  “You’re hallucinating again.”

  “Oh yeah?” Laurie pointed to the miniature videotape machine embedded in the low-slung ceiling above the kitchen window. “Check this out.”

  The former investigative reporter pressed the ant-sized rewind button. Then she gasped.

  Laurie’s trunks-clad husband was kneeling over the horizontal body of a young man in a yellow jersey. Ryan’s side profile was visible to the camera as he tossed a canteen aside, then searched for a wrist, then neck pulse. Obviously unsuccessful in his mission, Ryan began rummaging through the young man’s pockets. A ticket or receipt appeared to be his only bounty.

  “I told you I saw a Greyhound ticket receipt,” Laurie broke in.

  “Shh,” said Mitzy, her eyes glued to the video.

  In the next scene, Ryan rose to his feet. He searched his own pockets for some item, but came up empty handed. He looked towards the white house, and then glanced over his left shoulder at the lake peacefully weaving its way along the shore. Neither hiker nor driver dotted the road separating his summer home from the beach.

  The homeowner jogged into his garage, emerging moments later with scissors, a blanket, a rusty old wheelbarrow, and a roll of black plastic
trash bags. Hastily, he molded the oversized trash bags along the wheelbarrow’s backbone and sides. Then he scrambled back to the body.

  Ryan knelt to cut the canteen strap hanging down the dead man’s chest. Tossing the canteen out of camera view, he threw a moldy looking blanket over the body. Then he stuffed the body into the second trash bag, and tied the plastic strings. Hands on hips, he turned to look down at the body, then back at the wheelbarrow. Flexing his knees, he bent down until his face was almost touching that of the young man. Ryan grabbed hold of both ends of the leaden trash bag. In one motion, he popped his body upright and heaved his human luggage into the lined wheelbarrow.

  Now Ryan massaged his lower back, his face scrunched in pain. Gazing into the wheelbarrow, he covered its contents with another trash bag. With great effort, he propelled his heavy cargo down the driveway, veering left when he reached the edge of his property.

  The mini-video screen turned to static. Laurie hit the stop button on the machine. The two friends knelt on the kitchen counter, awash in awkward silence.

  “What are you going to do?” Mitzy whispered.

  Laurie toyed with the minuscule machine. “First I’m taking this recording to the police. Then I’m going home to pack.”

  “Wait. You’re going to sever ten years of marriage just because of this?”

  “Just because of this? Six months ago, my loving husband does his utmost to convince me I imagined a dead body on our property. Then he admits he saw the body but had nothing to do with its disappearance. Now I find out the no-good bastard is the one who moved the body!”

  Mitzy retrained her eyes on the video screen. “Looks like Ryan was fishing around in his pockets for his cell phone.”

  Laurie eyed her friend suspiciously. “You don’t seem particularly shocked by the contents of this tape, which leads me to suspect this private showing wasn’t a premier for you.”

  “Oh, it’s definitely a first run,” hedged Mitzy.

  Laurie blanched. “You knocked TG off yourself. Then Ryan toted him away like a bag of torn gift wrapping paper.”

  “Now you’re really losing it.”

  “You guys had some kind of connection with the dead man.”