They both laughed and talked a little more about when Jared would actually start his residency and how the family would facilitate the cross-country move. During a brief lull in the conversation, Sadie asked about Mrs. Wapple as casually as possible.
“Why? What’s the Witch of Browden Street done now?”
“The Witch of Browden Street?” Sadie repeated.
“Well, that’s what the neighbors called her, and it kinda stuck—she’s that weird—and Salem’s only half an hour away, you know.” She laughed. “So you must have seen her. What did she do?”
“Oh, nothing really,” Sadie said, perhaps too quickly. “I’m just wondering what you know about her.”
“Not much,” Heather said. “She’s only lived there a few months and mostly keeps to herself, but now and then she comes out and hollers at people or starts chanting and stuff. Someone told me that she steals other people’s mail, but Jared and I have a PO Box.”
“Have you ever talked to her?”
“No,” Heather said. “I don’t think anyone talks to her. There are a few knotholes in her fence that she looks out of. Sometimes she yells at people when they pass by her house. Creepy. Why do you ask?”
“Well, I talked to her last night.”
“You did!” Heather said with a laugh. “What happened? What did you talk about?”
Sadie kept the details scarce, focusing only on the Mrs. Wapple that the boys seemed to know and the woman in pain she’d given potatoes to. She hadn’t figured out how the woman she’d given the cookies to factored in, so she left her out of it.
“Wow,” Heather said, her voice soft and humble. “I’ve never seen her act like she’s hurt or anything.”
“Does anyone else live with her?”
“No, she’s alone.”
“Does she have a caretaker of any kind? Family? Church connection?” Maybe the woman she’d given the cookies to was a family member—a sister perhaps.
“Not that I know of,” Heather said. “I suppose someone could enter through the alley—I wouldn’t see them if they did—but I’ve never seen anyone visit other than some Mormon missionaries who got an earful over the fence a few weeks after she moved in. She’s not interested in religion, in case you were wondering.”
Sadie struggled with how to move to the next subject and finally used Kalan to introduce it. “Kalan said she cast a spell on someone’s dog and it got hit by a car.”
“Oh,” Heather said, sounding embarrassed. “I didn’t know he’d heard Jared and me talking about that.”
“What happened to the dog?”
Heather was quiet for a few seconds. “Mr. Forsberk’s dog pooped in her yard, and she came out from behind the fence, screaming. He started yelling back and she told him his dog would die within a week and did this weird waving thing in the air with her hand—the boys and I saw the whole thing. The dog was hit by a car two days later right in front of her house. I didn’t make a big deal about it to the boys, but Kalan did ask a lot of questions.”
“And you think she has . . . supernatural powers that caused the accident?”
“Yeah, I guess I do,” Heather said as though apologizing. “I grew up close to the reservation and there was always a lot of talk about spirits and hexes and black magic, or bad medicine. I’ve never had the luxury of not believing in another realm, and Mrs. Wapple is exactly the kind of person who would invite that type of energy. The fact is, she said the dog would die and it did.”
“Hmmm,” Sadie said, vastly uncomfortable with Heather’s thoughts on the subject. “Well, that’s certainly something to think about. I haven’t seen the angry side of her, or the . . . uh, witchy side, but I am worried about her.”
“Well, maybe it’s worth calling social services or something. I’m the last one to say she doesn’t need help—witch or not.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Sadie said, nodding to herself while the boys laughed at something in the other room. “Thanks for the information. I’m glad you’ve had a good trip. Like I said, the boys are doing great, so don’t worry about them a bit.”
“Oh, I’m not worried,” Heather said. “I miss my little men, but it’s the first time Jared and I have gone anywhere just the two of us since he started medical school, and we’re enjoying that an awful lot.”
She thanked Sadie for helping out; Sadie humbly refused the thanks, insisting it was her pleasure—which it certainly was. Heather promised to call tomorrow after Kalan got home from school, and a few minutes later, they said good-bye. Sadie hung up, her eyes finding the bag with the hat hanging on the back door.
Pete’s hand on her shoulder startled her. “Somebody’s jumpy,” he said, passing her on his way to the cupboard by the phone. It held the local phone book, pens and pencils, and a few different pads of paper. Pete grabbed one of the notebooks and flipped through it until he came to a blank page.
“What are you doing?” Sadie asked, noting that he seemed lighter . . . no, he seemed determined. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and smiled at her.
“Making a few calls,” he said as though she would be satisfied with such a paltry explanation.
“About Mrs. Wapple?”
Pete shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to know a little more about what we’re dealing with. A guy I used to work with in Colorado Springs was from the Rhode Island PD originally. He might know someone who could do a little research for me—off the record, of course. I mentioned to Jared about putting in some eyebolts, but he said he has to clear it with his landlord and he thinks I’m being cop-dad.” He shrugged off the comment. “Anyway, I hope he’ll get back to us on that soon. It would sure make me feel better.”
Sadie nodded and relaxed, relieved that Pete was doing something real, something solid, something logical. Why couldn’t she do the same thing? She thought about her cute little laptop in her room. She didn’t have Pete’s connections, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have some tricks of her own. The house was run-down and the furniture was used, but Jared had excellent Internet service and a wireless router that Sadie very much appreciated.
“I’ll race ya,” she said, glancing at the clock. “The movie has an hour to go and then the boys will need lunch. Let’s meet back here in forty-five minutes and compare notes.”
Pete smiled, a genuine smile this time. They were on the case, together. This was Pete’s comfort zone and Sadie was now a part of that. She liked that very much.
He started toggling through his phone and gave her a wink. “You’re on.”
Chapter 8
Okay,” Sadie said, popping a Froot Loop in her mouth as she and Pete reconvened at command central—i.e., the kitchen table—fifty minutes later. There wasn’t a more dignified snack food available so she’d had to make do with dry cereal. She needed fuel of some kind to keep her brain working; the pancakes were beginning to wear off. She settled in on her side of the table with her laptop open in front of her. Pete sat opposite her and had filled up two pages of the notebook, which had her worried. It wasn’t a competition, but she really wanted to win. “What have you got?” she asked, officially beginning the meeting of minds.
“Well,” Pete said, turning back to his first page. “I’m still waiting for one more call to come back verifying a few details, but she doesn’t have a criminal record.”
“That’s good news,” Sadie said, relieved. She hadn’t bothered looking for criminal information since she figured Pete had that market cornered.
“Yeah,” Pete said. “But she had her driver’s license—Vermont issued—revoked back in ’97. Her doctor said the medication she was taking impaired her ability to operate a car.”
“Which means at some point she was able to have a driver’s license, and she had residency in Vermont,” Sadie said.
Pete nodded and wrote something in the margin. “I couldn’t find details about her medication, but I found reference to some hospital stays. One in ’96, one in ’98, and another one in ’01. They were all th
ree to five days long—I’m guessing it was a psych ward.” He grabbed a handful of Froot Loops and put them all in his mouth.
“I found the ’96 and ’01 stay, but not the ’98,” Sadie said, adding “1998” next to item four on her list of twelve details she’d put at the top of her list for organizational purposes. “The first stay was in Vermont, right?”
“Right,” Pete said. “It looks like she lived there for about five years before that. The next two stays were here in Massachusetts.”
“The last stay was in Belmont. Where was the other one?”
“Not sure.”
“Family members,” Sadie said, moving on to the next topic.
“Mother died in the early nineties in a car accident. Other than that, there’s her father and a younger sister.”
“The sister’s name is Gabrielle,” Sadie said, nodding. That was item eight on her list, and an important discovery. “I think she lives here in Boston. I wonder if she’s the person I talked to yesterday. Maybe she pretended to be Delores, though I don’t know why she would.”
Pete nodded. “I figured that must have been her, too.”
“Her dad’s dead,” Sadie said—item six.
“He is?” Pete asked, reading through his notes.
“Yep, four months ago.”
“How do you know that? I didn’t find it.”
“Okay, I admit it—I asked Shawn for help. He discovered in one of our other cases last month that while it sometimes takes time for official records to be updated, the obituaries are immediate. Anyway, he found the dad’s obituary—it was run in Lowell, north of here. It requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to Eastridge Hospice in thanks for the care he’d received, so that means he knew he was dying. There was only a graveside service, but Delores and Gabrielle were mentioned by name in his obituary—Delores first, which would make her the oldest. Delores’s mother’s obituary stated that she and Timothy Wapple had divorced but remained friends, and there was no mention of any other marriage. I’d guess Dad didn’t remarry either, since no other wife was listed in his obit. He gave generously to the Veterans of Foreign Wars—that wasn’t in the obituary, though, I found that by happenstance when his name came up in an old record of donors for an event back in the early nineties.”
Pete stared at her. “You found all that in less than an hour?”
Sadie shrugged. “Like I said, I had help.”
Pete tapped his phone. “So did I,” he said. “It’s still impressive that you found so much.”
“Finding stuff was the easy part,” Sadie said. “The tricky part was putting the pieces of information together. For instance, Mrs. Wapple receives disability, but she doesn’t have a phone, and her mail is forwarded. Shawn’s going to look into her former address in between his classes today, so we might get some more information from that sector.”
“She’s a registered Democrat,” Pete chimed in. “But she hasn’t voted for several years.”
“Good job,” Sadie said with a smile, not telling him she’d found that too.
Pete had found a complaint filed by one of the neighbors in Jamaica Plain six weeks ago—not long after Delores had moved in; she’d been yelling over the fence. Three complaints had been filed over the years in Lowell too, where Sadie assumed Delores had lived with her father. In high school, Delores had set a swimming record in the freestyle back in the late eighties—her freshman year. Sometime between that accomplishment and the first hospitalization in ’96, things had changed for her dramatically, but there was little information available. She was currently forty-two years old and her birthday was January 6.
“That makes her a Capricorn,” Sadie added as an interesting side note. “They’re usually very goal-oriented but can be aloof and distant before they really come to trust someone.”
Pete smiled at her.
“What?” she said, feeling self-conscious. This was serious business. She didn’t expect or necessarily want a smile. Was he making fun of her for being familiar with the zodiac? That was uncalled for.
“You’re good at this.”
Sadie waved the compliment off, but in her heart she locked it away to enjoy later. “I wish it were more than bits and pieces,” she said. “Before all these privacy acts were put into place, the nursing home I used to volunteer at would let us read up on patients’ histories, so that we knew where the residents had been in their lives. They would often have pages and pages of history, gathered from the patient, their families, and the doctors. I wish we had something like that.”
“There are good reasons those things aren’t part of public record,” Pete said. “Say Mrs. Wapple has some kind of remission, she’d have a very hard time reestablishing herself in this information age if everything about her life was so widely available. It’s too bad you and I both found her hospital stays.”
“I understand all that,” Sadie said. “I’m frustrated because there is a history that could help us figure out what exactly we’re dealing with but we can’t get our hands on it. I hate that.”
“Well, we have found quite a bit,” Pete said. “We know she has a medical history with strong indicators that point us toward mental illness. Yet, based on the swim team record you found, that didn’t hold her back when she was young. She’s not in an institution—which says a lot—but we know from our own observations that she isn’t well. She’s reclusive, but not criminal. Annoying, but has never hurt anyone. She’s also a native of Boston who lived out of state for a little while but came back. Both of her parents are deceased, leaving her in the care of her sister, most likely.”
“When you say it like that, it does seem like a lot of information,” Sadie said. “Did you find out why she’s called Mrs. Wapple? Wapple is her maiden name.”
“I didn’t find any marital history, so I don’t have an answer for that. However, with what we do have, I feel better approaching her about the hat,” Pete said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head. “I don’t think she’s dangerous.”
“She did come in the house,” Sadie said. “That’s disturbing.”
“Yes,” Pete said with a conciliatory nod. “That’s very disturbing.”
They looked at their notes for a minute. “So, is that what we’re going to do? Confront her about the hat?” Sadie ate another Froot Loop.
“Yes, but I think we should call the sister first, now that we know Mrs. Wapple has an unstable history,” Pete said. “She might have some valuable insight, not to mention that Mrs. Wapple might not have the ability to get help on her own. Her father died, and she’s recently moved. Those are two very difficult things for anyone to cope with, let alone someone with a history like hers. I think we’ll need the sister’s involvement to make sure she gets the help she needs.”
“Gabrielle’s not listed in the phone book,” Sadie said. “I looked. In fact I can’t find a Gabrielle Wapple anywhere online. Maybe she’s married.”
Pete smiled. “Well, it’s good to know I have a few tricks you haven’t tapped into yet.” He slid his notebook around so Sadie could see the ten-digit phone number written in the upper section of the paper. He’d circled it three times, showing his pride in the discovery. “She must have married at some point, though she listed herself as single on her tax returns last year. She goes by Gabrielle Marrow.”
“An unlisted number?” Sadie said. “What’s she hiding from?”
Pete shrugged. “Let’s give her a call and find out.” He dialed the first couple of numbers and then looked at Sadie. After a few moments, he held the phone out to her. “Do you want to call?”
Sadie kept her hands in her lap. She did want to talk to this woman and get the information herself. But . . . “I think you should,” she heard herself say. “She lied to me about who she was; she might be defensive.”
Pete nodded and finished dialing the number. He put the phone to his ear.
Sadie waited anxiously, watching Pete’s face. After several seconds pas
sed, he said quietly, “Voice mail.”
Sadie felt herself deflate as disappointment replaced her eagerness. No answers—not yet. Pete left a message saying he wanted to talk to her about her sister. He didn’t refer to himself as a detective, and yet his voice was still strong, warm, and authoritative—not to mention very attractive. Any woman would be a fool not to call back a voice like that.
He hung up and set his phone on the table.
“I hope she’ll call back,” Sadie said. She slumped in her chair, then sat up straight as Pete reached across the table, taking her hands in both of his.
“She will,” he said with confidence. “She’s obviously filling the caretaker role to some extent. She’ll call back.”
Sadie looked into his eyes for several seconds and felt everything melt away as the air between them became warm. “I could get used to this, you know,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
Pumpkin Roll Page 7
