by Laura Alden
Nothing except the refined flour, fatty cheeses, and tomato sauce that was no doubt heavy on the salt. “It could be worse.” I took one of the bags from her. “Let’s go home,” I said, and suddenly home sounded like the very best possible place in the world to be. What could be better on a cold February night than to be home with my children?
• • •
The sun was just sinking below the horizon when we pulled into Marina’s driveway. Jenna stayed in the car and fiddled with the radio while I ran into the house.
Marina was in the kitchen pulling fresh Parker House rolls from the oven. “Look,” she said, brandishing the sheet pan. “Ze ah zings of beauty, are they not? Ze crust is a perfect light brown, ze texture is zublime, yes?”
“Your French accent needs work,” I said, “but they look wonderful. And we need to talk. Soon.” I called for my son, who, from the sound of things, was in the family room playing Wii bowling with Zach. “Oliver? Time to go!”
She put the sheet pan on the range top and put her fingers in her ears. “La-la-la, I can’t hear you until Mother’s Day.”
Right. “Why is it that you can get me to agree to six weeks of forced inactivity but I can’t get you to talk to me for four months?”
She grinned. “Because you’re a much nicer person than I am.”
• • •
On the short ride home, Jenna continued to sit shotgun while Oliver sat in the backseat. He was in question mode tonight and went at it as if he’d spent the day putting together a list.
“Mom, how come people are mean to each other?”
After I’d tackled that one the best I could, he moved on to the far easier “Mom, why aren’t birds sitting on wires electrocuted?”
My answer about electrical currents and grounding was followed by a question about the necessity of learning fractions, followed by a stumper question. “Mom, what’s time?”
“That,” I said, pushing the button to open the garage door, “will have to wait until after we eat dinner. Oliver, can you carry in the bag with the salads? Jenna, you get the lasagna, please.”
They clambered out. I opened my car door and was collecting backpacks and my purse when I heard a sound that chilled me to the bone.
“Mom? Mom!”
This wasn’t the normal Mom call made when the toothpaste cap fell into the toilet. This was a call of pure panic.
I dropped everything and bolted for the open door. My children were standing in the middle of the kitchen, eyes wide, staring at a room that bore no resemblance to the marginally tidy space we’d left that morning.
Cupboard doors were open. Food and dishes and pots and pans were strewn all across the floor. Through the study’s open door, I could see papers and books covering the carpet. The bookcase was tumbled over and the desk drawers were upside down on top of it all. I could only imagine what the rest of the house looked like. The rest of the house . . .
“Back to the car.” I pointed at the door to the garage. “Now.”
Our house, our home, our haven of safety had been ransacked, and for all I knew, the ransacker was inside.
Chapter 16
I’d never been more proud of my children. They obeyed me without asking any questions, running back to the same seats they’d vacated less than a minute earlier, and buckling themselves in, in less time than it takes to tell.
I slid behind the driver’s seat, shut the car door, and clicked the door locks shut. I started the car as the garage door rumbled open and backed out with only a scant glance for traffic.
“Where are we going?” Jenna asked in a small voice.
There was no question, no question at all. “Mrs. Neff’s,” I said. “Jenna, can you get me my phone, please?” She fumbled through my purse and handed it to me. “Kids, you should never drive and use a cell phone except in an emergency, okay?”
“Are we in an emergency?” Oliver asked.
“A midlevel one.” I’d been trying for a light tone, but was pretty sure I hadn’t reached my goal. I tried again. “We’re okay, but the house is a bit of a mess.”
“We didn’t check on Spot,” Jenna said, swallowing. “Or George. We left without making sure our pets were okay.”
“Sweetheart, I saw Spot. He was in the laundry room, sleeping on a pile of dirty clothes.” Yes, I was a horrible mother for lying, but I was not going to have my children be in that house until the police made sure it was empty of intruders. “And there’s no need to worry about George. Cats can smell trouble better than tuna fish. He probably won’t come out of the back of my closet for a week.”
I pushed the speed dial and waited until Marina answered. “Hey. Something’s happened and we’re headed back to your house. No, we’re fine. I’ll tell you about it when we get there.” I blinked at her question. What did we want for supper? I looked at Jenna, then looked into the backseat. “How about lasagna?” I asked shakily, because my children had returned to the car still carrying the food-filled bags.
• • •
An hour and a half later, I stood in the middle of my family room with Spot at my side, looking at what had, that morning, been a cozy place with upholstered furniture, a gas fireplace, a television, and shelves full of board games and children’s books and crayons and paints and markers and stencils and glitter and glue.
“Mrs. Kennedy?”
I started. The kind—and very young—Officer Sean Zimmerman was looking at me. Judging from his expression, it seemed certain that he’d asked me a question and I hadn’t answered. “I’m sorry, Sean. What did you say?”
He gave me a smile that was probably supposed to comfort me, but instead made me want to pat him on the head for trying so hard to be a good boy. “That it’s going to be hard to tell, but do you think anything is missing?”
Missing? What was missing was the sense of security that I’d taken for granted. What was missing was the confidence that nothing truly bad would ever happen in this house. What was missing was my children’s innocence that had been dumped on the floor and ground into the carpet along with the silver glitter.
I closed my eyes for a moment and, when I opened them, was faced afresh with the mess my house had become.
Sean, notepad in hand, encouraged me along. “I saw your computer is still here, in your study. Your TV is still here. And the DVD player. Did you have a PlayStation or an Xbox?”
Not unless you-know-where had frozen over. “They play those games when they’re at their dad’s,” I said vaguely.
He nodded. “Okay, how about other electronics? I ask because that’s what gets stolen from houses most often. Handheld stuff. Do you let the kids take their smartphones to school?”
I half smiled. I didn’t let the kids have a phone at all, a matter that was becoming more and more a point of contention with my daughter. And it was then, for what reason I couldn’t fathom, that I started crying. Tears gushed out of my eyes, down my cheeks, and into the corners of my mouth. “Sorry.” I wiped at my face with the heels of my hands. “This is . . . all very strange.”
“Don’t apologize,” Sean said. “You’ve doing fine. Matter of fact, you’re doing great. Do you want to sit a minute?”
The front door creaked open, then slammed shut. “Beth? Beth!” Pete rushed into the room, his booted feet leaving scattered bits of snow behind him. “Sweetheart, are you all right? The kids?” He pulled me into a rough hug, holding me tight, cradling the back of my head, kissing my hair. “I got here as fast as I could. You’re okay, right?” He held me at arm’s length, searching my face. “You look a little funny. Let’s sit you down.”
“I’m okay.” And somehow, suddenly, I was. “The kids are over at Marina’s. They’re fine.” They were probably doing better than their mother. “Spot’s fine and George is under my bed and showing no desire to move.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Pete thumbed a wet tear off my face. “Like sure sure? You’re not being all Beth-like and saying you’re fine when you’re really not?�
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“How about, I’m mostly fine?”
He smiled and I found that I could smile back. “Okay,” he said. “That I’ll believe.” He embraced me again, whispered something that I couldn’t quite hear, then kissed my forehead and released me.
“Officer Zimmerman.” Pete held out his hand and the two men shook. “What’s the story?”
Sean related the bare facts. That I’d called 911, that Sean had taken the call and, with the help of a second officer, had come to the house, lights flashing. They’d gone through the house quickly and found it empty of any intruders. Now it was just Sean and me and now Pete, standing in the middle of the aftermath.
“How’d he get in?” Pete asked.
“Broke the window in the back door. No footprints in the snow, so he must have walked right next to the house where there isn’t any.”
I grew an instant dislike for the deep roof eaves I’d previously liked.
“Fingerprints?”
“The county is sending over their guy,” Sean said. “He’ll be here soon.”
Pete nodded, but we all knew it was unlikely they’d find any fingerprints that would be useful. “Well,” he said, looking around, “it could be a lot worse.”
I gaped at him. Worse? How could it be worse?
Then I realized that he’d taken off his friend-of-the-victim hat and put on his professional forensic cleaner hat. Because he was right, it could have been worse. A lot worse.
Every shelf and cabinet in the house had had its contents tossed to the floor, but the milk was still in its jug, the toothpaste was still in its tube, and the glue was still in its bottle. Though it was a horrible mess, a few hours of tidying and vacuuming would take care of it.
“You know,” Sean said, “this looks a lot like Mrs. Van Doorne’s house did the other day.”
Pete and I exchanged glances. “Oh, yeah?” he asked.
Sean nodded. “Like someone was looking for something. Mrs. Kennedy, did you know Mrs. Van Doorne? Can you think of anything that connects the two of you?”
I shook my head. “She wasn’t much more than an acquaintance.”
He looked at me. “I’ve seen the letter she sent you. The one asking you to help find her killer.”
At that particular moment, I didn’t care if the president of the United States had asked me for help. The only thing I wanted was to get my house back together and my children back under my roof, safe and sound. “Sorry, Sean. She may have asked, but I don’t know anything.” I gestured at the surrounding chaos. “Can I start cleaning?”
• • •
It was midnight before Pete and I got the house back to anything that resembled normal. When he said he’d finish it the next day, I got all sniffly and said thanks so much for the offer, but of course you don’t have to do that.
He handed me a tissue and said he knew he didn’t have to, but he wanted to and to let him help, for crying out loud, that cleaning up crime scenes was what he did for a living and that he wouldn’t sleep right until my house was back to normal.
I told him, in that case, I was practically obligated to let him finish up. He agreed, hugged me, and sent me back to Marina’s to sleep in a sleeping bag on her family room floor, Jenna at my right and Oliver at my left, the three of us huddled together in one large lump of displaced Kennedys.
The next morning we dressed in clothes I’d shoved in a duffel and brought from the house. Marina’s outstanding breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausages, the sort of weekday breakfast I only made time for on birthdays, went down into the stomachs of my children with ease. I, however, pushed the eggs round and round and cut the sausages into successively smaller and smaller pieces until my breakfast didn’t resemble anything close to human food.
Marina took my plate away. “Try this,” she said, and gave me half a piece of lightly buttered toast. I chewed at it from one side, then the other, and eventually got it all down.
“Thanks,” I said in a low voice, for the three kids were chattering about a hot new rock group. The Lizard Withers? That couldn’t be right. “For everything,” I told her. “You’re the best friend anyone could want.”
She batted her eyelashes and handed me another piece of toast. “Eat up, buttercup, or I’ll call Lois and give her my version of what happened last night before you get to the store.”
It was a very real and powerful threat, so I ate up.
The kids clung to me a little when I dropped them off, though it could have been the other way around. But it was certain that Jenna kissed my cheek before she got out of the car, something she didn’t normally do. When it was Oliver’s turn to leave, he unbuckled his seat belt and sat a moment, staring at his knees.
“Are we going to sleep at home tonight?” he asked.
It was time for Mom to have all the answers, and she wasn’t sure she had any, let alone the truckload he deserved. I knew Oliver missed sleeping in his own bed, and I also knew he was scared to go back into the house. I knew he was nervous about Bad Guys, but I also knew he was concerned about his stuffed animal collection. “Spot will miss us if we don’t.”
My son nodded. “Yeah. And George, too.”
I doubted that very much, but went along with the fiction. “Pete is finishing up the cleaning today. By the time he gets done you won’t even know that anything happened.”
“Bet we do,” he said quietly.
Oh, my son, of course we’ll know, and I am so very sorry you’ve had your innocence stolen from you, so very sorry . . .
“Know how we’ll know?” he asked.
“How?”
He turned to face me. “The bathtub will be really, really clean.”
My mouth dropped open. “Oliver!”
He giggled, launched himself at me for a hug, then jumped out and ran up the long sidewalk to the school.
I was still smiling when I got to the store, and the smile stayed until Lois arrived. Since Flossie was due to arrive soon after, I waited until they both had hot drinks in hand to tell them what had happened.
“Oh, my dear!” Flossie, not a woman prone to public displays of affection, put down her coffee mug and enfolded me in a long, warm hug. “How dreadful for you. And the children? What a shock that must have been.”
Lois thumped me on the shoulder. “Maybe you should go home today. Take it easy.”
I explained that Pete was still finishing up, and they both agreed that letting the man take care of the cleaning was a wise move. “Like car detailing, only for houses,” Lois said, toasting me with her mug of Earl Grey. “You go, girl. Whatever it takes.”
So it was with a relatively light heart that I sat down at my desk. I powered up the computer and stretched out my legs while I waited for the screen to come to life. That minute or two wait was the time I often used to prioritize my daily tasks, and it was at this point I realized that calling my former husband and telling him about last night should be high on that list.
I slid down a little in my chair as I imagined the conversation.
“Beth,” he’d say, “please tell me you locked the house before you left.”
Yes, Richard, I locked the house.
“If there have been a rash of burglaries in the area, you should install an alarm system. Let me e-mail you a listing of reliable companies.”
No, thank you, Richard, I don’t think an alarm system would do much good now that the house has already been ransacked.
“You think that lightning can’t strike twice?” He’d chuckle, then recite the statistic of how often it actually does. “Do you really wish to risk those odds with the children?”
I slid down a little farther in the chair. My left foot touched something.
What the . . . ? I sat up and looked underneath the desk. A cardboard box sat there, staring up at me.
Cookie’s box. I’d completely forgotten about it. Sean’s question of last night rushed into my head. “Can you think of anything that connects the two of you?”
Why, yes,
Officer Zimmerman, I can.
I tugged at the box and dragged it out into the light of day. How was it possible that I hadn’t remembered Cookie’s box?
But even touching it was making the back of my neck twitch with unease. And that might explain why I’d forgotten about the box last night. There was only so much creepiness my brain could tolerate in one day; having my house ripped apart had been yesterday’s allotment.
I hauled the box up onto my desk. Opened one flap. Opened the other. Peeked between the two inside flaps.
“It’s just stuff,” I told it. “There’s nothing inherently creepy about any of you.”
Except the doll. I’d never liked dolls with eyes painted permanently open, and that included Barbie and Raggedy Ann. Infant dolls especially should have eyes that closed. Babies needed sleep.
I fingered the flap. Sleep would be good. I hadn’t had much last night. After tiptoeing into Marina’s house and crawling into the sleeping bag, I’d lain awake thinking dark thoughts that didn’t match well with my mom/children’s bookstore owner/PTA president persona. Anger. Revenge. Paybacks. What little sleep I did get was restless and hampered by the fact that I was sleeping on a floor. A carpeted floor, to be sure, but still a floor.
“Quit lollygagging,” I muttered, quoting my grandmother, and opened the box.
One by one, I took out the items Cookie had placed inside and put them on my desk. A Christmas ornament. A flat white paper bag. A high school graduation photo that looked about fifteen years old. A brochure for an African safari. A hand towel. A ceramic figurine of a football player. The doll. A snow globe. A small arrangement of silk flowers. A vegetable peeler, a one-dollar bill in a plastic bag, a toy boat, and a royal blue coffee mug.
I put the box on the floor and studied the stuff on my desk until my eyes hurt. If there was any meaning, it was escaping me. I arranged the items this way and that, looking for a message, a hidden communication, anything. I rearranged everything to be alphabetical. Rearranged everything by material. By season. Sorted by approximate price. By age of the likely user. By color. By size. Nothing I did got me any closer to a conclusion.
