by Sara Rosett
“No. Believe me, I’m no stranger to crazy speculation.” I smiled, but Summer didn’t notice my attempt at a joke. “You may be right. Or it may just be the police checking everything out. Being thorough.”
“Maybe.” Summer didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know. I mean, they’ve interviewed my neighbors. Tracked down my Metro card and checked when I ride the Metro.”
“So this guy had asked you out and you turned him down?” I was surprised Summer hadn’t mentioned this before. It wasn’t a small detail.
Summer dropped back onto the futon, her shoulders slumped. “He was stalking me. I didn’t want to put it like that to the police, but that’s what he was doing. Following me around and sitting out there at the curb in his beat-up pickup with binoculars. It was the binoculars that did it. Seeing those made me realize he was a little beyond normal. So that’s when I checked out the restraining order.”
“Did you tell anyone else then?”
“No. It only got weird about two weeks ago. He asked me out about a month ago and it was a few weeks later that I noticed he seemed to be doing a lot more yard work here. Then I saw him sitting in his pickup, watching me, and I knew I had to do something.”
“Do your parents know?”
“Are you kidding? That’s not something you want to call home about and tell Mom and Dad. Or Mitch. Don’t tell him anything about this, okay? He’d react just like Dad.” She shook her head. “Back when it happened, there was no way I was telling Dad. He might have shown up with his rifle one morning, just to scare Jorge. That wouldn’t go over well inside the beltway.”
I had to smile at that image. Mitch’s dad was a true southern gentleman, from his impeccable manners to his love of hunting.
“Besides, they already think I’m a flake. Mom puts it much more politely, of course. She says I’m ‘eccentric.’” Summer smiled sadly. “The funny thing is that I’m not going all conventional—doing the college and job thing—for them. I really like it. The political stuff fascinates me. I think I’ve finally found what I want to do. And if Ms. Archer even thinks I might be involved in Jorge’s death, well, I can kiss my inside track to a job in politics good-bye.”
“Summer, if she believes for a second that you had anything to do with his death, you don’t want to work for her anyway.”
“You’re right.” She nodded and replaced the contents of her purse. “If I could just see those pictures they have, I’d feel better.”
“Can Ms. Archer get them?”
“No. Tony already checked on it. If Tony Zobart can’t get them, it can’t be done.”
I thought of the endless pictures Nadia took. I could have sworn she took some in the Metro, too, although why she’d want to photograph the Metro, I had no idea. I’d ask to see them, but I wouldn’t mention it to Summer in case I was wrong and Nadia hadn’t taken “snappies” in the Metro. I mentally shuddered at the word because I’d heard it so often. And I like pictures.
I glanced over at Summer. She was sitting motionless, her purse in one hand and her sunglasses in another.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked and went over to her.
She shook her head and shrugged. “Yeah, um, no. I was thinking about Jorge. I saw him a couple of times in the Metro.” She carefully put the sunglasses into her purse, then picked up her scarf and folded it. “Every time I saw him, he was right down there at the edge of the platform. Some people do that, you know, get as close as they can to the edge so they’ll be one of the first people on the train.” She tucked the scarf down into the purse and looked up at me. “Either someone knew Jorge always waited right by the tracks or someone happened to see him there…” Her voice trailed off and she looked back down at her hands.
“And saw an opportunity,” I finished her sentence grimly. I watched her. It wasn’t like Summer to be so quiet and still. She looked pale, too, which was understandable after the encounter she’d just had with the police.
I changed my mind about mentioning the pictures Nadia might have. “Summer, I think a woman on our tour took some pictures in the Metro. I’ll check with her and see if she has any, but until then there’s not a lot we can do.” It seemed like a good idea to try to distract Summer so I said, “Where’s this room that’s in such bad shape?”
Summer checked her watch, said the Archers wouldn’t be home for another hour, and headed across the driveway. “Emma is back in preschool today. She was sick yesterday. That’s why Ms. Archer asked me to watch her.” Summer unlocked the back door of the Cape Cod house. We stepped into a blindingly white galley kitchen with older appliances.
“This room looks great,” I said. Usually the kitchen was the messiest room in the house, so it was hard for me to imagine a trashed room in the same house with this kitchen.
“Takeout. I think they’ve eaten maybe a banana here once.” They don’t even have cereal, if you can believe that. They both stop at Starbucks on the way to work in the morning. Emma has breakfast and lunch provided at the day care. I mean, school. Got to be politically correct, even with preschool.”
Summer led the way through the small living room with hardwood floors. The angular, modern furniture seemed at odds with the cozy architecture of the house. “The master, a tiny guest room, and a bath are on this floor,” Summer said as I followed her up a narrow flight of stairs to the second floor. “This used to be an attic, but it was converted into a—”
“A mess,” I said. I wouldn’t have been so blunt if the Archers were around, but there was stuff everywhere. A tsunami of toys had overflowed a toy box in one corner and dolls, stuffed animals, blocks, and books drenched the rest of the room. I couldn’t tell if the floor was carpet or hardwood because I couldn’t see it through the tangle of stuff. A crib sat opposite the toy box, and an open closet door beside the crib exposed a mishmash of clothes of all sizes. The only concession to decorating was room-darkening shades over the two dormer windows. Pink and green stripes were painted on one wall, but the pattern gave way to the plain white wall after about three stripes. Summer crossed the room. She nudged a blanket, shoes, and a few toys out of the way to close the closet door, then opened the shades.
I realized Summer was looking at me tentatively. I said, “Despite how terrible it looks, it’s really not all that bad. It could be quite nice, actually. Those two dormers could have window seats under them for storage. And how would Emma feel about a big girl bed? A twin would fit perfectly between the windows.”
She sagged with relief and picked her way back to me, stepping on a miniature piano and a bathtub duck, before she squeezed me in a quick hug. “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. If you’ll tell me what to do, I’ll get everything and we’ll make it happen.”
“So what’s the timeline?”
“Didn’t I mention that? Three days. They want to shoot the photos on Saturday morning, so that gives us three full days. That’ll be plenty, right?”
An Everything In Its Place Tip for an Organized Trip
Theme park vacation tips
Bring a backpack with bottled water, snacks, sunscreen, and bug spray.
Arrive early! Some parks actually open their doors before the scheduled opening time. Take advantage of the thinner crowds early in the day and hit the most popular rides before the lines form.
A quick overview of the park map or Web site will help you save time and energy and avoid backtracking from one end of the park to another.
If you’ve got younger kids in your family, check age and height limits on rides before you arrive to make sure there are enough activities for smaller children so that they won’t feel left out.
Since water rides have a tendency to soak you, consider bringing a change of clothes in a sealed plastic bag in your backpack.
Bring a small spray bottle. A mist of water is an easy way to keep kids cool.
Chapter Seven
I tapped on door number 521, Nadia’s room at the hotel, and waited. Did I hear giggling?
Nadia o
pened the door. “Oh, Ellie. Come on in.”
I stepped inside and paused, surprised to see everyone from our tour group. Gina perched on the windowsill, Abby sprawled against the bed’s headboard, and Irene sat in one of the chairs near the small table. Wellesley had been sitting at the end of the bed. “Here, you can have my place. I have to go, but thanks for the fudge, Nadia.” Wellesley didn’t seem nearly as irritated with Nadia as she usually did. Nadia wrapped up a few pieces of fudge from the table and tried to press them into Wellesley’s hands before she opened the door.
“No, no more, but thanks. I’ve got a little willpower left. I think I’ve eaten all of tomorrow’s calories. See you tomorrow at nine. The Archives first and then Union Station.”
“Would you like some fudge?” Nadia asked me. She was in full hostess-mode. “I always try and bring some snacks with me when I travel. Those vending machines are so expensive. I have oranges, too. Is your sister-in-law okay?”
The first question was easier to answer than the second. “Sure, I’ll take some fudge.” How could I turn it down? Besides, I was on vacation. “Summer’s…worried.”
Nadia brought me a piece of fudge from the cardboard tray on the table, then took the other seat at the table across from Irene, who said, “So, the police were at your sister-in-law’s house?”
Obviously the tour group had filled Irene in on what she’d missed and she was feeling better if she was interested in the news. I finished chewing a bite of the rich fudge, considering how to answer. I decided I’d better tell them about Jorge. “The police think the man who died in the Metro was pushed.”
There was a brief silence and then Nadia said, “Well, that is the most awful thing. I thought seeing a man die was the worst thing, but if he was pushed—that’s even worse.”
“Did you see it?” I asked
“Well, no. I didn’t actually see anything. But the whole experience, being swept up in the crowd was frightening. That’s what I meant.”
I noticed Abby looking at me with a disapproving frown and I realized my question probably sounded insensitive and a bit ghoulish. “Sorry. It’s just that the police have a video of the platform and they’re trying to narrow down who was near the man who died. His name was Jorge Dominguez,” I said with a glance at Irene, who popped the last bite of her fudge in her mouth. “That’s why the police came to talk to Summer. Since she works for Ms. Archer they thought Summer was on the platform. There was someone who looked like her in the video, but it couldn’t be her because she was babysitting Ms. Archer’s daughter that afternoon.”
Irene stood up and said, “I just remembered I have to check in at home, you know? Thanks for the fudge, Nadia. No, don’t get up.” Irene sketched a wave in our general direction and slipped out the door.
“Anyway, that’s why I came by. Since the video they have shows someone who looks like Summer on the platform, they think it was her and she can’t prove she was at the Archers’ house with a preschooler. Did you take any pictures on the platform before the man was pushed?”
Nadia hurried over to her pile of Vera Bradley quilted luggage. She pulled out a small case covered in a country Provencal print and removed a laptop. “Of course I’ve got photos. I wonder why the police didn’t ask for them when they interviewed us that afternoon.”
Abby rearranged a pillow at her back and said, “Well, at that point, everyone thought he’d fallen.”
“Except for the idiot who yelled it was a terrorist,” Gina said with derision.
“Right,” Abby said. “So, after the panic died down, we all thought he’d fallen. The police had a lot of people to talk to. I bet if you’d offered them the photos they would have taken them, but they probably didn’t even think about it.”
“I wouldn’t give my photos to the police,” she said as she plugged in the laptop and powered it up. “I might e-mail them copies, maybe, but never my originals. Let’s see. I’ve already downloaded that day.”
She pointed and clicked a bit and then swiveled the laptop toward me. She’d put it on a slide show view and the full-screen photos flicked across the display.
The first photos were of the Capitol, the requisite shots of the dome and exterior. And there we were grouped in front of the Mall. Then a close-up of a pink flower filled the screen, reminding me of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. The next was a black-and-white photo of a gardener as he worked in one of the many flower beds around the Capitol. He was wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. His curved back and drooping hand conveyed the arduousness of his work.
I was stunned. “Wow, Nadia. These are amazing.”
“Thanks,” she said as she cleared away the crumbs of fudge and fiddled with a stack of napkins.
There were more black-and-white photos in the Metro, the children swirling in their game, a shot of a man, a commuter, shoulders sagging as he waited.
“Nadia. These are incredible,” Gina said and I realized she was peering over one shoulder and Abby was looking over my other shoulder. Gina continued. “I had no idea. I’m sorry I made fun of you for taking so many pictures.”
“You like them? I get so nervous when people look at my pictures. It’s like looking at a bit of me, I guess. But you don’t have to apologize. I know I’m sort of a fanatic about it. I go overboard.”
“Wait,” I said. “That one there. How do you stop this thing?”
Abby leaned over my shoulder and hit a few keys. “There you go. You hit this key and you can look through them. You’re going to have to get over your high-tech phobia.”
“I don’t have a phobia. It’s just that I’ve never really needed to know how to do a slide show. I mean, what am I going to do, create a slide show of the ABC’s for Livvy?”
“That’s an excellent idea!” Nadia said. “You could add graphics to go with each letter. Oh, the kindergarten and pre-K teachers would love that idea.”
I studied each photo of the crowd. “Look, there’s Ms. Archer and her assistant,” Gina pointed out.
“That’s Tony,” I said, glad to have photo proof that Summer wasn’t in Ms. Archer’s entourage.
“There we are again,” Gina said, but she didn’t sound so snide about Nadia’s extreme photo habits.
“Look, there’s the end of the platform,” Abby said and zoomed in on the image. I studied Jorge’s face and felt uneasy. This photo was probably one of his last moments alive. I tried not to think about what he looked like a few seconds later or what his death must have been like, but I got a funny feeling in my stomach and I knew it wasn’t morning sickness. The tenuous hold we had on life was enough to freak me out if I really thought about it. And better not think about it, especially while I was pregnant.
In the photo, Jorge turned slightly toward the camera. With his heavy eyebrows drawn down, he still looked a bit angry. Even with the slight fuzziness of the extreme close-up, I could see the back of a woman wearing a denim jacket. A beret topped her long red curls.
I shook my head. “Oh God. That does look kind of like Summer. I can see why the police wanted to talk to her.” I slumped down and rubbed my forehead. How could she prove it wasn’t her in the Metro?
“But it’s only her back. Do you think they have a photo from the front?” Gina asked.
“I don’t know, but look how low that beret is on her forehead,” I said. “I doubt if anyone will be able to see her face. Those cameras are mounted pretty high on the walls. I noticed one while we were waiting during our first ride on the Metro.”
“Wait,” Abby said, shifting the zoom to another section of the group around the man. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Irene,” Gina said. “What’s she doing on the platform? Didn’t she say she was going somewhere else that afternoon?”
“She did. She said she was going to the Library of Congress, which is the opposite direction from the Metro stop we were at,” I said as my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number. I answered and a soft voice murmured, “Ellie Avery?”
“Yes, this is she.”
“Hi. I’m Lena, Jay’s sister. I know you’ve left several messages, but I haven’t been able to call you back until now.”
I pulled my thoughts away from Summer and focused on Jay MacInally. “Yes. The police interviewed me and told me what happened. I’m so sorry. How is he?”
“He’s doing much better. They’re going to move him out of the ICU later.” She hesitated for a moment, then said, “I know he was supposed to meet you on Monday.” There was a hint of a question in her tone. I guess MacInally hadn’t told his sister what our meeting was about.
“Yes. He was actually going to meet with my cousin, but she couldn’t be here and since I’m in D.C. this week she asked me to meet with him instead. He knew my cousin’s dad in Korea.”
“Oh.” I thought I could detect relief in her tone and it puzzled me. Why would his sister care if he met me? Now, if she were his wife and she didn’t know about the meeting—I’d understand her being upset. I wouldn’t like it if Mitch met someone, a woman in particular, and hadn’t told me about it. She seemed even more guarded as she continued. “Well. I don’t think Jay will be able to talk to you any time soon. He won’t be up to having visitors for quite a while.”
“Of course.” This was going to devastate Debbie. “I hope he recovers quickly.”
Abby watched me close my phone and said, “Not good news? You look like you could use another piece of fudge.”
“We ate it all,” Nadia said apologetically.
“That’s okay. I’ve got some Hershey’s Kisses.” I pulled them out of my purse and tossed a couple to her and Nadia.
Gina shook her head. “I’ve already had enough sugar to last me the rest of the day.”
“So what’s wrong? Nothing with Livvy?” Abby asked.
“No, nothing to do with Livvy. I’m not going to be able to meet the man who knew Debbie’s dad. Debbie’s going to be so disappointed. She really had her hopes set on this guy.”
My phone rang again. I expected it to be Mitch, but it was the same number as before.
