Lemon Tart

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “You’re a genius,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at her daughter. But Breanna was back to her typing.

  It ended up taking twenty-one minutes to cook it all up, but when she finished, she had a large steaming pot of pasta tossed with enough Alfredo sauce to clog even the hardiest of arteries. Not exactly baked goods but a sackcloth-and-ashes offering all the same.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she said for the second time in thirty minutes.

  “Have fun,” Breanna said in a distracted voice. Behind the box containing Breanna’s instant messaging conversation was the home page of findpeople.com.

  If only Sadie could get Anne’s birth date. As she let herself out she glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall near the phone but tried to talk herself out of the idea forming in her head.

  This time she hardly glanced at Jack and Carrie’s house. When she reached the Baileys’ house she took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

  Gina, the fourteen-year-old Bailey, answered the door. “Hi, Mrs. Hoffmiller,” she said with an uncomfortable smile that assured Sadie she had been the topic of some less than friendly conversations.

  Sadie forced a smile. “Is your mom here?”

  Mindy Bailey came around the corner just then, her face drawn and her eyes narrowed. “Gina, go finish your homework,” she said. Sadie thought it might be the shortest sentence she had ever heard the other woman utter.

  Gina did as she was told but Sadie doubted very much that she had gone far enough that she wouldn’t hear the exchange. Sadie swallowed her pride and dropped the smile in order to look properly penitent.

  “I’m so sorry, Mindy,” she said. “I know that’s no excuse, but I feel just horrible about what happened.”

  “My children were left alone, Sadie, alone with a psycho on the loose! Do you have any idea what it felt like when I realized they’d been sitting on your porch in broad daylight for fifteen minutes? They may as well have had bull’s-eyes on their backs! To think that I . . .” She went on for a full two minutes, with Sadie nodding and apologizing each time Mindy stopped for breath. Sadie tried really hard to shed a tear or two, but her annoyance was too great. Yes, she’d let her friend down, but it hadn’t been on purpose and the kids had been fine. She was sorely tempted to tell Mindy that Ron had no reason to hurt her children, but she kept that to herself and looked at the ground so as to avoid Mindy’s eyes.

  “I’ve always trusted you, Sadie,” Mindy continued. “I always thought you were the type of woman that—”

  Sadie couldn’t take it anymore. She lifted her chin. “I am that type of woman, Mindy. And I have always helped you in any way that I can. I am so very sorry for what happened today and I don’t blame you for being angry—but it wasn’t on purpose and if I could change things I would.”

  “Oh, well, that’s easy to say now, isn’t it? And since they weren’t your kids I’m sure you had a hundred more important things to do than—”

  “Ron was at Anne’s last night,” Sadie cut in. Mindy stopped in the middle of a word and blinked. “Did you know that?”

  “Um, no,” Mindy said and Sadie could see she was drawing the same conclusion Sadie had.

  “Yeah, I didn’t either until he told me. And I’ve spent the whole day trying to make sense of it. I met him at a restaurant to talk about things—it didn’t go very well. That’s why I was late.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  That was certainly a first for Mindy Bailey. Sadie just nodded. “I am really sorry though,” she said, handing over the pot. “I made some dinner for your family; I figured you could use it tonight.”

  Mindy took the pot and nodded. “Thank you,” she said softly, surprising Sadie with how fast her mood had changed. Amazing what a little gossip could get a person sometimes.

  “You’re welcome,” Sadie said. She managed a small smile and turned around. She was at the end of the walk when she heard Mindy call her name. Mindy met her halfway down the sidewalk, no pot in her hands, and no shoes on her feet.

  “I didn’t see him there last night,” Mindy said in a whisper. “But,” she paused and took a breath, wrapping her arms around herself. Sadie steeled herself for what she feared was coming. “A few months ago Gina had the flu and I was up with her really late. We finally crashed on the couch and sometime during the night a set of headlights passed in front of the window. It woke Gina up and I went to get her some water. When I came back into the living room I decided to shut the blinds, but I noticed a black car parked in front of Anne’s house.”

  “Ron’s Jetta?” Sadie asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Mindy said. “But that’s what I thought that night. I told Steve and asked if he thought I should tell you but he didn’t think it was a good idea—I mean, I didn’t even know for sure it was a Jetta, let alone that it belonged to Ron. It’s just that Ron’s is the only black car that’s in the circle regularly.”

  Sadie nodded and looked at her shoes. He’d been there before. It was further evidence that the affair had been ongoing. The one man she’d dared consider spending the rest of her life with. How could she be so stupid?

  “Thank you for telling me,” Sadie said, putting a reassuring hand on Mindy’s arm. Mindy offered an apologetic smile. “It’s important that I know this.”

  “Do you think he killed Anne?” Mindy whispered, leaning in as if afraid of being overheard.

  “I don’t know,” Sadie said. “The Ron I knew and loved never would have, but I’ve been learning today that there is very little I really know about him. Thanks again for telling me.”

  Mindy nodded and started toward home again. When she was halfway to her own house, the police cruiser entered the circle again. This time the car pulled up alongside Sadie.

  “Can we help you, ma’am?” the officer asked after rolling down the passenger window. “This is the second time we’ve seen you out here.”

  “I’m Sadie Hoffmiller,” she said, pointing to her house while watching to see if her name was familiar to the officer. She wondered if the police were talking about her, if she was really a suspect in anyone but Detective Madsen’s mind. He didn’t react with anything other than an intense stare. “I live on the corner and I’ve been taking things to my neighbors.” As an afterthought she added, “To make sure everyone’s all right.”

  “We’d appreciate it if you would return home,” he said, smiling to belay any offense in what he’d said. “We’ve got this circle under surveillance and would certainly hate to have anything happen to you.”

  “Sure thing,” she said with a nod, just now realizing the risk she was taking being outside at all. It was full dark and Ron was still out there somewhere. The officer thanked her and continued on his inspection as she continued toward her house. But when he left the cul-de-sac, Sadie stopped underneath the black walnut tree. With everything that had happened that day, with all she’d learned, it just didn’t sit well with her to go home, lock her door, and twiddle her thumbs.

  After a few moments of thought, she casually crossed the street. When she reached the other side, she stopped and looked around again. There were no unfamiliar cars parked anywhere in the circle and a quick look over her shoulder showed her there were no cars in the field either. The Bailey and Henry houses were both lit up but their blinds were drawn as if that would offer them some protection from the unknown attacker they all feared. Jack and Carrie’s house was mostly blocked by the blasted tree, but she didn’t think anyone could see her.

  The area behind where she stood was filled with weeds and wild trees, all dead and skeletal with the onset of winter. She scanned the area carefully, then as casually as possible, she walked to a particularly thick tangle of branches and ducked beneath its cover. Her knees, already feeling picked on for her under-the-bed adventure, groaned as she squatted there—waiting, watching the cul-de-sac. She tried not to think about spiders and mice, but each time the leaves rustled she bit her lip a little harder.

  Jack�
��s truck left a few minutes into her stakeout. But by her watch it was almost exactly ten minutes before the police cruiser entered the cul-de-sac again. It drove slowly, and when it had followed the loop around to Anne’s house, it stopped and shone its spotlight into the windows and along the front of the house. After less than a minute, the spotlight went off and the car left the cul-de-sac as smoothly as it had entered. Sadie waited only long enough for the taillights to disappear before she hurried out of her hiding place, looked around to be sure all the blinds in the neighborhood were still pulled tight, and then hurried up the front steps of Anne’s house.

  Chapter 19

  Sadie knew the back door would give her better cover, but she couldn’t make herself walk that close to the field where Anne’s body had been found. It was dark back there. She wondered if the police had figured out she’d given them the wrong key yet. Certainly Detective Madsen would have read her the riot act if he’d discovered her deception. She hadn’t had any idea she’d be doing this when she’d switched keys—but she was glad she’d thought ahead.

  Putting the key in the lock, turning it, pushing the door open and then pushing it closed took her less than ten seconds. Once inside, she took a deep breath and caught herself before she leaned against the closed door. She looked around the darkened house; its eerie emptiness gave her the creeps. She felt the familiar anxiety of being where she knew she shouldn’t be. But I’m not hurting anything, she told herself, clasping her hands behind her back as Detective Cunningham had told her to do earlier.

  I just need to check the calendar—that’s all. Still, her mouth was dry and she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. She pushed away her trepidation, ignored the strange shadows in the corners, and headed into the kitchen. The calendar was on the fridge, just as it had been that morning. She began thumbing through the months, heading for January to find Anne’s birthday and touching only the very edges of the thick paper. October, November, December—then nothing. A sliver of light shone in from the streetlamp outside, barely enough for her to read by.

  “What?” she said quietly, scrunching her eyebrows together. And then she realized that like most calendars, this one ended in December.

  Okay, she said to herself, I’ll look at last January. She had to take the calendar off the fridge in order to thumb backwards. She reached January and clenched her teeth—it was completely blank. She moved forward one month at a time. Everything was blank until March—the month Anne had moved in. She hadn’t brought the calendar with her, she’d bought it when she moved in.

  “Doggone it,” Sadie muttered. She put the calendar back on the fridge and was heading for the front door, dejected, when the bookshelf near the fireplace caught her eye. Remembering the book Anne had checked out and then paid for before it was overdue, Sadie stepped toward the shelves. There was something about that title that had been familiar to her, but she wasn’t sure what it was. She wondered if she had seen it at Anne’s house sometime. Or maybe she was just being fanciful to think it was somehow important. It was a romance novel for heaven’s sake.

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness it was easier for her to read the titles if she squinted enough. She had scanned three of the four shelves when she saw it: My Father’s Eyes.

  Bingo!

  She pulled the book from its shelf. On the back it still had the sticker for the Garrison City Library. Anne had kept it. But why? It looked like an ordinary paperback novel. What made this one any different from the other books Anne had checked out? And then she remembered why the title had struck a chord. Just a month or so after Anne had moved in, the two of them had gone for a walk and Anne had asked Sadie how to dry out a book.

  “What kind of book?” Sadie had asked.

  “Just a paperback,” Anne had said. “I dropped it in the tub last night—I guess that’s what I get for reading in the bath.” When they returned from the walk, Sadie had gone to Anne’s and inspected the book. It was an older book, shelf-worn and still damp, with a dramatic cover Sadie hadn’t looked at too closely. Some of the wrinkled pages had already stuck together. She’d recommended that Anne lay it outside in the sun, going out every few minutes to turn the pages, then she should press it between other books to help flatten it once it was dried out.

  “It won’t ever be as good as new,” Sadie had said. “But it might be legible. Then again, for a little paperback like this it’s probably worth the six dollars to buy a new one.”

  “It’s been out of print for awhile,” Anne had said. “I bet it’s hard to find, but it’s a great book.”

  “Oh, well, if the drying doesn’t work, you can always check the library—they have a very extensive inventory for such a small town and can do special orders from Fort Collins if you want to pay a couple dollars for interlibrary loan.”

  Sadie had never seen the bathtub-book again, and they hadn’t talked about it. But it had been important to Anne. Sadie tried to read the description printed on the back, but gave up after just a few seconds. Without her reading glasses the small type was impossible, especially in the dark. She’d have to take it home, secretly glad that her breaking and entering hadn’t been for nothing.

  She headed back toward the door. Her hand was on the doorknob when she thought about all the notes she wrote on her own calendar at home. Phone numbers, appointments, family birthdays. She turned and looked into the darkened kitchen. Maybe Anne did the same thing.

  She knew she couldn’t simply sit down and go through it right now. But what if she took it home and looked at it? She could bring it back as soon as she finished—and she might find something that would be important. I’d be removing it from a crime scene, she told herself. But if the police hadn’t taken it, then they must not have wanted it. Besides, she was already stealing the book. What was one more item? After only a few more moments of hesitation she hurried toward the kitchen. She was just steps away from the fridge when a band of light crossed the floor in front of her.

  Sadie froze and she snapped her head up to see the source of the light. The corner of the doorway prevented her from being able to see the windows or the sliding glass door at the back of the house. The light waved past again and she flattened herself against the wall, keeping herself out of range of what she realized must be a flashlight. Were the police looking for her? Did they know she was here? The light disappeared and for a moment she thought she’d escaped, then she heard a key in the lock.

  Chapter 20

  No! She screamed in her head for the second time that day, clenching her eyes closed. Not again! She opened her eyes to find herself staring down the hallway, straight into Anne’s bedroom. Not knowing for sure if she’d been seen or not, she headed for the first hiding place she could think of.

  By the time the back door slid open, she was hiding under her second bed of the day—and the last three decades. Impossible.

  Luckily Anne’s bed was not only higher off the ground, but since it had also been pushed against the wall on one side, Sadie felt much more secure. She tried to avoid the area where the filing cabinet had been, not wanting to interfere with the indentation, and scooted as far away from the edges of the bed as possible, glad that Anne didn’t keep as much stuff under the bed as Ron did. In fact, other than a few socks, some candy wrappers, and a toy car, it was uninhabited. And the dust wasn’t nearly as thick—something her sinuses thanked her for. But she pulled the sweatshirt to her nose just in case—not impressed with all the tricks she’d learned about hiding under beds.

  The footsteps were nearly silent. Unlike Ron in his own home that afternoon, this person was being cautious, careful, taking his or her time. She wondered who it was. Detective Madsen? Did he know she was here? Or maybe it was Ron coming back for something. Whoever it was had a key; she had thought she was the only one with a spare. Who else would Anne have trusted with a key to her house?

  She’d barely finished the thought before two shoes appeared at the end of the bed, in front of the small closet. Men’
s shoes. Black leather. The door to the closet opened, creaking on its hinges, and then stopped as if the intruder—the other intruder beside herself—was waiting to make sure nothing answered to the noise. After a second, the door creaked opened even further. The sound caused Sadie to shiver. She knew better than to hold her breath this time and focused on keeping her breathing even in hopes of keeping her anxiety at bay. She hated hide-and-seek! How come she kept being forced to play?

  A voice in her head reminded her that if she would mind her own business she wouldn’t be in this situation. Too late. This was her business, and besides, now was not the time to reflect on her own stupidity.

  She heard the shuffling of boxes, the movement of hangers on the rod, and wondered what the intruder was after, grateful it wasn’t her. Several boxes tumbled to the ground, and the intruder cursed. It was a man’s voice, though too much of a whisper for her to determine if it was Ron or not. One by one the boxes were picked up, but just as the last one was moved out of sight, another pile crashed to the floor, and this time the flashlight fell with it. It spun around until it was facing her, staring at her—ratting her out.