by Roslyn Woods
He parked the car in his carport and seemed to want to keep talking. They sat in the dark for half a minute before Sadie started whining. Dean said, “Would you like a glass of wine or something?”
Sensing his need to talk, or maybe to just not be alone, Shell said, “Yeah, wine would be nice.”
They got out of the car and Sadie bounded up the side steps to the kitchen door. Dean found his key and opened it. It seemed strange to realize that only a few hours earlier they had been here with Sergeant Gonzalez and Detective Wilson. Today had been the day she had seen a man leaving the house, locking the front door, and driving away.
Sadie ran around the house barking for a full minute. Dean looked at Shell and said, “She smells something. She knows someone’s been here.”
He followed Sadie into one of the rooms that adjoined the living room, and Shell watched him go.
So this was his house. The living room walls were nearly covered in book-filled shelves. His wood furniture had the warm look of time, and Shell wondered if he had kept most of his mother’s things after she died. The room was a little messy, Shell thought, but it had a beauty, too. Under the clutter it was clear the place was kept quite clean. It had the polish of regular care, and Shell wondered who kept it like that. Like her house, the ceilings were coved, and the fireplace was done with Craftsman period tiles, probably Rookwood. It had the artisan quality one didn’t see in new homes.
As her eyes drifted around the room, Shell noticed a chessboard on an antique table, the pieces in play. On one of the bookshelves she saw some framed photos. There was one of a dark-haired boy, about twelve years of age, holding a little curly-topped, redheaded girl of about two in his arms. Here was another photo of Dean in a cap and gown with a smiling lady at his side. The woman looked to be around fifty, and Shell thought she was rather lovely. Her brown hair was short, and she wore a powder-blue suit. Very put together, she thought admiringly.
“Me and my mom,” Dean said as he returned to the room and saw her looking intently at the photo.
“Nice looking lady,” said Shell.
“Yes, yes she was,” he said with a trace of sadness in his voice.
“You went to USC?”
“I did. Graduated in ninety-six.”
“And this is you and Margie?”
“Yeah. One of the rare occasions my dad thought to snap a picture of me with my little sister. I remember carrying her around at their house in Blanco. Not very often, though. We didn’t see each other very much.”
“Your dad and mom had joint custody?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t exercise it much. I spent very few weekends with his second family. By the time Margie was two I was already getting a little bitter about it, and I started to resist seeing him.”
“Too bad for Margie not to get to see you more.”
“Too bad for me, too, but I was too young to sort that out then.”
Shell noticed that Dean kept looking toward the doors that adjoined the living room as he spoke. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“I guess,” he said with his brow furrowed. “Sadie’s been sniffing around my bedroom and the office. My intruder must have spent some time in those rooms.” He signaled with a tilt of his head for Shell to follow him.
The office had the slightly unkempt look she might have expected it to have. Bookshelves lined the walls here, too. There were stacks of papers on the large desk beside the huge computer monitor, and the bulletin board was covered with what Shell presumed were sample web pages. Here also was the window shade she had seen moving earlier today. There was a dog bed in front of one of the shelves, and Shell could imagine Dean working here while Sadie slept near his feet.
“I can’t tell if anything’s any different from the way it was before I went over to Margie’s house,” he said, frustrated.
After another minute Sadie curled up on her bed with her chew toys. “She’s missed her toys,” he said, walking back out into the living room.
“I keep thinking that the guy had a key,” Shell said, following him. “How could he have gotten a key?”
They were in the kitchen now, and Dean was getting glasses from the cupboard. “Either Amanda gave him her keys, or he took them. I don’t see how else anyone would have keys to my house. Red?” he asked, holding up a bottle of Cabernet. Shell nodded wondering how he could be so matter-of-fact about the keys. As if he read her mind he said, “I’ve been obsessing on this detail all evening. He had a key, and he didn’t take anything. Why?”
“I’ve been thinking about it too. Maybe he was looking for something?” Shell asked.
Dean pulled a chair for her at the kitchen table. “Yeah, but what? Amanda moved the last of her stuff out of the house three months ago, and she’d already taken a lot three months before that. We’ve been estranged for the better part of a year, and truly separated these past eight months.”
“Did she come around?” Shell asked tentatively as Dean poured the wine.
“A few times to argue or to ask for more money. I was paying her rent and utilities as one of my monthly bills, and I put three thousand dollars in her account each month. She often needed more.” He paused, looking tired. “She used to come see my mom at the hospital sometimes.”
“She didn’t work?” Shell asked.
“No. She was working at Dell when I met her, but she never liked it. When I got my business off the ground she quit. We had enough and I thought the job was contributing to her unhappiness.”
“Did she have a car payment? Bills?”
“Not that I know of. Her Lexus was paid for. Still, three thousand dollars a month is quite a bit for someone whose housing and car are taken care of.”
“Gasoline?”
“I paid the credit card bill.” Shell didn’t know much about living high on the hog herself, but Brad had been a big spender. She had wondered about the trivial things he bought. She had decided that being born into a family with money had made him that way.
“Was she used to a lot of money?” Shell asked.
“No, not at all. She and her brother were raised by their mother in New Mexico,” he paused. “Her father had worked for the railroad. Anyway, her parents divorced when Amanda was small, and her mother was nearly ruined by the breakup.”
“That must have been really hard on the kids,” Shell mused.
“Yeah, her dad basically disappeared from her life, old story, and her mom took whatever work she could find to take care of the kids. Needless to say, she was never home and the kids felt abandoned. Amanda ran away when she was in her teens, ended up in a group home in Texas.”
“She must have been very unhappy,” Shell said.
“Yeah, but she seemed to pull herself together. Grew up, started taking computer classes…She was pretty smart. She was doing okay when I met her.”
“And her relationship with her family?”
“She reconnected with her brother Danny, but she could never work it out with her mom. Too hurt I guess.”
“But she loved your mom.” Shell said.
“I thought so for a while. But after my mom died, Amanda got greedy about everything she had that was slightly valuable. She wanted her jewelry, but she cared nothing for her pictures. She was really anxious about the reading of the will. She actually thought that my mom would write her into the will separate from me. Then when she found she hadn’t, she thought my inheritance would be half hers.”
“And it wouldn’t have been?”
“No. An inheritance doesn’t work like that. She might have gotten half of my business income, though, because I was still growing my business after we were together.”
“The fighting about all this stuff must have been really upsetting.”
“It was, but I wasn’t as upset about the money as I was about the marriage. I was pretty messed up a little over a year ago when I realized there just wasn’t any reason to hope, that I’d tied myself to a relationship with someone as different from myself as nigh
t is from day. And I didn’t want my mom to see what was going on because I didn’t think it would be good for her heart condition. I tried to keep it from her till she died. I just wanted her to think things were okay.” He stared at his wine. “I think she knew though.”
Shell looked up from her wine glass into his eyes. “Why do you say that?”
“Because, a few days before she died, she told me it was okay with her if Amanda and I broke up.”
Shell nodded, “She just knew.”
“Yeah.” As he spoke, Shell felt her eyes beginning to ache as if she were about to cry, and she really didn’t want to cry.
“So what happens to all Amanda’s stuff? Where’s her car?” she asked.
“Everything’s part of an ongoing investigation. I haven’t seen anything but the body.” His voice became rough as he spoke, as if emotion was pushing its way up into his throat. “She was a mess of a person,” he said, “but she didn’t deserve to die.”
Chapter 11
The backyard was lovely in the morning. Shell pulled a kitchen chair onto the pad behind her laundry room and set a cardboard box beside it. She brought her coffee and her cell phone out, placed them on the box, and sat watching a cardinal in the pecan tree above the side fence. The air was filled with the sweet smell of wet clover, and a kinglet was hopping in the grass in search of food. This was a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.
She stood up and walked around the yard sipping her coffee and musing. Lana Maxwell had enjoyed this place. Shell imagined what she had been like. Every growing thing in the yard was something she planted here: blue salvia, pineapple sage, Texas tarragon, lemon trees, honeysuckle. It was all overgrown, but one day Shell would come out here and start working on it. She had always wanted a real garden.
A patio table and chairs would make this more comfortable. And her easel. She could sit out here every morning and paint if she wanted. The table and chairs would have to be added to her list of things to hunt down.
For now, Shell was trying to get over a dull headache. All the previous night she had worried about the keys to Dean’s house. If the killer had taken them, what was he looking for, and what was to keep him from coming back? She would have to talk to Dean about it today. There was some comfort in knowing Sadie would alert if the man came back while Dean was in the house, but she wondered if he had any way to protect himself from a man with a gun.
“Hello?” Margie’s unmistakable voice was calling over the front gate. Shell jumped up and ran to open it.
“Hi! You’re early,” she said, lifting the latch and opening the gate.
“I thought I’d have some of your coffee before we go,” said Margie with a smile. They had planned a shopping trip to get a couch for Shell’s living room.
“Let’s go in. There are more chairs in the house,” said Shell.
It was the first time Margie had really given the house a look since Shell had moved in.
“Wow. You’ve got it super clean,” she said.
“Yeah, and I have the sore fingers to show for it.”
“You should ask Dean about his cleaning lady if you want some help. She worked for Lana, and she always kept the house really spiffy.”
“I was kind of looking forward to keeping it myself,” said Shell. “Brad always had someone come in.”
“Oh, I’d love the help myself,” said Margie, “But I’ve always thought of other ways to spend the money it would cost first.”
“I think I’d like it if I knew the person and really liked them. Otherwise it would just feel like a stranger was invading my space.”
“I think you’d like Carmen. She actually became a really good friend to Lana and Dean, and she’s just a really nice lady,” said Margie. “Her husband Angel does the lawn for both houses. Have you seen him yet?”
“Not yet.”
Margie was walking from room to room making mental notes. “You need a coffee table and chair, maybe a couple of side tables. Where are you going to put your CD player and TV?”
“I think the TV will go here,” said Shell motioning to the wall above the fireplace. “I think I’ll use the built in shelves at the side here for the CD player. It’s pretty small, but I may need to check with Dean about getting an electrician to run the wiring I’ll need.”
“Ooh, can we look at TVs too?” Margie was clearly getting vicarious pleasure from spending Shell’s money.
“We probably should,” she said with a distant smile.
“What’s up?” asked Margie, always attentive to other people’s states of mind.
“Just a little headache.” She didn’t want to tell her she had barely slept the night before.
“You take anything for it?”
“The coffee’ll kick in soon. If that doesn’t knock it out I’ll take some Advil,” she said as she got a mug for Margie’s coffee. Just then they heard a knock at the door.
“I’ll see. It’s probably Dean,” said Margie, hurrying through the living room and pulling the door open. “I knew it was going to be you!” she said with a laugh.
“Hi, sweetie,” he said giving his sister a hug. “I saw your car and invited myself over.”
“Oh, come on in!” Shell called from the kitchen. “I’ve got coffee in here! You take anything in it?”
“Just black,” said Dean, as Margie was getting milk for her own coffee.
“And you need a new fridge!” she said to Shell.
“I don’t have to buy all new things, Margie!” Shell said. “I’m not made of money, and one of these days I’m going to have to start thinking about getting a job,” she added as she poured another mug.
She carried a plate of butter cookies from Rita Anderson to the table and handed Dean his coffee. The three sat in the little dining room. It was then that Shell got a good look at Dean. He was clean-shaven and looked altogether in a better way than he had the previous evening.
“I love that window seat with the shelves,” said Margie.
“Yes,” Shell answered. “I’m thinking the light in here would be perfect for orchids. I’m going to get some.”
Dean gave her an odd look. “My mother grew orchids in this window,” he said.
“There’s a coincidence. My dad grew them in California. We had a bay window, not unlike this one. I’ve always thought I’d like to try growing them myself,” she said.
Dean nodded but didn’t speak, and she wondered if he was feeling sad.
“I’m glad you came over, Dean,” she said, changing the subject. “I’ve been thinking about that key.”
“Me too,” he said. “Have you been thinking the guy will come back?”
“Yeah, maybe. I mean, if he’s looking for something, it’s possible he didn’t find it and he’ll come back. Do you think you should get the locks changed?”
“I do, but if someone wants in, they’re going to get in anyway. You know that, right?” Dean was a realist, and Shell knew he must be right.
Margie piped in, “It would certainly slow him down. You should change the locks, Dean.” He smiled, and he and Shell exchanged glances. Margie was bossy with everyone, even her big brother, and somehow she got away with it.
“I’ve had another idea, and it’s made me feel a little better,” he said. The two women looked up from their coffee. “I’m setting up cameras. They’re tiny, and no one would know they’re even there. If he comes back he’ll be recorded. It’ll be hard for Gonzalez to deny a recording.”
“I like it,” said Margie, taking a cookie, “but it assumes our Kojak is coming back. If he doesn’t, you’re no further than you are now.”
“Kojak?” asked Shell with a little laugh. “From the TV series?”
“Kojak was bald,” said Dean, with a half smile, “but he was a good guy.”
“Well, I can’t keep calling him ‘the intruder,’” said Margie with typical impatience.
“Well, anyway,” said Shell, “the surveillance is something, and something tells me Kojak didn’t find w
hat he was looking for.”
“And it doesn’t hurt that Dean’s a techno-wizard!” said Margie.
“Do you have the electronic pieces you’ll need?” Shell asked, taking one of the cookies from the plate.
“Not yet, but I’m going over to Costco this morning for a couple of surveillance kits, maybe three. I can take them apart and use them to scramble together a set-up that does what I want it to. I’m pretty sure I can make it work.”
“Bravo!” said Margie. “But leave Sadie at home to scare away intruders while you’re out of the house.”
“I will,” he said. “These look good,” he added, taking one of the cookies.
“They’re a welcome from Rita Anderson.”
“Oh, that’s nice of her,” said Dean. “She was my mom’s closest friend. A very good person, I think.”
“I already like her,” said Shell.
“And I like her butter cookies,” added Margie.
Chapter 12
When Shell went shopping she always felt a little guilty. It was like she was buying presents for herself on someone else’s birthday. Even so, her shopping trip was very successful. Margie always encouraged her with lines like, You really need this, and Everybody who’s anybody has one of these. Shell would get to laughing about it, and before she knew it she had bought far more than she had intended.
It was a little like that today. Margie had several places in mind that sold mission style furniture, and the perfect couch and coffee table were easy to find and to schedule a delivery. Shell also found another armchair for the living room, but she held back on buying side tables and nightstands.
“I’m going to check Craigslist. I think I’ll save a lot that way,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Margie, “if you can find anything you want.”
“I can always give up and buy new stuff if I can’t find what I want,” Shell said reasonably. “I know you hate the look of cardboard boxes as side tables and night stands, but it won’t hurt for a few more weeks.”
