by Rachel Brady
“I’ll get to them in a sec,” I said. “Help me understand the deal with this guy.”
Her eyes searched the space above my head like she might find words there. “Things between us clicked. You ever have that with a guy? Where it just clicked?”
I nodded.
“But something was off. He paid for everything with cash, even though his wallet was full of credit cards. Never invited me to his place, always stayed at mine. Wouldn’t bring me around his friends. Sometimes left his cell off. The whole thing reeked of Wife.” She paused for a moment, somber. “I saved that note you found because, for a little while, I thought he was different. Special.”
“I met him yesterday. He came to your house when I was there.”
“Why? Did he hear about what happened?” A muscle in her hand twitched as her grip on the phone tightened.
This inexplicably worried me. “You still carrying a torch for this guy?”
“No,” she said with confidence I didn’t believe. “I just told you that.”
With effort, I resisted the urge to press further. “He said he was there to feed Logan’s snake.”
“He wants to keep up his relationship with my boys,” she said. “His way of hanging onto me. I should put a stop to that but I feel guilty having another man come in and out of their lives so abruptly.”
“I met them yesterday too,” I said, more brightly. “They came earlier, before the storm.” I was unsure how much to tell her, not wanting to worry her about the teens and cigarettes in the car. “Joshua said they were picking up a few things.”
“How’d they look? Did they ask about me?”
“I wasn’t sure how much they knew so I said I was on an errand for you. They looked good. They miss you.” I started to say more, to question their choice of friends, but thought better of it. She had enough to think about. Nothing good would come of bringing that up now. Besides, my visitation time was limited, and I was running out of it.
I took out Claire’s miniature refrigerator calendar with all its encrypted initials and asked her to walk me through their meanings. With the phone wedged between my ear and shoulder again, I held the little calendar to the glass with my left hand, and took notes with my right. We started with May.
“M is Marcus and K is Kevin,” she said. “I had a little overlap between those two, if you know what I mean. Show me June.”
“Who’s Marcus?” I flipped the page.
She waved the name off. “A fling I hardly knew. Harmless.” She squinted at her notes for June. “J is my massage therapist, Judy. K is Kevin again, and P is Pat.”
“Male or female?”
“Female. Why?”
“Not sure. Who’s Pat?”
“Friend from the club. We have drinks sometimes. Let’s see July.”
I turned the page again. July was sparsely populated because we were only in its second week. Claire tapped the dividing glass with her nail as she named each person.
“Pat and Judy again, and KT is Kathy Taylor—her divorce was final in April and she’s been a good listener. These people are all friends, Emily. Don’t waste your time.”
I tapped my pen on the counter, thinking. Then I flipped to a new page in my notebook. “I’d like to make a list. Tell me the names of all the people who can get into your house.”
She looked as if I’d asked for the square root of six thousand.
“Start with family.”
She exhaled. “This might be hard.”
“How so?”
“Four of us live there. We all know a lot of people.”
“Right, but we’re only talking about the ones who have access to the home.”
She gave the confounded stare again. I set down my pen. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t know all the people. There’s my mother, of course, and the maid. Our neighbor has had the key before, but only when we’ve been away. It’s the copy I use as the hide-a-key now.”
I jotted some notes.
“Josh and Logan go without saying,” she said, “but I assume they haven’t shared keys with anybody. They each have a copy but I can’t imagine why they’d have duplicates made. I’m not sure they’d even know how to go about it.”
“How about Daniel?” I said. “Has he shared copies?”
“I’ve been disconnected from Daniel for a long time. I have no idea what he does.” As if worried the answer were unsuitable, she added, “When our marriage died, we stopped asking questions.”
I drew a breath, wanting to follow up, but I knew that challenging her judgment would solve nothing.
“You’re saying that besides your family, housekeeper, and parents, it can’t be said with certainty how many individuals might have access to the home because Daniel is a wild card.”
“Right.” Her voice, softer now, was all regret.
I started collecting my things. “Thanks for your honesty, and for letting me go through your stuff. Later I’ll check out your e-mail, try to get to the bottom of that.”
She forced a smile. “When this is over you’ll probably write an exposé.”
“I’ll start with the rats in your freezer.”
She dropped her head into her free hand, embarrassed.
“Hang in there,” I said. “We’re doing everything we can.”
She raised her eyes again, glistening now, and I knew she wouldn’t speak. I nodded and hung up. As I turned to leave she started to break down. I’d breached so many of her personal boundaries already, but this was a privacy I could afford to let her keep. So I left the little visitation chamber without looking back.
Chapter Twenty
The day was so insanely hot that wavy translucent forms radiated upward from the blacktop around me, playing tricks on my eyes. There was no mistaking the envelope wedged underneath my driver’s side wiper blade, though. It bore my name in thick, blue marker and was not only sealed, but taped shut.
I scanned the jail’s quiet lot, mostly occupied with county vehicles and police cars, and didn’t see anyone suspicious. In an adjoining field several hundred yards off, an unsupervised trustee in an orange jumpsuit like Claire’s was cutting the grass on a riding mower—no fences. He made me nervous as hell.
I pulled the envelope from my windshield and opened it. Inside I found a key fastened to a cheap metal ring with a paper tag attached. It took me a minute to recognize the address printed on the label. Other than the key, the envelope was empty.
Who would have left me a key to Platt’s bungalow, and why here?
I unlocked my car and leaned in to start the ignition, but I waited, one foot propped in the door frame before climbing inside. Better to let the super-heated interior come down a few hundred degrees first. Meanwhile, I studied the unfamiliar handwriting on the key’s label. Maybe this was a trick, some kind of ruse to get me inside Platt’s house the same way Claire had been lured there. But then what? Would someone be waiting inside? I thought about last night’s strange e-mail and didn’t like the idea of following a mysterious lead to an empty house. It wasn’t a protected crime scene anymore but might become one again if I didn’t watch out.
When the temperature inside the Taurus was tolerable, I headed across town to meet Jeannie and Annette for an early lunch at a family-style buffet that Annette favored. My phone squawked its sick noises again—someone wanted to talk to me, but the water-damaged display provided no clue about who that person was. Obviously, Jeannie’s rice treatment had been a bust.
It turned out to be Richard. “What was in the envelope?”
“How’d you—”
“Did you know you were being followed?”
I tried to catch up. “You had me followed?”
“Not you.” He chuckled. “Diana. I have a guy on her, remember? And he said Diana spent this morning watching an apartment. When he gave me the address of that apartment—yours—I knew something good was coming.”
“That’s creepy.” I wanted to tell him about the e-mail, but I could tell he wasn’t f
inished.
“When he told me Diana followed a redhead to the county jail, I got worried she might confront you again.”
“She didn’t.”
“I know. She left a note on your windshield and drove away. What’d it say?”
“I’ll show it to you later,” I said. “Right now I’m in some heavy traffic here and I need to hang up.”
The white lies came easily. I needed to think about whether to tell Richard about the key.
***
“Why keep it under wraps?” Jeannie smoothed honey butter over a home-style dinner roll and passed it to Annette. “This is big news. Richard would want to know.”
“He’d never let me use it.”
“Why the hell not?” She glanced at Annette, an afterthought, and made an apologetic face at me for swearing. Then she dumped a package of sweetener into her iced tea and stirred it with a finger.
Annette was too busy peeling off pieces of richly buttered bread to notice Jeannie’s linguistic slip. She folded a bite of the roll onto her tiny tongue and chewed, oblivious.
“If Richard breaks the law he could lose his license. He might be fined or sanctioned,” I said. “Or even go to jail. I’m not telling him about the key.”
“I’m confused. How would he be breaking the law?”
“Entering a house without consent.”
“Consent’s impossible,” Jeannie said. “The owner’s dead.”
“Somebody’s the custodian of that property now. Without that person’s permission, going inside is breaking and entering. Even with a key.”
“No it’s not.”
Yes, it is, I wanted to say, but with Jeannie there was no point in arguing, so I sipped my ice water instead.
“You planning to go alone then?” she asked. “That doesn’t seem very smart.”
“Not sure.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said. “For insurance.” Then she snapped her fingers, remembering. “Damn. It’s usually in my handbag but stupid airport security…I feel naked without it.”
“You feel naked without airport security?”
“No. Without my Ladysmith.”
Annette perked up. “What’s a Ladysmith, Aunt Jeannie?”
“It’s…kind of like a super soaker, kid. Only instead of getting a person wet, it stops him cold.” She stabbed a piece of chicken fried steak onto her fork. Then to me, she added, “Nine millimeter.”
“I want a nine millimeter!” In her excitement, Annette said this loud enough to draw a look from the next table.
I glared at Jeannie. “I don’t like guns. Even when they’re toys.”
Annette’s enthusiasm dampened and I caught Jeannie giving her a look I didn’t fully understand—the kind that suggested the conversation wasn’t over.
“No guns, water or otherwise,” I said to them both, by way of clarifying. I was glad she’d had to leave her weapon behind in Ohio, otherwise it would likely be getting passed around the dinner table now.
“Hey,” Annette said, the final bite of dinner roll having disappeared into her mouth. “Now can I go to the dessert bar?”
Her plate was still full of veggies and chicken. Jeannie looked at me expectantly, clearly bursting to spoil my daughter. I reminded myself that she wasn’t in town that often and that everything was okay in moderation. They pushed their chairs back the instant I gave the nod, and Annette led the way to a tall stack of clean plastic plates. I watched them ogle a spread of cobblers, pies, cookies, and cakes and then I looked away, fearing the impending sugar buzz.
Annette came back with two cookies and a heaping bowl of vanilla ice cream with a side dish of Gummi Bears. She dumped the bears into the ice cream and stirred tirelessly until it melted into some kind of smoothie. “See what I’m doing?” she asked Jeannie. “Like this.”
And Jeannie, who’d brought an identical compliment of goodies on her own tray, first copied Annette, then sampled the frozen treat, and finally pronounced my daughter a culinary genius.
“Think you two can manage without me for a few more hours?” I asked. “I have a little more work to do.”
Jeannie squinted at me, her suspicion obvious.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t go alone. I’ll take Vince.”
“He’s funny.” Annette set down her spoon. She pulled her lower eyelids down and pushed the tip of her nose up as far as it would go. “He showed me how to do this.” She looked back and forth so that her eyeballs went to the extreme left and right sides of their sockets. As I took in the capillaries and stared up her nostrils, it seemed everyone I knew was conspiring against me where raising this child was concerned.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “Your face might get stuck that way.”
Annette laughed. “My dad says that too.”
He never had a chance to.
“Only that’s when I flip my eyelids inside out like this.” She started to demonstrate, but I tapped her arm.
“Not now, sweetheart. People are eating.”
She picked up her spoon again, suddenly self-aware, and returned to her ice cream.
“Sure, Em.” Jeannie used the edge of her spoon to isolate a trio of Gummi Bears. “We’ve got it all under control. Say, does Vince have a…super soaker?”
Annette giggled.
“No.”
“Shame. He’s almost perfect.”
I laid some bills on the table and got up to prepare a To Go box for Vince. Pulling that cowboy off an important job would be tough, but my few experiences with him had indicated that all things were possible with the right combination of “fixins.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“This is trouble if I ever saw it.” Vince pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans and wiped sweat from his face. He stared through my open window to the Styrofoam box sitting on the passenger seat next to me. “What are you doin’ to me, woman?”
I squinted up at him. The midday sun beat down on both of us, but whereas his Stetson shielded his eyes from the glare, I took it straight on the retinas. “You busy?”
I knew he was.
“We’re gonna finish framing this today.” Behind him, another cookie-cutter house in the latest master planned community had begun to take form. I didn’t like the uniformity of the floor plans or the way new neighborhoods were laid out in barren fields with seedling trees. The homes on this street, each in different stages of assembly, all looked drearily homogenous and devoid of personality.
He leaned closer to my window and, even though he was dripping sweat, I hoped for a kiss. “Do I smell green beans?”
I cut my eyes toward the box. “Maybe.”
“Well now we’re talking. Let’s have ‘em.”
“Here’s the thing.” I popped the top on the Styrofoam and let him take inventory. Sirloin, green beans, mashed potatoes with dark gravy, two rolls, and…
“Gummi Bears?”
“From Annette.”
He smiled. Lord, I loved that smile.
“But I need a favor. Can you get away for an hour? Eat in the car?”
He reached into the car and grabbed a few green beans, then turned without explanation back to the house-in-progress and walked away. He tossed his head back to chuck the beans into his mouth, and veered toward two men in hard hats who were examining a blue print at one corner of the lot. It was always a treat to watch Vince walk away, especially in worn, dusty old jeans.
I rolled up my window to keep the air conditioning. A moment later, he returned and climbed in the passenger side. I gave him my sweetest, you-are-so-good-to-me face. He made the same face right back at me, his version more sarcastic than sincere.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Just a little.” He winked, grabbed the seatbelt without looking. As soon as its buckle clicked into place, he took the plastic silverware from my console and tapped the lid on a sweaty thirty-two ounce Coke in the cup holder. “This mine too? I’m afraid to ask where we’re going.”
He started to eat and I filled him in.
“So you’re not taking Richard because he wouldn’t go inside?”
“Right.”
“But you think Diana might be Platt’s killer?”
“Maybe.”
“And you know for sure she’s the one who left you this key.”
“Yes.”
“So it might be a trick.”
“Correct.”
“And my part in all this is what?” He laughed. “Protection?”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“You said it’s breaking and entering even with a key.”
“Yes, because I don’t have permission to use it.”
“So if we get caught we’ll get in trouble?”
“Yeah.”
“Trouble. I knew it as soon as I saw the food.”
“You don’t have to search with me. Just help me make sure the house is empty first. Please?”
I took his silence as an unspoken yes. For several miles, he sat quietly and ate, working his way, one at a time, through each divided section of the Styrofoam box. First the meat, then the potatoes and beans. When he was on the first roll, he stopped and turned suddenly toward me.
“Hey,” he said. “What if you find something in there?”
“That’s the idea.”
“No. I mean, if you find something, you’ll have to tell Richard where it came from.”
“Depends.”
“When you say where it came from, you’ll have to explain how you got in the house.”
“Sometimes it’s better not to tell him stuff.”
“Sometimes it is.” He tapped his chest, indicating a scar I knew was underneath his damp, gritty work shirt. A few months ago, he’d taken a bullet, arguably the result of another time I’d withheld information from Richard.
I didn’t answer him but my eyes must have given me away. He stroked the hand I’d been resting on the gear shift. “You know that’s not what I meant. I meant that I don’t want it to happen to you.”
I opened my hand, palm up, and he intertwined his fingers with mine. I loved his purposeful, deliberate grip. We didn’t let go until I pulled into Platt’s driveway.
“Here goes nothing.” I turned off the car. We walked up Platt’s carefully painted front steps and let ourselves inside, assuming the use of our key would assuage the worries of any curious onlookers.
