“Tell me who and where. Sam went on home with Abby but I will be happy to be the super-dog hero.”
“He belongs to the Stewarts,” Nell said.
“Stewarts?” Charlie said. “Who are they?”
“You know who,” Izzy said. “Kayla. Fiona said she brought Kayla into the clinic. She’s the woman we talked about the other night. . . .”
“You know,” Cass nudged.
“Kayla,” Charlie said, registering surprise and recognition at once. “Sure, Kayla Stewart. I didn’t put the name with the face. This is her dog?”
“Hers and her kids’, Christopher and Sarah Grace,” Cass said.
Nell had disappeared down the back room steps and was back in a short minute, a wrinkled church bulletin in her hand. “I happen to have a Father Larry map right here. It’s an original, so don’t lose it.”
Cass glanced at the paper, then looked at Charlie. “Hey, no problem, Charlie. I know where they live. I’ll return Shep on my way home.”
But Charlie had snatched the directions from Nell and was already heading for the door. “Nah, you go home to Danny, Cass. He gets cold without you. I can do this.”
“Always wanting to be the hero,” Izzy called after him.
“Always,” Charlie said. He grinned at his sister, then disappeared into the night with a happy dog at his side.
Chapter 14
It was Ben Endicott who stepped in and insisted Kayla Stewart go to the police.
And it was his nephew Charlie Chambers who had urged him to get involved, and to give Kayla the sound advice she sorely needed. Few people ever felt threatened by his uncle Ben, and fewer still failed to be helped by Ben’s thoughtful and wise help.
* * *
The situation evolved because of the dog, Charlie explained to his uncle and aunt the next morning. Shep, the Stewarts’ dog.
He had returned the runaway to his home the night before, just as he’d promised Izzy and the others that he would do. He’d left the yarn shop and driven down Elm Street.
It’s the house at the end of the street, Cass had said. The one with the bright green door. He spotted it easily. A dim light in the porch ceiling showed off the door and two rigid shadows standing in front of it. Charlie slowed, then started to pull up to the darkened curb, his eyes on the figures at the top of the steps. Just then one of the shadows turned abruptly and headed toward the steps, taking them two at a time, then ran through the shadows to a square car parked beneath a burned-out streetlight.
Charlie looked back at the figure at the top of steps. Kayla had moved to the railing, one hand gripping it, the thick white bandage across her forehead catching the porch light and turning it into a garish glow. In the background the grind of an engine and screech of wheels blurred the low growl beside him. Shep sat rigid, his eyes on the street.
Charlie sat there for a minute, the car still running.
Kayla seemed not to notice he was there. Her body was stiff, and her eyes were focused on the exhaust of the disappearing car.
Charlie looked over his shoulder as the tail end of an old Jeep disappeared around the corner. He looked after it for a minute, remembering doing corners like that when he was sixteen and inherited his older brother’s car. About the same vintage. He turned off his engine and leaned through the open window, one elbow on the door frame, waiting for her to notice him so he wouldn’t frighten her. She was in some sort of a trance.
The windows of the house behind her were open, and even from the curb, Charlie could hear the pitiful sounds of unhappy children coming through the screens. Children calling for their mom, missing their dog.
When minutes went by and Kayla made no move, Charlie opened the car door, swung his legs out, but before his feet touched the street, Shep took matters into his own paws. He pushed his furry body between Charlie and the steering wheel and raced across the yard and up the steps, throwing himself against the legs of a startled woman. In that instant, Kayla came to life. She crouched low to the floor, crying out the dog’s name, her fingers and head buried in his fur.
Charlie closed the car door and walked slowly up the steps, not wanting to interrupt. But he went unnoticed as a small boy and girl pushed open the screen door and flew to the dog, their pajamas flapping and their small arms wrapping around the dog so tightly Charlie wondered if poor Shep could breathe. But the dog was happy enough, licking the kids and wagging his tail, and, as Charlie would later swear, smiling at the family he’d briefly lost.
It was a scene, Charlie said, that almost made him a sentimental fool.
Finally, Kayla noticed Charlie standing there, his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. She immediately wiped the tears away with the sleeve of her shirt, but her eyes remained wary—and worried, Charlie thought later. In fact, her whole demeanor seemed a bit off kilter and he wondered briefly if the tears, too, might have been caused by more than a lost dog. A lover’s spat?
“Who are you and how did you get my dog?” she asked, standing up. She leaned down once more and slipped off the choker collar—the only thing Charlie could find to bring the dog home safely.
Charlie wasn’t sure if she was blaming him or thanking him, or neither.
He quickly ruled out thanking.
“We don’t use this kind of collar with Shep,” she said. “How would you like to wear one?” She handed the leash back to Charlie, lightly pressing a metal prong into his hand.
Charlie shrugged. “He’s a great dog,” he said.
“Shep sometimes pulls out of his collar,” she said, as if an explanation was needed. She pointed to a leash with a collar attached that hung over the back of the porch chair. She looked down at the kids, still tightly attached to their dog. “We went for a walk earlier. And then the squirrel came out of nowhere.”
“Squirrels do that,” Charlie said. She hadn’t recognized him from the clinic and that was fine with him. There was probably some clinic rule against showing up at a patient’s home late at night.
“So, anyway,” he said. He moved backward, stepping into the glare of the porch light. “He seems happy to be home. He’s all yours.”
Kayla looked at him more closely as the light defined his features, the strong nose and square jaw, slightly shaggy hair. She squinted. Then she stood back and said, “Oh. It’s you.”
He nodded. “I guess I could say the same.”
“So I guess you fix kids’ broken hearts as well as adult foreheads.”
“I try.” Charlie offered a half smile.
Finally, after a pause, Kayla offered a small one in return.
The awkwardness grew, and Charlie turned to go, his keys in one hand and the unacceptable leash he’d borrowed dangling from the other.
“Would you like a beer?”
Charlie stopped.
“Yes.”
And he stayed.
* * *
“Sometimes it’s easier talking to a stranger,” Ben said, after Charlie had gone over the evening’s events with his aunt and uncle.
He explained that he and Kayla had sat on the porch for hours, long after the kids and Shep had been tucked into bed.
“Talking to a doctor or nurse might be a little like talking to a priest or minister,” Nell said. “Safe.”
“That could be. The stranger thing works, too,” Charlie said, slightly uncomfortable being put in the same camp as a priest. “Stranger,” or “almost stranger” were better fits, even though he still had the sensation he’d seen the woman before. But the memory was not any clearer than when he saw her in the clinic. With a haircut like hers, he figured he couldn’t forget so easily, but he had.
“How did the conversation go?” Nell asked.
“Awkward at first. I wasn’t sure why I was there—except to return the dog—so I didn’t say much. She talked about the dog at first. Then she turned the light out so it wouldn’t shine in the kids’ bedroom and the talk picked up. I think it was kind of like I wasn’t there and she felt safe. She talked about her m
emory returning in the middle of the night, and then carefully, she repeated her actions that Saturday night, several times, step by step, almost as if she was trying to understand it herself.
“When she was finished, I told her I knew someone who could help with all this. I told her about you, Uncle Ben—that you would know the right thing to do, the right people and knew your way around complicated situations better than anyone I knew. Although I don’t know the whole story, I know this is a mess for Kayla and I figured you’d be able to figure it out.”
He looked over at Nell. “She mentioned meeting you, Aunt Nell. The food pantry or somewhere? Said you were nice. So that’s when I asked her if I could talk with both of you today.”
“And she didn’t object?” Ben asked. They sat in the morning sun on the Endicott deck, the smells of fall and freshly brewed coffee mingling together, a brisk breeze sending orange- and crimson-colored leaves fluttering to the ground.
“She was okay with it.”
The story Kayla told Charlie had matched Fiona’s, although while Fiona had an outline, Charlie had the full report. Kayla had been less reticent with him, personal details filling in the basic facts: her hesitation as she stood near the tree, the uncertainty of going in; the horror of finding Dolores on the floor; falling down beside her, pressing her ear to the dead woman’s lips, her fingers to her neck. Then hearing a sound, someone coming to help, she thought. She grabbed the back of a chair and pulled herself to her feet; next, a sweeping shadow emerged from nowhere, just a single second before the room went black.
“I think talking it through was a relief for her,” Charlie said. “Like you said, Uncle Ben, I was practically a stranger. And I’d brought the dog back. Thanks don’t come easily to this woman. She was about to explode, and losing her kids’ dog may have been the thing that tipped the scales and allowed her to open up and talk about what she was holding inside.”
“There’s one huge piece that’s missing from what she told you—and what she told Fiona, too. It leaves such an obvious hole,” Nell said.
Charlie took a deep breath. “Yep, there sure is. I think it was the only question I asked all night. What was she doing out there? Why’d she go to the Cardozo place in the first place? She rode all the way out there on a bike on a nasty night—why?”
Ben and Nell waited.
He shook his head. “That’s when she closed down. She said that it was none of anyone’s damn business, that it was personal and it had absolutely nothing to do with the murder and I was a pretty nervy guy even to be asking it.”
Ben looked off toward the sea, just visible above the tops of the trees. Then he took a deep breath, his expression grim, and said, “Charlie, Kayla is going to be pulled in for questioning soon. I think the only reason she hasn’t been questioned already is because Jerry checked into her injuries and was hoping her memory would come back soon. Talking to her before that would have been unproductive, and, according to your boss, Glenn Mackenzie, pushing her could do more damage than good. Frightening people with amnesia—especially by trying to force them to relive the trauma they can’t remember—can prolong it. When they confirmed that the bike they found was definitely Kayla’s, Tommy Porter had gone by the Ocean’s Edge and asked her to let the police know when her memory returned. Did she mention that?”
Charlie shook his head no.
“You know Tommy—he’s the nicest guy on earth. Best detective in the department, the chief says. He would have been as unthreatening as a kitten. He said he told her she’d be a huge help in the investigation and that they would appreciate anything she remembered and could share with them about that night. The chief is a gentle guy, too, police chief or not. She’s a young mom. Neither of them will scare her. But there’s the bike, and Kayla’s blood was found in the house. That’s significant. And if she was actually the first person to see Dolores after she was murdered, talking to her could help the investigation greatly.”
Nell was listening carefully, her heart heavy with what lay ahead for Kayla. Her mind was going in all directions, wondering about all the things they didn’t know about the young mother. A week ago they didn’t know she existed. And now, somehow, their lives were intertwined.
“I’m sure she could be of help,” Charlie acknowledged. “She’s aware of that in some vague way, but why she went out there? She’s convinced—or at least trying to convince herself—that there’s nothing she could add that would help the police. It’s because of her kids, I think. She wants to protect them.”
“Sure she does. But her actions may be doing exactly the opposite,” Ben said. “She might be the closest person to the crime other than the person who did it. It’ll be so much better for her if I let Jerry know she wants to talk to him, rather than Tommy Porter showing up in a squad car on her street. And sure, I’ll give her a lift over to the station and wait while she talks to the chief.” He checked his watch. “Do you know what her morning is like?”
“She doesn’t work this morning and the kids are in school. I’m sure she’s shaking in her boots and wondering if she really wants to go through with it, so I’d say the sooner the better.” He handed Ben a cell number, scribbled on a gas receipt.
Ben took it and was up and walking inside while Charlie captured a stray thought and said to Nell, “She seemed afraid of something else last night. . . .”
Before he could finish his thought, Ben was back.
“It’s all set. As soon as Kayla is ready, I’ll pick her up.”
Charlie and Nell watched Ben’s efficient movements, the level tone of his voice. Tapping some notes into his phone. Canceling a sailing outing he’d scheduled. But efficiency was one thing, and they both knew that this morning that efficiency would be mixed with utter kindness.
Ben headed for the deck door, then stopped and turned back. “Charlie, you mentioned seeing a man outside her house. Did she mention him? A boyfriend?”
“I thought so, and that maybe I was interrupting something. I couldn’t see the guy’s face but his movements seemed kind of happy. But when I started up the steps I caught Kayla staring after his car. And the look in her eyes wasn’t a look you’d save for a special guy.”
Nell looked over at Charlie. “Oh?”
“It was a look you’d give to someone you’d like to wipe off the face of the earth.”
* * *
After Ben left, Charlie and Nell sat with refilled coffee cups, not ready to move into the day. Their silence matched their relationship: comfortable and assured and respectful of the other’s privacy. It was okay to talk. Or not.
As stone-faced as Charlie could sometimes be, his eyes were usually a giveaway. The gateway to what he tried so hard to cover up. For a moment she wanted to invade his privacy, to wrap her arms around him, to warn him of danger, to protect him like she did when he was a young impetuous boy in Kansas.
Though of course she never could. Not then. Nor could she now.
But she could see there was more going on in Charlie and she knew he was seeing more in Kayla Stewart than a mom who had lost a dog, or a brash young woman, one who needed help to cope with a difficult situation.
Charlie saw someone he was beginning to care about.
Chapter 15
Birdie was waiting in the circle drive of her sprawling estate when Nell drove up a few hours later. In minutes they were on their way out to Lambswool Farm, Nell to get fall vegetables for grilling that night, and Birdie to take some papers to Claire Russell, who managed the farm-to-table dinners and the working farm that Birdie owned.
Nell suspected mostly Birdie wanted to go along for a quiet time to talk. She knew she did.
Although there was a more direct route to Lambswool Farm, Nell took a turn that took them out near the old quarry. But it was the house that held their interest, not the quarry hidden back in the thick woods. Nell pulled over and stopped at the edge of the property, right beside the mailbox with Dolores Cardozo’s name in gold stick-on letters. In the distance, a thick
stand of trees swayed slightly, marking the beginning of the wooded area on Dolores’s property. Several narrow pathways, overgrown with weeds, wound through the trees and brush to the quarry beyond. Straight ahead stood the plain house, quiet and serene, surrounded with yellow tape, a visual affront to the tranquil setting surrounding it.
Close to the car, a single wolf tree stood near the gravel drive, its branches bent and gnarled from years of battering sea storms. It stood guard, a lone sentry. And near the corner of the house, another tree—a tall thin pine, nearly leaning against the frame structure. The two women were silent, looking through the windows of Nell’s car, imagining that night—windy, wet, and cold, a bike leaning against the bark of the old tree.
“If only bikes and trees could talk,” Birdie said.
Nell shifted in the seat, looking through the back windows. “I never noticed how much property was here. I guess I never paid much attention to this land at all.” Beyond the house, off to the left of the quarry woods, the property stretched long and skinny for as far as they could see. Behind them and across the road were several houses on small parcels of land.
“Someone’s coming,” Nell said, nodding toward the street.
A tall, balding man walked across the road and around the car to the passenger window. His shoulders were hunched and a pair of binoculars hung around his long thin neck. In one bony hand he clutched a rifle. He didn’t look happy.
Birdie lowered the window and smiled up into a weather-seasoned face.
“You need help?” the man asked. His voice was gravely, a smoker’s voice with a wary cadence mixed in.
“We’re passing through,” Birdie said. She eyed the gun.
The man followed her glance. “Damn squirrels,” was all he said.
Birdie smiled, gentle and soothing, just in case. “We stopped to pay our respects to the woman who once lived here.”
The man hunched lower, peering in at the two women in the car. The fingers of one hand curled around the window frame. “The Cardozo woman is what you’re meaning,” he said. His head nodded with his words, his expression elongating into one befitting a death. “Why? Do you know her? Who are you?”
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