by Sara Rosett
“Have to go,” Gabrielle said before I could bring up the fact that being the sole beneficiary of the will had a downside. Inheriting the house added her to the suspect list. And I hadn’t even been able to bring up the missing puzzle. I was about to dial her number back when the door swung open and Marie said hello. There was a guardedness about her.
I put my phone away. Talking with Gabrielle would have to wait. “Hi, Marie,” I said, and tried to keep my tone as normal as possible. “Chilly out here. Ready for our session?” Instead of a normal tone, the words came out in that fake cheery tone that teachers use to jolly along a recalcitrant student, but Marie matched it and said, “I’ve been working in the living room.”
I followed her down the short entry hall and looked around the living room in disbelief. “Marie . . . this is spectacular.”
“There’s still a lot to do,” she said, the stiffness dropping away from her.
“I know, but you’ve made excellent progress. You did all this on your own?” I gestured to the front fourth of the room, which had been covered with teetering mounds of papers, books, magazines, and other miscellany. “You can sit on your couch now!” I said, excited for her and for the progress she’d made.
She nodded and a happy smile curved up the corners of her lips. “Surprised?”
“Yes. And look—you’ve uncovered a chair. I didn’t even know you had that chair.”
“I know. There was so much stuff on it you couldn’t even see it.” She grinned widely now. “Try it out,” she said, motioning to the club chair.
I plunked down in the soft cushions and surveyed the room. It was looking better. I ran my hands over the fabric of the chair arms as I said, “You know, Marie, I think you’re on your way. You may not need me much longer.”
She’d gathered a stack of clothes in her arms and was turning away from me when I spoke, but she quickly spun to face me. “Not need you! Of course, I need you. I still have all this,” she said, nodding at the rest of the room. She spoke quickly, “And I need your help with those piles over there. I’ve sorted them, but there are some things that I’m not sure about . . . You’re not quitting, are you?”
“No. Not until you feel comfortable. I only meant that you’re doing so well on your own that you probably don’t need me to come over as often. Maybe once a week or every other week.”
“Once a week. Definitely once a week. Knowing you’ll be here keeps me going on all this.”
I stood up and unbuttoned my coat. “Okay, then. Let’s get started.”
We worked steadily for about an hour, talking about Marie’s upcoming job interview at the local hospital while finding places for the things in Marie’s “keep” pile.
“I’m really hopeful about this interview,” Marie said as she sorted through a stack of books. “I managed the medical records department in a hospital before I was downsized . . . before I started,” she waved her hand toward the remaining stacks of stuff, “doing this.”
“Is that what triggered it? Being downsized?” I asked. We hadn’t talked about why she had hoarding issues, but she had brought the subject up and seemed to want to talk about it.
“I think that’s part of it. I had a busy, productive job and then almost overnight it was gone. I could have searched for another job, but we knew we were moving, so I threw myself into searching for a job here. When I didn’t get anything after a few months, I started looking for bargains, thinking since I wasn’t working, I’d go to yard sales and outlet stores and at least save us money that way.” She shook her head. “I can see now that I wasn’t saving money, especially as it got out of control. I was buying more and more and keeping everything. And then with Cole’s deployment coming up . . . well, Dr. Harper says that probably contributed to it, too.”
“I can see that. Deployments are incredibly stressful,” I said as I placed a stack of books she’d handed me in the donate bin. I picked up a flower-pressing kit. She obviously found it at a yard sale, because a sticker with the handwritten price of one dollar was still on the unopened box. “This was a good deal, but are you sure you want to take up flower pressing?”
“That’s not for me. It’s for my nieces. They’re coming to visit in the summer.”
“Right,” I said, remembering she’d mentioned them before. “Then we can put this with the other toys in the hall closet.”
She snatched the box from my hand. “Don’t get up,” she said. I was kneeling on the floor so that I could reach the bottom of the pile. “I’ll do it,” she said as she placed it on a tower of items that needed to be put away in other rooms. “I’ll put these away now. This stack is about to fall over.”
I rocked back on my heels, suddenly remembering where I’d seen the missing jigsaw puzzle.
Chapter Twenty
Marie tossed the flower-pressing kit into the box in the hall closet and closed the door quickly. She avoided my gaze as she hurried into the kitchen with two cookbooks, three clean tea towels, several pairs of work gloves, and an extension cord that would go to the garage.
I sat for a moment, listening to her moving around the kitchen, opening and closing drawers. The door to the garage creaked. I hopped up and rushed to the hall closet door, gimping as my sore muscles slowed me down. I only had a few seconds before she’d be back, but that was all I needed. I scooped the flower-pressing kit off the top of the box in the closet with the toys and there it was—the jigsaw puzzle. I frowned at it. Why did Marie have it? And why did she lie about it? Thoughts whirred through my mind, but nothing made sense. The only thing I was completely clear on was that Marie didn’t want me to see that puzzle. She’d intentionally kept me out of the closet and I knew I shouldn’t let her see me poking around in here now.
I replaced the other toys on top of the puzzle, closed the closet door, and skidded back into place on my knees in the living room, poised over the last few items in the “keep” pile, just as the garage door squeaked open.
Surely Marie didn’t have anything to hide . . . she had nothing to do with Jean’s death. But there was that branch placed so strategically across the steps of her deck. A thought whispered through my mind. That had happened here, at Marie’s house. She had been outside alone before I left that day, supposedly arranging her deck furniture. She hadn’t been out there long, but certainly long enough to put the stick in place to trip me. But why? Why would she do that?
“Ellie?” I jumped at Marie’s voice behind me and glanced over my shoulder at her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, fine.” I directed my attention to the object I held in my hand. It was a picture frame. I realized I’d been turning it over and over in my hands. Hurriedly, I said, “What about this frame? It’s nice. Do you have a picture to go in it?”
Marie’s gaze traveled from the remnants of the “keep” pile to the frame in my hand. “Ah—yes, on the fridge. I’ve got a snapshot,” she said, but didn’t move to get it. Marie had a funny look on her face—dread mixed with . . . what? Fear? I wasn’t sure, but suddenly I wanted to get out of the house. I scrambled to my feet, pressed the picture frame into her hand, and said, “About time for me to get going.” My voice sounded falsely jolly and artificial.
“Already?” Marie asked.
I cleared my throat. “Yes.” I had no idea if it was time to go, but I was heading out. Now. I swept up my coat from where I’d dropped it on the end of the couch, slung my purse onto my shoulder, and hurried toward the front door. “I’ll have to call you to schedule our next meeting,” I said over my shoulder as I speed-walked to the door.
“Wait—”
“I forgot my calendar,” I improvised. “I’ll need to check the dates and give you a call later,” I said as I turned the knob on the front door and wrenched it open. Marie’s hand closed around my arm, just above my elbow. “Ellie, wait. I can explain.”
I twisted away, breaking her grip, but her tall, gangly form was right behind me as my nervous fingers fumbled and slipped over the lock on the glass sto
rm door.
“Please, Ellie, don’t tell them.”
The lock finally clicked open and I pushed out into the cool night air. It was almost dark now, but the multitude of lights on the neighbor’s house glowed, brightening that yard as well as Marie’s yard. Several cars crept slowly past the neighbor’s house, faces pressed to the windows to take in every blinking light, nodding reindeer head, and spinning snow flurry in the inflated snow globe.
“They’ll never understand,” she said, and there was something about her tone, a pleading, a hopelessness, that made me pause on the first porch step and look back at her. I didn’t see the anger or the aggression that I’d expected after her viselike grip on my arm. Instead, there was an expression of such misery and fear that it stopped me in my tracks. “Ellie, please. Let me explain what happened. I know you figured it out.”
“Figured it out?”
“That I have the jigsaw puzzle. That I took it from Jean’s garage,” Marie said, speaking in such a rush of words that I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly.
“You took it from the garage?”
“Yes. On the day she died. Late that morning,” Marie said, misery and remorse shading her face. She threw her gaze up to the inky sky and her shoulders sagged.
I’d pulled my car keys from my coat pocket. I jiggled them in my hand, thinking that meant Marie was in the garage shortly before Jean died.
Marie blinked rapidly and shook her head to the side a little, tossing the thatch of her orangy-red bangs out of her eyes. “I couldn’t help it. Surely, you understand. . . about me . . . why I do—did—things like that.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said slowly. A blast of music from next door startled us both and I recognized the opening notes of the energetic, almost frantic, Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Wizards in Winter.” Christmas lights synchronized with the music flashed on and off.
Marie rubbed her hand across her forehead under her heavy bangs. “Please, will you come back inside and let me explain?”
The tempo of the music increased and a car driving down the street honked along enthusiastically. I hesitated a moment, then put my keys back in my pocket. Marie was frightened, but she wasn’t a danger to me. “Sure. Let me give Mitch a quick call and let him know I’m running late.” I didn’t have a clue about the time—I hadn’t checked my watch—but despite my feeling that I’d been off base in my momentary fear of Marie a few minutes earlier, I didn’t want to be stupid, either.
After leaving a message on his voice mail, I stepped back inside Marie’s house and even I was relieved when she closed the front door on the increasing traffic, the frantically blinking lights, and the pounding music.
“I used to like that song,” Marie said with a half smile.
“I can see how it would get old.” I could still hear the faint pulse of the music. The lights flickered against the windows at the front of the house like a faraway lightning storm.
“The lights and music are causing problems in the neighborhood. Some people are threatening to take him to court. Someone threw eggs at his Santa sleigh yesterday,” she said as she opened the closet door and retrieved the puzzle.
She ran her hand over the bright orange and black butterflies pictured on the box, then she pushed it roughly at me. “Here. You take it. I don’t want it anymore.”
She’d shoved it at me so fast, I almost dropped it. I steadied the box in my hands as she walked away from me into the living room.
I quickly peeked in the box while she was busy clicking on a table lamp. Nothing but jigsaw pieces. She collapsed into the chair. “You know how I am about things,” she said, and shot me a quick glance out from under her bangs, which had fallen back over her forehead.
“Yes,” I said as I perched on the end of the couch, the puzzle centered on my lap.
Marie focused on a loose thread on the arm of her chair. “Having you here, helping me organize and meeting with Dr. Harper . . . I’m beginning to see things differently, but back at the party, it was different. I was different.” She pulled the thread taut. “It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. Picking out a white elephant gift from something I owned. I didn’t want to give anything away and I wasn’t even going to go, but I’d had a horrible job interview that morning and decided at the last minute to go. I thought it would take my mind off things. And I knew Cole would like it if I went, so, after agonizing for half an hour, I finally decided the jigsaw puzzle would be my gift.”
She smoothed down the thread, running her fingertip over it.
“Nadia won it,” I prompted, cringing inwardly as I remembered Nadia’s nonchalant attitude toward the gift—it was too hard for her girls and it was missing pieces—and the quick way she’d handed it off to Jean to auction online.
Marie continued, “At the end of the party, I saw Nadia put it in the auction pile.” She pulled at the thread again. “I couldn’t handle it. I can see now that it would seem absurd to worry, to obsess, about a puzzle, but . . .” She shrugged and clasped her hands together in her lap. “I couldn’t help it. I wanted it back. If Nadia wasn’t going to keep the puzzle, I wanted it back. I should have just grabbed the puzzle and made some lighthearted comment about keeping it myself, but it was like I was paralyzed—I was afraid to make a move to pick it up and afraid that everyone would think I was weird for wanting it back.”
“So you didn’t get it back that night?” I asked, amazed at what had been going on under the surface. I hadn’t picked up on Marie’s distress, but I did remember thinking it was strange that she was so adamant about keeping her white elephant gift, the rather worse-for-wear elf figurine.
“No, I made myself walk away. I kept telling myself it was okay. It was only a puzzle.” Marie’s forehead wrinkled and she shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I know it’s idiotic to obsess about a puzzle—an incomplete one at that—” She flashed a quick, self-deprecating smile at me, then went on. “But I was obsessed with it. I tossed and turned all night and the next morning I went online to search the auction sites to see if it was up. When I couldn’t find it online, I decided to go by Jean’s house and just ask for it back. I had an elaborate story about how I’d just found out a friend collected butterflies.” She shook her head slightly. “Looking back, I realize I was . . . a little messed up. Anyway, I went over to her house and the garage was open.”
“What time was it?”
“Noon, straight up. The news was on the radio and they always do that at the top of the hour.”
“Okay, so the garage was open?”
“Yes. I’d planned to go to the front door and ring the doorbell, but when I saw the open garage door, I thought Jean or Simon might be in there. Since I’d parked a little back from the house on the street, I had to walk up the driveway anyway, so I went in the garage.”
She paused and I said, “What happened? What did you see?”
“Nothing.” She spread her hands, palms open to me, emphasizing her words. “No one. I think I called Jean’s name, but there wasn’t anyone in there and no one came out of the house.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure no one was in there,” Marie said. She tilted her head to the side and pulled at the loose thread again, twisting it around her finger. “I saw the box of white elephant gifts on the far side of the garage. And I suddenly realized that if I moved fast, I could take the puzzle and get out of there. I wouldn’t have to explain myself to anyone or tell my butterfly collector story.”
She jerked on the thread and it popped loose from the seam as she said, “So I did it. I ran over there, grabbed the puzzle—it was on the bottom of the box, I had to move some stuff to find it—and the whole time I was terrified that Jean would appear and see me taking it.” Marie wound the thread around her finger.
“But you didn’t see her?”
“No. I got out of there, practically running. I was only there a few minutes.”
I grippe
d the puzzle box in my lap as I asked, “So all the white elephant gifts were still in the box?”
“Oh, yes,” Marie said, and I could tell she was glad to focus on the gifts, not on her movements. “All of them were there. The bat house, the sewing machine, the picture, the paperweight. And there were some toy cars at the bottom of the box.”
I fell back against the cushions of the couch. The murder weapon, the paperweight, was still in the box when Marie was there.
“Do you realize you were in the garage shortly before Jean died? Probably only a few minutes. I got there about twelve-fifteen. That means Jean was killed between about five after twelve and twelve-fifteen. You’ve got to talk to Detective Waraday. I have his number in my phone,” I said as I reached for my purse.
“No,” Marie said, her voice soft—but she was adamantly shaking her head from side to side.
“But he needs to know.”
“No,” she said even more firmly. “I’m not talking to the police.”
“He’s actually with the sheriff’s department, and it’s so critical. Narrowing down the time of death is really important.”
“I thought you’d understand,” Marie said, and I looked up from scrolling through the contact list on my phone to see Marie’s disappointed expression aimed at me. “Do you really expect the police to understand why I’d go back for a worthless jigsaw puzzle the next day?”
“I suppose that might take some explaining—” I wasn’t completely focused on what Marie was saying. There was something else significant in this conversation. It was right there, just out of reach, but I couldn’t quite make it out. It was like a fuzzy cell phone connection where a word or two came through, but the larger meaning was lost.
Marie leaned forward, drawing my attention back to her. “And even if we could get over that hurdle, do you think they’d understand why I snuck into the garage and left again? My embarrassment? My,” she swallowed, “my fixation on a box of puzzle pieces?”
