Address to Die For (18 page)

Elaine patted Stephen's arm. “You're one of the nicest couples I know.”

Stephen smiled. “Like I said, it's not a secret. It's just awkward when folks jump to the conclusion that if you're a guy and you're married, your spouse is a woman.”

“I try not to jump to conclusions,” I said. “Or put people in boxes based on stereotypes. I apologize, Stephen. I like both you and Jason and I hope I haven't offended you. I'm sorry I called you my fairy godmother.”

Tess snorted again. “You didn't.”

“I did.”

“I loved that, Maggie,” Stephen said. “And it's not your fault you assumed I was married to a woman. I've done the same thing to guys I don't know. But look, it's like this: You don't walk up to people you barely know and say, ‘Hi, I'm Maggie, I'm married to a man.' Right?”

I nodded.

“I don't, either.”

“Good point,” I said. “Friends?”

“Friends,” Stephen said. “Now, do you want to help me set up some wireless cameras and see if we can catch your vandal? If we nab him, we can see if he's connected in any way to Miss Harrier's death.”

“Did you get any useful information from this meeting, Stephen?” Elaine said.

Stephen turned to me. I guess he felt the need to explain his role in the investigation.

“My canine partner and I had police training in the Marine Corps, and our first assignment was with a law-enforcement unit. I'm an unpaid police consultant. I know when Jason's called out, of course, and I provide victim support when I can. It's an arrangement that wouldn't work everywhere, but this is a small town and the chief's on board with it. The other detectives call me sometimes too. That's why I gave you the Batman impression, I guess.” His blue eyes twinkled. “I need to get a cape.”

“I'll make you one, if you want.” Elaine slapped Stephen's leg with the end of her dish towel.

“Your teddy bears and quilts are sufficient, Miss Elaine,” Stephen said with a slight bow.

Tess explained. “Elaine makes patchwork quilts. Every patrol car has teddy bears and quilts in the back. When kids are in trouble, the officers pass them out and it comforts the kids.”

I thought about how soothing a soft kid-sized quilt would be. A comforter, in every sense of the word.

“I know you've got your hands full, Maggie,” Elaine said. “But if you're interested in joining our guild or learning to quilt, let me know.”

She turned back to Stephen. “So, don't deflect. Do you think you got anything useful out of this meeting?”

“I'm not sure. I'll hand it off to Jason and see what he thinks. Keep an eye on the school for us, will you?”

“As always,” Elaine said. “As always.”

We said our goodbyes. I cringed when I thought about all the hints I'd seen and heard that pointed to Jason and Stephen's close connection. Hints I hadn't picked up on. Now that I knew, Stephen's professional and emotional ties to the Orchard View Police Department and his commitment to its chief detective made perfect sense.

I walked to the car. I was happy thinking about my growing group of friends and tried not to dwell on the death of Miss Harrier. Unless I could find the pill bottle or wrap up the case in a tidy little bow, there was little I could do for Miss Harrier right now.

When a job seems infinite, a list can create a number of finite steps toward progress. Lists aren't for everyone, but I'd be lost without them.

 

 

 

 

I
was in a good mood, feeling like a combination between Sherlock Holmes and Lara Croft. I hummed the James Bond theme song as I drove home.

Stephen and I spent an hour putting up cameras at the front and back doors of the house. We installed four more to cover the barn. Stephen suggested I hire an electrician to install spotlights on the barn and the house to illuminate the yard. I didn't really want our rural landscape lit up like a parking lot, but I told him I'd think about it.

I had visions of a spruced-up front yard, with driveway lights that would make it easier to find our address and navigate the path to the house without tripping. In the back, though, I hoped we could keep it dark enough to see the Milky Way and teach the boys to identify constellations.

Lights that we could flick on at any sign of trouble wouldn't be bad, though. Even without vandals and violence and the death of Javier Hernandez, it was a little spooky not knowing what animals might be lurking in the yard when I let Belle out at night.

Using computer magic I didn't understand, Stephen showed me how to access the video feed for the surveillance cameras on my laptop and my phone. He refused my offer of lunch, but grabbed an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table and dashed off for an appointment with a veteran interested in working with one of the discharged Marine dogs.

I set to work unpacking more boxes, glancing at the camera feeds every time I passed my computer. I didn't expect the vandal to return in the daytime, but I wanted to get in the habit of checking on things.

An alarm on my phone reminded me it was almost time for school to get out.

David had a trumpet sectional for band after school, so I drove straight to the middle school.

* * *

“Mom,” Brian said, poking his head in the car window, “can we give Diego DeSoto a ride home? He lives just up the hill from us.” I agreed and Brian waved over a young boy, shorter than most of the other seventh-graders, with thick dark hair that hid his eyes.

Diego kept his head down, but muttered “Thanks for the ride” when I invited him to hop in the car.

“Do you want to borrow a phone to text your parents?” I said. “Will they know where you are?” Diego shook his head and looked out the window. I couldn't tell whether he was shy, rude, tired, sick, or depressed. Something wasn't quite right with this kid, but that was the case with most seventh-graders from time to time.

“Mom,” Brian said, “we have to call Jason. I thought of something.”

“What's that, honey?” I said, barely listening as I navigated the crowd of kids on foot, skateboards, and bicycles, all under the influence of after-school euphoria and hormones. My goal was to exit the parking lot without killing any of them.

“I remembered something that was missing from Harrier's office. Her iPad. Remember how she used to hit and slap it all the time? She was always taking pictures and writing notes. She never went anywhere without it. But it wasn't in her office.”

“Maybe the police took it?”

“But what if they didn't? What if it's missing? What if she wrote something in there that the killer didn't want anyone to know? Maybe that's why she's dead. To keep her quiet and destroy the evidence.”

We were stopped in a long line at a stoplight, waiting our turn to cross Foothill Expressway. I looked at Brian, sitting on the edge of the backseat, quivering with excitement. Was this some sort of conspiracy theory he and his friends had cooked up at lunchtime to scare themselves silly? Or was his observation the key to breaking the case open?

“Mom, we need to call Jason now. He needs to look for the iPad. That's the key; I know it is. I figured it out during my math class. We had a test and I finished early. I was staring out the window and the teacher was entering grades in her iPad. That's when I remembered. Harrier
always
carried hers with her.”

If Brian was right, if Miss Harrier had been murdered and the iPad really was the key, it could be dangerous for him if the killer knew he'd figured it out. Diego knew, obviously, but I wondered if Brian had mentioned it to anyone else. It was definitely time to get the police involved.

“Pick up my phone, Brian. Jason's on speed dial. If you can't reach him, leave a message and call Stephen. And when you're done, make sure their numbers are in your phone. There are a couple more I want you to add later, just in case.”

“Is this for real?” Diego said. “You really think this is for real?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “But it's worth checking out.”

I looked at Diego in the rearview mirror, and he looked pale, almost gray.

Brian wanted to drive straight to the police station. I wanted to drop off Diego, go home, get Brian a snack, shift the laundry, and let him get started on his homework before it was time to go back and get David. I craved normalcy. I feared growing more deeply enmeshed in what was shaping up to be a murder investigation, but we had an obligation to pass any information we had along to the police. Brian phoned Jason and left a message.

We dropped Diego at the DeSoto house, an overbuilt home with pink walls, a huge courtyard fountain, and a Mediterranean feel. A signpost read
Castillo de las Fuentes
. My Spanish was rusty, but I was pretty sure that meant “Castle of the Fountains,” and I wondered where the other fountains were. Most public fountains in California had been turned off during the drought to save water and money. Having a huge fountain like this one running in your front yard seemed to say that the DeSotos felt Orchard View policies about conserving water during the drought did not apply to them.

“Thanks, Mrs. McDonald,” Diego said. “See you tomorrow, Brian.”

I helped Diego with his backpack. “It's no problem giving you a ride, Diego. Anytime. You know where we live?”

Diego nodded. “It's where my br—” Diego was cut off by Belle's barking. I usually fed her when the boys got home from school, so she wanted to get moving.

“Sorry, Diego, what was that?” I asked.

Diego looked at his feet. “Nothing. Mr. Hernandez let us play there sometimes, is all.”

“Well, you'll have to come back,” I said. The more I heard about Javier Hernandez, the more I thought I'd missed getting to know a wonderful man. I waited to be sure Diego got in the front door, but I wasn't sure where the front door was. Diego shuffled across the courtyard dragging his heavy backpack and trailed his hand in the fountain as he passed it. No instrument case.

“Did Diego forget his instrument?” I asked Brian. “Should we take him back to get it?”

“His dad thinks music is a waste of time. He won't let Diego join band.”

Okay, then. I put another black mark against Mr. Snooty in my mental list of his offenses.

When I turned back to make sure Diego got in safely, he'd disappeared, and I still couldn't figure out where the front door was. The enormous fountain made it hard to see anything beyond it.

I backed out of the DeSotos' driveway and drove to our house. Jason arrived shortly after we did. We went inside and Brian filled Jason in on his suspicions about the iPad and suggested Miss Harrier might have installed an application on it that would allow it to be traced.

Jason confirmed that the crime-scene techs had secured Harrier's phone and computer, but that neither held any documents that helped clear up the mysteries surrounding her death. They hadn't looked for a tablet because they didn't know one was missing. Jason thanked Brian and took his phone out on the porch where we could hear him barking orders to his team to meet him at the school.

“Can I help look for it?” asked Brian.

I started to answer, but Jason walked back in from the porch and beat me to it.

“We'll need to search the entire school, and her home, and go through her car once more,” he said. “Don't you have homework?”

“I'll do it before Mom drops me off in the morning. Or I could help you look in Miss Harrier's office then?”

“I'll keep it in mind.”

“But . . .”

“For reasons pertaining to bringing charges against someone later, we need to limit the number of people who are involved in the search. If our team finds nothing, we'll see what you can do to help. For now, do your homework.”

Brian frowned and rolled his eyes, but turned and ran upstairs.

“Should I be worried for him?” I asked Jason. “What kind of evidence would you expect to find on Miss Harrier's iPad that would be worth dying or killing for?”

Jason rolled his shoulders, then tilted his head from one side to the other, stretching.

“We're the only ones who know that Brian thinks the iPad is a key bit of evidence. If there's a killer out there, he or she might have destroyed it.”

Jason brushed his hair away from his face and looked at me, biting his lip and thinking.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you have a minute? There's something else I need to tell you.” He gestured toward the living-room sofas. “Can you sit for a minute?”

“What is it?” I asked, sitting on the arm of the couch across from Jason. He stared out the window and looked exhausted. I was reminded of my conversation with Paolo at the gas station, and wondered if getting a word out of Jason this afternoon would prove as difficult.

“Maggie . . .” Jason coughed and started again. “We got the report from the medical examiner on Javier Hernandez's death.”

“Right, the guy in the basement,” I said.

“It's been ruled a homicide.”

My hand flew to my mouth. “Homicide?” I was horrified. A person had been murdered in my home. In an odd way, I felt responsible, as if, because it was my house, I could have somehow prevented it. It was ridiculous, but then, before I moved to Orchard View, I hadn't had much experience with homicide and had no idea what a normal reaction to such dreadful news would be.

Jason nodded. “We're still not sure what happened, or why. But we need you and the boys to be extra careful.”

“Are we safe here?” The idea that someone had murdered Javier meant he'd been alive one minute and killed the next. Someone did that to him. Someone who could do the same to the boys or to me, or to one of the animals.

“Is it the same person as the vandal? Could it be the same person who killed Miss Harrier?” I asked.

Jason shook his head. “We just don't know. But we
will
find out. Would you be more comfortable living somewhere else?”

It was my turn to shake my head and I did so with more determination than I felt. “This is our home,” I said. “We're staying put.”

Jason thought for a moment. “I can step up the patrols, and Stephen and Munchkin will be here for as long as it takes us to find this guy. But be careful.”

I walked Jason back to his car.

“You can change your mind any time,” he said.

I nodded. Jason climbed into his car and turned the key in the ignition. He rolled down the window. “I'm as excited by the possibility of finding that iPad as Brian is. Please thank him for me. And try not to worry about the crimes. I'm more concerned about the vandal than I am by the murderer. TV is one thing, but in real life, murderers usually don't kill random people.”

I shuddered and tried to hide it. Jason either didn't notice or pretended he hadn't.

“Stephen will be by later. We'll have eyes on those monitors all night. And Maggie? No snooping. That's our job.”

I thanked Jason, waved to him as he pulled onto Briones Hill, and walked back to the house.

Back in the kitchen, I pulled out a pad of paper. I had time to do a little planning—especially if I picked up a deli meal on the way to or from getting David.

I wrote down everything that I remembered from this morning's meeting, and what we knew about the death of Javier Hernandez and the destructive little lowlife who was targeting our house. I had no idea if the events were connected, but I figured the only way to ensure that we didn't find a connection was to avoid looking for one. I tapped my pen against the pad, leaving tiny dots of ink where there should have been bullet points outlining stirring insights.

Flora was the most recent addition to my circle of friends, so I focused on her first. There was the marijuana angle, but it was a stretch to connect that to Miss Harrier or to the events at our house. Sure, if we'd flung open the doors of the barn on that first day and uncovered a major pot-growing operation, that would help explain why Flora might have wanted Javier out of the way and why she would want to drive us from our home.

And if it had been a major operation that Harrier had somehow uncovered and threatened to expose, and if Flora was in debt to a major drug gang—all that might have given Flora a reason to kill Harrier. But Flora? Part of a major drug ring? A murderer? I couldn't see it. She was an herbal entrepreneur with fairies embroidered on her skirt. I could easily picture her wearing a
Think Global, Buy Local
T-shirt. She'd turned down the big-name coffee at Elaine's. No, if Flora was selling pot, it would be a small, one-woman operation.

What had Flora said at the meeting about her PTA role? Something about not being privy to the treasurer's reports. But that Susan Harrier had wanted to review those reports more often and in more detail than Dennis DeSoto thought was necessary? In Stockton, when I'd had a brief stint as the not-very-organized secretary of the elementary-school PTA, the treasurer's reports were attached to the minutes and filed with them. I had no idea whether all PTAs had similar requirements, but I thought Flora should have access to the treasurer's reports in her role as PTA secretary.