Address to Die For (25 page)

Sometimes, life gets in the way, and there are other things far more important to attend to than being organized.

 

 

 

 

I
spent an uncomfortable half hour with Dennis as he explained that his oldest son had complicated mental-health issues and that they'd enrolled him in a boarding school for troubled teens earlier in the week.

“He'll be under the supervision of doctors and counselors,” Dennis said. “He's very angry with us right now, but Demi and I are hoping that it will eventually turn out to have been the right thing to do.”

“His name is Dante,” Dennis added. “He's sixteen.”

Dennis looked up at me, then quickly away. He rubbed at an invisible smudge on the table.

“Maggie, I'm so very sorry for all the trouble he's caused you. H-he wanted me to tell you that he never would have done anything to seriously threaten you and your family.”

I wondered about that statement, considering the seriousness of the attacks on our home. Maybe Dante was trying to deny everything he could. Maybe he had been forced to admit to vandalizing our house, but was still trying to dodge accusations of endangering our lives?

I made sympathetic sounds, trying to think about how hard it must be to come to grips with the idea that your child needs more help than you can possibly give them. But my empathy didn't mitigate the relentless harassment and damage Dante had inflicted on our house and the school.

“He wanted to make sure everyone knew that the squirrels were dead when he found them on the road,” Dennis said, rubbing his eyebrow and swallowing hard. “He didn't t-torture them.”

I shuddered at the idea of a teen coolly planning far enough in advance to collect dead animals from the roadway to use later, but I was relieved he hadn't tortured the creatures.

“When did he leave, Dennis?”

“Wednesday.”

“But . . . the fire . . .” I shook my head. Dennis had implicated his oldest son in the vandalism. But if Dante had left town on Wednesday, that meant he couldn't have torched our barn, thrown the smoke bombs, or broken our windows. I needed to look for another suspect. Maybe more than one. I needed to tell Jason and the fire investigator.

I stood and Dennis did too. “If you can wait a minute,” he said, “I'll get you those reports you wanted. And I'll wash that plate for you.” He pointed to the cookies on the table.

“No rush on the plate,” I said. Dennis left the room to get the binders, and I picked up a cookie and nibbled it. What would make a kid angry enough to inflict the kind of damage Dante had? And why did he direct his anger at my family? As far as I knew, we'd never met.

Dennis came back with two giant binders. He handed them to me.

“Thanks, Dennis,” I said. My lip twitched as I tried to wrap my arms around them and I recognized the irony in suddenly feeling overburdened by the information I'd been trying so hard to get hold of. “I think.”

“You're welcome. With so much going on around here, I've gotten a little behind. Dante ran away about a month ago. We were terrified. Demi and I and all the kids have been stressed-out by the tension in the house. I rushed through the accounting and could easily have missed something. It's probably a good idea to have Flora look the accounts over. She's done bookkeeping for her own business and is great at catching unintended discrepancies.”

I smiled, nodded, and left with Belle, promising Dennis that I'd have the cut on my forehead attended to and would check on our locks to discover how Belle had escaped. How
had
she escaped? We were airing out the house with the windows open. Could she have broken through a screen? Or were the new door locks not working?

“Maggie, wait,” Dennis called after me when I was halfway down the driveway. He ran to catch up with me and handed me the purple rhinestone-studded leash. He shrugged. “I know it's not her style, but it will keep her safe until you get home. Drop it in the mailbox when you get a chance. We have more. My daughter likes to buy them—the more sparkles, the better.”

I took the leash, clipped it to Belle's collar, and thanked him. I sensed he had something more to say, but he seemed hesitant to speak. Dealing with Dante's crisis had shaken Dennis's confidence.

“What is it, Dennis?” The cut on my forehead was throbbing and I wanted to be home. I also didn't want Brian to wake up, find me gone, and worry.

“It's about the damages. This is awkward . . . but I-I want you to know that we'll see you're reimbursed, that Dante puts things right. We don't need to involve the police . . .”

“Thank you, Dennis, but would you mind if we talked about this another time? I need to get home.”

“I-I also need to apologize for how rude I was when we first met. When Dante ran away, he broke into your vacant house and hid there for days. I blamed everything on that house and, by extension, you and your family. It wasn't fair.”

I touched Dennis's arm, but could think of no appropriate response.

He nodded. We'd said all we could think of to say. I nodded back and walked briskly down the hill. I appreciated his apologies and promises that Dante would take responsibility for his actions, but I had no intention of hiding anything from the police. Jason needed the information about what Dante did or didn't do if he was going to figure out who'd burned down our barn.

Belle and I stayed on the shady side of the street. She sniffed bushes and threatened to take chase when a hare bounded out of a thicket and disappeared up the hillside. I was glad Dennis had loaned me the leash.

My encounter with him had run contrary to my expectations in so many ways. After an initial reluctance, he'd handed over the PTA reports eagerly. I no longer suspected he was hiding unusual accounting practices.

Flora and Elaine had both suggested Dennis might be the culprit, but he had easily explained the anomalies in his behavior that had worried them. Dennis had been preoccupied by Dante's issues and fell behind on his responsibilities. His son was responsible for at least some of the vandalism.

I remembered how uncomfortable Diego had been when we'd given him a ride home and we'd talked about the vandalism and Miss Harrier's death. Was he stressed-out by the tension at home? Did he think Dante was behind Miss Harrier's death or had killed Mr. Hernandez? What a horrible burden for a kid that would be. It was almost too painful for me to contemplate a boy Brian's age thinking his brother might be a murderer. The most Dennis was responsible for was delaying getting help for Dante and putting a stop to his escalating vandalism. But being a slow-to-act parent wasn't a crime.

I wondered what had caused Dante to turn to destroying property. I'd heard that kids sometimes became destructive when they were acting out frustration caused by abuse or other problems at home. Dennis was not my favorite person, but was he abusive? I didn't think so.

My “investigation” was getting nowhere. I'd have to go back to my index cards and see what else and who else they suggested.

I checked the mailbox before I walked up the driveway, but no letters, bills, packages, or junk mail had been delivered. No bombs either, thank goodness. I checked my watch. Three o'clock. Almost time to pick up David. I hoped Brian was awake. Maybe the boys and I could go out to dinner.

As I drew close to the house, I could see Flora's VW parked next to my van. Perfect timing! I couldn't wait to give her the heavy binders and tell her what I'd learned from Dennis. I expected Flora to climb out of the car and meet me, but she didn't. Could Brian have let her into the house? In theory, he wasn't supposed to let people in the house when Max and I weren't home. In practice, however, that rule had always applied to other kids, and Brian might have thought an adult was an exception to the rule. Was Flora down at the barn examining the fire damage?

I heard dishes clattering in the kitchen as I climbed the back steps.

“Hey, Flora,” I said as I walked into the kitchen. “What on earth are you doing in my house?” I wrinkled up my forehead and dropped the binders on the table.

Flora was disarmingly matter-of-fact and hummed as she bustled about.

“I'm making coffee,” she said. “And more cookies.”

What the hell?
Orchard View really was another planet if people like Flora took for granted that they could pop in unannounced and take over another person's kitchen as if they owned the place. I was going to have to make it clear to everyone that while I was all for neighborliness and casual, friendly behavior, I would draw the line at intrusions like this.

“How did you get in, Flora?” I asked. “I'm sure I locked the door.” I put down the binders and unclipped the hideous purple leash. Belle sniffed at Flora and went straight to her water bowl, lapping up as much as she splashed on the floor. I walked back to the door to examine the lock and the strike plate, neither of which showed signs of damage from being wrenched open by an intruder.

“The first batch is almost finished,” Flora said. “Doesn't the house smell wonderful with the cookies and the coffee?”

“How'd you get in?”

“Sit down, Maggie, sit down.” She put a place mat on the table and set it with a napkin, spoon, plate, and a steaming mug of coffee.

“You look exhausted. Coffee and a cookie will perk you right up, I'm sure.”

I
was
exhausted. And while I was still determined to get to the bottom of Flora's strange behavior, I figured I could just as easily do it while drinking her coffee. Or was it
my
coffee? I sat down and took a deep sip. Coffee, like most things, tasted better when someone else made it for you.

Flora slowed her bustling and humming long enough to get her first good look at my face. Her hands flew to her own forehead and she gasped.

“What
happened
to you?” She ran to the sink, grabbed a clean washcloth, wet it, wrung it out, and handed it to me in what seemed like a single motion.

I took the washcloth from her and held it to my head as the timer on the oven went off. I took another sip of coffee. Flora pulled one tray of cookies from the oven and put another tray in.

Maybe my head wound was worse than I'd thought. I had a growing sense that nothing was as it should be. I wanted to make sure that Brian was okay, but something prevented me from mentioning him until I figured out what Flora was doing here. She seemed more at home and in control of her surroundings in my kitchen than she'd been in her own shop. Yet I was sure I'd locked the door, and we'd just changed the locks, so there was no way Flora could have a key. Even with Belle home, I wouldn't have left the door unlocked with Brian asleep upstairs.

“Wasn't the door locked when you arrived, Flora?”

Flora moved cookies from the hot baking sheet onto a plate and set it in front of me. She poured herself a mug of coffee, then opened the refrigerator door, took out a carton of cream, and poured a hefty dollop into her mug.

She sat at the table next to me, sitting a little closer than I'd expected her to. I scooted my chair away, and she scooted hers closer. All sorts of alarms were going off in my head. I didn't have the foggiest idea what was going on, but I had a growing certainty that something was wrong. I felt more uncomfortable now, in my own home, than I'd felt at Dennis's. I scooted my chair away and made a move to stand, patting the pockets of my jeans to find my phone.

Brian was upstairs. I thought back, trying to remember whether I'd told Flora he was home. I didn't think so. I hoped he was still asleep and would not walk into the middle of whatever was happening here. Even if he did come down to investigate, I knew that there was no way I would let Flora bother, worry, or hurt Brian. My kids had been through enough.

Flora put her hand on my arm. “Don't bother yourself, Maggie,” she said. “Take a break. Drink your coffee. Have a cookie. That's why I'm here. To give you a rest. You've been working too hard, getting settled in your house, seeing bad guys where there aren't any, chasing down clues. It's too much.” She nudged the plate of cookies toward me. When I didn't move to take one, she put two on my plate.

Belle came to the table and thrust her snout between us, jostling Flora's arm.

The forceful intrusion of Belle's big, insistent, golden-retriever head must have knocked Flora a bit off balance, because she gasped and grasped the edge of the table. When she opened her hand, dozens of white, five-sided pills spilled on the floor and across the table. The last time I'd seen similar pills was when I'd found Miss Harrier dead in her office.

I picked up my cup and looked into it, then stared at Flora.

“Flora, did you drug my coffee? Susan Harrier's coffee?” I formed the words and heard myself say them, but I couldn't quite wrap my head around the concept that Flora the earth mother, the PTA treasurer, the herbalist who only drank fair-trade organic coffee, could also be a murderer.

“Did you kill Miss Harrier?” I asked. “Tell me you didn't.”

Flora shook her head, scrambling to pick up the pills and shove them into the pockets of her shapeless sweater.

“I didn't kill her. It was an accident. I didn't mean for her to die.” Flora buried her head in her hands and sobbed. “She accused me of selling marijuana to the middle-school kids. She was going to tell the police. I could have gone to jail, Maggie. I don't have money for lawyers. Who would take care of Jennifer and my mom if I landed in jail? What could I do, Maggie?”