Authors: Sara Rosett
The dial tone sounded in my ear. I dropped into the chair at my secretary. Earlier in the morning, I had sat there making out my grocery list. I propped my elbows on the folded-down lid and rubbed my forehead.
Nick had blown up in the store, so he had a short fuse, if the situation was right. He was dangerous. His last flat statement scared me more than his threats. He was serious.
I felt vulnerable. Basically, I’d revealed to Nick that I knew he had something to hide and then asked if Cass noticed him at Northwest Health. How stupid could I be? I glanced at the back door. The dead bolt was locked. I fingered the phone and glanced at one of the tiny cubbyholes that contained my glass clock. If it was near 4:30 I’d wait until Mitch got home instead of calling the squad. This was not a conversation for the phone.
But my clock was in the bottom cubbyhole on the right, not the middle. My gaze automatically went to the middle one and snagged there on a small, framed picture of my mother and me. It shouldn’t have been in the middle cubbyhole. I tried to decide if I could have switched them while dusting. Not likely. I only dusted the cubbies when they looked bad with a thick coat of dust. And besides, I didn’t notice anything different this morning when I sat here and jotted down the grocery list. In fact, my list was right beside the open cookbooks, where I left it when I flew out the door in such a hurry.
But hadn’t I left the Chinese cookbook on top of the pile open to the curry chicken recipe? Now it was on the bottom of the stack. The blue notebook of my mother’s recipes perched on top of the stack.
I glanced around the house with an uneasy feeling. I carefully checked the rest of the house and then sat down on the bed. I wasn’t imagining things. The boxes in the hall closet that we hadn’t unpacked now had the tape slit. They’d been moved and put back. The towels in the bathroom cabinet were stacked differently and a few
things on my dresser had been moved. Someone had been in our house and searched it carefully. I ran a shaky hand through my hair and tried to decide what to do.
Rex put his head under my hand. I rubbed his ears. “You knew, didn’t you, boy? That’s what you were doing, trying to get out.” I smoothed down my comforter and walked restlessly around the room. I felt as if my house had been contaminated. My privacy had been violated. I felt uncomfortable in my own bedroom.
My first thought was Nick. He was furious, but it couldn’t have been him. I’d left the commissary shortly after I talked with him. He wouldn’t have had time to beat me home and look at anything. Besides, he was more an “in your face” type of person. He wouldn’t search stealthily; he would fling things all over the place and wouldn’t care if it were obvious that the house had been searched. So it had to be someone else.
Maybe Jeff
had
seen me searching in their bedroom and this was his way to get back at me. No. Don’t let it be Jeff. Who else? Who else could have done it?
Gwen? I certainly wouldn’t make her top ten friends list right now. A chill crept up the back of my neck and I went to turn up the heat. I’d already opened every closet and checked the basement, so I knew no one was lurking anywhere, but I still felt vulnerable. I made another circuit of the house and inspected the front door and each window. Rex tried to get in front of me at every other step, almost tripping me.
A loud banging on the kitchen door pounded through the house. My heart raced and Rex let out a volley of barks. Livvy started crying. I sidled up to the door and eased the curtain back an inch.
Abby smiled and waved. I flipped the lock and opened the door. “Didn’t remember our walk?” she said, taking
in my jeans. Then she looked closely at me. “What’s wrong?”
For a second, I tried to compose myself and act like nothing was wrong, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hide how upset I was from Abby. “I think someone’s been in our house. Oh, let me try to get Livvy back to sleep and I’ll explain.”
With only a few protests Livvy fell asleep and then I showed Abby the things that were in the wrong place, but I didn’t mention that the thought that Jeff might have done it had crossed my mind.
“You mean you remember how your towels are stacked?” she asked.
“Not usually, but I always put the white ones, they’re old and starting to fray on the edges, on the bottom. The new yellow ones go on top.” Abby looked at the cabinet with white towels stacked on top of the fluffy yellow ones and shook her head.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Someone’s been in here. Is anything gone?”
“No.”
“Why is everything so neat?”
“They didn’t want us to know. Remember when the Vincents’ house was broken into? This has to be connected. It’s the third break-in.” I shouldn’t talk to Abby about this, but I couldn’t seem to shut up.
“Three?”
Don’t tell Abby anything else, I mentally warned myself, but the words tumbled out. “Our house, their house, and their garage.”
“But their house was trashed.”
It must be the stress. I must be in shock. I kept jabbering, my thoughts racing. “I know, but right before that a few things were different—the blinds were closed
and a closet door was open. I think they were searching carefully at first and then came back and weren’t so careful.”
“But why search carefully and then trash the place later?”
“It was taking too long?”
A creaking noise echoed up the basement stairs and we both tensed, but then I heard the familiar thud of Mitch’s tread on the steps.
I shushed him like I did every day. He never remembered Livvy was sleeping and he sounded like an elephant stampede.
Abby said, “I’ll go. We can walk some other time.”
I convinced Mitch that someone had been in our house, then I described my encounter with Nick at the Comm and his phone call while Mitch checked the dead bolt on the kitchen door.
He stopped clicking it back and forth and stared at me. “He threatened you?”
“Yes.”
Mitch closed the door, turned the dead bolt, and went to check the lock on the front door. He had a determined look on his face that I’d never seen before.
“Do you think Nick is a little fixated on flying?” I’d calmed down a bit and felt a little steadier.
“Some guys wouldn’t know what to do if they couldn’t fly”
Mitch loved to fly. To him it was the best part of the job, not the only reason for his existence. But to other flyers it was their whole identity. I remembered Nick’s apartment with his airplane posters and Academy yearbooks. How would he react if he thought his career was threatened? He was sort of obsessed, but he didn’t seem like the type of person who would use an allergic reaction
to kill someone. Too subtle. Nick was all jumpy energy. He’d be more likely to bludgeon someone to death. I shook my head. Here I was speculating about how people I knew would most likely kill someone. Mitch moved to a window. He still had that determined look on his face.
“Mitch, you’re not going to do anything, are you?”
“About Nick’s doctor appointments? No. It’s all guesswork, but about his threats, yes.”
“Mitch.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” I opened my mouth again, but he cut me off. “I’m not going to let him threaten you. I can handle him.”
Nick was several inches shorter and slighter than Mitch. “Be careful,” I said.
“I will. You, too.” He studied the window lock and then looked back at me. “Can’t you let it go? It’s not your responsibility.”
I rubbed the wood grain in the trim board. “I’ve stumbled across lots of information that brings up too many questions. I can’t trust anyone. I can’t be comfortable here, live with these people, and wonder if one of them killed my neighbor.”
“We don’t have to do things with everyone. We can be reserved.”
“I can’t quit. Someone murdered Cass. We’re involved.” I gestured at the house. “It would be more foolish to hide and hope they go away. Because they won’t.”
Mitch rubbed his forehead. “I know if I tell you to back off, it’ll just make you go at it harder.” He sighed. “Make sure you’ve got your cell phone, okay?”
That’s one reason I love Mitch. He understands me. “Do you see anything wrong with the locks?” I asked.
“No. No marks, nothing looks like it was forced
open.” He leaned against the kitchen counter. “Either they picked the lock or they had a key.”
“Should we call the police?”
Mitch leveled a look at me and I had to smile. “Okay, I don’t really want to call them either. They already think I’m a weirdo since I brought them wasps in a baggie.”
“We’d have to call the Vernon police.”
I could imagine the reaction I’d get if I tried to explain that I thought an almost invisible search of our house was related to a wasp-sting murder. “Ugh. You’re right. Forget it.”
I went to the sink and put the English ivy back on the windowsill. Then I ran hot water and squirted in some soap.
Gwen didn’t seem like the type of person who’d know how to pick a lock. I could imagine her spinning a story and convincing a neighbor to let her inside our house, but if that had happened I was sure Ed and Mabel, unelected captains of the neighborhood watch, would have reported in as soon as I returned home.
No, whoever got in our house probably strolled up to the door and unlocked it. They didn’t act suspicious, so no one noticed. But where did they get a key?
My hands went slack in the sudsy water. I
gave
a copy away. To Abby and Jeff.
I realized the water was about to overflow the sink. I twisted the knobs and shut off the water, then stood there staring at the tiny bubbles as they popped. Abby had been genuinely shocked when she arrived after I discovered the search. She’d been acting weird lately, but I knew her well enough to know she was acting weird because she was worried. She wasn’t faking surprise today.
That left Jeff.
I don’t know how long I stood there. The slight shadow of a hope I’d had that Jeff wasn’t involved in this mess evaporated like the soap bubbles laced through my fingers. What was I going to do? I didn’t have an answer to that question so I shoved it aside and moved on. Why break into my house and search it anyway?
Okay, back to the beginning. I picked up a handful of silverware and scrubbed. The garage was the first break-in. Why? It was probably easier to get into the garage than the house. I washed, rinsed, and stacked the dishes. Why wait to break into the house?
I stood up straighter. Rex. Rex was still at the Vincents’ house when the garage was broken into. He’d barked the night before we discovered the break-in. The day after we moved him, the house was searched for the first time. The searcher couldn’t get into the house with a rottweiler guarding it.
I rinsed my large water cup, propped it up to dry, and twisted the drain open. I watched the bubbles swirl away without really seeing them. But what was the search for? I had no idea. I sighed, wiped my hands on a dish towel. It was too confusing. Maybe if I left it alone for a while my subconscious would make some sense of this mess.
Later that night, I sat in the overstuffed chair, but I wasn’t relaxed. Livvy’s cries sounded from down the hall. She tapered off, then after a few seconds of silence, she started up again, reminding me of an ambulance siren. She’d been crying for an hour and twenty-nine minutes. I had alternated between reassuring myself we were doing the right thing and practically wringing my hands in distress. I stopped going in her room to pat her back and tell her it was all right after the third time. It seemed to
make her furious instead of comforting her. With each cry I felt like a spring wound tighter and tighter. I watched the minute hand on the clock sweep around to twelve.
“Okay. That’s it. I can’t stand it anymore. I’m going to get her.”
“Ellie. She’s fine. She’s dry, she’s been fed, she’s been burped. She just wants you to rock her to sleep.”
“I know.”
“And if you go in there and rock her to sleep now, she’ll want you to rock her to sleep again at midnight. And again at two. And—”
“I know. But I can’t stand it anymore.” I hopped up out of the chair, but stopped before I crossed the room.
Silence.
And the house stayed quiet as I tiptoed down the hall. I could hear her heavy breathing from the doorway. Her plump arms were flung out, relaxed. I heard a tiny snore. I leaned my head against the door frame. “Oh, Livvy. It’s not easy growing up, is it?”
I slipped back to the living room. “She’s asleep!” Mitch and I exchanged high fives.
“Six-thirty is such a civilized time to get up,” I said to Livvy as I gathered up my cereal bowl and juice glass. Livvy kicked her feet and the rattles over her bouncy chair jangled. I was rejuvenated after almost seven hours of sleep last night, even with a nighttime feeding for Livvy. Amazing what a few uninterrupted hours of sleep could do. If we could stay in this routine I just might survive until preschool. And it was a good thing, too, because I had a lot to do today.
Joe had returned my call about Isabelle Coombes
and asked me to look for her papers and give her anything I found. I needed to run by the grocery store. And I had the charity pickup at the Vincents’ at two o’clock. I loved the variety of being a stay-at-home mom. Every day was different and none of them were boring. I jotted down a list.
Then I dumped the dishes in the sink, grabbed the dishcloth to wipe the table. What was wrong with my ivy? I leaned over the counter so I could see better. I’d watered it yesterday before I left for the Comm.
Could I have overwatered? The stalks were brown and they sagged as if they couldn’t support the weight of the leaves, which had an odd transparency. I pulled the pot down off the windowsill. A little water caught in the saucer sloshed on my hand. But it wasn’t water. It felt greasy.
Then I remembered. I’d knocked my oversized water cup into the sink yesterday when Nick called and doused the ivy with water. I looked at my water cup, freshly washed last night and resting with the clean dishes.
But it couldn’t have been water. I didn’t have much of a green thumb but, wow, I’d never managed to kill a plant overnight. I rubbed my oily fingers together. Some of my optimism that had arrived with the new day seeped away. I picked up the phone to call Mitch, but put it down when I glanced at the clock. He’d had a six
A.M.
show time for his flight. He was gearing up, practicing for the check ride. He was in the air by now. I sighed and went to shower before I called Thistlewait.