“Oh, it was the detective,” Sadie said. “Apparently, they’ve determined whoever attacked Mrs. Wapple was taller than I am. I guess I’m off the hook.” She smiled, showing the relief she felt so strongly despite the concern of meeting with the detective.
“Awesome,” Jane said. The train approached with a hiss, and Sadie put her phone back in her purse as they headed toward the platform.
“Yeah,” Sadie agreed as she lined up behind Jane and the other passengers. “And they don’t want to meet with me until five thirty so we don’t have to adjust our schedule.”
“They still want to talk to you?” Jane asked, looking over her shoulder as the train lumbered to a stop and the line of passengers tightened even more.
“Yeah,” Sadie said, trying to sound casual; she didn’t want to give away Pete’s role in this. “Just to verify some details.”
Her phone rang again, and she hurried to answer it.
“Sadie,” Gayle said after Sadie said hello. “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you.”
“No problem,” Sadie said, bringing to mind why she’d called Gayle in the first place. Oh, yeah, the dog whistle. “This is actually perfect timing,” she said as she followed Jane into the train car.
The call cut off twice while they were on the train, but Gayle called back both times and was able to confirm Sadie’s suspicions: dog whistles could be set to such a high pitch that they were undetectable by humans but painful to dogs. “Darrin said he was at a dog show where someone in the stands had one—they never found out who—but they had to cancel the show. All those dogs—highly trained dogs, mind you—were howling and running around. The next year they had metal detectors at the entrance. The whistles can be really dangerous.”
“That’s what I thought,” Sadie said, picturing the dog magazine at Mrs. Wapple’s house. Had she seen anything else? “Thank you so much for doing the research for me.”
“No problem,” Gayle said. “Everything okay?”
Sadie sighed. What a question. “I think it will be,” she finally said, wishing she was more confident than she felt. “I’ll call tomorrow with more details, okay?”
“Sure thing, sweetie. You hang in there, okay? And let me know if you need anything.”
Sadie thanked her and hung up to find Jane staring at her. She quickly recounted the phone call. “I could have looked up the whistles for you,” Jane said when Sadie finished. “You don’t have to ask other people to help you, that’s what I’m here for.”
“I know,” Sadie said with a smile, feeling bad that she still didn’t trust Jane completely. “But you already had a list of things to do, and I didn’t want to put too much on your plate. As for Gayle, I called her before you even showed up.”
“But I’d already offered my help.”
That was true. “Sorry,” Sadie said. “I guess I’m just not used to having a partner.”
“Huh,” Jane said, but she still seemed a little miffed. Sadie was too tired to explain herself again and leaned back against the seat. A teenage boy with earbuds was head-bopping to a song, and a teenage girl further down the car was sneaking glances at him every few seconds while two old women twittered in Chinese a few seats past that. Things were funneling together, Sadie could feel it, but she didn’t know how the pieces fit together just yet. It was both exciting and anxiety producing.
I’ll figure it out, though,
she told herself, boosting her confidence.
I will figure it out.
She had to.
When they exited the Back Bay station, Sadie blinked a few times, but it didn’t clear away the gauzy shroud in the air. “Fog,” she said, surprised since it hadn’t been foggy in Jamaica Plain.
“Advection,” Jane answered, shoving her hands into her pockets as they started walking.
“Advection?” Sadie repeated. “What does that mean?”
“The cold temperatures from the water mix with warming temperatures on land and create a fog. I was here one summer when it happened in August. Totally weird phenomenon. They were talking about it on the news this morning—said it would come through in time for the afternoon commute. Nice.”
“It’s kind of pretty,” Sadie said. It blocked out the long-range views of the city, but gave an almost romantic tinge to everything else.
They went to Gabrielle’s house first and, as Sadie suspected, there was little to see. It wasn’t garbage day, and the houses had porches instead of yards. Gabrielle was on the middle floor of a triple-decker brownstone squished between an entire street’s worth of triple-decker brownstones. They were able to chat with the neighbor who lived on the street level of Gabrielle’s building, but she had only ever exchanged pleasantries in the hallway with her.
Jane was undeterred by their lack of success, and they immediately headed for the gallery on Newbury Street. Despite the fog, it wasn’t terribly cold like it had been the last few days. Sadie took in the cozy feel of the city, nodded to people who didn’t nod back—this was the East Coast, she reminded herself—and took in the changing leaves, the autumn wreaths on many a door, and the overall feel of downtown Boston. Though Sadie had never been a big city dweller, she could imagine herself living in a place with so much personality and history. Maybe if her kids didn’t come back to Garrison—a possibility that continued growing all the time—she’d look into relocating to a place like this. Then again, she’d never been to Boston in the wintertime. She should make sure to do that before she made any definite decisions.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Sadie looked at Jane, who also seemed to be relaxing on their walk.
“Just admiring the city,” she said.
Jane looked around. “It is a pretty cool place, isn’t it?”
“It is. I love the whole feel of it. You said you’ve been here before?”
“Several times,” Jane said. “I had an aunt who lived in Cambridge. We’d come and visit every summer when I was growing up, and I spent a year out here before I went to college—that’s how I know my way around so well. She’s dead now, though.”
This was the first time Jane had ever said anything about her childhood. From Shawn’s comments, Sadie knew that it hadn’t been ideal, but she was glad there were some good memories too. “Did you grow up in the East?” she asked, assuming that Jane must not have lived too far away if the family made a yearly visit to Cambridge.
Jane shoved her hands into her pockets and looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, kinda,” she said, but didn’t elaborate, which led Sadie to wonder if she’d suddenly remembered the less pleasant parts. Sadie had no desire to dredge up hurtful memories so she started talking about the first time she’d been here with Breanna and Shawn. Jane listened politely, and Sadie could only hope she enjoyed the trek down memory lane as much as Sadie did.
Before she knew it, however, she’d run out of story, and Jane was pointing across the street at a green awning over a bricked colonial building that had only somewhat been restored so as to keep the Victorian feel. They looked both ways but still got honked at as they ran across the street, stopping at the simple wrought iron sign that said Bastian Gallery mounted beside the beveled glass front door. It was the kind of place someone had to know they were going to if they hoped to find it, as it could be easily lost amid the splashier facades and brighter signage of neighboring businesses.
“Let’s find a way to the back,” Jane suggested. Sadie nodded and headed left until they found a narrow walkway between the buildings. It was dark and the fog meant they couldn’t see what was at the end of the alley.
“I’m glad it’s daylight,” she said as she followed Jane through the fog. The buildings were so tall and the walkway so narrow that despite never having felt claustrophobic in her life, Sadie nearly ran into Jane’s back as her feet seemed to unconsciously speed up. She breathed a lot better when they emerged into the space behind the buildings. She looked down the staggered brick store backs, a mix-matched hodgepodge of different types of brick and stone, accessorized by overgrown weeds and electrical lines as well as a Dumpster every thirty yards or so. Curb appeal was certainly not a consideration for the back lot.
“Green awning,” Jane said, pointing to their left. “Same as the front, that’s got to be it.”
“But we’re not going in,” Sadie said. The fog made the back lot feel isolated despite the sound of traffic all around them.
“I know,” Jane agreed. “We still need to know the layout. Let’s start there and do a perimeter search in extending grids from the back door.”
“Okay,” Sadie said, impressed with Jane’s command of the situation while still wondering what they might find.
“I’ll go left; you go right.”
“Got it,” Sadie agreed. They approached the door, the solid gray metal stenciled with letters indicating that it was, in fact, Bastian Gallery. They both began searching the ground for . . . whatever they might find. Sadie mostly found crushed glass and oil spots, though there was half a pack of soggy cigarettes and a pop can—diet cherry Dr. Pepper—beside the telephone pole about twenty feet from the door. She picked up the trash and headed toward the Dumpster pushed up against the building.
“Found something?” Jane asked from her position further down the lot.
“Just throwing these away,” Sadie said.
Jane nodded and then continued her search.
Sadie lifted the lid of the Dumpster in order to throw the items in. When she dropped the lid with a reverberating thump, she noticed a piece of white paper partially under the Dumpster. It was bigger than a business card but smaller than a regular sheet of copy paper. She might as well throw that away too. She bent down and picked it up, giving it a cursory scan as she lifted the Dumpster lid again. She froze when she turned the paper over and saw a very familiar shade of red staring back at her.
She blinked and, still holding up the lid, took in every detail of the card she now recognized as a paint sample card, the kind Sadie had picked up many a time from her local paint store when looking to redo a room in her home. This particular card was the exact shade of red Sadie had been drenched in at Mrs. Wapple’s yesterday afternoon. A shivery tingle radiated out from her spine, making her fingers holding the card ache a little bit.
“You okay?”
Sadie looked up to see Jane approaching and finally recognized the ache in her shoulder from holding up the Dumpster lid. She dropped it, the sound making her jump. She handed the card to Jane, who took it and then turned it over in case she was missing something.
“That’s the same color of paint from Mrs. Wapple’s house,” Sadie said, realizing Jane hadn’t seen it. “I’d put money on it.”
“Really?” Jane said, her eyebrows going up. “You’re sure?”
Sadie nodded and the sick feeling that had bothered her off and on for the last two days came back. She looked at the green awning of Gabrielle’s gallery. Sadie couldn’t wrap her head around the proof that Gabrielle was involved. “I know we came here looking for evidence but . . . I’m shocked to have found this,” she finally said.
“No kidding,” Jane agreed.
Sadie looked at the card in Jane’s hand, and her brain kicked into investigative gear. “We should check out local paint stores to verify where she bought it. I bet they have all kinds of records.”
“She’d be an idiot to buy it locally,” Jane said.
“Should I call the police?” Sadie asked.
“I don’t know,” Jane said, looking at Sadie with an expression as close to sympathy as she had ever seen on her face. “Will they find it suspicious that
you
found the sample?”
Sadie hadn’t thought of that and hated thinking of it now. “But they already said I’m too short to have attacked her.”
“That’s what they
said,
” Jane reiterated. She shook the card. “But this doesn’t prove your innocence, and it’s not strong enough evidence all by itself to get around the automatic suspicion they’ll have about it.”
“Then why did we come here?” Sadie asked, feeling panic rise in her chest. “If this makes things worse for me”—she waved at the card in Jane’s hand—“what did we hope we’d find?”
“Hey,” Jane said, putting her hand on Sadie’s arm. “Don’t freak out, this is still a good find. Now we know Gabrielle’s involved. That’s powerful stuff.”
Sadie took a breath and nodded; Jane was right.
“Have a little faith in the process, Sadie,” Jane continued, slipping the paint card into her pocket. “We’re adding things up and eventually we’ll have enough to take to the police, but we need to go one step at a time, okay?”
“Okay,” Sadie said, feeling sheepish for her knee-jerk reaction. “You’re right.”
The creak of a hinge caught both their attention, and they simultaneously looked up to see the back door to the Bastian Gallery opening toward them. In a split second, they both darted around the side of the Dumpster, pressing their backs against the chipped paint. They looked at one another as they heard the sound of high heels crunch across the gravel. Sadie’s heart was in her throat as she willed whoever was there not to come around the Dumpster. She was more grateful than ever for the fog that made her feel even more hidden.