Then what was? Could someone have broken in with the intent of harming her? My blood went cold at the idea. I couldn’t imagine anyone having a grudge against Vera Mae. Occasionally I get hate mail at the station from disgruntled listeners who disagree with me, but it’s always directed to me, not Vera Mae. I looked out into the trim little yard, bounded by magnolia bushes. It was shrouded in shadows, and I thought of all the times I’d nagged Vera Mae to put up some security lights at the front and back entrances. I was annoyed at myself that I hadn’t been more persuasive.
Rafe had said that the perp had gotten away, so presumably he was still out there, ready to strike again.
Officer Duane Brown was on the front porch talking into his radio when Nick and I came up the front walk, and I noticed that the front door was cracked open. I could see Vera Mae sitting on the living room sofa with a female officer at her side. Her face was as pale as bread dough, and she had her hands clenched together tightly in her lap.
Rafe must be in another room, I decided, because it looked like the female officer was taking a statement, scribbling into a notebook. Vera Mae nodded her head a few times, her expression serious.
I always notice body language. I know from my training as a shrink that body language tells eighty percent of the story and can give you a dead-on window into the person’s state of mind. If you want to pick up on what someone’s really feeling and thinking, check out the body language. It’s a much more valuable indicator of true emotion than what a person tells you. Why? Words tell only part of the story, a very small part. And although people lie, body language doesn’t. Trust me.
When I had been seeing patients back in my Manhattan practice, I discovered I could usually size up a patient as soon as I stepped into the office. Depressed people have very different body language than anxious people.
I shifted from one foot to the other while Officer Brown chatted away. He finally acknowledged that we were standing there, nodded, and motioned for us to go in. The second I stepped over the threshold, Vera Mae bounded off the sofa and nearly crushed me in a bear hug.
“Sugar, you didn’t have to come over here, but I’m so glad you did.” She held on to me, swaying a little, and I felt tears spring up in my eyes. Vera Mae is one of the most important people in my life here in Cypress Grove. Maybe anywhere. We struck up an instant friendship when I’d flown down to audition at WYME, and we’ve gotten even closer since then.
“Rafe told me what happened,” I said, leading her back to the sofa. She was doing her best to put up a good front, but I noticed her hands were trembling. She needed a hot cup of tea or a big shot of brandy, maybe both.
The female officer stood up just as Rafe wandered in from the kitchen. He nodded at me and then took the officer aside for a huddled conversation in the tiny dining room. Nick and I sat next to Vera Mae on the sofa. I held Vera Mae’s hands. They were chilled to the bone; it was like touching a corpse. I was just about to ask her whether she had some brandy stashed away, when the female cop left and Rafe joined us.
“So. Quite a night,” he said, sinking into an armchair. Rafe is catnip to women. It’s impossible not to pick up on his sexy vibes. I’m not even sure he knows he’s giving them out. (But sometimes he tosses me a little smile, flashing his dimples, that tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing.)
Nick whipped out his notebook, pen in hand. You wouldn’t think a break-in would be big news, but there’s not much crime in Cypress Grove, which was one of the reasons I had moved here. “Vera Mae, can you tell me what the guy was looking for? Do you have any valuables in the house?”
Before Vera Mae could answer, I turned to her. “Wait a minute. It was a guy? You’re sure of that, right?”
She nodded. “I think so, but I didn’t really get a good look at him. He was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. I practically collided with him. He was standing in the living room, and like an idiot, I’d left all the lights off. I was coming in from my tai chi class—”
“You do tai chi?” Nick asked, pen poised.
“Not willingly,” Vera Mae said with a chuckle. I could feel a little warmth coming back into her fingertips. “Lark gave me a month’s worth of classes for my birthday. Don’t put that in the paper, sonny.” She waggled her fingers at Nick. “I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“I won’t.” Nick grinned at me. I felt a little glimmer of relief. If Vera Mae could crack a joke, that meant she was back to her old self.
“Go on,” Rafe urged her.
“I came home earlier than usual. I wasn’t crazy about the instructor they had tonight. And I walked right in on him. He nearly knocked me over, he was so eager to get out of here.”
“You came home early,” I said, thinking. “So that means that maybe he knew your schedule and he figured he’d have the place to himself?”
“Maybe.” Vera Mae shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Or maybe it was just a random selection,” Rafe said. “This place is an easy target, no outdoor lights, no security system.” He looked at the thin door with the sixties-style diamond windows at the top and probably figured the same thing I did. The door looked paper-thin, like it was made of plywood. I bet one swift Krav Maga kick would demolish it.
But I also noticed there were no scratches on the door, no obvious signs of damage. Funny. I walked over to the door to double-check. The frame was intact and the lock didn’t look like it was scratched or damaged.
I looked at Rafe. “I don’t understand. There’s no sign of a forced entry. How did he get in?”
Vera Mae flushed. “Well, there’s a tiny chance I may have left it open,” she admitted.
“You left the door open? Vera Mae, for heaven’s sake. Please tell me you didn’t do that deliberately.” Vera Mae and I have had this argument many times before. She thinks that if a burglar is determined to get into your house he’ll find a way, and I’ve been telling her that she’s out of her mind. A robber will go for the easy score, the place with no lights, no security system, and no guard dog. Like her house.
“Well?” I demanded. She really had left the door unlocked. A bubble of disbelief rose inside me.
She didn’t answer me, but a red flush began creeping up her neck. She licked her lips and kept her eyes down, playing with her watch. A long beat passed. She was stalling.
“Vera Mae, fess up. You
did
leave it open on purpose.” Rafe’s voice had an edge to it.
“Well, honestly, it was just for a couple of hours.” She flashed an unrepentant grin. “And most folks in Cypress Grove leave their doors unlocked.” She was right. This was strictly small-town America, with a low crime rate, and people tended to be trusting.
“And I left the back door open, too.”
“What? Why in the world did you do that?” I challenged her.
“I was expecting a delivery.” All three of us stared at her.
“What kind of delivery?” Rafe leaned forward, his brows knitted in concentration.
“Just some more papers for the time capsule celebration. Historical stuff, nothing valuable. Nothing worth stealing, that’s for sure.”
A little bell went off somewhere in the back of my brain. “Wait a minute. Didn’t someone already give you a box of papers that belonged to Althea? You showed them to me at the station.”
“Those were from Miss Whittier, Althea’s neighbor,” Vera Mae said. “This is a different set of papers. They belonged to Mildred Smoot.”
“And someone gave them to you because—”
“Because they wanted them to be kept safe, I guess. I doubt there’s anything interesting in there, just some more notes from the historical society. Maybe some newspaper clippings, that sort of thing.”
“Why are the papers from the society spread around town like this?” Nick asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to keep them all in one place? Like the historical society?”
“I suppose so,” Vera Mae said doubtfully, “but you know how these old dears are. They take home a box or two to go through them, and they forget to bring them back. Or they never get around to looking at them. I think that’s what happened with this batch. Mildred’s colleague, Gina Raeburn, found these in Mildred’s home. She figured there might be something interesting in there, so she dropped them off here tonight.”
“You still have the papers?” I said eagerly. Maybe this explained the break-in; at least it was a good starting point.
“Yes, but I’m sure there’s nothing valuable in there. Nobody would want them.”
“Where are they?” Rafe stood up, looking around the room.
“Oh, I’m sure they’re right inside the back door, in the laundry room. Gina said she was going to leave them on top of the washing machine.”
Rafe and I exchanged a look. “Any particular reason she would do that?” he asked.
“She has a bad back and bad knees. She can barely walk up those two front steps, especially carrying a box. So she said she’d probably just go in the back door and leave them there for me.” Vera Mae flushed. “So that’s why I left both doors open, front and back.”
Chapter 23
“Let’s take a look at the laundry room, and I’ll get Officer Brown to do another walk-through out back.” Rafe called out to the square-jawed officer standing on the front porch. “Duane! Check the backyard again for footprints, evidence, anything you can find.”
Vera Mae led the way down a narrow hallway to a small room with a washer and dryer. She flipped on the light switch and gestured to an open cardboard box filled with clippings and papers. “There they are. Gina left them for me, just like she said.” She riffled through the top layer of yellowing papers and shook her head, her brows scrunched together.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing, I guess. But I just don’t get it. Nobody in his right mind would break in for a bunch of moldy old papers. He must have been after something else.” She wrapped her arms around her chest as if a chill had just passed through her.
“Don’t worry about the papers, Vera Mae,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to bother with any of this right now.”
“I’ll go through the box first thing tomorrow. I don’t feel like I’m up to much tonight. Feeling a bit peaked, you know?” She gave an embarrassed half laugh. “Silly, isn’t it? Don’t know what’s come over me.”
“It’s not silly. You’ve had quite a shock,” I said quietly. “It’s going to take a little while to get over this. You need to take it easy for a day or two.”
The shock of surprising an intruder in your own home is something that doesn’t go away overnight. Vera Mae seemed to be coping well, but I had the feeling she was probably operating on autopilot.
Soon the reality of what happened would hit her, maybe over the next few days, or maybe the next few hours. She needed to be with someone who was supportive and who understood what had happened. Vera Mae had suffered a psychic wound, as the shrinks call it, and her safe world had disintegrated the moment she’d seen that burglar in the hoodie.
“Maggie’s right. You need to take it easy for a while.” Rafe touched her arm and then pushed open the back screen door and stepped out into the balmy night. The yard was shrouded in shadow, and the cicadas were humming in the trees. Officer Brown was walking around the yard with a flashlight, shining it over the dwarf palms and the low shrubs that bordered the trim little backyard.
“Nothing back here. No sign of footprints, no sign of forced entry.” Officer Brown shook his head, catching Rafe’s questioning glance. He moved toward the edge of the yard and suddenly the night air was peppered with furious barking. It sounded like a pack of wild dogs with one very loud alpha dog barking louder than the others. I flinched, expecting a group of Rottweilers to come tearing through the shrubbery at any second. Without meaning to, I took a quick step backward, stepping on Nick’s foot.
“What in God’s name is that noise?” Rafe asked. “It’s coming from the back of your yard, Vera Mae. Do you have a dog chained out there?”
Vera Mae shook her head. “Are you kidding? I’m more of a cat person. That noise you hear is coming from Lemuel Clemson’s house.” Her lips were twitching, and I could see she was holding back a laugh. “Our property borders each other’s. All we have is that low hedge dividing us.”
“Tell me about him,” Rafe said.
“He’s not a friendly sort of guy, kind of paranoid, if you know what I mean.” She lowered her voice. “Always suspicious, always complaining about something. He’s a busybody, if you ask me.”
“A busybody might be just what we need right now,” Rafe muttered. “Maybe he saw something. Let’s try an experiment.” He called out to the officer patrolling the yard. “Duane, take a couple of steps backward. Toward us.”
Officer Brown moved away from the shrubs, and the dog barking stopped abruptly. Like magic. Or like someone had thrown a switch. Funny. The sound still lingered in my brain, and I realized there was something odd about it. It was the kind of raucous barking that would make an intruder head for the hills, but it had a strange, tinny undertone to it.
And then the two halves of my brain connected and I figured it out.
“Vera Mae, there’s something strange about that dog barking. Could it be a recording? It doesn’t sound real to me.”
Vera Mae laughed. “You’ve got a good ear, sugar. It
is
a recording. Lemuel sets it to a motion detector. He’s always afraid someone’s gonna break into his house. Although I can’t imagine what he’s got in there worth stealing.” She shrugged, her shoulders slumping for a moment. “Funny when you think about it. I’m the one who nearly got robbed, and he’s the one with all the fancy security equipment.”
Fancy security equipment.
I looked over at her neighbor’s house. Another small stucco ranch, probably from the same era as Vera Mae’s. Pastel stucco exterior, flat roof. And then I spotted lights on the back corners of his house, perched on the corners of the roof. Right next to the lights were rectangular gadgets that were aimed right at us.