Bun in the Oven: The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag, #6

by Jennifer L. Hart

  I needed her out of my house. Whether she was a woman on the run from an abusive man or a serial killer, it didn’t matter. She’d lied about her identity to Laura and to me and the reasons made no difference. I wasn’t in the habit of forgiving people for slights like that. Forgiveness was for quitters and holding grudges burned more calories. The fact that she’d been in my unborn baby’s room, right down the hall from my sleeping children had all the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

  Come on, brain. Churn out a decent excuse. Something legit, that she’d believe.

  “Do you live nearby?” I asked her. “I’d love to see your place.”

  I could feel Neil’s questioning gaze on me, but kept my focus on the other woman.

  “Why’s that?” Grace didn’t look like a woman with something to hide. Her expression was one of mild curiosity.

  “Well, I guess it makes things more even. You know, because you’ve been staying in our home. Besides, living space says so much about a person.” Ours said that I liked shopping garage sales and that my cleaning standards had slipped as my pregnancy progressed. If I wanted to get a real sense of who Grace was and why she’d lied about her experience as a doula, seeing where she hung her hat would be a good start.

  “Right now I’m living with my mother.” Grace said. “I’ve never introduced her to one of my clients before.”

  “First time for everything.” I played my trump card. “Besides, I really want to get out of here today. After everything that happened last night, I can’t relax in the house today.”

  Grace studied me a moment. “It’s a bit of a trip. Her house is in Lawrence.”

  I knew of the town, though I’d never been there. Lawrence was north of Boston and west of Salem, primarily comprised of working class folk who struggled to make ends meet.

  “A good old-fashioned Sunday drive. We can stop at a park and stretch our legs. We can drive or follow you in our car.”

  “I guess.” It was clear Grace couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse my request.

  “What about the boys?” Neil’s gaze was burning a hole into the back of my skull. I knew he was wondering what the hell I was up to.

  “I’ll call Mac. She’ll sit with them. She’s on standby for Baby X anyhow.” I clapped my hands and smiled as though it was all arranged. And in a way it was, even if I was the only one who knew what the whole outing was really about.

  Mac arrived a little after noon, looking flushed, blue eyes lit with excitement. “Is it time? Is the baby coming?”

  “No, sorry. We just wanted to get out for the day. I hope that’s all right?”

  “Sure. I can’t wait to see her. Or him. Can I...?” She trailed off, hand half extended to feel Baby X.

  I took her hand and placed it on the baby mound. I’d seen some of those pregnant women who could tell what part of the baby was where, but it all felt like an enormous squirmy lump to me.

  Always a crowd pleaser, Baby X stretched and shifted, making Mac giggle in delight.

  “I always wanted a little brother or sister, but mom said one was enough for her.”

  “Well you can spend as much time with this baby as you want. I’ll want all the help I can get.”

  “I’m sure the boys will help, right Josh?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure.” Josh, who had a huge crush on Mac, had been lurking in the living room doorway trying to look cool. He must have decided that was the wrong approach because he came forward and reached out to put his hand next to hers on my distended stomach which he’d once called, “just plain gross.”

  I bit my lip in an effort not to laugh at his obvious discomfort.

  Grace came down the hall carrying her shoulder satchel and I introduced her to Mac. Neil took Mac aside and murmured to her for a few minutes while I gave the boys some instructions.

  “Make sure you do your homework. And study for your history test. That teacher of yours is a bad old battleax and I don’t want to cross swords with her again.” I said to Kenny.

  “I will.” He promised.

  “Ready, Uncle Scrooge?” Neil held the door open for me.

  “Be nice to your brother.” I turned to Josh. I knew Neil would start in on me as soon as we were locked in the privacy of the car and stalling seemed the way to go.

  If Mac hadn’t been there I would have gotten an eye roll and most likely a drawn out mo-om. But since his lady love was in earshot he settled for a quick, “Sure.”

  Neil settled me into the passenger seat along with my metal water bottle, a pillow and blanket.

  “No mint for my pillow?” I asked, flashing him a grin.

  He didn’t smile back. Not a good sign.

  I decided a preemptive strike was the way to go. As soon as he had the car door shut I asked, “Did you tell Mac about the, um, situation next door?”

  “Yes and she has my number, your cell as well as my parent’s number. And her mother if anything looks dicey. Now, do you want to tell me why we’re off on an unplanned adventure to her mother’s house? Please tell me it doesn’t have anything to do with Eric.”

  “Well I could, but it might be a lie.”

  Neil swore and hit the brakes hard for the stop sign on the corner. “Maggie, you promised.”

  “I know.” And I felt terrible about going back on my word not even twenty four hours after I had given it to him. But things had changed. “This is more about Grace though. Mackenzie couldn’t find any trace of her as a registered nurse or a doula.”

  Neil took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So why haven’t we fired her yet.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious? Grace pops up on your mother’s radar right before my due date and shows up at our house the same time Eric goes missing? And she knew the police searched the house yesterday. Remember, she saw us talking to Capri. Whoever put Eric’s body in the garage freezer knew the police had already been through the house. If not for the power outage he wouldn’t have been discovered until Sylvia came home.”

  “And why,” Neil said, his voice deceptively calm. “Don’t you tell this to the police?”

  “Because I don’t want to blab to Capri and hear the words overactive imagination or worse pregnancy brain, come up. I need proof. If we find out more about Grace, like if she knew Eric, where she went to school, Mackenzie can find out more about her.”

  Neil was quiet for a few minutes. We passed Roberta Schmitt who was out once more, this time watering her begonias. She waved when she saw us and I waved back. Neil kept his eyes on the road, his jaw clenched.

  “I wish you wouldn’t be so friendly with her.”

  Neil was usually cordial with the neighbors, more so than me. “Why not? She’s a nice lady.”

  I’d been half expecting him to bite my head off that he hadn’t meant the friendly exchange so was surprised when his shoulders bunched even tighter. Neil shifted in his seat. “She came on to me at the Bakers New Year’s Eve party.”

  Chapter Eight

  “What? When?”

  “When you were in the bathroom.”

  “You’ll have to be more specific. I spent half the night in the bathroom.” Side effect of pregnancy. Or maybe it had been the shrimp.

  Neil made a left and waited to complete the turn before answering. “The last time. Right before midnight.”

  Blood pounded in my ears. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  He shot me an apologetic look, but then ruined it by adding, “Telling my pregnant wife that one of our neighbors was hitting on me didn’t seem smart.”

  “What did she say? Or what did she do exactly? Was she drunk? Give me all the dirty details.”

  “There are no dirty details. She made me an offer, something to the effect of it must be hard on me, with you always out of commission. Then she suggested I could keep her company. I said no thank you. End of story. And can we focus on one issue at a time, please?”

  I folded my arms across my chest and seethed, “Sure. We’ll star
t with yours since it’s been marinating for four freaking months.”

  The time frame bothered me immensely. I’d been smiling and waving to that slag for four months, looking like an idiot when all the while she’d had designs on my husband. And the fact that Neil had said nothing about it, had let me go on smiling and waving made me feel like a bigger idiot.

  He made a helpless sound. “I didn’t know how to bring it up. It never seemed like a good time.”

  “You say, gee Maggie, by the way, steer clear of Roberta Schmitt because she’s set her cap for me. And then I go to her house and sit on her until all the slag jelly comes out. The end.”

  “I didn’t want to upset you. And we both know you don’t have the best reputation in this neighborhood. You detonating on her would have made everything worse.”

  Those were fighting words. Steam must have been billowing from my nostrils. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  Neil slid me a side-eye. “Come on, Uncle Scrooge. You’re always up to your armpits in police investigations. Last night you found a body!”

  “It could have happened to anyone. It’s not my fault.”

  “But it doesn’t happen to anyone, it happens to you. Do you remember when Josh was having a hard time at school?”

  “Of course I do.” The other kids had been teasing him because his mother had been arrested. “It blew over eventually.”

  Grace had merged onto the highway and Neil followed. “Do you really want Baby X to have to go through the same thing? Years of being teased because her mother overreacted?”

  He had a point, though I hated to admit it. “So I’m supposed to just let it go? Ignore the fact that Roberta came on to you?”

  “Take the high road.” Neil agreed.

  Bleck, so not my style. “What are my other options?”

  “We could move.”

  I thought about that for a beat. “We’d have to move a long way for my reputation not to follow us.”

  “Probably.”

  He was serious, I knew. Neil loved New England and enjoyed his job at Intel. But he would uproot the family in a heartbeat if I said the word.

  A few days ago, before we’d found Eric’s body I wouldn’t have considered it. Though I was still angry about Roberta and her keeping company offer. “Let me think about it and get back to you.”

  He took my hand and squeezed it. “Now, can we please focus on what we’re going to do about Grace? Regardless of what we find out, I don’t want her back in the house or anywhere near you or the kids.”

  “What if she has a valid reason for not being who she says she is? Maybe she’s on the run from an abusive ex. Or maybe Mackenzie made a mistake.”

  “Do you think Mackenzie made a mistake?”

  “Not really.” I shifted in my seat so I could study him. He wore a dark gray V-neck t-shirt and faded jeans. No obvious outlines where his sidearm was visible. Then again, you never knew with a SEAL. “Are you armed?”

  “It’s in the lockbox in the trunk. Unless Grace is setting us up for some sort of ambush, I don’t think I’ll need it.”

  The reality of what I’d done had started to sink in. Had my rash decision to investigate Grace endangered the two of us and our unborn child?

  “We can still call this off, phone her, fire her and be done with it. That’s probably the smart thing to do.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  I thought about Sylvia, a new and suddenly single mom. I thought about letting Grace go, only to find out later that someone else had died because I didn’t want to look like an idiot with Capri again. “I want to know who she is. That feeling of familiarity has been dogging me. I’ll always wonder otherwise.”

  Neil brought our clasped hands to his lips and brushed a soft kiss over my knuckles. “It’ll be okay, Uncle Scrooge.”

  I turned and looked out the window, praying he was right.

  THE HOUSE GRACE SUPPOSEDLY shared with her mother was on Chester Street. The structure was tiny but tidy one of those half cape half bungalow style houses with an awning covering the cement stoop. The vinyl siding was that standard New Englandy one that I could never tell if it was supposed to be blue or gray, though the trim was deep blue. No flowers in sight but the shrubs were trimmed neatly. The sidewalk was cracked but no weeds sprouting through it. There was no garage, but the short driveway was long enough to accommodate several cars.

  Grace pulled into the driveway beside a ten year old Honda civic and Neil parked on the street. I waited until he circled the car and opened my door to attempt to extract myself from the car.

  In an effort to get a little more information on Grace before setting foot in her territory, I’d done the unthinkable during the car ride. I’d intentionally called my mother-in-law. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, she hadn’t picked up her cell. I’d left an intentionally vague message and disconnected so nothing new on that front.

  “I’ll just let my mom know we’re here. She’s a little hard of hearing so I don’t want to startle her.” Seeing that Neil was helping me, Grace lighted up the concrete steps and unlocked the front door before disappearing from view.

  My progress slowed and then stopped. Though the small house looked perfectly respectable, if a bit shabby, I got an eerie feeling when I imagined crossing the threshold.

  “You okay?” Neil asked, concern written across his face.

  Come on self, this was your bright idea. Shake a leg. The mental pep talk didn’t help at all. I’d marched into stranger’s homes before. For a while that had been a big part of my job. So what was the hold up?

  My gaze slid to Neil and I wondered again if it would be smarter to just make the break now. He’d probably be relieved if I admitted that I didn’t want to go inside. I could already imagine the scene. He’d tuck me in safe and sound in our car, break the news to Grace and have us back on the road in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

  It was still an option. Give Grace her marching orders and put her literally in our rearview. Our neighbor had been murdered and we were going to have a baby at any moment. Hell, I could dismiss Grace sans explanation, just tell her I wasn’t comfortable enough with her to consider having her in the delivery room with me. We had enough on our plate already. Let someone else unravel the mystery surrounding her. Walk away.

  “Maggie?” Neil was waiting for me to make a decision.

  Having him by my side tipped the balance. I hadn’t missed the way he positioned himself between my body and the house. Even with his sidearm locked in the trunk, Neil was a force to be reckoned with. Neil could handle anything that waited for us in that house, including a pack of knuckle draggers or nuclear arms.

  Any threat, real or imaginary had to be faced head on, otherwise it would haunt me.

  “Let’s go.” I took a step and then another until we’d made it to the door.

  The house was small and dark, but smelled of furniture polish. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere in sight. The décor was quintessential little old lady, or as I mentally tagged it, LOL. Lacey white doilies draped over end tables and upholstered furniture alike. Dried arrangements of flowers stood in ceramic pitchers and vases and mismatched pictures of varying sizes were interspersed throughout the room with faux Hummel figurines and commemorative plates. Grace and her mother were nowhere in sight but a fat tiger striped cat sunned itself in the picture window, tail twitching in lazy contentment.

  Neil picked up the closest picture frame, a stainless steel and bronze one. It showed a younger version of Grace in a royal blue cap and gown with her arm around a much older woman. Same eyes and nose, though the chin was different. Probably inherited from her father.

  Neil and I exchanged a speaking glance. If this wasn’t Grace’s mother’s house, she’d gone very far out of her way to con us.

  As my apprehension retched down my curiosity grew. Why would Grace lie about her background to Laura and to us and then bring us into her mother’s house?

  “My mothe
r was in the shower.” Grace called from somewhere in the back of the house. “Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee?”

  “Tea would be great.” I called back to cover the sound of sliding open the drawer on the end table. The tea could go hang, what I wanted was time to search.

  “What are you doing?” Neil whispered.

  “Looking for mail,” I hissed back. The drawer held knitting needles and skeins of yarn along with a T.V. Guide and two remote controls. “Something with Grace’s name on it.”

  Neil lifted the top of a roll top desk. “What will that prove?”

  I shut the drawer and moved over to his side to help search the desk. “Either she lied about her name or about her profession. From the way she’s been acting with me, I’m betting her last name isn’t McCoy.”

  Neil held up a utility bill. “Wrong-o. It says Adelaide McCoy right here.”

  “Crap,” I snatched the bill out of his hands and then lifted the checkbook that had been sitting next to it. The checks all listed to this address with the name Adelaide McCoy. “Crap crap crap.”

  “Maybe she had a different last name.” Neil was looking around at the photos again. “She could have been married before she started working, then reverted back to her maiden name.”

  The clinking of cups alerted us that snooping time was at an end. We set the desk back to rights and settled on the couch a moment before Grace and her mother appeared.

  I hadn’t given much thought to Grace’s age before seeing her mother. Partly because she had, what Sylvia would have referred to as an old soul. She radiated a maturity that conflicted with the lying. Though I fibbed from time to time it was behavior I associated with adolescents who didn’t want to get into trouble and sneaky sorts trying to hide misdeeds. Her energy, for lack of a better word, was soothing. Hadn’t she kept me from a full-fledged freak out the night before?