by Linda Seals
As soon as it was light the next morning, I went for a walkabout around the property, wandering around the backyard, looking at the windows and large overhead doors, closed now, of course, in the kitchen, study, bedroom, and studio. They looked secure.
It felt good to be outside where I could see everything. When I had called Carol Griffin early that morning, she had insisted that she bring the dogs back into town that evening and that I have both of them for a while. I knew I would feel better if they were with me, so I agreed. They were the ones who could see everything. I couldn’t see much of anything that looked suspicious.
It wasn’t as if I had a super-secure property, or even needed one, but the alarm the night before had been the first time it had ever gone off, and it shook me up. Even though I took the usual precautions to lock things up, have good outdoor lighting, and be aware of my surroundings, I’d always felt safe, even on the edge of town. Some of my discomfort was that I hadn’t had to think about security before and now I did, and I resented it. I was beginning to understand the feeling of intrusion.
I continued my inspection around the corner of the house and stepped under the tin shed roof looking at the doors and steps to the studio and Vines office—nothing. I crossed the gravel yard, checked the door under the shed roof—nothing there—and then the shop door closest to the big overhead door and the window beside it. In a thin, dusty shaft of light, I saw a faint footprint on the door about halfway up, right next to the deadbolt. Did someone try to kick the door down? Did this set the alarm off? I started to get shaky all over again. I stared at it for a minute and then went to sit down on the steps.
After a couple of minutes I went inside to the studio phone and punched in the number the officer had left with me the night before. I left a message about my find on his answering machine and went outside again to look at the footprint—the officers must have missed its faint outline last night in the dark. I sat down on the steps to think about some of the ideas that had been stewing in my head.
Okay, I know it’s Nephew’s footprint. Same size—big—and same sole pattern I’d noticed on Bernice’s front porch the day before. Coincidence? Sure, maybe. Why would Nephew try to break into the shop? Well, the only connection I had with Nephew was through Bernice Thorton, and through Bernice, Shannon Parkhurst’s trunk. But why break in for it? I was going to redeliver it. Ah, but did he know that? I walked over to the shop door and looked again.
Really, I thought, it’s his print, but I have no proof. I doubted if the police would waste their time on tracing a ubiquitous sneaker print on a maybe-false alarm report. Especially if nothing had been broken or taken.
As I passed the window by the overhead door, I looked inside the shop and saw that we had placed the trunk in full view when we unloaded it the day before. At that time I wasn’t thinking about it as something we had to hide, so I didn’t really pay attention to where we put it.
So, of course. Nephew showed up last night because he needed the trunk immediately for whatever reason, saw it right there for the taking, and decided to kick in the door, grab, and run. He didn’t count on the alarm, though, and had to split before he could get in. He could have just rung the bell and asked me for it. Maybe it had been really late, or maybe he was just really stupid.
I’m going to see what’s in that trunk, I thought.
You can’t look in someone else’s stuff, said the insistently superior mental voice.
It’s affecting my life, I’m looking.
You can’t, said that superior voice.
Okay. If it’s unlocked—only if it’s unlocked—will I open it, I bargained with myself.
I entered the shop, dropped down beside the trunk, and tried the lid. It was locked, but with a small bump of a hammer, it was unlocked. So I opened it—end of discussion.
Not really much to look at inside—some out-of-date magazines, papers, notebooks with Shannon’s name on them. I briefly looked through a few of the papers and notebooks, but it all looked like class notes or some such. There were a couple paperbacks, and a pair of women’s scuffed three-quarter slough boots, also out of date and worn down at the heel; half-used packets of tissues and old, caked make-up; hair barrettes, one with a stray blonde hair caught in it; old utilities bills, also with Shannon’s name. I looked through the whole trunk without finding anything that seemed unusual.
I thought I’d ask Hannah Huckleston about the contents and see if they meant anything to her. She had been Shannon’s roommate and maybe she had seen this truck. But how was I going to remember everything in here? Then, smiling because I even thought of it, I ducked inside the office for my camera and returned to take pictures to document the trunk’s contents. I put everything back in and shut it, learning nothing, really, from my breach of conduct.
I guessed Shannon had been using that trunk since she was a girl, judging from the garish cartoon-figure stickers all over it. They showed an idealized female figure in a tight Wonder Woman-like suit holding a bolt of lightning or something. The image looked familiar, as if I’d seen it hundreds of times in the background of my awareness, but hadn’t really paid attention.
Feeling frustrated, I returned to the house, needing to get on with my day. We had more work to do on the hardscaping project before I could start planting the perennial garden, so I knew it was going to be a dusty, hot day. I found the new work bag Betty had brought me, made a lunch, and then double checked the bag before I put it in the car. In my distraction, I’d left out some of the essentials that belonged in there—schedule book, camera, water bottle, the auto injector pen needed as the antidote for my fatal allergy to yellow jackets. I put my cell phone in my purse, and hoped I hadn’t forgotten something else.
I saw some brownies I’d made a couple of nights before, and wrapped a couple as for an afternoon treat for Liz and myself. I’d turned Liz Burzachiello on to the regenerative effects of good strong ice tea, so we’d have an ice tea break right in the middle of the afternoon when it was so hot and the project seemed like it would never end. Caffeine and chocolate and presto! The will to live returns! I locked up, hitched up Wanda the trailer, and headed out.
When I met Liz at the job site, I filled her in on the night’s adventures. As we worked, we discussed all that had happened, and Liz was as distressed as I was about someone being at my house and setting off the alarm. She, of course, wanted to send her brothers Dominick and Crispino— “Nico” and “Crisp,” to everyone except the nuns years ago at Catholic school—over to keep watch on my place, maybe be there herself, she said … and then they’d … she gestured several vivid, over-the-top things they could accomplish.
I laughed and said no, but thanked her for the offer. We talked about the contents of the trunk, too, after I sheepishly admitted that I had opened it. I grabbed my camera from the car and showed her the photos I’d taken. Nothing rang a bell for Liz either, but she was intrigued by the cartoon figure stickers.
“Why would a grown woman have gaudy teenage stickers on her stuff?” Liz asked. “Seems odd, doesn’t it? Or maybe I just don’t know what’s popular right now?”
“Maybe she had had the trunk since she was a girl and decorated it then?” I wondered.
“Well, maybe so. Still, the stickers look new, don’t they? And their gaudiness makes it hard not to notice the trunk. And look,” she said, pointing to the photo, “the stickers are a mess, stuck on every which way. Shannon was so neat and organized—that doesn’t look like the Shannon I knew.”
“So-o-o-o?” I asked.
“So—I dunno!” she laughed. “I’m just sayin’, I dunno, it strikes me as weird.”
I hadn’t looked at it that way before, but I agreed. That just gave me more to think about.
We sweated out the work of installing the flagstone path next to the stacked-stone wall. As hard as that was, at times I couldn’t help but stop and admire the beautiful view—Longs Peak, Mt. Meeker, and the Indian Peaks in blues, grays, and purples, contrasting with emerald fields of corn, or,
in this case, a preternaturally green golf course.
We labored in the hot sun until we finally took a break to sit in the shade of a large silver maple, with an ice tea and a brownie. As we watched a fox hunt along the edges of the fairway in the distance, Liz and I went over the schedule for the next day’s work and another early start. Refreshed and caffeinated, we continued to set stones into the late afternoon. We were packing the tools and cleaning up when she said she had to hurry home to make dinner for Emma and sister Louie, who’d driven up from Denver where she lived.
“Making Nonna’s recipes?” I asked.
“Nah,” she said, “Louie’d eat meatballs and gravy every night if I didn’t watch her. I’m making munglai chicken curry and saag paneer. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s gonna like it. Wanna come over?”
As much as I enjoyed Indian food, I declined, knowing I had research work to do on some new projects, and that I wouldn’t have the discipline to start on it after filling up on comfort food and chatting for hours.
Still, driving home, I was pleased with a good day’s work, and I cranked up the stereo with a Jon and Vangelis CD, The Friends of Mr. Cairo to sing along with the 30-year-old tunes and seat dance, looking and sounding like an idiot, I’m sure.
Still singing, I drove in the gate, parked, and unhitched Wanda. I started to put away the day’s tools in the shop when I saw that the glass in the window of the door was broken and the door was ajar.
Now I was ticked off. No, the alarm wasn’t on. I usually didn’t turn it on during the day when I thought we might be back and forth out of the yard and shop. It was too cumbersome. No, the locks weren’t all that good, but they worked, at least until now. Yeah, and look what that got you, that highly superior, insistent mental voice said. Shut up! I said.
First I called the cops again, and then I went back to the shop door and looked in. I knew not to touch anything, even though I doubted they would dust for prints. The contents of the trunk were strewn all over the floor, the trunk itself knocked over on its side. Then, in alarm, I looked into the rest of the shop, expecting the worst.
From where I stood, at least, everything looked okay, untouched. So, I thought, he was only after the trunk. Or, rather, something inside of it? Did he take anything? What was he looking for? Remembering, I dashed into the office and grabbed the copies I’d made of the trunk photos. Then I compared the photos and the contents on the floor as best I could. Nothing seemed to be missing. I kept looking.
The police arrived, two different guys from the night before. I told them all I knew about the two incidents as they looked around and took notes. I shared my suspicion that the now-even-fainter footprint from the night before was from the Nephew, but of course I didn’t have a name or any proof. They didn’t seem very interested; they didn’t even really acknowledge that they saw the footprint. They did get Bernice Thorton’s phone number and address, and thoroughly did their duty without giving me hope that they had much of a chance of catching anyone.
They also got copies of the photos I’d printed out, with the youngest officer looking surprised that I had them. They left saying they would have extra patrols keep an eye on the house for the next couple of days. I thanked them, even though that assurance didn’t do me any good.
Carol Griffin arrived with Patsy and Pecos soon after the police left. Both dogs jumped out of the truck to greet me and then went off to sniff the surroundings, with Patsy doing her usual perimeter investigation. Pecos Bill, my blonde Chow mix, quickly came back to my side, and I knew just having them with me made me feel better. Carol was as bewildered as I about the break-ins, but she was on her way to a county Water Board meeting and couldn’t stay to talk.
After she deposited two loaves of Marjo’s fresh zucchini bread on the kitchen counter, she was on her way out the front door, saying she would call the next day and we could get caught up. She reminded me that Marjo and I were scheduled for canning at their place in a week or so, and that Marjo would call to confirm later.
Pecos Bill was my buddy and followed me around everywhere I went; among other things, I called him Mr. Two-Foot, as in, he was always two feet away. Sometimes he got in my way, but that night I welcomed his presence. I reached down often to pat his fuzzy, soft head.
I flipped on the Rockies game and kept the volume low while I decided what to make for dinner. As Patsy and Pecos gulped down their own supper, I rummaged around the refrigerator and found some eggs and parmesan cheese. With the fresh tomatoes and herbs I’d picked from the garden, all that could be dinner in a flash.
As the shirred eggs baked, I went to check my Vines e-mail, Pecos following me down the hall and into the office. All was well on that front—nothing needing immediate attention. Restless, I wandered around the house and yard until it was time to return to the kitchen and check on the eggs and the Rockies. I sat down and indulged in both, Pecos at my side.
After dinner, I knew I needed to think about something other than intrusions and the questions running through my mind about Shannon Parkhurst’s trunk. I’d stalled long enough on starting the new projects so I went back down the hallway to the office, pulled out reference books, turned on the computer, and got started. With Bob Dylan on the internet radio, I opened up the outer door so the air could circulate through the screen, and I settled down for a couple hours of work. Pecos soon joined me and lay down by the screen door.
Suddenly I heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel drive just outside the office. I jumped; Pecos barked and tore out the unlatched screen door. Patsy came bulleting down the hallway and shot through the door, barking and howling loudly. Mayhem! My hand grabbed for the phone to call 911.
“Hey!” a voice called from outside, “It’s just us, Lily!”
It was Liz Burzachiello. The dogs quieted down almost immediately, and by the time I looked out the door, Patsy and Pecos were the center of attention for Liz, Emma, and Louie, who were crouched down in the gravel drive by the steps giving the dogs hugs and kisses. Their bikes leaned against the side of the depot, and even in the dying evening light I could see that all three of them still had the pink sheen of exertion on their faces.
“Hope we didn’t scare you,” Liz said as she took off her bike gloves. “We thought the dogs would hear us way down by the gate,” she added.
“Sleepin’ on the job!” I laughed as Pecos sheepishly wagged his way back over to me. “And then they try to make up for it by creatin’ a big ruckus!”
“We’re just coming home from a bike ride after dinner. I saw the office light on, knew you were working, and I was wondering if I could show these guys the trunk? We won’t mess up anything—I’ve just talked so much about it …”
As we walked to the shop, I gave them more to talk about as I filled them in on what I had found that afternoon when I got home. We chattered about the curiousness and stupidity of the two break-ins when the trunk could have simply been asked for all along. Then Liz and Louie crouched down on the floor by the trunk to examine it, and Emma Johanssen and I sat on stools watching them. It was easy to imagine the twins as four-year-olds playing jacks together decades ago.
“It’s too bad about Shannon,” Emma said to me. “I remember her from that crew party you had that summer. She seemed pretty together, seemed involved in so many activities. I guess I just don’t understand suicide. Things just got her down, huh?”
“It’s hard to say. I guess the real answer is ‘I don’t know’”
“I don’t know how it feels to want to kill yourself, but I do know how it feels to want for something to end. I know it doesn’t compare, but … well, like my job, for instance,” she said. Liz had told me a little bit about Emma’s work problems—she had a high-paying, but high-stress, high-tech position at TDI, a Silicon Valley outpost in a nearby town—but the normally reticent Emma Johanssen didn’t often speak to me about them, as she approached most things with an upper Midwestern stoicism.
“Still pretty bad, huh?” I asked her.
> “‘Bad’ isn’t even close to it! There’s this new protocol that—ugh! Don’t want to talk about it. But I’m always worrying about it, and yesterday I got chewed out by my boss, too.”
“I know you’ve been thinking about some alternatives—”
“I want what you guys have!” Emma interrupted with a squeak. “Liz comes home from work singing, and I come home needing a drink!” I nodded, knowing that feeling from my distant past.
Louie sneezed as she leaned back against a bench, checking one of Shannon’s dusty boots that she had pulled from the trunk. She probed one of the heels with a screwdriver as if it could be something out of I Spy or Get Smart—like a place for a miniature phone, secret compartment, or change of clothing. I hadn’t thought of that. Liz held up one of the notebook pages to the light and carefully scanned it. The Burzachiello sisters were on it.
“I really miss the work I used to do in TDI’s philanthropy department,” Emma continued. “That went away when the economy tanked. No money to give anymore. So when I had the chance to take this other position in the company, I went for it. Thought I wanted it, and now I hate it. I want to work at something that has meaning again.”
Liz looked up and gave her partner an encouraging nod. “And a job that doesn’t suck up every minute of your time. Didn’t we have fun that weekend at the Frederick speedway? Louie and I’ve been going for a month, and you got to go just that once.”
Under her sister’s influence, Liz had become a stock car fan, and she was trying to convert Emma to the sport. The all-informed, über fan Louie chimed in, “Actually, Lizzy, the speedway’s a few miles south of Frederick, in Dacono. But yeah, who could ask for a better time than we’ve had? We’ve gone every Friday night, always had perfect dry weather, not a cloud in the sky, it was great. Red hots with cold beer delivered right to your seat. You should come with us, too, Lily!”
I only smiled to rebuff the idea. I had declined their invitations to join them since I couldn’t stand the noise of screaming engines, or screaming fans. Besides, I felt I was already half-deaf from listening to amped-up music all my life; I couldn’t afford to lose the other half to screeching machines stinking of jet fuel.
It was getting late, and I didn’t want to get Louie started talking about the stock car races. “Well, did you all see anything strange in the trunk?” I asked Liz and Louie as they were putting the items back inside it.
“We didn’t find anything that looked suspicious, but what jerk would come over here …” Louie sputtered.
“Come on, Emma needs to get home,” Liz said to her twin. She nodded at me and said, “Thanks, see you later. Oh, hey? Need help loading the trunk in the car again, in case you can get it out to the aunt? Louie and I can do it.”
“That’d be great. It’s cumbersome to maneuver alone.”
The street-smart Liz Burzachiello mugged, “But then yoose park da car in da shop, lock da shop, turn on da ‘larm, and set da dogs loose!”
With only five minutes of colorful, expressive argument about the right way to load it, the sisters got the trunk into the back of the CR-V. I saw the trio off through the gate, rolled it shut, and locked it. Both dogs had followed us down the drive and were sniffing around the bottom of the gate, but they soon followed me back to the house, where I closed up the office and got ready for bed, hoping for an uninterrupted night’s rest. But I kept thinking, which never helps my sleep. Two more sets of eyes had looked at the trunk and its contents, and had found nothing. What was there about Shannon Parkhurst’s trunk that made it worth stealing?