The Back Door of Midnight

by Elizabeth Chandler

“It’s perfect with that necklace, pretty and professional. The fact is, people like pretty women and pretty things, and it’s foolish for a businesswoman not to use those assets.”

  “I guess.”

  She laughed her tinkly laugh and turned back to the display she was creating.

  The shop was busy through lunchtime, then the crowd dwindled at the usual hour—three o’clock. Marcy gave me a list of names and addresses to enter into the store’s computerized database while she worked on her laptop. We drifted in and out of conversation, and I kept waiting for her to bring up last night’s “date.” To my relief, she didn’t.

  At three thirty she rose to stretch, then glanced out the front window. “I was wondering when he’d show up.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ve been biting my tongue,” Marcy admitted, “trying not to ask how it went last night.”

  “The party was nice.”

  She lowered her head to look at me over her reading glasses. “Zack was not exactly his charming, cheerful self this morning.”

  I nodded but said nothing.

  “I’ll stay out of it,” she said. “Given my track record before I met Dave, the last thing you want from me is romantic advice.”

  She returned to her computer, and I retyped a misspelled address—three times. Zack entered the shop.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  If the normal “hi” were sung the length of a half note, we held ours for just a sixteenth.

  “Hello, Zack,” Marcy said. “How is everything with your father?”

  “Fine. I was hoping to talk to Anna. Can she take a break?”

  “She has earned one,” Marcy replied, “but it’s up to her if she wants to take it now.”

  Zack turned to me. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I mean outside.”

  I glanced at Marcy. She had walked behind Zack, pretending to be adjusting something on a shelf, but turned her head toward me and gave a slight nod.

  “All right,” I said, saving my work.

  I led the way out of the shop and stopped when we reached the brick sidewalk.

  “Away from the shop,” Zack directed, then added with less certainty, “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  We walked all the way down to the river. I would have cracked a joke about how acute Marcy’s hearing was, but I wasn’t going to be the one to start the conversation. We reached the public landing, a square wharf that had benches for sitting and pilings for temporary docking. On this hot, sticky day it was deserted. Two sailboats rested motionless on the Sycamore, pinned to a sullen sky.

  “You were at the fire site the other night,” he said.

  I didn’t reply.

  “I was careful,” he went on. “I made sure no one followed us. But you were there.”

  What was I supposed to say? Part of me was there, but my body was home in bed.

  “You got there before Erika and I did.”

  He searched my face, looking for answers. He must have realized that, standing in the clearing, he would have seen anyone close enough to hear their conversation.

  “Maybe I’m psychic,” I said. “Or maybe I’m just a good guesser. It doesn’t make any difference. The fact is, when you asked me out, you were using me.”

  “If you were really psychic, you’d know better!”

  “Erika told you to dance with me. You were following instructions.”

  “Sometimes girls do that, tell a guy to dance with another girl. Girls like to play matchmaker.”

  “Matchmaker! Then Erika needs to work on her skills. Most guys aren’t attracted to ‘freckled little carrots.’”

  Zack flushed and muttered two swear words, for which I was grateful. It made me laugh. I’m sure he had no idea how close I was to tears.

  “Anna, listen,” he said. “Things are complicated. Erika did some really stupid stuff. She broke the law, but she didn’t kill your uncle. She told me she torched the inside of the car, the seats, but she never opened the trunk. She had no idea his body was in there. She thinks someone framed her. She’s scared and trying to figure out who’s behind it. The thing you have to remember is that she hasn’t done anything to hurt you personally.”

  “She could do a lot more to help,” I replied. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that the person who put my uncle’s body in the trunk could have known about Erika’s game? She needs to go to the police and give them the list of people she texts. One of those kids or someone who has access to their phone or e-mail accounts might have seen the arson as a perfect opportunity for covering a murder.”

  He nodded. “I’ve thought of that, and I’ve been trying to get her to do it. She’s afraid if she does, she will get everyone else in trouble.”

  “Oh, spare me!” I said. “Erika’s a self-centered drama queen, worried about nobody but herself. Anyway, you could go to the sheriff. Why don’t you send McManus a copy of her list?”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Just type the stupid names!” I exploded. “Don’t act so helpless. Make a list of the people you’ve seen at the fires.”

  “I’ve never gone.”

  I stared at him. “What?” I couldn’t believe it. “Are you crazy? Why would you even try to help—?”

  “She’s a friend.”

  “Well, then, you’ve got lousy taste in friends.”

  We stood a foot apart, staring at each other. Zack turned away first and sat on a bench facing the water, resting his forearms on his knees. I began to pace.

  “Someone searched my room last night.”

  He straightened up. “When?”

  “While I was at the party. Searched my room and Uncle Will’s den.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “The searcher wasn’t very careful.”

  “Was anything taken?”

  “Erika’s cell phone.”

  “You have her cell phone?” he asked, surprised.

  “Not anymore.” I continued to pace from one side of the landing to the other.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Aunt Iris found it, at the fire site, I guess. She buried it in the backyard with what she believes are Uncle Will’s ashes, which I got curious about and dug up. By the way, what is the name of Wisteria’s friendly neighborhood stalker?”

  “Carl. Carl Wiedefeld. Why?”

  “I didn’t see him while we were eating dinner. He may have left the restaurant.”

  “Was anything else taken?” Zack caught my arm as I passed. “Anna, would you stand still?” He reached for my other hand and pulled me around the bench. “Please sit,” he said. “Is your aunt okay?”

  “Meaning is she the same as before—a crazy-but-still-functioning kind of okay? As far as I can tell.”

  “And you’re okay?”

  I looked away. “Of course.”

  “Was anything else taken?” He was talking in that gentle voice he used with Erika: I guess I was his friend too. It was a good thing I wasn’t skilled enough to cry and look beautiful; I might have been tempted to pull “an Erika.” But this was just a passing moment of weakness.

  “A news article and a letter my uncle had planned to send to the state police.”

  Zack was quiet for a moment. “Why the state police rather than the sheriff? What was it about?”

  “The death of my mother.”

  He frowned. “I thought that was a long time ago. Marcy said she died when you were a baby.”

  “I was three.” The humid river air had made it impossible for sweat to evaporate, and an unexpected breeze gave my damp skin goose bumps. I rubbed my arms like a person with fever and chills. Zack laid his hand on my back for a moment, then shifted his position as if uncertain that I wanted to be touched.

  “How did she die?” he asked quietly.

  “In a robbery. The police believe she surprised the intruder. It was a blow to the head. I read it in the article that was taken fr
om my room.”

  “The sheriff said your uncle was struck on the head.”

  Two people from the same family killed in the same way—I had avoided making that connection as long as possible, reluctant to connect the dots to Aunt Iris’s inclination to smash things when she was angry. Had Uncle Will questioned the theory about my mother’s death? Was his murder a successful effort to silence him? My imagination was running away with me!

  “Anna, be careful,” Zack said.

  “Careful of whom?” I asked. “Aunt Iris? Carl? How about Erika’s father?”

  “Her father?”

  “He wanted to marry my mother—Joanna—and he blames Uncle Will for coming between them. I look like her. Aunt Iris keeps talking to me as if I’m her. Last night the way Mr. Gill looked at me creeped me out. He told me he’d like to see me wearing the colors Joanna wore. He wanted to buy me a scarf, the kind that she liked.”

  Zack shook his head. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “That makes two of us.” I glanced at my watch. “I should get back to work.”

  He stood up with me. “I’ll walk you there.”

  “Please don’t.”

  He pressed his lips together.

  “It’s just that I—I need a few minutes by myself.”

  He studied my face, then nodded. I left him staring at the river.

  I was grateful to Marcy for biting her tongue a second time that day. When I returned to the shop, she looked at me curiously but refrained from asking questions. Before leaving work on Friday, I looked up pharmacies in a county phone book. Mr. Gill owned four, which would make it harder to locate him away from home, but I had to talk to him again, and I didn’t want to do it around his wife or Erika. I had to find out who Mick was.

  The closest pharmacy listed was on the corner of Scarborough and Crown, which was just one block over from High Street. I drove the short distance, parked behind the store, and went in to ask about Mr. Gill’s schedule.

  Our pharmacy in Baltimore is in the back of a 24/7 grocery store with bright aisles, piped-in baby-boomer music, and great smells wafting in from its deli and bakery. This place was silent. It smelled like Vicks VapoRub and plastic. The boxes of candy, wrapped in cellophane, looked as if they had been sitting next to the canes and commodes since my mother worked there.

  “May I help you?”

  The woman behind the prescription counter listened to my request and was copying down my name and cell phone number on a message pad when I saw a venetian blind flip in the office behind her. Reflections off the glass made it hard to see in, but a moment later the office door opened, and Mr. Gill emerged.

  He smiled at me. “Anna. You’ve come.”

  I tried not to squirm at the warmth in his voice. “Yes, I have a question.”

  “It’s wonderful to see you.”

  “Thanks. This won’t take long.”

  “Should I lock up now, Mr. Gill?” the woman asked.

  He nodded. “Thank you, Myrtle.”

  “Oh. Oh, sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t realize it was closing time. I’ll come back when you’re open.”

  Being alone with him in the store would be even creepier than chatting in the restaurant booth. He had probably enjoyed being alone here with my mother.

  “No, no. I’m happy to answer your questions. Come into my office.”

  I hesitated, then told myself to stop being paranoid. When I entered the small room, I chose the chair that was close to the office door rather than the one he gestured to.

  “You’ve worn your hair up,” he said. “You look lovely.”

  “Thanks. I would like to know—”

  “The pendant. It’s quite perfect on you.”

  My hand went up to my chest, touching the teardrop of amber that I had taken from Joanna’s bureau that morning. Did he think I was dressing like her to please him?

  “I gave it to her,” he said.

  “Oh. . . . Oh, I see.” I reached for the necklace’s latch. “Do you want it back?”

  “No. I enjoy seeing it on you.”

  Well, I no longer enjoyed wearing it, and no amount of small talk was going to make me comfortable with him. I cut to the chase. “Who’s Mick?”

  “Mick,” he repeated softly. “Mick Sanchez. He didn’t mean to cause any trouble. All he did was die. How has his name come up?”

  I told Mr. Gill what little I knew.

  He nodded. “Mick Sanchez was married to Audrey. They worked for the Fairfaxes, whose home—one of their homes—is on Oyster Creek. You may have seen it.”

  “Next to the Flemings’,” I said. “Marcy was a Fairfax.”

  “That’s right. Perhaps you have already met Audrey, who works for Marcy now.”

  “Yes. So why was my mother supposed to forget about Audrey’s husband?”

  “He died suddenly, several months before Joanna. Audrey held your mother responsible for his death. I suppose that Iris was telling Joanna to forget about all that.”

  “All what?” I did the math, subtracting fifteen years from Audrey’s current age. “He must have been a lot older than my mother. They weren’t having an affair, were they?”

  “Lord, no.”

  “How did he die?”

  “In a car accident, on Scarborough Road, I believe, a few miles after it crosses Wist Creek.”

  “Did my mother cause it? Did she run into him?”

  “No, she simply didn’t foresee it. Audrey was a frequent client of Joanna’s and—”

  “A client of my mother’s?” I interrupted. “But Audrey thinks psychics are tools of the devil. She thinks all of us O’Neills are going straight to hell.”

  “Now she does. At that time, however, she was your mother’s steadiest customer—she was dependent on her, really, couldn’t do anything without first consulting Joanna. She asked for readings so often, Joanna felt uneasy. But when her husband was killed, Audrey turned on your mother. She blamed her for not foreseeing Mick’s accident, for not warning them.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “I understand wanting to blame someone at first—you’re upset and everything—but eventually, you think clearly again. Anyway, I can’t understand how Audrey could have changed that much.”

  “In essence, she didn’t,” he replied. “She simply exchanged one extreme belief for another. Audrey is the kind of person who can’t stand feeling uncertain about things. People like her feel safer when they latch on to something that makes them feel like they’ve got the answer, makes them feel like they’re in control. The first way let her down, so now she is trying another.”

  “Did my mother blame herself?”

  “She felt very bad about Mick’s death. She felt Audrey’s anger and pain, felt it keenly.”

  How angry was Audrey Sanchez? Angry enough to kill? But how could someone so religious justify that?

  The theory I had spun for Aunt Iris could be applied to Audrey: Angry, she had struck my mother, never intending to kill her. Afterward, she had panicked and ransacked the house to make it look like a robbery. Years later her bizarre religious beliefs justified her action against my “evil” mother. She had gotten away with it, until Uncle Will began to reexamine the case. . . .

  But if she or Aunt Iris had killed Uncle Will, who had put him in the trunk of the car at Tilby’s Dream? He wasn’t a large man; both women were strong, and either of them could have backed her car up to the car that was burned. Still, how would she get him from the place of the murder into her car and—

  A light brush of fingers on my cheek sent me leaping out of my chair.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Gill said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I would never hurt you, dear. You just look so thoughtful and concerned, so much like Joanna.”

  I remained standing. “Was Mrs. Sanchez angry enough to hurt my mother?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was she angry enough to strike her, to accidentally kill her?”

  “Certainly they must have t
old you. Joanna was killed in a robbery. They never caught the man who did it.”

  “How do you know it was a man?”

  His eyes grew wary. “I simply assumed it.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

  He paled, his face turning the color of skim milk. “This is the result of some peculiar idea of Iris or William. It is natural for you to have questions about what happened, but there is nothing that can be learned so many years after.”

  “Maybe,” I said, edging toward the door. “I’ll call you if I have any more questions.”

  He stood up. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Thanks, but I have a car.”

  “Did you park out back?” Without giving me a choice, he walked me there.

  I couldn’t wait to get inside the old Taurus. Mr. Gill leaned down, his face close to the driver’s side window. That window worked, but I pretended it didn’t.

  “Buckle up. Drive safely,” he mouthed through the glass.

  I turned the key in the ignition and waved.

  Hours later, I’d think back to the small parking lot and remember a car with several guys inside, but at that moment, the observation registered as nothing more than relief that other people were around. Believing that I was driving to safety, I took off.

  eighteen

  AS I DROVE home, I struggled to sort out what I knew. Was there a connection among the deaths of my uncle, my mother, and Mick Sanchez? Three sudden and suspicious deaths created a bewildering number of possibilities. Because the first two occurred fifteen years ago, it seemed impossible to collect the information that would indicate these two deaths were something more than an accident and a robbery. But key bits of information were missing for the recent crime as well.

  It wasn’t even clear if the use of the abandoned car was evidence of a murderer’s plan or a murderer’s desperation. Perhaps placing a corpse in a car that was about to be incinerated in a game was a sign of good planning: After all, any evidence indicating where Uncle Will died and how his body was transported to the old Buick would have been driven over by the cars of Erika’s friends, and then by the heavy fire trucks. Important clues would have been burned and washed away. On the other hand, if the abandoned car on Tilby’s Dream was a location that was easily recognized in a riddle, then it was a location known by most locals. So it could have popped into the head of a murderer who had done no planning at all, a person who had accidentally killed someone and was desperate for a place to dump a body. I was back to square one.