by Lisa Gardner
D.D. swung by HQ long enough to skim the pile of reports on her desk, including the transcripts from interviews conducted last night with available neighbors. Two individuals stood out: a Mrs. Patricia Bruni and a Mr. Dexter Harding. Both claimed to know the Harringtons well: Mrs. Bruni attended the same church; Mr. Dexter hosted poker night with the father.
As good a starting point as any, D.D. decided. She took the transcripts with her, then headed into Dorchester, where Phil had promised to meet her outside of the Harringtons’ sealed-off home.
Neighborhood was quiet this morning, maybe even somber, but that could’ve been D.D.’s imagination. She always found it eerie to visit a scene the day after. The blood was no longer fresh, the sounds and smells had faded into memory. The house became a shell of what used to be. Once a family had lived here. Maybe they’d laughed and loved and been happy. Maybe not. But one way or another, they’d been carving out a life. And now they weren’t. Just like that.
D.D. pulled in behind a Chevy Tahoe. She spotted Phil up ahead, standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Beside him was his new shadow, Police Academy professor Alex Wilson.
D.D. frowned, already aggravated, though she couldn’t say why. She opened her car door, felt the ripe August heat slap against her face, and scowled harder. She clipped her creds to the waistband of her jeans, wished she could’ve been wearing a tank top instead of a short-sleeved blue cotton shirt, and got on with it.
Phil and Alex stood head-to-head in dark suits, apparently becoming fast friends. Both men looked up when she approached. Phil wiped a smile from his face; that already had her suspicious.
“Hey,” she tossed out to Phil, then turned her attention to Alex. “Back for more?”
“Glutton for punishment,” he assured her.
“We’re interviewing today, building profiles of the vics. Not exactly crime-scene material.”
The professor shrugged. “Never know when you might learn something useful.”
She remained skeptical. Alex wore a charcoal-colored jacket over a blue dress shirt, dark slacks. He should be sweating, she thought, given the heat. It bothered her that he didn’t sweat, especially when she could already feel the first bead trickling down her spine to pool at the small of her back.
“Okay,” she said crisply, unfolding her paperwork. “We have two primary targets this morning. Mrs. Patricia Bruni and Mr. Dexter Harding. In the interest of time, I’ll take Bruni. You two can take Harding.”
Phil looked her. Alex looked at Phil.
“What?” she demanded.
“It would be better if we did them together,” Phil told her. “Multiple impressions of what the individual has to say.”
“Three on one? We’ll intimidate them before they say the first word.”
“Then you take the lead,” Phil replied easily. “We’ll hang back, blend into the backdrop.”
“Ride my coattails?”
“Exactly.” Phil took the first sheet from her. “Patricia Bruni. Lives four houses up. Let’s go.”
He started walking before she could say another word. Alex paused a beat, then fell in step beside her. “Heard you had an interesting night at the hospital,” he commented.
“Not really.”
“I caught the Red Sox game myself.”
“Never follow baseball.”
“More of a Patriots fan?”
“More of a homicide fan. In case you forgot, fieldwork doesn’t keep regular hours.”
She sounded prickly even to herself. Alex just grinned. That was it. He and Phil were up to something.
“What are your thoughts on Italian food?” Alex asked.
“Food is good,” D.D. allowed.
“Great. We’ll have to get some later.”
They arrived at Patricia Bruni’s house, another triple-decker with a broad front porch. D.D. was distracted.
“When? Do you mean for lunch?”
“Something like that,” Alex said, and with that enigmatic grin still on his face he followed her up the front steps.
Patricia Bruni turned out to be a wizened old black lady who went by Miss Patsy and believed in serving her guests, even cops, megaglasses of iced tea. D.D. had a good feeling about Miss Patsy, and not just for the cold iced tea; in D.D.’s experience, wizened old ladies always knew the most about what was going on in the neighborhood.
Miss Patsy invited them inside, “out of the heat,” she said, and they gratefully followed her into her lower-level unit, where window air conditioners chugged away at full throttle. Her home was modest, boasting six rooms, lots of furniture, and an impressive collection of Hummel figurines. From what D.D. could tell, if it was small and breakable, Miss Patsy collected it.
D.D. took up the antique wooden chair across from Patsy. It was fun to watch Phil and Alex stand awkwardly in front of the camel-backed love seat, trying to figure out how to sit on its broken-down form. Alex finally perched gingerly on the edge. Older and heavier, Phil reluctantly followed suit. The love seat groaned, but held.
“You’re here about the Harringtons,” Miss Patsy said straight off, patting her tightly coiled hair. “I tried to tell that officer last night, don’t you be thinking this was drugs or any of that other nonsense. Patrick and Denise were nice folks. Good Christian couple. We’re lucky to have them on the block.”
“They live here long?” D.D. asked, sipping her iced tea. Sweet and cold. She loved Miss Patsy already.
“Bought the house last fall,” Patsy provided, confirming the timeline D.D. already had in her head. “Duffys lived in it before that. Kept a lot of late hours, the Duffys did. Seemed to entertain on a regular basis, if you know what I mean.”
“Drug dealers?” D.D. ventured.
“Didn’t hear it from me,” Patsy said, while nodding with her entire upper body.
“So the Duffys moved out, the Harringtons moved in. Get to see the new family very often?”
“Yes, ma’am. Denise came by the very first week with some pumpkin bread. She introduced herself and the kids, had ‘em all lined up proper like. Said they were real excited to be living in the neighborhood and wondered if I could recommend a family-friendly church for them.”
“Did you?”
“First Congregational Church. Good community church and you can walk from here to there.” Patsy leaned forward again. “I’m not supposed to drive, you know. Had a little problem hitting the wrong pedal last year. But it’s okay, they’ve repaired that wall of the pharmacy now. Good as new.”
Alex made a sputtering noise from the love seat; iced tea down the wrong pipe. Phil obligingly whacked him on the back.
D.D. ignored them both. “How often did you see the family?”
“Oh, least once a week at church. More during the summer. This is a nice neighborhood. Lots of kids play outside during the day. I like to take my tea on the front porch and watch the little ones riding their bikes and whatnot. Does a body good.”
“And the Harrington kids? What did they like to do?”
“Football, the boys. You’d see the older one and younger one playing catch. The girl, she was getting to that age where she just wanted to hang out with her friends. Denise commented that Molly was always pestering her for a ride to the mall. But sometimes, on the cooler evenings, you’d see a whole group out playing capture the flag or maybe hide-and-seek through everyone’s yards. Not a bad place to live, our neighborhood.”
D.D. made a note. “What were the kids doing this summer? Once school was out?”
“Summer camp at the Y,” Miss Patsy answered. “‘Course, their father was home during the day, working on the house. Sometimes you’d see them hanging out with him. They liked to take breaks on the front porch. Renovation this time of year had to be pretty hot work.” Miss Patsy fanned herself.
“Family entertain much? Socialize with the rest of the block?”
“Yes, ma’am. They were happy to live here, wanted to get to know everyone. I had the impression their previous home wasn�
�t in a very safe neighborhood—not a good place for kids, Denise would say. Like I said, they were real happy to move here.”
“You ever hear them fighting?” D.D. asked bluntly. “Patrick and Denise?”
“You mean screaming at each other in the middle of the night?”
“Yeah, that sort of thing.”
“No, ma’am.” Miss Patsy said it primly.
“We heard Patrick lost his job. Money must’ve been tight.”
“Tough times all over,” Miss Patsy observed. “I still saw them putting a dollar or two in the tithe plate when it passed; they weren’t destitute yet.”
“Never heard them argue about it? Or taking an extra cocktail or two to help them unwind?”
“Never saw them drinking anything stronger than wine and beer. They were responsible people.”
“Drugs?”
“I already told you—no need to go down that road. Not with the Harringtons.” Miss Patsy gave a little sniff, as if maybe the same could not be said for some of the other neighbors.
“What about Denise and the kids? Did they have a tendency toward large bruises, broken bones? Report a lot of strange accidents?”
“Like falling down the stairs or running into doorknobs?” Miss Patsy asked.
“Exactly.”
“No, ma’am. Patrick didn’t beat his family. Maybe he should’ve with the younger one. Lord knows I watched that kid provoke his father time and time again. But Patrick held his temper. He was a good man. In church, he would pray for patience. He knew what he was up against.”
D.D. exchanged glances with Phil and Alex. “What do you mean, ‘what he was up against’?”
“The younger son, the adopted child, he was trouble. Face of an angel, soul of the Devil, if you ask me.”
“The youngest child was adopted? The boy?” D.D. flipped through her notes. “Oswald?”
“Ozzie’s mother died when he was three years old. Guess folks didn’t find her until months later. All that time, he lived in the apartment with her body, eating every last piece of food in the cupboards, including flour, cardboard, powdered lemonade. Denise told me when the social workers tried to take him away, the poor child broke down and started screaming uncontrollably. He spent some time in a psychiatric unit for little kids. I never knew they even had such a thing.”
This was news. D.D. could feel both Alex and Phil leaning forward. She kept her eyes on Miss Patsy. “Know the name of the hospital where they admitted the child?”
“Someplace in Boston. He was there until last year. They brought him home once they moved here.”
“Sounds like you and Denise spoke quite a bit,” D.D. probed. “She come over often? Maybe join you for iced tea on the porch?”
Miss Patsy nodded easily. “Sure. This summer she came by couple of times a week. Sometimes she brought me cookies, maybe a pie. She’s a very gracious woman, Denise. And yes, she was probably looking for a little time away from the family.” Miss Patsy held up a hand. “Not saying that she and her husband were fighting. But she worked all day, then came home to three kids, one of them right demanding. Can’t blame the woman for seeking out a little iced tea and adult company, can you?”
“Probably not. Denise ever mention any … extracurricular activities? Maybe she and Patrick weren’t fighting. But maybe she’d met someone who’d caught her eye, or he’d found someone who caught his eye. These things happen. Maybe Denise was looking for a little womanly advice?”
“Never mentioned it,” Miss Patsy said, folding her hands on her lap. There was a moment of silence, then Miss Patsy regarded D.D. straight in the eye. “Did Ozzie do it? Rumor mill is the whole family was slaughtered like chickens. Always thought that boy would do something terrible one day. Though maybe,” she sighed, “not as terrible as this.”
“Miss Patsy, what makes you think Ozzie might be capable of doing something like murder?”
Miss Patsy sniffed a little. “Heavens, what to mention? Boy was up and down, up and down the street all day, sunup to sundown if they’d let him. At church, he still had to attend the toddler room, ‘cause he couldn’t make it through the service. Had the worst case of fidget you ever did see. Rolling up his pant legs, rolling down his pants legs. Sitting up, sitting down, shifting right, shifting left. Never saw a child so ready to burst out of his own skin.
“And no sense of boundaries. Child would walk through your front door without knocking if you left it unlocked. Several of the neighbors kept finding him in their yards, sitting on their patio furniture as if he owned the place. Then there was the incident with him and Mr. Harding’s barbecue. Boy said the grill turned over by ‘accident,’ but I gotta say, I wouldn’t put it past him to dump hot coals on a wooden deck. When he felt slighted, he could be cruel. Did I mention the squirrels?”
“You haven’t mentioned the squirrels.”
“He liked to throw stones at them. I yelled at him more times than I could count to leave the poor squirrels alone. Then you know what he did? I caught him one day in my own backyard, yanking a squirrel off the bird feeder. Guess he’d crept up on it while it was eating. Why, he grabbed it by its tail, whipped it around two or three times, then slammed its head into the feeder post. Terrible, terrible thing. Blood everywhere. He just stood over the poor creature, and smiled.
“Normal boys don’t smile like that, Mrs. Detective Sergeant. Normal boys don’t lick the blood off their hands.”
D.D. couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Apparently, neither could Phil or Alex. “When … when did this happen?” she ventured finally.
“May, or maybe June. Beginning of summer, we’ll say. Ozzie wasn’t allowed out of the house alone after that. Mostly, his older brother, Jacob, came out to keep tabs on him. Now, Jacob’s a good boy. Strong and fast. Good arm, I’m told. Makings of a first-rate quarterback, to hear his father speak. Jacob seemed to be able to keep Ozzie in line.”
Miss Patsy paused, seemed to realize she had just spoken of Jacob in the present tense, and caught her breath in a small hiccup. “Oh,” she said, and that one sad word spoke volumes of a family that did not exist anymore.
D.D. gave the woman a moment. She took another sip of her iced tea. She was almost done with her glass; Alex and Phil were as well.
Alex leaned forward, seemed to have something to say. D.D. nodded slightly and he cleared his throat.
“Miss Patsy?” he asked gently.
The old woman turned her gaze to him.
“Were you home last night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What exactly did you hear?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. But I was inside, had the air conditioners running. Can’t hear much of anything over that hum.”
“Did you talk to any of the family members earlier in the day?”
“No, sir. Just saw Denise out, sweeping the front porch, when I went on my evening shuffle. I gave her a little wave and she waved back.”
“Did she mention having company?”
“Not to me, sir.”
“Notice any strange cars in the neighborhood?”
“Oh, there were several. Always is this time of year, with all the summer barbecues.” She smiled faintly. “We folks in Dorchester like to have fun.”
“Do you know of anyone who might bear a grudge against Patrick or Denise?” D.D. spoke up. “Did either of them mention getting in a fight with anyone? How was their relationship with their ex-spouses?”
“Patrick was a widower; Denise never spoke of her former husband. I got the impression he was out of the picture. Maybe not so interested in domestic life. I certainly never saw anyone coming by to take the kids every other weekend.”
D.D. made a note. “Times are hard,” she said softly, looking at Miss Patsy. “Sounds like Patrick and Denise had a lot on their plate. Three kids to manage—one with some challenges. Plus, they had an entire triple-decker to remodel, then Patrick lost his job. That’s a lot of stress for one family. Things happen when people
are under that kind of stress.”
“The Harringtons are good people,” Miss Patsy repeated firmly.
“And the last time you spoke to either Denise or Patrick …?”
“Two days ago. Denise came by around nine o’clock and we had a little wine on the front porch. Jacob was starting up football practice and had just been picked for the first string. She was gonna take Molly back-to-school shopping this weekend.” Miss Patsy shrugged. “We talked of normal things, everyday things. Denise seemed happy enough to me.”
D.D. nodded, made another note—Money??—then rose off the chair, digging out her card. “Thank you for your time, Miss Patsy. If you think of anything else, please give me a call. Oh, and, of course, thanks for the excellent iced tea.”
Miss Patsy nodded, shuffled to her feet. Phil offered to carry their glasses and iced tea pitcher back to the kitchen. Miss Patsy let him.
“It’s true they’re all dead?” Miss Patsy asked as she escorted them to her front door. “Patrick, Denise, Jacob, Molly, and Ozzie?”
“Patrick’s hospitalized. Critical condition.”
“Poor, poor man,” Miss Patsy murmured. “I don’t know what’s worse: for him to join his family in Heaven, or for him to recover all alone. Sad choices for a good man. I guess you just never know what’s really going on with your neighbors, do you?”
“Nope,” agreed D.D. “You never do.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
By the time they were done with Mr. Dexter Harding, it was after twelve and D.D. was starving. Alex proposed that they break for lunch. He knew a great little Italian bistro not far from here. He said this more to D.D. than to Phil, and Phil took the hint, ducking out with some mumbled excuse about stacks of paperwork waiting for him on his desk.
D.D. was suspicious of her partner’s abrupt departure, but it was Italian food, so she didn’t press the matter.
She and Alex caravanned to the corner restaurant, which featured green awnings and the smell of garlic and fresh baked bread. D.D. inhaled twice and decided she’d found a new home.