I picked up the deli bag. It was now or never. Sticking my nose in the bag, I breathed in the heady scent of butter and chocolate like I was sucking in oxygen.
Father and son, their bag of crumbs depleted, got up to leave. The flock scattered, except for two gulls playing tug-of-war over an object that looked like a grayish twig. The little boy watched, then pointed.
“Look, Daddy, it’s a finger,” he said.
Nausea washed over me. The father took a step toward the birds, and they squawked and flew off, leaving the drab digit behind. Dad poked at it with the toe of his shoe. “Son of a gun, Mikey. You’re right.”
I stood up abruptly, crushing the bag and its contents in my hand. On my way to the trash can, I said to the dad, “You should call the police.” One inadvertent glance down, and I caught a flash of deep pink nail polish.
Then I tossed the crumpled bag in the trash and drove off. In my rearview mirror, I saw the crow swoop in, tear open the bag, and fly off with a piece of my cookie.
—
To avoid thinking about what I’d just seen, I stopped at the stationer’s in town and picked up a bunch of forms from the enticing selection of legal mumbo jumbo, then started home. As I rumbled up Tenth Street, I passed the Pacific Sunset Funeral Home. Again, I recalled the business cards I’d seen at McMillan.
With a yank of the wheel, I pulled into the lot, earning a honk from the car on my bumper. Maybe that would teach them not to ride my ass.
The mortuary was a subdued leaf-green stucco building with dark trim. A neatly pruned boxwood hedge separated the parking area from the sidewalk, and planters overflowing with scarlet geraniums stood on either side of the front door.
Instead of heading inside, I walked around to the back, where a black hearse was parked in front of a big bay door. A man in work coveralls was polishing the hood with a chamois cloth, whistling a tune between clenched teeth. He caught sight of me and paused. “Help you, miss?”
I flashed him a big smile, noting the security camera mounted above the door. “Oh, no thanks.”
I turned back, sensing rather than seeing his eyes following me. Only after I’d turned the corner did the whistling resume.
I entered the front door, where a woman with fluffy white hair waited to greet me from behind a polished walnut counter. “Good afternoon,” she said, beaming at me.
Suddenly I felt like an utter fool. Why was I here? I grabbed a brochure from the counter and began to thumb through it.
The woman rose and came around the counter. She smelled like lilac blossoms. “May I help you, dear?”
“I was just looking for some information. On—on your services, that is.”
She laid two bony fingers on my wrist. “I can see you have exquisite taste. ‘Life’s Glory’ is our most popular remembrance package.”
“It is?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “It comes with a final resting vessel of gloss-finished mahogany, with the ivory soie de chine interior, solid brass swing-bar hardware, and two satin slumber pillows. In addition, we provide a complimentary memorial book and prayer cards. It’s a wonderful tribute to those who have passed. And we have several attractive financing plans.”
“Financing plans? How much does that run?”
“You can’t put a price on eternal grace,” she said.
“Let’s try.”
She jotted a figure down on a piece of floral notepaper and held it out to me. I dropped the brochure on the counter.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I said. Not to mention take out a second mortgage, I thought, as I scampered out the door.
As I wound my way homeward I noticed a maroon station wagon some distance behind me. When I turned on Shirley Boulevard, it turned, too, keeping about fifty yards back. I breathed a sigh of relief when I turned down our street and it motored on. Nerves, that’s all it was. Just nerves.
Belle watched me from her perch on the ramp as I headed up the walk toward my neighbors’ home. It was a cute fifties bungalow; not large, but perfect for a young couple just starting out. Like my place, there was a wide front porch with a redwood railing weathered to silvery gray. Pots of red and white fuchsias hung from the eaves, and the bristly mat read, welcome to our home. I tapped on the door, hoping I wasn’t interrupting Sunshine in the middle of penning a steamy tryst with much turgidity and undulation.
Footsteps vibrated across the porch, and she opened the door a moment later. “Oh, hey, Sam.”
I patted the folder I’d put together. “Here’s what I came up with. Worth a try, anyway.”
“Come in and sit for a minute.”
“I don’t want to keep you from—from your work.”
“I’m done with smut for the day.” She stood back to encourage me to enter.
I didn’t feel very social—no surprise there—but I eased over the threshold and took a quick peek around. “Oh. This is cute.”
The living room was as bright and cheerful as my hostess, with a big bay window facing the street and creamy yellow walls. The fir floors were sanded and finished to bring out the rich color and accented with a blue and yellow braid rug. Tall pine bookshelves lined the walls.
“Thank you. We really love it here. Have a seat.” Sunshine steered me to an overstuffed burgundy couch I suspected came from the same thrift shop as most of my furniture. I sat down, sinking about six inches into its cushy depths.
“Can I get you some coffee?” she said. “I just made a pot.”
I opened my mouth to say, “No, thank you,” but what came out instead was “Sure.”
She disappeared, returning a moment later with a mug of steaming caffeine and a sandwich plate with three dark blobs on a paper doily. “Double chocolate peanut-butter truffles. Fred made them last night.”
I took a careful breath to settle my stomach. “Maybe later. I just had lunch.” My stomach growled as if to deny the truth of the words.
“I’ll wrap them up for you. They’re Fred’s own recipe.”
“Really?”
She smiled. “We hope to open our own candy and coffee shop someday. We’ve been collecting recipes for years.”
I sipped my coffee, which was dark and thick, flavored with hazelnut. “Okay, so here’s the scoop on the house. I think you should talk to your landlady about a lease option.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
I opened my folder. “What you do is offer her a lump sum, say five grand, for the right to buy your place a year from now, plus maybe a little extra rent each month. That’s your option money. Let’s say two hundred bucks a month. You fill out a purchase contract and agree on a price. Then when you’re ready to buy, your option money is applied toward the purchase.”
She clasped her hands together. “It sounds perfect.”
“But there’s a catch. If you can’t come up with the financing by the end of the option term, you lose your money.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“Well, you should be. At least a little bit. You don’t want to run out and buy a new car between now and then. In fact, you should pay off as much debt as possible.” I handed her one of Becky Daley’s cards. “Talk to Becky. She got us into our place.”
Sunshine took the plate and left the room. When she returned, she was carrying a bulging paper bag. “Here you go.”
“I really shouldn’t,” I said.
“Sam, you’ve been so helpful. Fred will be thrilled. Can you—will you be our agent?”
I shook my head. Probably not the best time to tell her my license had been suspended. “I think you can handle this. It’s a good deal for both you and your landlady. She gets cash up front plus above-market rent. Not only that, if she lists the house with an agent she’ll be out a commission, and that’s five or six percent of the purchase price. So this way she saves money, and she’s less likely to worry about the market taking off. And I’ll help you from behind the scenes. All the forms you need are in here.” I handed her the folder.
She enveloped me in a big squeeze before I could escape, smelling of vanilla and hazelnut.
“You’re the best neighbor ever,” she said.
Chapter 17
I spent the rest of the afternoon poring over bank statements, trying to figure out how long I could go without a commission before we became the best ex-neighbors ever. It wasn’t long.
For the first time, I wondered about testing the waters at another firm. It didn’t seem fair that now that I’d gotten used to Everett and his persnickety ways I’d have to start all over again somewhere else.
Max burst through the door around half past five.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, dropping his backpack on the couch. I had to give him credit: for a kid beset by teen angst and hormones, he was a quick study.
“Why should anything be the matter?” I tried a smile, but it snapped back into a grimace as if my lips were made of rubber bands. “Really, everything’s fine.”
“Fine?”
“Perfectly fine. Well, maybe a minor issue at work.”
“What kind of issue?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I saw your boss on TV.”
“You what?”
He shrugged. “I was down at Arlinda Fitness and they had the Channel 4 news on. I couldn’t hear the sound over the treadmills, but there was a video clip of him being loaded into a police car.”
Oh, Lord. “I suppose he was in cuffs.”
Max gave me half a crooked smile. “But no orange jumpsuit.”
“Not yet. What were you doing at the health club?”
“Nothing special. Hanging out.” His gaze wandered a bit, then fell on my list of brokerages. “Are you leaving Home Sweet Home?”
“Maybe. I haven’t decided.”
“So you’re just going to let Mr. Sweet fry?”
“They don’t fry people anymore.”
“Whatever. You’re not going to help him?”
I stared at him. “What can I do?”
“You know. What you usually do. Talk to people.”
I gathered up the bank statements and my list. “This may come as a surprise to you, but most agents just sell houses. Besides, they don’t have any real evidence against Everett. I’m sure he’ll be released.”
He shuffled his feet. “Are we going to be okay?”
“We’ll be fine.” I spoke confidently. No sense having Max worry, too.
“Can I do anything?”
“You mean besides make dinner?”
“Yeah.”
I pushed the bag of chocolates toward him. “Try these and tell me what you think. That’s all. Our neighbor made them.”
He bit into a truffle. “Not Mr. Bradshaw.”
“No, not Mr. Bradshaw.” That was another problem I didn’t want to think about.
Max made cheese omelets, flipping them right in the skillet before sprinkling on some grated cheddar. Had I tried the same technique, I’d have spent the next thirty minutes cleaning egg off the stove, walls, and ceiling. I wondered what Stacy was up to. Now that she wasn’t perched at my kitchen counter, I felt a tug of regret. Human nature was a mystery to me.
We ate our omelets with the six o’clock news going. There was Everett, looking wan in the video clip as an officer assisted him into the back of a patrol car so that he wouldn’t conk his head on the metal frame. The newscaster, a frowsy plus-size blonde, was all agog over the story, her moist lips parted as she recapped the double homicide and Everett’s subsequent arrest. His arraignment was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the county courthouse in Grovedale. I turned off the set. I’d seen enough.
“I have a little work to knock out,” Max said after the dishes were done.
“It’s summer vacation.”
“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“Hey. How was lunch with your—with Wayne?”
“He never showed.” The door closed behind him.
Hot anger burned in my chest. “Dammit, Wayne,” I muttered, kicking a throw pillow across the room.
By God, I’d track him down and make him pay. But first I’d have to find him.
At loose ends, I wandered around the living room tidying. I wondered what Bernie was doing this evening, besides collecting evidence that would keep my boss behind bars indefinitely. Sunday’s steamy kiss seemed a lifetime ago. My thoughts strayed to his rich olive skin and dark eyes, the soft curls of hair on his chest, the tickle of his mustache against my face—and elsewhere.
I reached for my phone, then pulled my hand back. My life was a mess. I needed to get my priorities straight. I jumped up and retrieved my list of potential employers, wondering which of them might take in an agent who, while lacking in experience, occasionally got lucky. Not in love, perhaps. I jotted down some names in order of most to least likely. Then I gave up and went to bed.
I’d barely closed my eyes when the crowing started. This time there was nothing tentative about it. Belle, if it was indeed she, was giving it everything she had. A door slammed. Then all was quiet.
Minutes later, just as I’d entered a deliciously drowsy state, it started again. I groaned and rolled onto my stomach, clutching my pillow to my ears. More door-slamming. I waited, wondering if I had earplugs in a drawer somewhere. When the quiet had endured for almost an hour, I drifted off.
This time the crowing exploded into the night, a crescendo of panic-stricken poultry. I bolted out of bed, banging my knee against the dresser and skidding on a carelessly discarded piece of clothing. From the window on the north side of the living room, I could just make out my neighbor’s coop. The noise was intermittent now, an occasional outraged squawk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a stealthy form slip away and vanish into the night.
I ran to the back door and stepped out on the deck, hoping for another glimpse. All was still to the north. To the south, a lone figure was visible one yard over. It was Mr. Bradshaw. He was digging.
I went inside, making sure the back door was locked, and wishing I’d thought to install a deadbolt there. It appeared our new neighborhood had a secret nightlife all its own.
Chapter 18
Try as I might, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I read a dog-eared Sue Grafton from early in the alphabet until dawn lightened the sky a little after six. My eyes were gritty, and my head felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton wool during the night.
I shuffled into the kitchen in sweats and fluffy slippers, and made pancake batter from a mix, adding some leftover applesauce from the fridge before mold claimed it. The plastic tub of Stacy’s toxic chili still sat on the bottom shelf. I needed to do something with that.
The first pancake that came off the assembly line was a little scorched and had the texture of a wet sponge, but with plenty of syrup it didn’t taste too bad. I downed a second one, then had a little quiet time, my head resting on my cradled arms at the table.
Max emerged from his room just after eight, yawning and rubbing his eyes. “You hear that racket last night?”
“I heard it.” I grabbed a plate out of the cupboard and turned up the gas under the skillet. “I’ll pop over there on my way to—”
I stopped. Work? My license was a useless piece of plastic. What could I do at the office besides dust or play solitaire on the computer? I might as well stay home. I dropped a cupful of batter into the pan, inadvertently dribbling some on the stovetop.
Max polished off three pancakes. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Right on cue, the mom genes kicked in. Drugs? Petty crime? Teen pregnancy?
“I got a job,” he said.
“You what?”
“A job. At the gym. It’s nothing much. Wiping down
machines and keeping the floor swept. That kind of thing.”
“You’re fifteen.”
“I have a work permit.”
“Since when?”
“Since I filled out the form at Arlinda High.” His eyes wandered left of my ear, then traveled up to the ceiling. “You remember Alison, this, uh, girl I know—”
“Sure I do.” Alison’s name had come up a few times before.
His ears went pink. “Well, her dad is the night manager at Arlinda Fitness. I called him last night, and he said if it was cool with you he’d sign off on the permit and I could start today.”
I got up and began rinsing off our dishes. “You sure you want to work over summer vacation?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t pay much. Minimum wage. But I thought it might, you know, help some. Around here.”
I kept my face turned toward the sink and told myself to get it together. After a moment, I said, “Max, we’re fine. Anything you earn, you keep.” I grabbed a towel and polished a plate until it looked as though the glaze might come off.
He pushed his chair back from the table. “I’d better get ready.”
While the shower was running, I threw on some jeans and a shirt, then finger-combed my hair. If my son was going to man up, so could I. No sense throwing in the towel. Maybe I really could do something to help Everett.
I replaced my fluffy slippers with sneakers and yelled through the bathroom door that I was headed out. Then I grabbed the Tupperware of chili and took off, locking the door behind me.
My first stop was Fred and Sunshine’s. The usual cloak of summer fog bit through my thin shirt, and I shivered as I passed the coop. The hens were looking a little dispirited, scratching at the dirt with less than their usual joie de vivre. I did a quick head count: one, two, three, four. Belle fluffed her feathers and clucked in a way that told me to move along.
A Killer Location Page 11