“Well?” Simon prompted in his raspy voice. Then he made a hacking noise and spat out some phlegm a few inches from my feet. I automatically stepped back. He chuckled at me, thus sealing my decision to go for the jugular.
“I have something that belongs to you.”
“Oh?” Simon raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“A love letter, written by you to Helen Raleigh.” I held it up for him to see, but was far enough away to elude his grasp.
His jaw dropped. “What are you blathering about? I’m a spy, not a poet!”
“Oh, really? Then how did you know it was a poem?”
“I...I didn’t. I...just assumed.” Angry red splotches had formed on his cheeks. We both knew I’d caught him.
I started to carefully refold the sheet of paper. “We’ll just see what the police have to say about who wrote this, once they analyze the handwriting.”
He tried to snatch it out of my hand. “Give that to me!”
“So it is your poem, isn’t it?”
“No! I just don’t want you to spread vicious rumors about me to the police!”
“Vicious rumors? Such as that you were courting a man dressed as a woman?”
His eyes bulged. “You’ve got no right—”
“Did you kill Helen?”
“No! I would never kill anyone!” He paused, then ran a palm over his unruly hair, which popped back up at attention an instant later. “Even when I was working for the CIA, I never actually killed anyone. Wounded a couple damn commies, but I never killed nobody.”
“Is this why you started running the surveillance on the house? Because you were so humiliated when you found out Helen was a man, you wanted to humiliate him right back?”
He stomped his foot and sputtered about for a moment, then pointed a gnarled finger. “Get off my porch! If you so much as step one foot on my property again, I’ll—” He stopped abruptly.
“You’ll what? Shoot me?”
He stuck out his chin in defiance, but his eyes were wild with panic.
“Were you blackmailing Helen Raleigh?”
“Blackmailing her? Ha! No damned way!”
“It seems to me that you had each other in quite a stalemate. You reveal his suspicious activities, he destroys your macho reputation by allowing it to get out that you were attracted to a cross-dresser.”
“He couldn’t destroy my reputation without—” He stopped, realizing he’d said too much. “You can’t prove any of that!”
“Did you learn Helen’s real identity?”
“No.”
“Aha! You knew Helen Raleigh was an assumed identity! So you admit you knew she was a man!”
He grabbed his head with both hands. “Stop! You’re confusing me!”
It was about time I confused somebody other than myself.
I backed away as he stepped out onto the porch, directly onto his own spittle.
“’You’re giving me that poem if I have to chase you from here to hell!” He lunged at me, but I dodged him. I gasped and started to reach out a protective arm as he nearly fell down his porch steps, but he managed to grab his banister and steady himself.
“Surely we’re both too old for this nonsense,” I said with a sigh. How old was he, I wondered. Sixty? Eighty?
The bit of physical exertion in this steamy heat seemed to drain the last of his resolve. He met my gaze with his watery eyes and said humbly, “Let me have the poem. Please.”
“I can’t. It’s evidence.”
He sighed and kicked at a leaf on his porch. “I didn’t kill him. But I should have. He led me on, letting me go on thinking he was a gal. The man was a damned scum bag.”
A scum bag? Did real CIA-retirees actually talk like that? “How did you find out he was a man?”
He sighed, eyes averted, his thin, dry lips trembling. “I was on my roof one night, taking down the Christmas lights. Caught sight of him through his bedroom window, coming out of the bathroom.”
Taking down the Christmas lights? More likely it was simply one of Simon’s spying operations. He’d probably watched over Helen’s place every night, the lovesick neurotic that he was. “That must have been quite a shock.”
“Damn near fell off the roof.” His face and entire body sagged before my eyes. He looked like a skeleton, a tired old man. “Please, Molly. I got nothing in this world. Took all my life’s savings to buy this place. I got no family. No friends. Just my reputation. That’s all I got left. I’m begging you. Give me that poem.”
Though it made me feel terrible, I knew I couldn’t give in. I could not hand over something that could provide a motive for Mr. Helen’s murder without first getting an okay from the police. Yet it seemed so heartless of me to refuse Simon’s pleas. After all, the poem was his gift to someone else, now deceased. Still, for all I knew, his current state of despair could be an act. “I can’t. It’s evidence in—”
“But it’s not evidence! I didn’t kill her!”
“How can I know that for sure? I have to turn this in to the police.”
He gestured at the eaves where a camera used to be. “None of this had a damned thing to do with his death. Leastways, not so far as—”
“Molly? Simon? What’s going on?” a male voice called from behind me.
Simon gasped audibly, and I whirled around. It was Stan Abbott. “Nothing’s going on, Stan,” I replied as calmly as possible. “Are you taking the day off?”
“Working at home today. Hooked up by modem. I could hear you two going at it clear back in my office. Is everything all right?”
“We were just having a difference of opinion, that’s all,” I replied.
“Ain’t none of your damn business, Mr. Abbott,” Simon hollered.
“We’re fine, Stan. Really.”
Stan stayed his ground. “You sure?” He crossed his arms and rested them on his flabby stomach:
“Sure, she’s sure. Don’t she look it?”
While I tried to don a “sure” look by setting my jaw, Simon leaned toward me and said in a stage whisper, “Come inside.”
I weighed the thought of which of these men I felt safer with and opted for Simon. Not because he was less dangerous or less likely to have killed Frank aka Helen, but because I would stand better odds in hand-to-hand combat with the skinny, creaky Simon than with Stan, who could render me helpless simply by sitting on me. I followed Simon into his foyer. He swiftly shut the door behind us, then stood staring out the window at the front sidewalk. Simon finally turned toward me.
“Did he leave?”
Simon nodded and muttered, “Damn snoop.” He was so unnerved, he looked to be on the verge of tears. I averted my eyes and glanced at my watch.
“Listen, Simon, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get to school for my children’s end-of-the-year activities. I’ll be home by three. Why don’t you come over to my house sometime after that, and we’ll discuss this matter then?”
“Your house? No way. Too dangerous. Meet me back here.”
I shook my head. “The kids’ll be all wound up. It wouldn’t be fair of me to leave them with my mother. Meet me at my parents’ house at three-thirty. The address is twenty-twenty Little John Lane.”
He eyed the poem in my hand. “You...er...gonna keep this between just the two of us in the meantime?”
Sergeant Newton would have a fit if I agreed to that. Not to mention throw me in jail for withholding evidence. On the other hand, it was just a poem, not a smoking gun.
At the thought of a murder weapon, a realization hit me: I had just told him my mother’s address. He was likely to ransack either my home or my mother’s house to search for this poem while I was gone. “I can’t make you any promises, Simon, but I won’t mention it to anyone in the immediate neighborhood;” I put his poem in the pocket of my shorts. “In any case, I’m keeping this with me; in a safe place, where no one else will see it.”
He rubbed at his pale, wrinkled forehead. “Damn. I...All right. Maybe we can
work out a trade.”
“A trade?”
“Your useless evidence for my real goods. I began the surveillance once I found out Helen was a man, to see what he was up to.”
Whoa! He had evidence? “Actually, I don’t have to leave for a few minutes yet. We can talk about—”
He shook his head. “I got to think things over first.”
“But—”
He opened the door for me.
I should immediately call Tommy and let him know about this supposed evidence. Then again, Simon might be bluffing. I’d know for sure soon enough. I obliged him by stepping out. “We’re definitely going to have a talk this afternoon, though, right?”
“You’re damn right we’ll talk.” He slammed the door shut.
Stan Abbott was no longer standing vigil. It was strange, I thought as I walked toward home, how Stan or Joanne Abbott always managed to pop up at the most inopportune times for me. Maybe Simon hadn’t been the only neighbor who’d bugged my house. I clicked my tongue and mentally chastised myself. Now I was getting downright paranoid.
I hesitated as I neared my front porch. My mother was sitting on the step. Her back was straight and her tall frame looked as stiff as a folded ironing board. She gave me a solemn nod and said, “I was just out for a little walk and stopped by your house. I happened to notice you weren’t inside it.” She jiggled her keys—one of which was to my front door—as she spoke to make it clear that she had gone inside looking for me.
“I was next door.” Mom’s lips were pursed. She was harboring a good deal of anger toward me. I now remembered that I’d told her I’d be back at her place two hours ago.
“Well.” She rose and stayed on the step, putting me at a considerable height disadvantage. “It’s always a relief to discover your child is alive, after all.” She added in softer tones, “I see the window in Karen’s room got fixed.”
“Yes, the repairman left not too long ago.”
She ran her fingers through her short salt-and-pepper hair. “Your father called earlier this morning. We both feel that you need to leave town. You and Jim can take the kids down to our Florida condo.”
“But ...that would be hard to arrange, and besides, I don’t want to go.”
“When your father gets back on Sunday, you’re going to have a hard time convincing him you should stay.”
Her patronizing attitude was getting on my nerves, even though it was somewhat justified. “What is this? The old, ‘Wait till your father gets home’? I’m an adult, Mom. That line hasn’t worked on me since I was five.”
“Actually, it never worked.” She sighed, then her lower lip began to tremble. Despite her not-so-subtle martyrdom techniques, Mom was not the trembling-lip sort. She had my full attention. “I know you have more important concerns than your poor old mother’s feelings, but you’d—”
“Mom!” I cried. “I’m sorry I caused you to worry, but for heaven’s sake! It’s not like I climbed out the window to spend the night carousing! Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little?”
“Kind of makes you want to get far, far away from me, doesn’t it?” She dangled a pair of keys until I reluctantly held out my palm. She dropped them into my hand. Judging from the palm-tree key chain, they were to the Florida condo. “Think about it.” She headed down the sidewalk toward her home.
“Wait, Mom.”
She looked back at me.
“You’re going to the kids’ parties, aren’t you? We may as well carpool.”
“Sure.”
That passed as a heart-wrenching emotional exchange in my family. We strolled in companionable silence.
The built-in telephone on my fax machine was ringing when we reached my parents’ house. I told my mom I’d be right back and trotted down the stairs, hoping this would be a job order.
I winced as I spotted the fax from my office doorway.
Another fax with blackened margins. I checked the sender tag. Sure enough, it was from S. Smith. Poor Simon. He wanted to send me another anonymous message and still hadn’t figured out that this method didn’t work. I grabbed the handwritten fax and read:
Dear Mrs. Masters,
You are making a terrible mistake. I’ve tried to warn you before. Now it may be too late. You have fallen for your neighbor’s masquerades. That could cost you dearly.
Sign me,
A concerned friend
“Well, that’s a relief,” I muttered to myself. His punctuation of “neighbor’s” indicated only one of my neighbors posed a threat to me. Lately I’d been starting to think in terms of a conspiracy—that somehow we’d managed to move into the one cul-de-sac where all the local bad guys lived. Not that one could trust the punctuation of someone who wrote such atrocious poetry.
Assuming Simon was warning me in earnest, which was an enormous assumption to make, Simon could only be referring to one of four neighbors: Stan or Joanne Abbott, or Roger or Sheila Lillydale. Until very recently, I’d had almost no interactions with Stan, so Simon couldn’t accurately accuse me of “falling for his masquerade.” Joanne had been an absolute witch at the meeting last night, so she wasn’t pulling anything over on me-though Simon may not have heard about that incident yet. Then there were Sheila and Roger Lillydale, neither of whom I trusted at this point.
I dialed the number of the sender that had shown in my display. I recognized Simon’s raspy voice as he answered on the first ring.
“Simon, what is this? What do you mean by ‘neighbor’s masquerades’?”
“I, uh, who is this, please?”
“It’s Molly Masters, as if you didn’t know.”
“I haven’t the damn foggiest what you’re blabbering about!”
“I received your fax. I dialed you using the sender’s number shown on my display. I want you to tell me what’s going on. Stop playing these silly games with me. Which neighbor? What masquerade?”
“Maybe you should heed what the damned fax is saying, ‘stead of worrying so much about who sent it to you!” The line went dead.
As Mom and I pushed through the lobby doors of Carlton Elementary School, I spotted the principal, on his way out. The two of us had gone to high school together, though our social circles rarely crossed anymore. We greeted each other warmly and joked about the mound of paperwork he had yet to conquer, then Mom and I split up, agreeing to swap places in half an hour. She went to Nathan’s class party and I headed toward Karen’s classroom, since I’d spent most of my time during the last party in Nathan’s classroom. Contrary to my children’s opinions of me, I truly did try to be fair to them.
The classroom was currently filled with parents and younger siblings. Just outside the glass outer door, the students were lining up along the windows after recess. Karen’s face lit up when we spotted each other and she waved at me, as did two of her friends.
Standing by the door, Karen’s teacher looked unusually harried. Her vision fell on the two-liter bottles of fruit punch in my arms. “Oh, thank goodness, You brought the beverage. I was afraid we’d have to let the kids drink melted sherbet.”
Sheila Lillydale stood near her stepson Ben, apart from the hubbub of parents chattering and preparing rows of cookies. I helped another mother stir the fruit drink into the slushy sherbet, then went over to Sheila, who leaned against the wall near the blackboard.
I said hello, then asked, “Did you hear about all the excitement at the home-owners’ meeting?”
She looked right through me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. However, this is hardly the time.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s not be discussing your legal problems during a party in our children’s classes.” She cast a nervous glance past my shoulder.
Surely she hadn’t meant to be hostile to me. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and we’d been on good terms the last time we spoke. I followed her gaze to where her handsome husband, Roger, appeared as though he were listening to our every word.
The bell
rang and the teacher opened the door, allowing the children to rush inside. After several minutes of general pandemonium, I found myself standing near Roger, as we waited for the children to serve themselves treats across the room.
“Hi, Roger. How are you?”
He appeared to be affronted that I’d even spoken to him. He cleared his throat, then leveled a finger at me, and said, “You had no right to tell my wife something that I told you in confidence!”
I was totally taken aback. “Tell her what ? I don’t recall you having told me anything in confidence, let alone my having blurted it to Sheila.”
“So that’s your game, is it?”
“What game? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Apparently, we’ve had some sort of massive misunderstanding. If I said something to your wife you wanted me to keep quiet, I wish you’d tell me what it was so I can apologize.”
“Sheila’s right about you.” He gave me a look of blatant hatred. Sheila must have described me as a garden slug. “We’re trying to patch things up, for our son’s sake.”
“I’m glad to—”
Sheila, suddenly directly behind me, interrupted, “I already said this wasn’t the place to have a discussion of this nature.”
Good Lord. This was like suddenly being surrounded by people shouting at you in a foreign language. “I honestly can’t understand what’s going on here. Sheila, can we step out into the hallway and discuss this?”
Sheila took a halting breath and cried, “ You’re the one who’s—”
Roger cut her off and stepped between us. “I’m warning you, Mrs. Masters! Stop harassing my wife! Come on, honey. Let’s get out of here.”
My cheeks were blazing. I turned around and realized that all of the children plus their parents were staring at me, aghast, especially poor little Ben. The teacher, in a gracious gesture, clapped her hands and said, “If everyone’s gotten their treats, you should all be sitting at your desks.”
I sought Karen’s eyes and she rushed over and gave me a hug. “What’s the matter with Mr. and Mrs. Lillydale?” she asked. “Why were they yelling at you like, that?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. Let’s forget about it so it won’t spoil your celebration.”
Death of a Gardener (Book 3 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 16