by Mary Feliz
Attached to the leash was Belle, looking embarrassed by the blingy leash.
In his right hand, Dennis held a gun pointed at Belle’s head.
“Belle!”
Belle pulled toward me. Tugging back on the leash, Dennis slipped on the slickly waxed floor, waving the gun as he lost his balance.
I grabbed for Belle, trying to get her away from his gun. I fought to grasp her collar. In doing so, I banged my head hard on the metal edge of the kitchen table and hissed in pain.
Belle snarled and growled at Dennis. It was unusual behavior for Belle, but I was terrified of the gun and injured. Belle may have picked up on my fear. She was in a strange house, with strange people, and she was protective. Especially when she thought someone might be threatening me.
“What is going on here?” Dennis said. “Has the whole world gone nuts?”
“Honey, the gun,” Elisabeth said.
Dennis looked at the floor and knelt to pick up the gun.
“Diego, take this gun outside with the rest.”
Before Diego could take the gun from his dad, Dennis changed his mind. “Never mind. I’m keeping it until we can repaint the tip orange. It’s not safe to have a toy that looks this real. Go on upstairs and get ready for the doctor.” Dennis turned, still holding the gun, and looked at me.
Diego grabbed a handful of cookies as he left the kitchen.
“Demi’s taking him in to make sure there’s no serious damage to his eye.”
He looked at the gun in his hand and at me.
“Oh, hell, Maggie. Did you think this was real?” Dennis sank onto the cushioned bench. Elisabeth handed me an ice pack wrapped in a kitchen towel.
“You ought to have that wound looked at,” she said. “You could use a few stitches.”
I reached up to feel the cut above my eyebrow. The skin was thin there over the bone and I’d hit the table hard. It was a classic injury I’d seen in both my boys. I could feel the swelling now and the pain, along with blood that left my fingers dripping and red.
“Head wounds always bleed a lot,” I said. “I’ll slap some Steri-Strips on it when I get home.” I started to move toward the door, wishing I’d never decided to visit the DeSotos.
Elisabeth pushed me gently back onto the banquette. She placed a glass of ice water in front of me.
“Drink that, first,” she said. “And let me check you for a concussion before you go.”
“Demi was a nurse before I married her,” Dennis said. “I’d listen to her if I were you.”
“What was Belle doing with you, Dennis?” I asked, still shaky from the image of him holding the gun to Belle’s head. I hadn’t known it was a toy. Like Belle, I’d been quite sure he’d been threatening both of us.
“She was running on the road,” Dennis said. “It’s rural here, but you really can’t let her out without a leash.”
“But how did she get out?” I said. “I locked up before I left.”
“Might want to get those locks checked.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.” I had no intention of discussing our ongoing security problems with Dennis, who, if my index cards were right, might be the main cause of our problems.
Elisabeth checked me for a concussion. She said I was fine, but recommended I consult the doctor and get stitches. She offered to drop me off at home while she took Diego to the doctor, or to take me to the doctor so I could get stitches at urgent care.
I refused both offers, but asked if I could hang onto the ice pack.
“Keep the towel too,” she said.
“If you’re insisting on walking home, sit a few more minutes and finish your water,” Dennis said. “And tell me why you’re here. Elisabeth said you wanted to see me.”
Belle sighed and laid her head on my foot, her eyebrows raised as if to say, “What on earth are we doing here and why aren’t we going home?”
“Are you ready to sell that white elephant house of yours?” he said. “Silicon Valley can be a bit much for some folks. I’d be happy to take it off your hands for you.”
I shook my head. “I’m here on an errand for Flora Meadow,” I said. “She asked me to pick up the PTA treasurer’s reports.”
“Treasurer’s reports?”
“Flora said Miss Harrier had been asking for them. She wanted to include them in the PTA binder. The audit is coming up soon, and Flora’s afraid that if she doesn’t provide a complete binder . . .” I was embellishing and had run out of inspiration. Luckily, Dennis didn’t seem to notice.
“But Harrier’s dead and the audit isn’t for ages. Flora must be confused.”
“Flora wants to get everything in order for the next principal. She said Miss Harrier had been asking for them for months, but that you kept forgetting to give them to her because you’re so busy. I thought I’d help by picking them up.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary. I’ll have Elisabeth drop them off at the school.”
“I’m afraid Flora insisted,” I said. Flora hadn’t, of course, but the more Dennis sidestepped this simple request, the more I was certain the answer to everything lay in something as simple as a monthly PTA report. Hadn’t Elaine suggested I follow the money? Had she known there was something to find?
I looked around the kitchen. Every appliance was fancier than any I’d seen outside of a showroom or a magazine, but the overall effect was cold and sterile—literally sterile—more like a laboratory than a family kitchen. French doors led to a slate terrace. It looked like most of the family’s real living was done out there. Built-in benches formed a low wall, separating the patio from a lush lawn. The benches were covered with piles of hockey sticks, stray socks, baseball gloves, shin guards, small orange cones, tennis rackets, swim bags, and soccer cleats. All the detritus that said kids live here, and that I’d missed seeing in the front hall.
In the middle was a rifle with the telltale orange tip. Next to it was a slingshot. An airsoft rifle and a slingshot. I remembered the brick that went though the staircase window and realized how close a match it was to the sand-colored stones that paved the DeSotos’ driveway. Uh-oh.
Could the DeSoto kids be our vandals? Or Dennis himself? Could he have murdered Javier Hernandez? Or Miss Harrier? I shuddered and felt sweat drip down my sides. The police had moved away from thinking of the vandals as exuberant kids. We’d started thinking of them as unpredictable and dangerous criminals.
If the vandals did turn out to be Dennis or his offspring, I’d made a big mistake coming here. Whoever had been damaging our property wasn’t concerned about who he or she injured and probably wouldn’t stop at hurting one of us, if they had also been responsible for Mr. Hernandez’s murder. My gut was telling me I didn’t belong here. Belle woofed softly in agreement, as though she could read my mind.
I looked from Elisabeth and Dennis to the various exits—out the patio door and over a wrought-iron fence with a gate that was probably locked or back through the hallway and fumbling with the giant doorknob. I sighed. There was no easy escape, not if I wanted to take Belle with me. I was already here. I might as well ask my questions. I had lost patience with subtlety and decided to be as direct as possible.
“Airsoft guns?” I said. “And yellow pavers in the front drive? Have you been targeting us? Was the vandalism at our house your idea? What about the school? Was that to deflect attention from what you’d done at our house?”
Dennis sighed and took a sip of water. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the damage to your house.”
I could hear the clock ticking on the wall, Belle’s heavy breathing, and my heart thumping. I pushed my back hard into the cushions of the banquette, eager to put as much room as possible between Dennis and me.
Elisabeth shifted her weight from one foot to the other and checked her watch. “I need to leave to make Diego’s appointment. If you’re sure you don’t want a ride . . . ?”
I shook my head and she left.
“It’s my oldest son . . .” Dennis began.
>
Chapter 31
Sometimes, life gets in the way, and there are other things far more important to attend to than being organized.
From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald
Simplicity Itself Organizing Services
Saturday, September 13, Afternoon
I spent an uncomfortable half hour with Dennis as he explained that his oldest son had complicated mental-health issues and that they’d enrolled him in a boarding school for troubled teens earlier in the week.
“He’ll be under the supervision of doctors and counselors,” Dennis said. “He’s very angry with us right now, but Demi and I are hoping that it will eventually turn out to have been the right thing to do.”
“His name is Dante,” Dennis added. “He’s sixteen.”
Dennis looked up at me, then quickly away. He rubbed at an invisible smudge on the table.
“Maggie, I’m so very sorry for all the trouble he’s caused you. H-he wanted me to tell you that he never would have done anything to seriously threaten you and your family.”
I wondered about that statement, considering the seriousness of the attacks on our home. Maybe Dante was trying to deny everything he could. Maybe he had been forced to admit to vandalizing our house, but was still trying to dodge accusations of endangering our lives?
I made sympathetic sounds, trying to think about how hard it must be to come to grips with the idea that your child needs more help than you can possibly give them. But my empathy didn’t mitigate the relentless harassment and damage Dante had inflicted on our house and the school.
“He wanted to make sure everyone knew that the squirrels were dead when he found them on the road,” Dennis said, rubbing his eyebrow and swallowing hard. “He didn’t t-torture them.”
I shuddered at the idea of a teen coolly planning far enough in advance to collect dead animals from the roadway to use later, but I was relieved he hadn’t tortured the creatures.
“When did he leave, Dennis?”
“Wednesday.”
“But . . . the fire . . .” I shook my head. Dennis had implicated his oldest son in the vandalism. But if Dante had left town on Wednesday, that meant he couldn’t have torched our barn, thrown the smoke bombs, or broken our windows. I needed to look for another suspect. Maybe more than one. I needed to tell Jason and the fire investigator.
I stood and Dennis did too. “If you can wait a minute,” he said, “I’ll get you those reports you wanted. And I’ll wash that plate for you.” He pointed to the cookies on the table.
“No rush on the plate,” I said. Dennis left the room to get the binders, and I picked up a cookie and nibbled it. What would make a kid angry enough to inflict the kind of damage Dante had? And why did he direct his anger at my family? As far as I knew, we’d never met.
Dennis came back with two giant binders. He handed them to me.
“Thanks, Dennis,” I said. My lip twitched as I tried to wrap my arms around them and I recognized the irony in suddenly feeling overburdened by the information I’d been trying so hard to get hold of. “I think.”
“You’re welcome. With so much going on around here, I’ve gotten a little behind. Dante ran away about a month ago. We were terrified. Demi and I and all the kids have been stressed-out by the tension in the house. I rushed through the accounting and could easily have missed something. It’s probably a good idea to have Flora look the accounts over. She’s done bookkeeping for her own business and is great at catching unintended discrepancies.”
I smiled, nodded, and left with Belle, promising Dennis that I’d have the cut on my forehead attended to and would check on our locks to discover how Belle had escaped. How had she escaped? We were airing out the house with the windows open. Could she have broken through a screen? Or were the new door locks not working?
“Maggie, wait,” Dennis called after me when I was halfway down the driveway. He ran to catch up with me and handed me the purple rhinestone-studded leash. He shrugged. “I know it’s not her style, but it will keep her safe until you get home. Drop it in the mailbox when you get a chance. We have more. My daughter likes to buy them—the more sparkles, the better.”
I took the leash, clipped it to Belle’s collar, and thanked him. I sensed he had something more to say, but he seemed hesitant to speak. Dealing with Dante’s crisis had shaken Dennis’s confidence.
“What is it, Dennis?” The cut on my forehead was throbbing and I wanted to be home. I also didn’t want Brian to wake up, find me gone, and worry.
“It’s about the damages. This is awkward . . . but I-I want you to know that we’ll see you’re reimbursed, that Dante puts things right. We don’t need to involve the police . . .”
“Thank you, Dennis, but would you mind if we talked about this another time? I need to get home.”
“I-I also need to apologize for how rude I was when we first met. When Dante ran away, he broke into your vacant house and hid there for days. I blamed everything on that house and, by extension, you and your family. It wasn’t fair.”
I touched Dennis’s arm, but could think of no appropriate response.
He nodded. We’d said all we could think of to say. I nodded back and walked briskly down the hill. I appreciated his apologies and promises that Dante would take responsibility for his actions, but I had no intention of hiding anything from the police. Jason needed the information about what Dante did or didn’t do if he was going to figure out who’d burned down our barn.
Belle and I stayed on the shady side of the street. She sniffed bushes and threatened to take chase when a hare bounded out of a thicket and disappeared up the hillside. I was glad Dennis had loaned me the leash.
My encounter with him had run contrary to my expectations in so many ways. After an initial reluctance, he’d handed over the PTA reports eagerly. I no longer suspected he was hiding unusual accounting practices.
Flora and Elaine had both suggested Dennis might be the culprit, but he had easily explained the anomalies in his behavior that had worried them. Dennis had been preoccupied by Dante’s issues and fell behind on his responsibilities. His son was responsible for at least some of the vandalism.
I remembered how uncomfortable Diego had been when we’d given him a ride home and we’d talked about the vandalism and Miss Harrier’s death. Was he stressed-out by the tension at home? Did he think Dante was behind Miss Harrier’s death or had killed Mr. Hernandez? What a horrible burden for a kid that would be. It was almost too painful for me to contemplate a boy Brian’s age thinking his brother might be a murderer. The most Dennis was responsible for was delaying getting help for Dante and putting a stop to his escalating vandalism. But being a slow-to-act parent wasn’t a crime.
I wondered what had caused Dante to turn to destroying property. I’d heard that kids sometimes became destructive when they were acting out frustration caused by abuse or other problems at home. Dennis was not my favorite person, but was he abusive? I didn’t think so.
My “investigation” was getting nowhere. I’d have to go back to my index cards and see what else and who else they suggested.
I checked the mailbox before I walked up the driveway, but no letters, bills, packages, or junk mail had been delivered. No bombs either, thank goodness. I checked my watch. Three o’clock. Almost time to pick up David. I hoped Brian was awake. Maybe the boys and I could go out to dinner.
As I drew close to the house, I could see Flora’s VW parked next to my van. Perfect timing! I couldn’t wait to give her the heavy binders and tell her what I’d learned from Dennis. I expected Flora to climb out of the car and meet me, but she didn’t. Could Brian have let her into the house? In theory, he wasn’t supposed to let people in the house when Max and I weren’t home. In practice, however, that rule had always applied to other kids, and Brian might have thought an adult was an exception to the rule. Was Flora down at the barn examining the fire damage?
I heard dishes clattering in the kitchen as I climbed the back steps.
“Hey, Flora,” I said as I walked into the kitchen. “What on earth are you doing in my house?” I wrinkled up my forehead and dropped the binders on the table.
Flora was disarmingly matter-of-fact and hummed as she bustled about.
“I’m making coffee,” she said. “And more cookies.”
What the hell? Orchard View really was another planet if people like Flora took for granted that they could pop in unannounced and take over another person’s kitchen as if they owned the place. I was going to have to make it clear to everyone that while I was all for neighborliness and casual, friendly behavior, I would draw the line at intrusions like this.
“How did you get in, Flora?” I asked. “I’m sure I locked the door.” I put down the binders and unclipped the hideous purple leash. Belle sniffed at Flora and went straight to her water bowl, lapping up as much as she splashed on the floor. I walked back to the door to examine the lock and the strike plate, neither of which showed signs of damage from being wrenched open by an intruder.
“The first batch is almost finished,” Flora said. “Doesn’t the house smell wonderful with the cookies and the coffee?”
“How’d you get in?”
“Sit down, Maggie, sit down.” She put a place mat on the table and set it with a napkin, spoon, plate, and a steaming mug of coffee.
“You look exhausted. Coffee and a cookie will perk you right up, I’m sure.”
I was exhausted. And while I was still determined to get to the bottom of Flora’s strange behavior, I figured I could just as easily do it while drinking her coffee. Or was it my coffee? I sat down and took a deep sip. Coffee, like most things, tasted better when someone else made it for you.
Flora slowed her bustling and humming long enough to get her first good look at my face. Her hands flew to her own forehead and she gasped.
“What happened to you?” She ran to the sink, grabbed a clean washcloth, wet it, wrung it out, and handed it to me in what seemed like a single motion.