“Grab some more boxes,” I said.
“This is nuts,” Cynthia said, but she grabbed the boxes.
There were about a dozen of them. More receipts. More photos. Two boxes of movies on VHS that we’d somehow decided to save even though we hadn’t owned a VCR in nearly ten years. Boxes jammed with CDs we no longer listened to. Essays I’d written back when I was a student at UConn. We’d scattered the contents of the boxes all over the floor, making one hell of a mess.
There was no money.
Grace was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking at us. “Have you guys lost your mind?”
“What do you want, Grace?” I asked.
“What should I do about Teresa?” she asked.
Cynthia and I looked at each other. “What?” Cynthia said.
“She’s here. She’s upstairs. Should I tell her this is kind of a bad day? Or is everything sort of good now, except for the part where that guy broke in to probably kill me or something?”
Neither of us said anything. We were still looking at each other, and I suspected we were thinking the same thing.
Cynthia said, “Tell her we’ll be right up.”
Grace said, “Okay.” She disappeared back up the stairs.
“Vince’s guy needed a key to get in here,” I said.
“And the code,” Cynthia said. “Like you said before, there’s a bunch of ways he might have got a key, but the code? Only four people should know that code.”
We went upstairs together, found Teresa standing just inside the front door. She was in her late forties, early fifties. So far as we knew, she’d been cleaning houses since she came here from Italy thirty or so years ago. Teresa still had an accent, but her English was flawless, and I knew she devoured books like crazy. We gave her all our used paperbacks when we’d read them.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice high-pitched. “The car! What happened with the car? Something wrong with the brakes? You almost hit the house!”
“The steering,” Cynthia said gently. “I’m going to have to get them to look at the steering. There I was, driving down the street, and the next thing I knew, I was driving right across the lawn.”
“Oh!” she said, putting her hands to her cheeks. “You could have been killed!”
“No kidding,” Cynthia said, then smiled reassuringly. “It’s been quite a day.”
“I will make some tea,” Teresa offered. “It will calm you.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I’m surprised to find everyone home. Him,” she said, pointing at me, “I figured would be here, you teachers getting the summer off and everything, but I didn’t expect to find you and Grace, too. And a car in the yard! Are you moving back in? Please say yes! I know it’s none of my business, but it pains me that you two are apart. It’s not right. What do you want me to do? I can work, or I can come back another day if there is something going on.”
“Stay,” Cynthia said. “I’m hoping you can help us with something.”
“Oh yes?” she said, her face full of expectation.
“I want to tell you what happened this morning. Why I drove across the yard.”
“It was not a steering problem?”
“No. I was driving past the house, and I saw a man.”
“A man? What man? A man where?”
“There was a man trying to get into the house. I drove right across the lawn to scare him off.”
Teresa’s jaw dropped. “A burglar? Breaking in?”
“Well, he wasn’t breaking anything. He had a key.”
There it was. A small facial tic. A small tug at the corner of her mouth. “A key? A man with a key?” she asked.
“That’s right.” Cynthia was keeping her voice soft, unthreatening. “You see, Grace was here, and she heard him ring the bell, and then knock, but she didn’t want to answer the door to a strange man, so she did nothing. But then she heard him slipping a key into the lock.”
“My God, that is awful,” Teresa said. She saw Grace standing by the door to the kitchen. “You must have been terrified.”
“Yeah, kinda,” she said.
Cynthia continued. “It doesn’t seem like this man was worried about the alarm going off. You know, there’s that little sticker on the door that says the house has an alarm system, so he had to know the moment he opened the door he’d have to disarm it. So he had to know the code. He knew he’d be able to turn off the alarm.”
Cynthia paused, getting ready to go in for the kill.
“What we were wondering was, how could this man have a key and know the code? He’d have had to get one of our keys to make a copy, and someone would have had to tell him the code.”
Teresa swallowed. She glanced left and right, starting to look like a cowering, cornered animal. “Grace,” she whispered, not to her, but to us. “Teenagers, they like to get into houses when people are away, have parties and have sex.”
“Excuse me?” Grace said. “I heard that.”
“I am just telling you what I know about kids,” Teresa said apologetically, as if it wasn’t her fault.
“So you’re guessing that’s what the man told me?” Cynthia said.
Oh, interesting. Cynthia was going to go out on a limb here.
Teresa, incredulous, said, “You talked to this man? I thought you said you scared him off. When you drove at him.”
“Oh, I scared him,” Cynthia said. “Scared him good. He was even more scared when he tripped jumping over some bushes, twisted his ankle. Terry jumped on top of him.”
I was pleased to discover I had a role in this.
“That gave us a chance to ask him a few questions,” Cynthia said. “Before the cops came and took him away. Can you guess what he told us?”
Teresa still looked like that cornered animal, but no longer cowering. She was going to come out fighting.
“He told you lies,” she said, nearly spitting out the words. “Lies and bullshit.”
“Really?” Cynthia said. “You don’t even know what he said. What do you think he said? That you let him copy our key? That you told him the code?”
“The police . . . did he tell the police?”
“I don’t think so,” Cynthia said. “Maybe I could keep that from happening if you fill in the details.”
Teresa weighed whether to come clean, as it were. Cynthia gave her a few seconds to think about it. The woman’s eyes softened.
Finally, she said, “He said he would never do anything bad. He said he would never steal anything, break anything. He said no one would ever even know when he was here. He just needed to get into the house.”
“Did he tell you why?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Teresa said. “And I didn’t ask him. All I asked was, was he a pervert, was he going to be putting in cameras to watch your daughter have a shower or something like that.”
Grace made a creeped-out face.
Teresa added, “He was a scary man, hard to say no to.”
“Describe him,” Cynthia said. She’d seen the man who’d tried to break in, but whoever approached Teresa and the man at our door might not be one and the same.
Teresa gave a short description that could easily have been Vince. “And he had this funny bump under his shirt and his pants,” she said.
Bingo.
“He came by here one day, almost three years ago. He had been watching the house, saw me letting myself in. Talked to me when I finished and was getting my car, found out I clean your house. He said maybe I could help him. I thought he meant clean for him, but he said no, something different. He’d already checked me out, knew my boy is in prison, said he could make it hard for him or easy for him because he knew people.”
Cynthia and I exchanged a quick look. Teresa had a son in jail? Who knew?
“Said if I helped him, he’d put in a word for my Francis, and he would give me some money, too.”
“So you sold us out,” Cynthia said.
Teresa bristled.
“You think you matter more than my son?”
“We didn’t know anything about that,” Cynthia said.
“Of course you didn’t,” Teresa said. “You never ask me anything about my life. I am just the person who comes into your house and cleans your mess and shit and picks up after you.”
If that made Cynthia feel guilty, it was hard to judge by what she said next.
“You’re fired.”
FORTY-SIX
“SO, a life coach?” Jane said. “That must be interesting.” As if.
The woman everyone called Reggie said, “If you’re having trouble with your job or your boyfriend and are looking for someone to talk to, someone who’ll listen and offer you some life choices, I’m your gal. Like you—I’m guessing you have a boyfriend. Are things good? Are you feeling fulfilled in the relationship? If not, why not? That’s the sort of thing you might talk about with your friends, but what qualifications do they have to advise you?”
“But you have qualifications?”
Reggie nodded. “I have a life-coaching certificate. Look, I’m not trying to pass myself off as a psychiatrist or psychologist or anything like that. Those are people with real medical training, and if you’ve got a serious disorder, like, you know, you’re bipolar or schizophrenic or clinically depressed, I’m not the one you should be talking to. But let’s say it’s a bit simpler than that. You can’t seem to get your act together. You feel you’re in a rut. You wake up each morning and don’t think you can face one more day doing the same thing over and over again. But what you don’t know is how to change your situation. You need someone to talk to, and a lot of people, they just don’t have that. I mean, sure, they might have their mom or dad or someone like that, but often there’s already a lot of prejudging going on in a situation like that.”
“Uh-huh,” said Jane.
“When someone comes to me, there are no preconceptions. I don’t judge. I don’t start off telling them, Well, you’ve never succeeded at anything, so what makes you think you can turn things around now? No, I don’t do that. I’m all about positive energy. I’m about building up, not tearing down. I want you to know that you can make that change, that you can turn your life around, to achieve your goals, and what I do is facilitate that through dialogue and encouragement and, well, coaching. That’s what it’s all about. Being a coach.”
“Wow,” Jane said. She hadn’t written one word on her notepad.
“And there are so many people out there who could use that coaching. Men and women—well, mostly women, I have to admit, because I don’t think men are comfortable going to someone and admitting they need advice. God knows they won’t even ask for directions when they’ve been driving around for an hour without a clue as to where they are.”
“Oh yeah,” Jane said.
Reggie leaned back in her chair, studied Jane, and said, “You’re skeptical. I can tell.”
Jane held up her hands. “Hey, I’m not judging. You offer a service, you need to get your name out there. I totally get that.”
“But you think it’s bullshit.”
“I never said that.”
“You’re in a relationship right now, and it’s troubled. Isn’t that right?”
“Excuse me?” Jane said.
“Your mascara’s ever so slightly smeared. You’ve been crying.”
Jane reached a hand toward her eye, blinked. She needed a mirror but there was none handy.
“Things are a bit rocky right now,” she conceded.
“Another woman?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I know he lied to me. About where he was last night.”
“Do you think he’s lied to you before?” Reggie asked.
“I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve really been sure.”
“You have to ask yourself a very basic question. What’s his name?”
“Bryce.”
“You have to ask yourself, Do I trust Bryce? If the answer is no, you have to ask yourself a second question. Do you see yourself moving forward in life with a man you do not trust?”
Jane, rattled, gave her head a shake. “I don’t want to . . . I think we should move on. What were you thinking? Radio spots? A greater Web presence? I’m thinking TV is out, because the cost is kind of prohibitive, but then again, I don’t know what you charge. I guess if you’re Tom Cruise’s life coach, you can charge whatever you want.”
Reggie offered a sympathetic smile. “Of course, let’s get to the business. I—”
A small ding emanated from her purse. A text.
“Oh, better just see what that is . . .” Reggie said, and rooted around in her bag until she had found her phone. “Oh, one of my clients, just confirming that I’m coming to see her this morning. I swear, once people connect with me, they don’t want to make a move without hearing what I have to say.”
Regina, still looking at her phone, frowned. “I totally forgot I’m supposed to meet this woman for coffee in twenty minutes. You would not believe the kind of day I’ve had already today. I wonder, maybe—”
“Would you like to meet later, maybe this afternoon?” Jane asked, losing the tone she’d had earlier.
“No, that’s okay. You know what? I brought along a whole bunch of promotional material I wanted you to look at—brochures, and a couple of articles that made the Milford paper and the New Haven Register—but it looks like I must have left it all in the car. I’d go down and get it but”—she looked at the time on her phone again—“I don’t know that I’ll have time to run it back up here.”
Jane said, “Tell you what. Why don’t I walk you to your car. We can talk a little more on the way, you can give me those materials, and then make your appointment. Then I can have a look at everything and make some recommendations. How does that sound?”
Reggie beamed. “That sounds perfect.”
They both stood. Jane grabbed her cell phone.
“So, Reggie, how did you hear about me?” Jane asked as they headed for the elevator.
“Your name came up . . . I’m trying to remember where,” Reggie said. “I think it was a meeting with some real estate people. Have you done any work with them?”
“I did a radio spot for Belinda Morton,” Jane said. “Could it have been her? She’s a Realtor here in Milford.”
“I think it might have been,” Reggie said as Jane pressed for the elevator. “She had very nice things to say about you.”
Jane Scavullo smiled. “I’ll have to thank her next time I see her.”
The elevator doors parted and they boarded. Jane hit “G.”
“Are you from Milford?” Jane asked.
“I didn’t grow up around here, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m actually from Duluth.”
“Oh,” Jane said. “I’ve never been up that way. Must be cold in the winter.”
“That’s for sure. But I can’t believe how much snow we’ve been getting around here the last couple of years. All this crazy weather. Hurricane Sandy! Were you here for that?”
Jane nodded. “That was unbelievable. My stepfather’s place is right on the beach, on East Broadway. Lot of damage there. At least his house could be fixed. A lot of them, they just had to tear them down.”
“What does he do?” Reggie asked. “Would I know him?”
“Well,” Jane said, cracking a smile as the elevator doors opened, “I think I’m pretty safe in saying he hasn’t engaged your services, or any other life coach’s for that matter.”
“It’s like I said. Men don’t want to appear weak.”
“No kidding.” They emerged from the building into the sunlight and the heat. “Where you parked?”
“Over this way,” she said, pointing. “The lot was full when I pulled in, so I found a spot down an alley up here. I’m so sorry to drag you out of the office like this.”
“No problem. Reggie, did you have any kind of advertising budget in mind for this?”
“Well, it’s all so new to me. All I’ve done is the Web
site, and I got this kid I know who’s real good with computers to set it up so it hardly cost me anything except to get the whaddyacallit domain name registered. But I was wondering what I could do with a thousand dollars or so.”
They turned into the alley.
Jane shook her head. “I have to be honest. A thousand really isn’t going to buy you very much. That might pay for my time to come up with a couple of quick concepts, but let’s say you want to buy some radio spots. That’s gonna be a chunk of change.”
“Here’s my car,” she said, getting out her key.
“Nice Beemer,” Jane said. The car was parked next to a white Lexus SUV. “Looks like the life coach game pays better than I might have thought.”
Reggie had the back door open and was leaning in to reach a briefcase. “Oh, I didn’t get this from being a life coach. My husband, Wyatt, bought me this.”
“Oh,” Jane said. “What does your husband do?”
Reggie glanced back over her shoulder to answer Jane, but seemed to be looking beyond her. “Together, he and I commit tax fraud, and just a little while ago, he helped me kill a man who we’d been led to believe had something we wanted, but he didn’t.”
Jane stopped dead. “What?”
“Oh,” she said, coming back out of the car. “And, I guess you could add, kidnapper.”
That was when someone behind Jane swiftly pulled the canvas bag down over her head, and everything went very dark.
FORTY-SEVEN
“IS this going to be long?” Nathaniel Braithwaite asked. “Because I really have to find King and Emily.”
“What and who?” Gordie asked from the front passenger seat of the van. Bert was behind the wheel, and they were on the move. Braithwaite was struggling to maintain his balance, given that the van had only the two front seats. He had his legs positioned wide apart on the metal floor, a hand gripping the top of each of the front seats.
“The dogs. Those are their names. King and Emily. I’m responsible for them. If I don’t find them, their owners are going to be apoplectic.”
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