Artful Dodger (Maggie Kean Mis-Adventures)

by Davis, Nageeba

  The day dawned pale and pink, the sky swatches of diluted colors. Wearing thick cotton socks and a large sweatshirt pulled over my flannel shirt, I drank my coffee sitting on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter. Colorado mornings and evening are always cool, even in the dead of summer, but the chill is a welcome respite from the heat of the day. It’s a study of contrasts. The weather shifts from hot to cold, from sunshine to rain, and from clear skies to fog and snow in a matter of minutes. I was drawn to its volatility when I graduated from college in California, where weather travels on cruise control.

  Elizabeth’s smiling face stared up at me from the newspaper. I had the paper open to the obituaries, something I did every morning...part of my daily routine. I’d scan the page, tally the ages of the deceased, and pray that the column labeled Over Eighty was longer than the column marked Under Forty. I knew it was a morbid habit, but I couldn’t shake the slight sense of relief I felt when the older folks took the lead.

  It was disconcerting to see Elizabeth’s picture in the obits, even though I had found her body, been to her funeral, dealt with her recalcitrant grandchildren, and stolen her appointment book. I should have expected the write-up, but still, it was one more occurrence that marked her final passing. The column enumerated all Elizabeth’s community work and concluded with the usual family information. The funeral was described as a private memorial service for the family, and although the cause of death was not specified, the family requested that donations be sent to one of several charities she’d championed in lieu of flowers. Of course, what the reporter failed to mention was that the funeral was private because Preston and Cassie couldn’t wait to bury the old lady and claim their inheritance. They didn’t give anyone a chance to arrange a regular funeral, insisting that Elizabeth would have hated it. But I knew that was a crock. She would have loved all the pomp and circumstance and everyone paying homage, as long as she, in some spirit form or another, could sit back and enjoy the show.

  I glanced at the clock and decided against calling Lindsay Burns before going to meet her. I wasn’t sure how to introduce myself over the phone and I didn’t want to give her the option of hanging up or refusing to see me. I also realized that there was a good possibility that I was off on a wild-goose chase. For all I knew, this lady could be Elizabeth’s manicurist or an old friend who had fallen on hard times. But maybe, just maybe, Lindsay Burns knew something. If she did, I wanted to be there in person.

  I was out of my house in under a half hour. It never takes me long to get ready, one of the advantages of my baggy-clothes ensembles that Villari had questioned. I didn’t spend time in front of the mirror wondering if something made me look fat or thin... everything made me look shapeless, and as far as I was concerned, this expedited the incredibly boring routine of getting dressed.

  My Jeep sputtered to life after several enthusiastic pedal pumps. Out on the Interstate, I flipped on the radio to listen to the seven o’clock top-of-the-hour news as I drove south toward the Woodmen exit. I was a little apprehensive about showing up uninvited at someone’s house this early in the morning, but I was afraid Lindsay Burns might have a job and be out of the house before eight. Knowing my luck, we’d pass each other going in different directions, she on her way to work, me on my way to her empty house.

  I turned east on Woodmen, traveling away from the mountains. Amazingly, I flew through several green lights, so that I was out of the city and driving through farm country in no time at all. I pulled out my I-phone and Google mapped the surrounding area. I took Woodmen out to Powers and turned right at the light, driving south for a few miles until I saw an imposing brick structure on the left side of the road marking the entrance to a now barren community. I drove slowly past a vacant gatehouse. Blue Spruce was the first street on the right. #1653 sat on the intersection of Blue Spruce and an unmarked street that I assumed was either Jasmine or Ponderosa, as Elizabeth had noted in her book.

  I pulled a U-turn and parked at the curb. I rubbed my damp palms against my jeans as I walked past the driveway and up the front steps. Standing at the door, I took a deep breath, straightened my sweater, and rang the doorbell. Not knowing what to expect, I nervously shifted from one foot to the other.

  Suddenly the door opened just a crack. One green eye peeked out.

  “Yes?”

  “Hi! You must be Lindsay Burns,” I chirped, sounding like a vapid cheerleader. I started over. “My name is Maggie Kean. I’m a friend of Elizabeth Boyer.”

  No answer. The emerald eye never even blinked. “Mrs. Boyer died recently... perhaps you read about it in the newspaper?” I was fishing for a way to explain my presence here, but her stare was truly disquieting. She reminded me of my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Blake. She caught me stealing Brian Simpson’s crayon box and simply stared at me with her “I know what you did and we’ll sit here until you decide to admit the truth” look. It worked, too. In no time at all, I broke down and confessed to the damn crime.

  “Mrs. Boyer’s demise was rather sudden—”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  The lady really could use a refresher course in social skills. “I am, or was, Mrs. Boyer’s part-time secretary. I ran her office, took care of her bills, her social calendar, things like that. Since her death, I’ve been trying to get her affairs in order and I found your name.” I was back-pedaling a mile a minute and spinning lies like crazy, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t very well present myself as Elizabeth’s neighbor, the one who found her body, stole her calendar, and found Lindsay Burns’ name penciled in at the bottom of a page. “I was hoping to talk with you about your business with Mrs. Boyer, in case it’s something I need to follow up on or complete for her.”

  “We didn’t have any business together,” she said firmly.

  “Ms. Burns, would you mind if I came in? It’s a little chilly out here and holding a conversation through a small opening is a little difficult.” I held up my hand, palm out, like I was taking the Boy Scout oath. “I promise to leave as soon as we’re finished talking and—”

  “We’re finished talking now,” she said, closing the door.

  Without thinking, I jammed the toe of my foot into the small gap before she had a chance to shut it completely. To my relief, I didn’t hear any bones crunch, but I was convinced that there was something going on here and I couldn’t leave without knowing what it was.

  “What do you think you’re doing? Get out of the way or I’ll call the cops.”

  She tried to shut the door, but my foot was now wedged in tightly and I wasn’t going to turn back now. “Ms. Burns, I’m not here to start any trouble. I just want to find out where you fit in Elizabeth Boyer’s life so I can finish what needs to be finished and close her office. You seem to be afraid of something. Maybe I can help you.”

  Lindsay Burns stared at me for a few long, silent moments, apparently making up her mind. To my relief, I heard her sigh and step back, pulling the door open.

  Lindsay Burns wasn’t much older than I was—in fact, she may have been younger—but her skin was pale and translucent like someone over eighty who lived alone in a dark house with the shades drawn. Her hair hung limply to her shoulders, a faded blonde with a wide swatch of dark roots running down her center part. One eye sported a fading but suspicious-looking bruise and her lips were chapped and cracked, especially the bottom one, which she was gnawing on at the moment. Her dress was right off an old ladies’ rack, one of those square sacks my mother used to call a housedress. I wasn’t sure what this girl’s problem was, but something bad went on in this house.

  Behind her, the living room was neat and tidy. Two well-worn beige couches faced each other with a small oval rug between them. There was the usual coffee table, two end tables, a lamp, and a vase filled with dried flowers, all blending together to create a space as plain and dreary as a bowl of blanched vegetables. Everything was the color of oatmeal, grits, unburied dog bones, dingy curtains, peeled potatoes, or day-old
snow. And Lindsay Burns, with her yellowed dress and lousy dye job, faded naturally into this nondescript background. All pale and washed-out, except for the emerald eyes. Except for the watercolors hanging on the wall. Except for the yellow and orange and red and blue plastic toys strewn around the floor.

  “Look, I’ll tell you the same thing I told that woman who came knocking at my door last week. Take my advice and get out of here and throw my name in the fire before somebody gets hurt. Don’t ever come back here again or I’ll skip the cops and turn my dog on you for trespassing.” Lindsay Burns took a step backward and slammed the door.

  Thank God I moved my foot.

  By the time I drove home and let myself into the house, it was still early, just a little past eight-thirty. I had stopped at Einstein’s on the way and picked up a garlic bagel slathered with garlic and dill cream cheese and a small bottle of water. I managed to get a few bites down before throwing the rest in the trashcan underneath the sink. I took my water into the studio. I was still shaking an hour later as this morning’s scene replayed itself over and over in my mind. Lindsay Burns had gotten to me. Hiding behind a half-opened door when a stranger comes calling isn’t surprising these days. In fact, it makes sense. But she wasn’t hiding from me because I was a stranger. She was hiding because she was afraid.

  That wasn’t all. The fact is, Lindsay Burns was not Elizabeth’s usual cup of tea. Of course, neither was I, but there was a difference. It’s true that my clothes didn’t come from exclusive boutiques, and God knows, I’m not listed in the Social Register, but I did have a life inside and outside my home. I had the distinct feeling that the girl I met today was a recluse. The pallor she wore was the result of holing up somewhere in the dark.

  There in my studio, I removed the plastic sheet from my latest block of “nothing yet” clay. Circling the table, I examined it from all angles, lightly skimming my hands down the sides and across the top. My mind emptied itself, leaving my brain open for what some people erroneously call inspiration. But it just doesn’t feel like that to me. It’s nothing I do, or think, or imagine, that begins the process. It’s something this brown mass of earth does all by itself. Somehow, in all the touching and probing, the clay sends a message. Without realizing or even understanding what’s happening, my hands begin to shape and mold. Sometimes I simply rest my fingertips against the cool surface and they start to move on their own, pulling me along behind. It’s a crazy, heady feeling sitting on a catamaran and riding the waves while the captain mans the sails.

  It doesn’t always happen that way, though. More often than not, I have to take the long way around and sort of prod the subconscious message along. On a slow day, I will often leave the clay, drag my stool up next to the window or directly beneath the skylight, and start sketching, usually human figures. Drawing isn’t my strongest skill; I’d go broke inside a month if I had to rely on my pictures for income, but it’s a good foundation for sculpting.

  “Are you any good?”

  I jumped a good six inches off the stool and went crashing to the floor. I looked up to see Villari’s face pressed up against the screen, chuckling at the picture I made sprawled out the wooden floor.

  “What the hell?” I sputtered.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “I didn’t mean to scare you... well, maybe I was going for a slight startle, but I didn’t expect such an explosive reaction.”

  I scraped myself off the ground, flustered and embarrassed by my own klutziness.

  “Was the front door hard to find?” I asked, brushing off my clothes and pushing back my hair. “Exactly how did you expect me to react when you come sneaking through the bushes and—hey, you’re not stepping on my impatiens, are you?”

  Villari glanced down at his feet. “Nope. I’m standing very carefully between the juniper bushes, which, by the way, need some major trimming, the wheelbarrow, and your little row of flowers. So you can stop worrying.”

  “Why would I worry? Now that you’re stalking me in my own house, I feel perfectly comfortable.”

  “Technically, I’m not inside your house. And I’m not stalking. I knocked on the door and no one answered. I figured you were either in the bedroom or working in the studio.”

  I frowned. “Were you planning on peeking in my bedroom window if you didn’t find me here?”

  “I would have knocked on the window before peeking. It’s not my policy to barge in uninvited.”

  “I’m so happy to hear you have such scruples,” I said dryly. “I would have guessed you were the type to barge in exactly where you weren’t invited.”

  Villari grinned. “See how wrong first impressions can be?”

  “Enough of the chitchat, Detective. Tell me what you want, then get the hell out of here.”

  “Fair enough. But I’m tired of talking to you through a screen. Would you mind opening the front door?”

  “I’ll let you in, but I’m not offering you coffee or making you breakfast, so don’t get any ideas. There’s a neighborhood doughnut shop a couple of miles away where you can meet some of your cronies and feel right at home.”

  “You’re downright prickly this morning.”

  “I was prickly before you arrived. Now I’m downright irritated,” I said, my rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the wooden floor as I turned and stomped out of the room.

  Villari was slouched against the doorjamb when I opened the door. At first glance, his face appeared devoid of expression, but upon closer inspection, it was impossible to miss the twinkle of amusement that flashed in his eyes. He stepped forward, forcing me backward as he closed the door behind him.

  “So who pissed in your cereal this morning?”

  “Lovely expression,” I murmured, turning my back on him and walking into the kitchen.

  “Not really, but it seems apropos. Something’s happened to make you more hostile than usual.”

  “If something did, it’s my business,” I replied, pulling a mug. I poured myself more coffee, which at this time of the morning tasted burned and bitter, but mercifully hot. I laced my fingers around the cup before turning towards the detective, watching the steam float into the air as I blew across the top.

  “Normally, it would be, but these aren’t normal times,” Villari said, eyeing my coffee with something akin to lust. “Want to tell me where you went this morning?”

  I went completely still. How did he know I’d been anywhere?

  “You’re spying on me?” I stammered. I carelessly plopped the mug on the counter, ignoring the coffee that splashed over the rim. “Since you obviously followed me, then you know exactly where I was. The real problem is that you don’t know why I was there, do you?”

  Villari’s eyes glittered dangerously. “For your information, we’ve got a cop circling the block every half hour. We want to avoid a repeat of Elizabeth Boyer. It’s not much protection, but it’s the best I could get. When the patrol shift changed, I happened to be at my desk finishing up some paperwork. Joe walked in and mentioned to the cop taking over the job that your car was missing from the driveway when he drove by around seven.

  “So my car was missing. That’s a crime now?”

  “No, that’s not a crime, Maggie,” Villari said in a menacingly soft whisper as he walked toward me, “but I’ve been a cop long enough to know when someone is hiding something. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  I wondered how much he knew and whether I could trust him. It’s not that I had anything concrete to show for my little trip down to Woodlake Meadows, but the moment I took that book from Elizabeth’s desk, I crossed a line. I knew that I was going to have to find answers if I ever wanted to put Elizabeth to rest peacefully. And I couldn’t let this guy get in my way.

  Standing in the middle of my kitchen, both hands propped on his lean hips, he saw me hesitate. “Spill it, Maggie. Whatever it is you know or think you know.”

  His voice snapped me from my thoughts. I turned, picked up the sponge from the sink, and mopped the cou
nter, feeling his eyes on my back as he patiently waited for my answer. I swung around and faced him. “Look, you’re very good at this intimidation routine, and if I had anything to confess, I would have done so a long time ago. But I haven’t done anything wrong except go about my daily life and I don’t feel obligated to tell you about every little move I make.” I skirted past him and started toward the breakfast room. Of course, he followed me. Close behind.

  “I don’t suppose you did very well in Tailing Suspects 101,” I said. “Didn’t they tell you to put a little distance between you and the person you’re following?”

  Villari reached out and took hold of my arm to stop me. Gathering my courage for a full-blown argument, I turned and looked up to see him quietly studying my face, his coal-black eyes gentle and calm.

  “I sincerely doubt you did much better in Trust 101.”

  And with that unexpected bombshell of sensitivity, my heart went pitter-patter and my stomach flip-flopped and my knees wobbled. I wasn’t ready for understanding or simple sweetness, not with Elizabeth just barely in her grave and not with the pain so new. And I especially did not want anything from someone who looked like he stepped out of People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue while I could easily be a model for shabby chic...without the “chic”.

  The man was standing too damned close for comfort. His breath, warm and sweet, fanned my face, and to my complete disgust, a funny feeling kept fluttering around inside. I put both hands on his chest and pushed.

  He didn’t budge.