Sour Apples

by Sheila Connolly

  “Why? Joyce certainly doesn’t care anymore.”

  “Ethan still wants to know, just to see it through. And Marcus, too, to eliminate it as a possible factor in her murder.”

  “Best to keep our detective friend happy,” Art said with a wry smile.

  Seth smiled reluctantly in return. “True. And since I’m a selectman, I have a responsibility if this does come back to the town’s property in any way.”

  “I see your point. Just don’t borrow trouble, okay?” In the depths of a pocket, Art’s phone rang, and he fished it out and answered. “Preston. Yeah.” Then his expression changed, his eyes widening. “What? I’m right around the corner. I’ll be right there.” He flipped the phone shut and stared at Seth with a peculiar expression. “Your mother just reported a break-in at her house.”

  “Is she all right?” Seth stood up abruptly.

  “Don’t go off half-cocked. Yes, she’s fine. She came home from some meeting or other and found a mess. I’ll head over there now. I assume you’re coming, too?”

  “You going to try to stop me?”

  “Nah. Let’s go. Bye, Meg.”

  The two men went out to Art’s car and left quickly. Meg and Bree stared at each other across the kitchen table. “What is going on here?” Meg asked. “A neighborhood crime spree? More malicious mischief?”

  “Unless somebody’s got it in for the Chapins, but that’s hard to believe. Funny, though: here it was in the wee hours of the night, and at Lydia’s it had to have been in the last few hours. Maybe if Lydia had been home, they would have kept right on going to some other house.”

  “It’s just weird. You are careful about locking up when you leave, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am, and we’ve got good locks. But anybody who really wanted to get in would just come through a window.”

  “I know, but let’s not make it easy for them. Shoot, now I don’t know what to do. Should I ask Seth to bring Lydia over for dinner? Or do you think she’d rather stay home and clean things up?”

  “Your call. I don’t know Mrs. C well enough to say.”

  “Bree, do you really think this was just petty vandalism?”

  Bree looked at her solemnly for a long moment. “No. Do you?”

  “No. So what do we do now?”

  “Got me.”

  18

  Seth called a couple of hours later. “Sorry—I knew you’d be worried, but I haven’t had time to call before now.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. How’s your mom’s place?”

  He sighed before answering. “Same thing as at my office. Mainly it was the downstairs den that was tossed. Some other parts of the house, too, but nothing like the den.”

  “Is Lydia all right? Was Max there?”

  “She’s fine, and Max was with her at her meeting, so he wasn’t in the house. She’s angry, and I guess she feels kind of violated. You know what it’s like—it’s happened to you. But it gets worse.”

  “What? How?”

  “They broke into my house, too. Same thing. Nothing missing but a lot of mess.”

  “Art knows?”

  “Of course. He’s been following me around—he was the one who suggested we check out my house while we were at it.”

  “What’s his take?”

  “He’s sticking to the random-vandal theory. Both Mom and I were out this morning. Our houses are kind of isolated, so no one would be likely to notice strange comings and goings. There’s nothing of value missing. Whoever it was broke in through the doors, so the locks are trashed, but nothing else was damaged. Anyway, it could have been a lot worse.”

  “Seth, do you believe this was a random choice by a bunch of kids?” Meg said gently.

  She could hear his sigh over the phone. “No, Meg, I don’t. But I couldn’t give Art any other ideas to work on.”

  Meg hesitated for a moment. “Seth, what if there’s something more than vandalism going on here? Like, somebody is looking for something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know yet. But don’t you think it’s odd that the three places were hit within a short time and you’re connected to all of them?”

  “Me? Why?”

  Meg couldn’t find an answer. “Do you and Lydia want to come over here for dinner? I can’t imagine either of you will want to cook.”

  “I’ll ask Mom. I’m not sure she wants to stay alone in the house right now, not that she’d say so. Hang on.” Seth laid down the phone, and Meg could hear the rumble of voices in the background. Then he picked up again. “Okay, she says she’ll come, too. About an hour?”

  “Great. See you then.” When Meg hung up, she felt a moment of panic: she had even less food in the house than she’d had the day before, and now she had to feed more people. “Bree?” she yelled.

  “Yo?” came Bree’s voice from upstairs.

  “Can you make a quick run to the market for some food? Seth and Lydia are coming over, and I’m scraping the barrel here.”

  * * *

  A scant hour later Meg had assembled something resembling a meal, thanks to Bree’s wise selection of a couple of precooked chickens. Besides, this meal wasn’t about food, it was about comfort and recovering from whatever anomaly had rocked their small corner of Granford. When Seth and his mother drove up and emerged from his car, Meg could tell even through the window that Lydia seemed a bit shaken. Meg could sympathize: having your home breached by unknown intruders was unsettling, especially if you were a woman who lived alone. She knew all too well.

  Meg hurried to open the door. “Come in, both of you. Lydia, I’m so sorry.”

  Lydia accepted a hug from Meg but didn’t seem inclined to drag it out. “It’s not your fault, is it?” she said with some asperity. “I’m just mad. Thanks for asking us over. I really couldn’t concentrate on cooking tonight. Hi, Bree.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Chapin. Sorry to hear about the break-in. Regular crime wave, isn’t it?”

  “You all want something to drink?” Meg asked.

  “I’ll get it,” Seth said. “Mom?”

  “Make it a double, whatever it is.”

  Seth gave his mother a quizzical look and then went in search of the alcohol, which Meg kept stashed in a cabinet in the dining room. Lydia sat down in a chair to watch Meg cook—or at least put food on plates. “So, Seth tells me that you don’t think this is just a bunch of kids messing around,” Lydia said.

  “Do you?” Meg asked, setting a platter of chicken pieces in the center of the table.

  “No, I don’t. I’ve lived in that house for over thirty years, and I know all the kids in the neighborhood. Well, I should say, I watched them all grow up, and the ones who stayed around have little kids of their own now. I know criminal behavior starts earlier and earlier these days, but I draw the line at suspecting three-year-olds. And it’s hard to imagine someone from the other side of town coming over here just to throw papers around.”

  “What did Art say?” Meg asked, adding a bowl of salad greens to the table.

  “He took our statements and said he’d be in touch. I took that to mean he was clueless. Art’s a good man, but sometimes he lacks imagination.”

  Seth found ice cubes in the freezer, added them to a glass full of amber liquid, and handed it to his mother. “Scotch on the rocks. Good thing I’m driving.” He sat down with a beer from the refrigerator.

  Meg surveyed the table. “I think that’s everything. Sit down and dig in, people, and then we can figure out what’s going on.”

  “What, we can’t talk and eat at the same time?” Bree asked.

  “Multitasking? I approve,” Lydia said. Meg was glad to see that her sense of humor was still thriving.

  “Saves time, doesn’t it?” Bree said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Look, I don’t have a stake in this, but so far all anyone seemed to be interested in was papers, and you don’t even know if any of those are gone. There were other things they could have taken—computers, televisions, jewelr
y—but they didn’t. Right?” Bree looked at Lydia and Seth in turn, and they both nodded. “So what did they want from the paperwork? And why now? Seth, you seem to be the link here. What do you think?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “No previous break-ins?” Bree asked. More head shaking all around. “So what’s changed?”

  “Joyce’s questions?” Meg suggested.

  “About the land? But that information would be in the town records,” Seth protested.

  “Which were scattered all over the place until today, right? Maybe someone thought you were keeping them at home,” Meg responded.

  “I guess. But how does that explain anyone pulling apart Mom’s place?”

  “Did you leave any records at her house?” Meg asked.

  “No. At least, not current ones. Some of Dad’s old stuff is still there, in the attic, but everything since I took over the business, I’ve kept in my own office. When the shopping center bought the property along the highway where our family business used to be, I moved the active files over here.”

  “And let me point out that your office was trashed. What about those earlier records?”

  Seth and his mother shrugged in unison. “I’m not sure,” Seth said. “Any ongoing customers and vendors, I brought with me, since I wanted the account histories. Closed accounts…Mom, you’d have a better idea.”

  “I haven’t touched most of them since your father died, Seth. I boxed up all that stuff, after you’d taken what you wanted, and stuck it in the attic. It’s been years, so they must be buried pretty deep now.”

  “Did your intruder look in the attic?” Meg asked.

  “You’ve never seen my attic, have you, Meg?” Lydia asked drily. “It’s chaos up there, filled to the rafters with generations of stuff. I’m not sure even I could lay hands on the business records quickly. I pity anyone else who tried to find them.”

  “Hang on, guys,” Bree interrupted. “You’re saying you think someone is looking for something that relates to the town, or to your business, Seth?”

  “Or both,” Seth said slowly. “Mom, did Dad do any work as a subcontractor for the remediation team, back around 2000?”

  “Oh, heavens, Seth, I couldn’t tell you. He didn’t always share that kind of detail with me.”

  “Weren’t you still doing the books then, Mom?”

  “Over a decade ago? No, as I recall you had taken over most of the business about then. He was still working on a couple of projects, when he was up to it, but your father was failing fast. But, well…he might have done a few jobs that he didn’t bother to keep paperwork for. I think having you pick up the real work made him feel useless, so that was a way of salvaging his pride.”

  “I’m sorry, Lydia. I don’t mean to be insensitive,” Meg said, “I’m just trying to get the timeline straight. You’re saying that your husband might have done some off-the-books work around that time that you might not have records on? Have I got that right?”

  Lydia nodded.

  “What’s that got to do with the break-ins?” Seth asked.

  Meg tried to assemble her ideas coherently. “What if your dad did some off-the-record work for the cleanup team? Maybe someone is looking for that information and thinks your father might have played some part in it. And now they’re trying to make sure there’s no surviving record of what was done the first time around. After all, I’m sure plenty of people know that the town’s records are scattered at various locations, and if you couldn’t find that particular bit of information, no one would be surprised.”

  “Wait!” Seth erupted. “Are you saying that this unknown person was looking for the exact same records I just happened to have located this morning? Would he—or she—have started ransacking all the buildings in town looking for them? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Not if there’s a murder involved, Seth,” Meg said. “Or to turn it around, someone might have already thought whatever might be in those records was worth killing for. What’s a little breaking and entering in comparison? Maybe you should tell Art to swing by the offices at town hall and make sure your culprit hasn’t hit there, too.”

  Seth looked startled for a moment, then stood up abruptly and went into the dining room to make a call on his cell phone. He was back in two minutes. “No reports about that yet, but usually no one’s in on Sunday. We do have an alarm system at town hall, since we keep the more recent records there, and some of those are confidential. Maybe our intruder didn’t want to tackle that, especially in a visible public place. Or maybe Art’s theory is right and it’s nothing more than vandalism, and limited to our neighborhood.”

  “But aren’t you missing the bigger point?” Bree asked impatiently. “Like I told Meg earlier, just because the government hands you a piece of paper doesn’t mean the job was done right. What if there really is a cover-up going on here and somebody is trying to get rid of evidence?”

  “Are you saying you think my father was involved in a cover-up, or did a lousy job?” Seth demanded. To Meg it looked like he was losing patience with the whole discussion, and she couldn’t blame him.

  Bree held up both hands. “Seth, I never knew your father, and I don’t know much about the town or this site. I’m just saying, there could have been something going on back then that people want to keep quiet now.”

  Meg interrupted, to defend Bree. “This isn’t personal, Seth. But do you have a better idea that explains why all three Chapin places were broken into at this particular time?”

  Seth and his mother exchanged a glance, but it was Lydia who spoke. “I can see your point, ladies. Everything points to someone looking for something specific.” She sighed. “So I guess it’s time I cleared those boxes out of the attic. I’ve got some vacation time coming. But I’d appreciate some help.”

  “Of course, Lydia,” said Meg. “I’m happy to help, if Bree doesn’t need me for anything in the orchard. Right, Bree?”

  “Sure, as long as it doesn’t take more than a day or two. Just don’t ask me to help—you know I’m allergic to paperwork.”

  “Then you’re on, Lydia. When would you like to start?”

  “Tomorrow? I’ll call the office in the morning and let them know I won’t be in. I think they can survive for a day without me. Let me get the stuff the intruders tossed around sorted out first, and then we’ll have room to go through the older files. Seth, if you’d like to volunteer to carry things down from the attic…?”

  “How can I say no? And if I find anything relevant when I go through my files, we can consolidate them. Worst case, we can rent a storage locker somewhere and put all the old stuff together.”

  “Then we’ve got a plan.” Meg smiled. “Okay, now eat up! Bree bought dessert.”

  It was just past nine and Bree had already gone up to her room when Seth stood up and announced, “Sounds like we’ve got a lot of work to get done tomorrow. Mom, you ready to go?”

  “Just let me powder my nose, dear,” Lydia said as she headed up the back stairs.

  “I think she wanted to give us a minute alone, Seth,” Meg said. “I’m sorry if the questions upset you.” She moved toward him tentatively, hoping he’d at least take her in his arms.

  He lived up to her expectations. “Tactful woman. And, no, I didn’t like what I was hearing, but you were right to ask. Do you really believe what we were talking about?”

  Meg settled against him, addressing his chest. “Maybe. At least I can help Lydia sort things out, and maybe get some stuff out of her attic. Are there any treasures up there?”

  “Don’t ask me. I’ve been avoiding it for years. Thanks for thinking about it, at least. I’ll keep my eye out for anything in my own files. But even if it’s true, who would be behind this?”

  “We’ll figure it out.” She reached up to kiss him. “Maybe there’s a paper trail. But be careful tonight, both of you, okay?”

  “I will. I’m staying at Mom’s tonight, even though she hasn’t asked. You really don’t think thi
s is over?”

  “Depends on whether the perpetrator found whatever he was looking for.”

  19

  The next morning found Meg knocking on Lydia’s kitchen door. Lydia greeted her warmly. “So you didn’t change your mind? At least you’re dressed for it—there’s no heat in the attic.”

  Meg looked down at her tattered college sweatshirt and jeans. “I know what you mean about attics—mine’s the same, and that’s why I dressed this way. Besides, we’ll keep warm hauling stuff around.” Meg looked past her. “Is Seth gone already?”

  “Yes,” Lydia said. “He said something about an early appointment. Sorry, you’re stuck with me.”

  “I’m happy to spend time with you, Lydia. Did you get everything sorted out down here?”

  “Roughly. You know, we’re lucky this came up at this time of year. In winter the attic is freezing, and in summer it’s roasting. Not much insulation, as I’m sure you understand. Oh dear, where are my manners? Would you like a cup of coffee before we get started?”

  “Sure.” Meg sat at Lydia’s kitchen table, a chrome and Formica model that probably dated from the fifties. It would have been a collectible if it hadn’t shown the signs of years of hard wear. “I’m kind of hoping that working on your attic will prepare me for tackling my own. Whatever’s up there looks like it was abandoned by tenants, and I simply haven’t had time to worry about it. Maybe when I get around to it one day, I’ll find a nice cache of eighteenth-century diaries or a portrait of one of those ancestors of mine, but I’m not holding my breath.”

  Lydia set a mug of coffee in front of her. “We may have some things like that upstairs—after all, the Chapins have been settled here for centuries. But between raising three kids and working, I never had the leisure to sort through what was up there. I just kept adding to it. Anyway, back to your question, yes, I managed to clear out some room. Or at least I made some stacks. I have to say, whoever it was that rifled through the office here was very thorough: every folder had been dumped, even the kids’ school records and old medical files.”