by Molly Macrae
“Then why are we arguing?”
“We aren’t. We’re tripping over a bump in the road. Rosie has heard from Jess, right?”
“By text. She told Rosie to cancel her appointments, with her apologies. Nothing else, though. She didn’t give Rosie a reason for the cancellations to pass along to the clients.”
Janet shrugged. “Again, did she need to give a reason?”
“Rosie asked me if she should be worried about Jess, which shows she’s already worried. And then she asked me what she should do. Me—a stranger off the street.”
“A stranger who listens,” Janet said. “And who might be dressed like her safe and sensible grandmother. Plus, when you listen, you get that look in your eyes—”
Christine’s eyebrows drew together.
“That’s the one. Anyone within range of those eyebrows and that long nose will believe you’re capable of getting to the bottom of things. Don’t overdo the eyebrows, though, or you might scare someone. What did you tell Rosie?”
“That if Jess doesn’t show up today, and if all she does is send another text, Rosie should ping her back immediately and ask when she will be in the office. Then I gave her my number and told her if Jess doesn’t answer that question, she should phone me.”
“Do you think she should be worried about Jess? Should we?”
Christine looked at the photographs of properties for rent and for sale taped to the estate agent’s window for passersby to browse. “Cancelling appointments, staying away from the office, and not communicating with staff is an odd way to do business. I don’t know Jess, though, and I don’t know how excitable or prone to exaggeration Rosie is, so it’s hard to say how worried she should be.”
“Maybe no more worried than I’ve been about my house up until now. But that worry is ratcheting up since you talked to Rosie. What will you do if Rosie calls you?”
“Call the police. Or am I being too suspicious?”
“What would you tell them? That Jess is sending messages but not answering them?”
“And that she hasn’t been in the office for a few days. But none of that sounds dire or urgent, does it? When did she ask you to give the renters more time?”
“Two days ago,” Janet said. “By email.”
“Maybe we should find out where Jess lives and cruise by her house, too.”
“We do have a business to learn. We told the girls we wouldn’t be gone long.”
“I didn’t mean we’d go now,” Christine said.
“Good.”
“We can go this evening.”
“Going by my house can wait for this evening, too, then.” Janet looked down at her orange-and-blue sweatshirt. “Although maybe not. In fact, now that my suspicion pump has been primed, let’s walk faster.”
They turned the corner into Fingal Street, taking the gentle climb toward Argyll Terrace at a pace that soon made Janet’s prairie-born calves protest. She didn’t slow down, though, even when Christine began to puff. The shops gave way to houses with front gardens enclosed by low walls. Fingal Street narrowed and they dodged around cars parked half on the street and half on the pavement. They crossed Gordon Street and then Ross. Christine fell behind and Janet didn’t wait. When she reached Argyll Terrace, she turned right, and her feet carried her past two houses she barely glanced at. She stopped at the third house—a traditional stone detached cottage with four rooms down and two up—the house she and Curtis had been so tickled to own. Their house.
Standing in front of it now, she finally admitted to herself why she hadn’t pressured Jess about the delays keeping her from moving in. She’d been uneasy because she didn’t know how she’d feel when she saw the house or when she stepped inside. And she’d been reluctant to find out. She and Curtis and the children had been happy here. She’d thought they were happy. And when their son, Allen, married a young woman from Inversgail and moved to Scotland, to Edinburgh, and then with their retirements approaching, she’d expected to spend more time in this house. Not no more time.
The two of them, together, blessed and happy.
She stared at the house, lips pressed tight. Stared at the windows Curtis was so proud of reglazing with the antique glass he’d spent a summer searching for. Stared at the door knocker, a brass wolf’s head she’d found in a shop in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. Curtis hadn’t liked the knocker, but he’d secretly bought it and put it up for her birthday. It had been a wonderful surprise, and she was surprised now at how angry the wolf’s head and the reglazed windows made her. Because she was soft. Soft and weepy over the loss of the life she’d been so sure she was meant to live.
“It looks empty,” Christine said, coming up beside her. “No curtains at the windows. It’s a charmer, though, and always has been. I can’t believe you haven’t at least walked past it yet. To see if there’s any garden left, if nothing else.” She stretched her back, sore from wrestling the weeds out of her parents’ neglected garden. Then, before Janet realized what she was doing, Christine walked up the flagged front path.
“Christine!” Janet hissed.
“Don’t worry. I won’t knock.”
“All right—”
“I’ll ring.”
Janet rushed after her. She was too late. Christine had pressed the bell. When no one answered, Janet let her breath out. But Christine didn’t give up. She pressed the bell harder, as if that would make it ring louder and bring someone running. It didn’t.
In the silence after Christine took her finger from the bell, Janet imagined she heard her children’s giggles on the other side of the closed door . . . heard the rustle of intimate whispers as Curtis slipped into bed in their room under the rafters . . . heard the clink of morning coffee cups on the small covered deck they’d built outside the back door so they could see the harbor and islands and watch for approaching storms. She heard Curtis teasing that she’d never been good at reading weather signs. She looked the brass wolf in the eyes and felt her anger shift.
She lifted the heavy ring the wolf held in its mouth, and brought it down—bang. She was the one in control. She was the strong one— bang. She was the one who’d figured out how she could make this move and make the bookshop work—bang. This was her life now. This was her house—bang. And Curtis could go—bang. She let the ring go. It fell with a last hollow thunk, and she stroked the wolf between its ears.
“No one’s coming because the place is empty,” Christine said. “But if the renters have moved out, why can’t you move in? You’ve got your keys, haven’t you? Let’s go in.”
“Not until I know they’re truly gone.”
“Then let’s look in the windows.”
“At the back,” Janet said, and she led the way around the house.
“Act casual, though,” Christine said. “If neighbors see us, we want to look like we’re supposed to be here.”
“I am supposed to be here.”
“That’s the spirit.”
The small backyard—back garden, Janet reminded herself—sloped down to meet that of the house below on Ross Street. The renters had terraced the slope with three raised beds bordered by rounded lumps of granite. Curtis’s ugly garden shed, which she’d never liked—her ugly garden shed—stood in a corner at the bottom of the garden. When he’d told her he bought a shed, she’d pictured something charming, one that looked as though a writer could turn it into a tiny retreat, as though Alexander McCall Smith might emerge from it and ask for a cup of tea. What Curtis bought was an aluminum-clad box with a door. When she got the chance, that thing would be replaced.
Christine nudged Janet. “Lettuce is bolting,” she said quietly.
Janet nodded. “Maybe the renters did, too?”
“Why do I have the urge to slink low to the ground like Rab MacGregor or one of his cats? We made enough hullabaloo at the front door to scare anyone away.”
“You have good instincts,” Janet whispered in her ear. “We won’t slink, in case neighbors are watching, but let’s g
o carefully. Let’s stay off the deck, for now, to avoid creaky boards. Head for the kitchen window on the corner.”
They walked to the mullioned window, appearing about as cool and casual, Janet knew, as a pair of amateur peeping Toms.
They lost that little bit of cool when they looked through the window.
“There are no words,” Janet said faintly.
3
From what they could see, the kitchen was covered in garbage. The window looked in over the sink—the sink that was hidden under a mound of papers and food wrappers. Everywhere else there were cans, wads of used paper towels, juice bottles, beer bottles, crusts, rinds, coffee grounds, cores and peelings, and things they couldn’t or wouldn’t want to identify.
“Is that a boot on the stove?” Christine asked. “And shouldn’t I be able to see the floor? Where did it all come from?”
“They couldn’t have been living this way,” Janet said. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”
“It’s a dump.”
“It’s a disaster.”
“I’m so sorry, Janet.”
They stood side by side, hands cupped to the window, silent and staring. Until Janet saw movement.
“Holy—” She grabbed Christine’s arm. Someone was in the kitchen. She was sure of it. Below the counter. Tossing more garbage into the middle of the room. “Did you see that?” she whispered. “What should we do?”
“Get away from here and call the police,” Christine said through gritted teeth while trying to pry Janet’s fingers from her arm. Before she could get the fingers loose, Janet curled her other hand into a fist and rapped on the window.
Someone screamed.
Christine grabbed Janet’s rapping hand and dragged her below the window. “Are you crazy?”
“I’m crazy? You’re crazy! You scared the heliotrope out of me, screaming like that.”
“I didn’t scream,” Christine said. “I never scream. Have you ever heard me scream?”
They stared at each other, then turned to look up toward the window, and then looked back at each other. Christine pulled her cell phone from her purse.
“Wait,” Janet whispered, putting a hand over the phone. “Why now?”
“Because when there’s a screaming lunatic trashing your house it’s the perfect time to call the police.”
“No—”
Christine yanked the phone away.
“I mean why scream now?” Janet asked “We didn’t hear screams when we rang the bell and knocked.”
“Still the perfect time. Dialing nine-nine-nine. Now.” Christine turned away so Janet couldn’t stop her. That also meant she didn’t see Janet rise to peek in the window again, so she wasn’t expecting or prepared for Janet’s scream. “Wha—” Christine’s phone flew from her ear and smacked the rock wall of the house.
“Jess?” Janet peered at the woman frozen on the other side of the glass. “What on earth are you doing?”
Jess remained frozen.
Janet glanced at the hand she’d slapped to her chest—a reaction as effective as closing a barn door, she realized. Her heart had already leaped out and flown over her shoulder like Christine’s poor phone. And poor Jess—she looked like she was in shock. Janet took a calming breath, smiled, and called through the glass, “Why don’t you open the back door, Jess? We’ll come in and help.”
“Help her do what?” Christine asked as they waited to see if Jess would unlock the door that opened onto the deck. “How do we know she isn’t going to attack us with a rancid leg of lamb?”
“We don’t. Hang on.” Janet ran to the first raised garden bed and came back with a fist-sized knob of granite from the border.
“And if she has a gun?” Christine asked.
“I don’t have a gun,” said a dull voice from the door.
“Hello, Jess,” Janet said. “I’ve brought Christine to see the house. That’s all right, isn’t it?”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jess,” Christine said to the worn-looking woman framed in the doorway. “May we come in? We rang the bell and knocked, but maybe you didn’t hear us.”
Jess pushed lank hair from her forehead with the back of her hand, then let the hand drop to her side. “Bring the rock if it makes you feel safer.”
She turned away without waiting to see if Janet kept the rock. Christine raised her eyebrows at Janet. Janet looked at the granite in her hand and then tucked it into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie.
“I do feel safer,” she whispered to Christine. “Also like a bit of a fool.”
“And the fool is welcome to go in first.” Christine waved Janet ahead of her, but Janet had a hard time making her feet move toward the door.
“Did you get through to the police?”
“Not before my phone ejected. I could call now, on yours.”
“Let’s hear what Jess says first.”
Several boards squeaked when they crossed the deck, as Janet had predicted they would. Although it was more of a creak than a squeak, she thought, and sounded more like a greeting than a comment or complaint. Christine was right about the house being a charmer. The ancient granite of its blocks and its newer hardwood boards were much too stiff-upper-lip to complain and too stoic to make comments. Appreciating that restraint, Janet returned the favor and didn’t mutter to the old church pew they used for a bench that it needed refinishing, or to the back door that it could use a new coat of paint.
The faded and peeling door opened into an entryway with doors to the kitchen and the family room. As soon as she stepped inside, Janet was hit by the smell. She immediately closed her eyes, as though that would protect them and her nose from the assault. She wished she’d taken a gulp of fresh air first, and started to back out, but Christine was close behind, prodding her in the spine.
“Huh,” Christine said in her ear. “Odder and odder. There’s no rubbish on the floor here, and look at the lounge.”
Janet’s eyes opened and she crossed the small space to the family room door. There were the tired, comfortable chairs and sofa, the mismatched bookcases and cupboards, the fireplace—the room where she, Curtis, and the children had spent so many rainy afternoons reading, working puzzles, knitting, and drinking pots of tea—and all free of garbage. Except for the pervasive smell, the room appeared to be spotless.
“I wonder what the rest of the place looks like,” Christine said.
“It’s only in here,” Jess’s flat voice said from the kitchen. “Like a bomb went off in here, but it’s nowhere else.”
Janet wrapped her hand around the rock in her kangaroo pouch and went to the kitchen door. She stopped there, brought up short by the smell and by the sheer magnitude of the mess. As though someone had upended ten bags of garbage to cover every available surface. Large bags. Maybe closer to twenty bags. There was nowhere to walk without stepping in it or on it—whatever “it” turned out to be. Janet looked over her shoulder at the family room—familiar, cozy, normal. Then she turned back to stare at the kitchen—an alien landscape with Jess standing with one foot in a pizza box, garbage bag hanging from her hand, shoulders defeated, chin low, sniffling.
“So, Jess,” Christine said.
Jess looked up.
“Is your bin bag half empty or half full?”
The anguished cry from Jess was too much for Janet. She waded through the sea of trash to the sobbing woman, took her arm, and pulled her out of the kitchen, through the entryway, and out the back door. She sat Jess down on the pew. She sat on one side of Jess, and Christine sat on the other and passed her a packet of tissues.
“I don’t know how long it’s been like this,” Jess finally said after blowing her nose.
“A couple of days, at least, judging by the smell,” Janet said.
“It’s ripe,” Christine agreed. “Ripe and smells like tripe.”
“And I can’t believe you think I might have done it. Or that it’s happened again.”
“What?”
Janet was su
re their combined shouts would put Jess back over the edge into uncontrollable tears. She cringed in anticipation but sat ready to administer pats to shoulders and hands as needed. She wasn’t quite ready for wet, shuddering hugs—and she felt bad about that. And she definitely wasn’t ready for when Jess stood up and addressed them.
“The situation is under control.” Jess looked each of them in the eyes. “Fully. Janet, if you’d kept your word about giving me two more days, and hadn’t come around to snoop, I guarantee you wouldn’t have known anything was ever amiss.”
“Amiss,” Janet echoed faintly.
“And I don’t want anyone else to know anything about this,” Jess said, “so if you’ll excuse me.” She looked at each of them again, then went back into the cottage and closed the door, leaving Janet and Christine staring after her.
“Call the police now?” Christine asked.
“Not yet.” Janet went to the door. It wasn’t locked. She opened it.
Jess, arms crossed, appeared to be waiting for them.
“Jess—”
“Come in. Close the door. Really, I can’t let this get out.”
“You could at least open the windows,” Christine said, “and let the smell out. It’s horrible.”
“No! No,” Jess said. “When I get it cleaned up, the smell will go away. This will all go away.”
“Hire someone to help,” Janet said. “I’ll hire someone.”
“I did,” Jess said. “Believe me, I did. I hired a service from Fort William. I waited here for them, for hours, and then they phoned to cancel. So I phoned Rab MacGregor. He’s good and I thought I could trust him, especially if I paid him enough to keep quiet. He backed out this morning. Phoned to say he had a ‘subsequent commitment.’ His words exactly. I doubt he even knows what ‘subsequent’ means. So I came to do it myself and found more rubbish than ever.”
“Is that why Rab bolted when he saw us?” Christine asked. “He’s not a rabbit. He’s a weasel.”