by Неизвестный
I considered what she’d told me. “You’re not stupid for telling the truth,” I said. “When you talk to the police, just be honest.”
Her body tensed, and she used her feet to push herself away from me.
“Why did you throw that thing at me?” She inched toward the room’s only exit.
I held out my palms to show her I was unarmed. “When you accused me of following you, I took it the wrong way. I guess you were talking about how you just saw me yesterday, at the pub, and again, today.”
She nodded. “It was a stupid joke.” She buried her face in her palms. “I’ll never fit in here, will I?”
I wanted to reassure the crying girl that she would fit in fine, but I wasn’t exactly one to talk.
“Everything is so messed up,” she groaned.
Her tears were getting to me, but I hadn’t forgotten Tony’s warning. This girl was hiding something, or hiding from someone.
I asked, “Why are you here? Why Misty Falls?”
She lifted her face from her hands. “I moved here so my sister and I could get a fresh start. My mother always said good things about the town. She only lived here for a year or two. She’s gone now, but I wanted to see if it was as nice as she said.”
“And Mr. Michaels was your father?”
“I don’t have proof, but I thought I could save up for one of those DNA tests. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know. I wanted to meet him first and see what he was like.” She wrinkled her nose. “He wasn’t perfect, was he?”
“He had his good qualities,” I said. “I grew up in the house next door, so I knew him a long time.”
She looked up at me with red-rimmed, hopeful eyes. “Was he a good man?”
“He didn’t deserve what happened to him, if that’s what you mean.”
She held her arms across her chest in a protective posture. “But what was he like?”
I paused to consider how to best frame what I knew about the deceased man, to leave his living descendant with the best of him.
“He loved books,” I said. “He tried to get the neighborhood kids interested in reading.”
The corners of her mouth twitched up. “That’s nice,” she said. “What else?”
I remembered running a lemonade stand on the sidewalk and Mr. Murray asking questions. My sister and I thought he was going to be his usual ornery self and make us move so we weren’t in front of his house, but he didn’t. He brought us a calculator and paper and showed us why we weren’t charging enough to cover our expenses. He helped us make a new sign and then guilted several neighbors into buying lemonade from us.
I told Harper the whole story, including more details as they came to me. By the end, her eyes were dried and she was smiling.
“That’s a cute story,” she said.
“I never realized it before now, but when he showed me how to figure out a profit margin, something clicked in my head. Mr. Michaels was the first person to get me interested in business.”
“He was a good man,” she said.
Now that I was looking for it, I could see the family resemblance. There was something in the tilt of her nose and the cool blue of her eyes.
“You do look a bit like him,” I said.
She gave me a weak smile. “My father, the town’s kleptomaniac.” She looked off into the distance. “Could be worse, though. I’ve got a fifteen-year-old half-sister who moved here with me, mainly to get away from her father and other jerks.”
“Sorry to hear that.” I got to my feet, dusted myself off, and helped her up. She groaned and rubbed her solar plexus, where I’d hit her with the jug. “And sorry again for knocking you down,” I said.
She went to the door and stopped, her back to me. “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” she said softly.
I replied, “Can I ask you one more thing? Why were you at the pawn shop today?”
“One time at the restaurant, I said something about selling some jewelry. Mr. Michaels recommended that particular shop. He said the owner was an old friend.” She gave me a sad look over her shoulder. “The jewelry is junk, but I wanted to talk to the owner, to get some closure or something.”
“Did Mr. Michaels know who you were?” I asked.
She held my gaze. “One time he told me I reminded him of someone special.”
“That’s something,” I said.
She gave me a wistful smile. “I like to think he’s smiling down on me now and that he’s glad we met.”
“That’s a really nice image.”
She pulled open the door and slipped out, leaving me alone in the laundry room. I leaned into the washing machine, picked up the fallen hammer, and returned it to the tool box, as per the posted sign.
The door opened again, so I armed myself and whipped around.
“Just me,” she said, holding her arms up in a defensive position.
“Sorry.” I put the laundry detergent down.
She said, “I wanted to let you know I’m going to call the police and try to help them with the case. I don’t know if it will do any good, but I’ll tell them which people Murray used to complain about when he was having his lunch.”
“Was my father one of those people? His name is Finnegan Day.”
Recognition flashed across her face. “I’ll leave your father out,” she said. “But I will tell the police about all the fights he had with the owner of that costume shop.”
“Great idea,” I said, not letting on that it wouldn’t do much good, as Leo Jenkins had been cleared as a suspect.
Chapter 34
“Wow. You folded everything,” Jessica said when I returned with the laundry. “Is that what took you so long? I thought you’d gotten lost.”
“I love folding hot laundry,” I said, which was true.
We got back to watching our spy movie, and for the rest of the evening, I didn’t mention how I’d hurled a year’s worth of liquid detergent at her neighbor. If Harper was on the run from someone or something, it wasn’t my secret to share.
By ten o’clock, we’d run low on pizza and girl talk, so I thanked Jessica for the fun evening and drove home.
At the duplex, Logan’s side was brightly lit.
I sat in my idling car and watched as he walked by the living room window, shirtless. He walked up to the window and glanced left and right, first at the snow-covered lawn and then at the cloudless night sky. He stretched, rubbing his nice-looking stomach.
During the drive home, I’d been thinking about the spies in the movie we’d watched. Even while bullets were flying, the man and woman kept flirting with each other, their romance progressing. Some of the scenes had been so corny, but Jessica and I had both swooned, enjoying every minute of it.
Now that I was single again, the romance aspects of movies meant more to me. The romantic gestures weren’t just unbelievable things I’d roll my eyes at. The corny moments now seemed like hopeful possibilities, actual things that could happen to me. My former fiancé would never have looked into my eyes and said the perfect line, let alone swept me up into his arms with perfect time, but now my future was wide open.
And Logan’s curtains were wide open. Why? And why was he always walking around with no shirt? Was he putting on a show on purpose?
Another car drove down the street, slowing as it passed my vehicle. I leaned over and pretended to be digging through my purse. The other car stopped next to my car. I straightened up and turned to look out the driver’s side.
Officer Peggy Wiggles waved back and signaled for me to lower my window.
She called over, “Do you normally park on the street? I would imagine you’d park up there, on the driveway.”
“I like to mix it up,” I said. “How about you? Any breaks in the case?”
“You know I shouldn’t discuss that with you.” She glanced down at a screen that glowed blue on her face.
“Are you going to a call in this area?” I asked.
“No,” she answered without looking up. “J
ust checking on your residence, as per Milano’s request.”
“I saw Tony today,” I said. “We had lunch.”
She looked curious but didn’t press for details. I told her anyway, including my new information about the girl I was still calling Harper.
“You guys should run a DNA test,” I said. “Harper would probably want to know for sure, and it would back up her story.”
“I’ll pass that along to Officer Milano,” she said, glancing past me at the house. “Would you like me to walk you to your front door and check the residence?”
“Am I in danger?” I asked.
She took her time before answering, “It never hurts to be careful.”
“Officer Wiggles, is there anything in particular I should be careful about? Have you got any new suspects, or information from the coroner?”
“Sleeping pills,” she said. “Stormy, please keep this under your hat. The toxicology report suggests that somebody drugged Murray Michaels then strangled him. I’m only telling you this so you can be aware of what you’re eating or drinking.”
I took a deep breath as the news washed over me like a bucket of ice water.
“If he was drugged first, it was pre-meditated,” I said. “That’s cold.”
She guffawed. “Very cold.”
She had her arm sticking out of the window and patted the side of the cruiser with a metallic whack.
“Well, have a good night,” she said cheerily.
“You, too. Be careful out there.”
“I have a gun,” she said, and she drove off.
After she left, I sat in my car for a long time, thinking about how Murray Michaels had lived his life. Someone had despised him enough to plan his murder. Things might have turned out different for him if he’d made more of an effort to connect with people.
Along with my memory of him helping me with the lemonade stand came more memories, each coaxing out another, like the string of silk scarves coming from a magician’s top hat.
Mr. Michaels had confiscated toys for crossing over his property line, but he’d also made a show of generosity once a year, returning the items in a cardboard box left on the porch, no note or explanation. When it snowed, he’d shovel the walkway in front of his house, skip ours, but then shovel in front of the homes of some of the widows on the street.
Sure, he’d argued with my father over the years, but only because he loved a good debate. Talking was his entertainment, but it had to be deeper than small talk. He wasn’t content to stand around and muse about the weather when there was business, politics, and even religion.
If he hadn’t gotten himself killed, we might have had some lively discussions now that I was back in town. He’d always seemed a bit of an outsider, like me.
It was easy to be friendly to people who were kind and polite all the time, but most people had flaws. He couldn’t see past the flaws of others, so they wouldn’t look past his.
I wondered, if I could work on myself in general, work on building bridges with people who weren’t so perfect and easy to love, would that help me in life? I didn’t want to end up cranky and alone, my death unnoticed for weeks. And I didn’t want to start another romantic relationship only to hit the same obstacles again.
So, with the best of intentions in my heart, combined with some cowardice about facing my shirtless tenant, I put the car in gear and drove to my father’s house to offer emotional support to Pam.
Or to let her make fun of my hair.
Whatever would make her feel better.
Chapter 35
For the third morning in a row, I awoke to a raspy tongue on my forehead.
“Jeffrey, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think we should start seeing other people.”
He gave me an offended look, which only got worse when I turned him around to check his surgery site. He scampered off with the remainder of his dignity, his long gray tail swooshing in question marks.
I got dressed, brushed my teeth in the upstairs powder room, and went down to see what Pam was burning in the kitchen. We hadn’t spoken the night before. She’d turned off the TV and gone to bed as soon as I’d arrived, leaving a still-hot cup of tea on the coffee table in her haste. I didn’t take it too personally. She’d probably heard about my trip to Portland and suspected I knew about the breakup.
Pam let out a shriek when I walked into the kitchen. She held her hand over her heart. “I forgot you were here,” she said. “I heard the floor creak, and I thought for sure it was a big man with a beard, coming to strangle me.”
“Not on my watch,” I said with dramatic flair. “I’ll protect you, Pam.”
She stared at me for several seconds before letting out the first genuine-sounding laugh I’d ever heard pass through her lips.
“Good one,” she said. “Coffee’s on.”
I was already helping myself. “Dad looks good,” I said. “I made the drive to see him yesterday. He says they might even spring him as soon as tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I’d better get ready.” She continued with what she’d been doing, which was rinsing off dark leaves of curly kale before adding them to a light-colored mixture already in the blender.
“Do you mean ready with a nice dinner?” I had to choose my words carefully, or she’d know that I knew about the breakup. Part of me wanted to get the messy emotional stuff over with quickly and then offer to help her pack. In the bright light of the morning, my soft-hearted feelings from the night before seemed sappy and foolish. By the way she was looking at my hair, I imagined she was busy thinking up new insults. Why did I think being nice to her would do me good?
She turned on the blender, ignoring my question. I regretted promising my father that I’d go easy on her.
I took a seat at the table and looked around the kitchen, mentally noting which items were unfamiliar and could be tossed into a cardboard box as soon as I got the go-ahead. Pam finished blending the green smoothie and offered me half. The brackish concoction looked like the exact opposite of something I’d want half of.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m trying to cut back on pond scum.”
She joined me at the table, giving me a stern look as she sipped the green drink and licked her lips dramatically. “I’m not surprised you don’t have a taste for healthy foods,” she said. “Growing up the way you did, with no woman in the house, you might as well have been raised by wolves.”
I sipped my coffee and licked my lips, mimicking her. “We did have that wolf we called Nanny.”
“It’s a miracle you made it to adulthood.”
I crossed my arms. “Who are you calling an adult?”
She rolled her eyes. “And that hair of yours! Tell me you didn’t pay good money for that accident.”
“Pam, how can you even say that? Get a mirror. You and I have the exact same haircut.”
She shook her head. “It’s not the same. Mine is tapered, and I have normal hair. Yours is curly, or wavy, or kinky, or something. It’s not normal.”
I looked away. “It must have been all the wolf milk I was nursed on, while my father was out working to support his family.”
“He didn’t have to do it alone,” she said. “I knew him back then, and he could have had anyone. He should have gotten married and made a proper home for you two girls, but he didn’t put your needs ahead of his own, his own selfish desires.”
Through gritted teeth, I said, “We turned out just fine, thank you.”
She gave me a patronizing look. “Is that so?”
The phone rang, and she jumped up to get it. Through the rushing in my ears, I heard her repeat a doctor’s name. I listened, wondering if it was news about my father. She lowered her voice and left the kitchen with the cordless phone.
Once I’d simmered down and finished my coffee, I followed her into the living room, where she was pacing at the window and giving brief yes and no answers on the phone. I picked up her sketchpad from a side table, and wrote out a question: Is that about D
ad?
She glanced at the note, shook her head, and snatched the sketchpad out of my hands. Still murmuring brief answers, she left for the main floor bathroom and closed the door behind her. I listened, curious about her phone call, but her voice was too low.
Jeffrey wove his way around my legs before jumping on the living room’s window sill. He flicked his tail and then turned to watch the little winter birds forage for frozen berries in the front hedge. His tail swished as he chattered at the delicious-looking birds as if they were the cat equivalent of french fries and ketchup.
I sat on the couch for a moment and watched him watching the birds. Time passed. Watching Jeffrey felt very restful, the exact opposite of trying to have a conversation with Pam.
She seemed to be finished her phone call but hadn’t emerged from the bathroom yet.
I tapped on the door. “Pam, is everything okay in there?”
She answered, “Did you want to use the shower?”
“No, thanks. I guess I’ll be on my way. I’ve got some errands to do.”
“Errands?” she echoed. “Where are you going?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” I said to the closed door. “I bought back some old cufflinks from a pawn shop where Murray Michaels was selling things he’d picked up. They belong to Leo Jenkins, so I’m going to do a good deed and return them to him today.”
She cracked open the door and looked me up and down. “That’s awfully kind of you,” she said. “How did you know where to find the cufflinks?”
I waggled my eyebrows. “I have my ways.”
“What else was he selling? Did you happen to see a scarab-shaped broach?”
“Just a panther,” I said.
She sniffed with annoyance. “Never mind. I probably lost it in the street when I was getting out of my car. You remember my scarab. I always wore it on my wool jacket.”