See No Evil

by Gayle Roper

  I’d already sewn together tiny strips of varying shades of dark navy for the underside of the wave. They’d be placed on an angle to create the feel of the water being pulled toward its breaking point. For the rush of sleek water topside I’d begun sewing a random pattern of small squares of glossy navy satin intermingled with tiny white and pale yellow pieces, the latter to depict the sun jewels dancing on the water.

  I hadn’t begun to sew the foam of the breaking wave yet. I still played mentally with the effect of everything from quilted cotton or eyelet for texture to cotton batting for a three dimensional effect. Maybe some lace for the foam at the very crest where it began to cream. Maybe I’d use multiple fabrics to convey the wave breaking on the diagonal. This trip I needed to get a better sense of the subtle shades of the creaming wave. Whites, creams, pale aquas, pale lavenders?

  My fingers itched to work on this project some more, but I turned my back on the waiting fabric. I would be strong. I would do my work. Gray was depending on me. Meg and Lucy were waiting for me.

  Twenty minutes later, using my key, I let us into the model. I had half expected to see yellow crime scene tape lapping this lot, just as it did the Ryders’ where it hung limp under the afternoon sun. Fortunately for Gray, the model’s exterior looked just as it had when we left the other night, lovely and welcoming. I went inside, wondering what I’d find there.

  I was still in the front hall when I saw a square drawn on the living room ceiling, marking the bullet hole there. Lucy and Meg stared open-mouthed.

  “That sure makes it real,” Meg finally said. She slung an arm over my shoulder. “Thank God he missed.”

  We stared at the bullet hole a few moments more. Would the police be coming back to cut the square of ceiling out? Or were pictures of the hole enough? Would Gray—or one of his workmen—be allowed to merely spackle the hole over and repaint that little spot, or would he end up with a hole four inches by four inches to fill? And how soon would he be allowed to repair whatever the police left him?

  We knew we weren’t in the house alone by the little noises coming from the living room. It wasn’t the rug guys. I could see the plush green floor covering from here, so they’d come and gone. We peeked around the corner and found a glazier on a stepladder replacing the window pane that had the bullet hole in it.

  He glanced at us over his shoulder. “Hi, ladies.” He grinned, eyes settling on Meg. “Well, well. The day is definitely looking up.”

  Meg made believe she didn’t understand his comment. She looked around the room as if he wasn’t there. “How come you got a purple sofa?”

  “It’s aubergine,” I said.

  “Looks purple to me, too,” the glazier agreed.

  I managed not to snarl.

  “Are you putting glass in or taking it out?” Lucy asked him.

  “The cops took this one pane, and I’m replacing it,” he said in a voice filled with importance. “I don’t know why they took just this pane but I’m glad to help out. I mean, a lady died over there. Murdered!” He gestured toward the Ryders’, then looked bemused. “I just don’t know what a pane of glass in the model house has to do with anything.”

  “They must know what they’re doing,” I said.

  “Ya think?”

  “I think.”

  We dumped my pillows, and I gestured to the girls to follow me. We went upstairs and down the hall to the master bedroom suite.

  “Wow.” Lucy sounded awed. “What a great room!”

  “The bedside table’s gone.” I pointed to the empty space beside the big poster bed with the blue toile quilt and hangings, all of which I’d sewn. “That’s what the bullet lodged in.”

  The pewter bedside lamp with its colorful Tiffany shade lay tucked among the bed’s many pillows, all of which I’d also made. All were of the blue toile fabric except one, a small envelope pillow in blood red with one white button.

  Polly, the interior designer, had had me make curtains with the toile fabric, too. I’d also covered the top half of the walls with it, stretching it over thin cotton batting from the ceiling to the off-white wainscoting. The lower wall was painted the blue of the print. The rug was that ever-practical shade, off-white. Spectacular to look at, I had to admit, but I hoped Polly had lots of clear plastic runners to put down for rainy days.

  We went back downstairs, and I called Polly. “You need another night table in the master bedroom. The police confiscated one.”

  “What? Why? Where will I ever find another before Saturday?”

  “If anyone can do it, Polly, you can.”

  In the living room, the new green rug was a wonderful match for the greens in Tuscan Vine. Polly had been absolutely right to order the new shade. After the glazier climbed down from his ladder, folded it, and disappeared with a lingering look at Meg who studiously ignored him, I opened the sturdy stepladder Gray had brought me the other night. With Lucy’s help, I finished hanging the back window, all the while eyeing Ryders’ back door as if I expected the man in the red shirt to appear there again.

  The final window finished, I propped my pillows artistically on the sofa and chairs, taking care not to squash their hyper-expensive fringe. My favorite fringe had little jade monkeys hanging amidst the eggplant and ecru tassels. Real jade, unique and very lovely if you didn’t mind little bumps in your back when you leaned against it.

  While I draped the circle of aubergine taffeta over the round table between the green slubbed overstuffed chairs and laid the Sinclair tartan topper, making certain it came down an equal amount all the way around, Meg and Lucy began unpinning the tacked-up window treatments. I stepped back and looked critically at the room. When Polly got finished adding the decorator items, all too large to be carted off by light-fingered, potential Freedom’s Chase homeowners, it would look spectacular.

  I dropped to my knees and began removing pins, too. I worked at the windows across the front, making certain the treatments draped just so. While I fiddled with the fabric on the last window, Lucy took pictures of the room with my digital camera.

  “I still think you should be in them,” she said. “People in pictures add life.”

  “It’s to sell my work, not me, to future clients.”

  The front doorbell rang. I glanced at my watch. Almost four-fifteen. I’d called Gray to tell him we were going to be at the model and that we were going to get a dog. Maybe he’d decided to come with us. Of course, as he reminded me, it would mean leaving the job site early, apparently an unpardonable sin.

  “Hey.” Lucy lowered the camera and grinned at me. “Ed’s here.”

  I dropped the curtain I was working on and peeked discreetly out the window, telling myself I wasn’t really hoping, hoping it was him. After all, we girls could pick out a dog just fine by ourselves.

  There was nothing in sight but my Caravan and a black car a couple of doors down. “I don’t see his truck.” I told myself I was not disappointed.

  “Then it’s someone interested in buying a house. Maybe you can sell one and really impress Ed.”

  “Right.” I walked to the front door and opened it. A man with black hair combed straight back stood on the porch. He wore a black T-shirt and black jeans with one hand slipped into a pocket. If the black car was his, he sure liked black.

  “Hi,” he said, a pleasant smile warming his face. “I was wondering if I could come in and take a look around. The wife and I are moving to Amhearst in a few weeks, business transfer, you know, and I was wondering about this development. I thought that if I could take a quick look, I could tell Rhonda about it when I got home.”

  I hesitated. None of the Realtors who would be working out of the converted garage were here. “The model’s not officially open until Saturday.”

  “But I won’t be here Saturday.” He gave me that charming smile again.

  “I guess it would be all right, Mr.—?” Hesitantly I stepped back.

  He didn’t give his name but stepped forward, his hand going to the smal
l of his back. His smile remained in place, but it suddenly seemed more feral than charming.

  “Oh, let him in, Anna.” Lucy stepped into the hall, waving her arm at him. “Come on in. The place is gorgeous. You’ll love it, and so will Rhonda.”

  Meg peered into the hall. “Lucy’s right. You’ll love it.”

  The man paused, startled by my housemates’ appearance.

  “I’ll even take your picture.” Lucy raised my digital and aimed it at him. “The first visitor to the model home.” She glanced at me. “Ed’ll love it.”

  The man in black took a quick step back. His hand came up to brush his upper lip. He looked disconcerted. “Well, I’ve got to go.” He turned just as the camera flashed. He all but ran down the walk, almost colliding with Gray who was walking up it. His silver pickup was parked behind my Caravan.

  “I take it you don’t want to look around after all?” I called after the retreating man.

  “Weird.” As usual, Meg hit it succinctly.

  “Rats!” Lucy looked at the camera. “It takes so long for these things to actually take the picture that I missed him. Well, I didn’t actually miss him. It’s just not good.”

  “Who was that?” Gray asked as he came into the hall.

  “Some guy who said he wanted to see the model, then changed his mind.” I started to close the door, wanting to shut out the moist August heat.

  “Wait!” Lucy stepped out on the porch and took a picture of the strange man as he opened the door of the black car parked down the street. “This is for you, Ed, so you can see your first almost-customer.” She looked at the viewfinder and grinned. “Got him.” She held the camera out to Gray. “Just don’t hire Anna to sell these mansions. He ran as soon as she asked him in.”

  “But she sews well, so we forgive her a lot,” Meg said. “Hi, Gray. I’m Meg.”

  “Let’s see what you got, Lucy.” I peered at the camera.

  She held it out, and I stared at the profile of the man in black as he bent to enter his car. His shirt was neatly tucked in except at the small of his back where it hung loosely. My blood chilled. “Show me the other picture.”

  “It’s no good either. I’m going to erase both.” Lucy put her finger on the delete button.

  “No!” I grabbed the camera.

  Lucy jumped. “Anna!”

  I flicked the back button and stared at the first picture Lucy’d taken. The man in black had his hand over half his face, and he’d been turning away when the shutter clicked. Once again his profile, at least the top half of it, was clear.

  I threw the door open and ran onto the porch. The black Taurus was gone.

  Lucy and Meg came onto the porch and stood beside me.

  “Anna?” Meg looked at me with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  My hand shook as I held out the camera. I pointed to the image visible in its little square. “It’s him. I’d recognize that profile anywhere.”

  NINE

  “It’s him,” I repeated. My mouth was so dry I could hardly get the words out.

  Gray looked over my shoulder at the picture. “You mean from the other night?”

  “Him?” Lucy squeaked. “As in the bad guy?”

  I nodded.

  “We invited him in!” Lucy was appalled.

  “How do you know?” Meg the ever practical asked. “He doesn’t have blond hair or a mustache.”

  “No, he doesn’t, but he has the nose.” I touched my own nose, then pointed to the feature in question in the pictures. “A nose like his is hard to disguise. You can make a small one bigger, a straight one look crooked, but a hooked nose like his is an outstanding physical characteristic.”

  Meg nodded calmly. “Your artist’s eye.”

  “Oh, Anna! What if we hadn’t come with you!” Even Lucy’s curls seemed to sag at the thought, but she perked right back up. “A German shepherd, and you keep him with you like a Seeing Eye dog, only he’s a Seeing Gun dog. Just no pit bulls. They scare me, and I want to be able to hug the mug without worrying about losing some important body part.”

  “Tipsy will never let you near whoever we get,” Meg told Lucy as she quietly gave my hand a comforting squeeze.

  “He’ll just have to learn to share.” Lucy had the door open and was halfway across the porch. “Come on. To the pound.”

  I looked at Gray. “He put his hand to the small of his back just before Lucy came into the hall.”

  His eyes widened; he knew exactly what I meant. He pulled me close in a comforting hug. “Don’t think about it.” He gave me a couple of awkward pats on the back like a new father burping the baby for the first time. “Which is a foolish piece of advice if ever I gave one.”

  I laughed in spite of the fact that I was shaking in reaction—to the man in black, not Gray, though come to think of it, I was probably reacting to Gray too. I pulled out of his comforting, too comforting hold. “We’ve got to call Sergeant Poole.”

  Five minutes later, unable to get hold of the sergeant, I hung up. “You’re not going to believe this, but he and Officer Schumann are out of town at a special, daylong class on search and seizure being given at the state police academy. They aren’t due back until about midnight.”

  “Is someone else coming?” Lucy asked.

  I shook my head. “They’re working on very short staff, but the dispatcher’s going to report the incident to the state police who will respond as soon as they can.”

  “What does ‘as soon as they can’ mean?” Lucy asked.

  I shrugged. “I told them we were leaving here and would be at home shortly. They’ll send the officers there. In the meantime they want me to e-mail the pictures so Sergeant Poole will have access to them first thing tomorrow.”

  Lucy’s eyes went big. “Then we’re all in danger tonight, aren’t we? Because we all saw him.” She shivered. “I even took his picture. Twice.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry, Lucy.” Gray indicated her, Meg and himself. “We three can’t place him at the scene of the crime. Only Anna can do that.”

  “Whew!” Lucy’s shoulders slumped with relief. Then she straightened, a funny look on her face. “Not that I want you to be in danger either, Anna.”

  “I know what you mean,” I assured her. “Now let’s go get us a dog.”

  We left the model, locking it behind us.

  “Want to ride with us in the Caravan?” I asked Gray.

  Gray eyed his pickup. “How about if I follow?”

  He probably thought I hadn’t noticed him checking his cell while I was talking to the police or seen him pull his PDA out a couple of times. He was probably dying to return calls and do whatever it was his PDA told him to do.

  “Fine.” I got in the Caravan with Lucy and Meg, and he got into his pickup.

  “You could have sent us home and gone with Ed,” Lucy said.

  “What? No way. This is going to be your dog, too. You’ve got the right to help pick him.”

  “We wouldn’t have minded, would we, Meg?”

  “Not at all. First things first.”

  “Look, guys, not that I don’t appreciate you trying to help along my non-romance, but I want you to remember two things. One, I think it’s in very bad taste to drop your girlfriends for some guy.”

  “You wouldn’t be dropping us,” Lucy said earnestly. “We’d be waiting to suck all the dirt from you when you got home.”

  Meg leaned forward from the back seat as far as her seatbelt would allow. “Yeah, sort of like gossip vacuum cleaners.”

  I had to laugh. “What I mean is that we planned to go get a dog, the three of us girls. Just because Gray decided to come along doesn’t mean I don’t want you guys along too.”

  Lucy looked unconvinced. She turned to Meg. “Well, it’s not like the pound is romantic or anything.”

  “And my second point is that I don’t want any plotting here.” I shook my index finger as I talked. “If the Lord wants something to develop between Gray and me, it’ll happen
without any subversive machinations.”

  “Subversive machinations,” Lucy repeated as if awed. “You got no worries, girlfriend. I don’t even know what they are.”

  “Sure you do. You teach English.”

  “Yeah, but only seventh grade. They don’t learn subversive until eighth and machinations until tenth.”

  We pulled up before the Chester County SPCA and stood waiting for Gray for about five minutes while he played with his technological friends. Finally we left him and started for the door.

  “See? It’s the three of us.” I pulled it open. “Girl power.”

  His cab door flew open as we filed inside. “Hey, wait for me!”

  The dogs greeted us with a welcoming din. We moved from cage to cage, and my heart broke. Poor things, living in such small quarters. No matter how well-treated, and they were well-loved and cared for, it wasn’t like living with people who loved you and took you for walks or gave you a backyard to run around in. I wanted to take all of them home, especially the new litter of Great Danes with huge feet and floppy ears.

  Gray caught my arm and pulled me away from the puppies. “The idea is to get a big dog, remember? One that will scare people away today, not six months or a year from now.”

  Lucy was sitting on the floor holding a conversation with a white cockapoo who actually seemed to understand what was being said. The dog’s answer was immediate, staccato and somewhat shrill, and Lucy nodded solemnly. I wondered if Tipsy was about to get a brother or sister. Since Tipsy and the dog were of a size and weight, it would be an interesting struggle for dominance.

  Meg was scratching an elderly hound with graying jowls and the saddest canine face I’d ever seen. The old dog had his eyes closed in ecstasy.

  “Anna, there you go.” Gray pointed to a fawn boxer who sat with his nose pressed against the chain link fencing of his cage. He watched us with total concentration and pulled back slightly as we approached. When we stopped and spoke to him, he began to grin. His whole body vibrated from the tip of his cropped tail to the points of his cropped ears.