by Karen Pullen
“Thanks, Chris.” I felt glum at the thought of the cost. “That’s gotta be fixed.”
“Don’t let it go, Stella. The framing gets wet, you’ve got rot and the place will start to fall down.”
I hadn’t been into the attic in years. It was full of the same dusty clutter I remembered from my childhood. A spinning wheel, a seven-foot-tall chifferobe. Filthy chairs with ragged upholstery. A stack of boxes probably contained old clothes and papers going back a hundred years. Was any of this junk valuable? I’ve seen Antiques Road Show—one woman’s junk is another’s collectible. Fern wasn’t a hoarder, just couldn’t be bothered. I decided to call her at June Devon’s house, and went outside where I would get a better signal.
The phone rang and rang, and I was about to hang up when June answered. She went to get Fern. In the background I could hear a demented shrieking. When Fern came on, I asked her about the screeching noise.
“Oh, that’s June’s conure.”
“Her what?”
“Her conure. It’s like a parakeet. Right now it’s tearing up a magazine, and that makes it happy and it screams.”
“How is your stay going?”
“Okay. I’m trying to help her where I can. She has her hands full with Erwin. You know he’s disabled. About your case—did you know June’s sister-in-law is the babysitter’s mother?”
“Say again?”
“The babysitter who found the body with you yesterday? Her mother is Erwin’s sister. No love lost.”
Of course. Zoë Schubert. She’d mentioned her brother, Erwin, and that she and Nikki had moved here to be closer to him. “Family tensions?”
“Zoë’s super-rich, but she hasn’t offered a penny to help June and Erwin. And there have been so many expenses! June had to remodel their bathroom, to make it accessible, and she had to quit her job to take care of Erwin.”
“That’s cold, to ignore her brother’s needs. Guess she can’t part with her money.”
“Well, it isn’t her money, it’s her dead husband’s. She’s a parasite.” That was a classic Fernism, believing women should earn their own money. It reminded me that my hard-earned money was going to a plumber. I told her about their progress, and the leak Chris had pointed out.
Fern sighed. “I didn’t know what to do about that. Same old problem, you know.”
“Would you consider selling anything from the attic? You could probably get enough to pay the plumber, do some repairs.”
“There’s nothing much up there, old furniture and clothes. I kept thinking I’d throw stuff out but never got to it. Go ahead, do what you can.” Fern paused, then said, “I want to ask you a question. Something I’ve been thinking about.” Her voice took on a cagey note.
“What’s that?”
“What if someone took the child and then decided to return her. Would that someone be arrested?”
I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. “Fern, what the hell . . . ?”
“It’s just a question. Can you answer it, please?”
“Of course that someone would be arrested. Whatever are you saying?”
“I was thinking maybe everyone would be so glad to see the child they wouldn’t be mad. They’d be thankful.”
I took a deep breath. “Fern, you absolutely have to tell me everything you know. Right now. If you’re withholding information, that in itself is a felony. Aiding and abetting is even worse. What do you know?”
“Nothing. I just have a feeling. Oops, there’s the timer. Gotta run.”
I decided she was being imaginative and we were back at cold reality. I wanted so badly to believe the child was alive that I dampened my hope. To a dedicated pessimist, all surprises are pleasant ones. I decided not to mention this conversation to Anselmo just yet. I hated to drag Fern into the investigation without a substantive reason. Besides, Anselmo didn’t need the distraction of Fern’s “feelings.”
I made a call to a Verwood antiques dealer who said yes, she would be happy to come and look around, give us some appraisals. I could practically hear her drool—there’s nothing more exciting to an antiques dealer than a dusty farmhouse attic. We agreed to meet at noon the next day.
I whistled for Merle. He bounded up, stinking of something he’d rolled in. As I hosed him off and dried him with paper towels, I told him about the potential treasure trove in the attic. “There’s antiques! And art! And collectibles!” His long tail waved slowly. Any time I’m enthusiastic about something, he wants to believe he’ll benefit somehow. I tried a sure winner, “Let’s go see Hogan!” Merle wriggled with delight.
“I have good news and bad news,” Hogan said. We were outside his office on Rowan Street, walking Merle, when a sudden shower began and Hogan whipped out an umbrella. The man was the ultimate Boy Scout, prepared for anything. We stood under a tree and waited for the drenching to end. I hadn’t been that close to him in months, and his body heat, his caramel-salty, delicious smell, evoked happy memories—pre-Jasmine memories.
“Bad news first,” I said.
He touched my chin, turned my face to his. “Your eyes are mes-mer-i-zing,” drawing out each syllable.
Annoyed, I pulled back. “Quite the seducer, aren’t you? Save it for your twiglet. News?”
“I can’t help myself. OK. The text is untraceable. The sender paid cash for a burner and SIM card.”
“What about location? Can you get the phone company to triangulate?”
“They tried. Only one tower picks up the phone’s signal. It’s somewhere in northeast Essex County.”
A populated area, which happened to include Silver Hills and Two Springs Lake. “That’s not terrible news. If Paige is with the text-sender, then she’s still in this area. What’s the good news?”
Hogan had acquired Kent Mercer’s credit report and the bank had given him transaction printouts from two accounts in Mercer’s name. “The guy was in debt up to his eyeballs, Stella. Credit cards maxed out. Behind on his taxes. Only about five hundred dollars in a joint account. But listen to this—he opened a second account a week ago and deposited fifty thousand dollars in it.” He grinned.
Yes! That had to be a lead. “The bank is tracing the deposit?” I asked.
“They’ll let me know in half an hour.”
I looked at my watch. “I’ll be back.” I gave Merle water and put him in my car, parked under a tree, windows down. I wanted to report my three bits of good news to Richard—no little bodies in the lake, a hopeful though untraceable text, and fifty thou in Mercer’s new bank account. Payment for services? Extortion? A horrible thought occurred to me—had he sold his little girl? Bizarre but not unheard of. I added it to my pathetically short list of scenarios.
Richard was in a conference room talking to the press. Temple sat next to him, looking haggard. Her dark-shadowed eyes scanned the room, searching each face for knowledge about her child, no doubt. I wondered if she’d been sleeping. She seemed calm at first, but after she held up the “missing child” poster, she dropped it and wept into her hands. The newscasters kept filming—they love the soap opera stuff. I walked out of the room. I could email Richard later. I felt guilty, an ugly feeling. I was sure Temple was terrified out of her mind and wished I could reassure her with solid facts.
My euphoria at the discovery of the money in Mercer’s account evaporated twenty minutes later when Hogan told me the money was untraceable. The bank had microfilmed the deposit—five cashier’s checks from a Cayman Islands branch of a Swiss bank, which had performed the service for an anonymous client with a numbered account. Unless we were investigating money laundering, the bank was under no obligation to reveal the name of the client.
Hogan was as frustrated as I was. “You’ll have to get at it some other way. Who did he know with that kind of money? Ask around!”
“Brilliant idea,” I said, irritated. Was Hogan still pushing my buttons, implying he could do my job better than I could? He claimed the only reason he wasn’t a sworn agent was that his
accounting and research skills were too useful. Even if it were true, I was tired of his patronizing tone.
But I did miss his superb cooking. Heading home, dispirited, I decided to forego the sandwich shop and cook. I got out the wok and made a huge stir-fry with everything I could find—peanuts, broccoli, chicken, green onions. It would have served six and I ate half of it. Running with Merle was the only reason I didn’t turn into Stella Doughgirl. Not that I wanted Hogan back. Being single was in my genes.
My great-grandmother Phoebe had nursed a war-injured soldier, then married him. Fern didn’t talk much about her father except to say that he’d treated Phoebe like a servant, and she’d excused his behavior because of his wounds. Fern remembered tiptoeing around the house, trying to help her mother. When her husband’s death freed Phoebe from the demands of an invalid, she took up her paints and music. She spent more time with ten-year-old Fern, who showed artistic promise.
On Fern’s seventeenth birthday, Phoebe sent her to Paris to study art, wanting her talented daughter to experience more of life than she had. Fern returned two years later with the infant Grace, my mother. The baby’s father? “An artist, naturally! But irresponsible,” Fern told her mother. “We’ll raise this child ourselves.” Phoebe and Fern dressed her in clothing made from beautiful hand-dyed fabrics, pierced her ears for gems, encouraged her to be unconventional. No surprise, then, that teenaged Grace dyed her hair black, tattooed a dolphin on her chest, a skull on her thigh, and ran off to a commune in Virginia where open relationships were the norm. A year later, Grace brought her new baby—me—back to Verwood to live with Fern.
Pitying whispers followed me throughout my school years. Pity because my mother had disappeared and I lived with my grandmother in a tumbling-down farmhouse, whispers because unmarried mothers still carried a whiff of shame in our conservative small town. Nothing could make me feel good about the “bastard” label the seventh-grade bullies tagged on me. Just kidding, ha. Ha. Things got a little better in high school, because a crowd of kids was attracted to the tolerant freedom of Fern’s house and her slightly scandalous ways. Misfits, underachievers, kids whose stepmothers couldn’t stand their music or their mess—all crowded into her after-school art classes.
I poured myself a glass of wine and turned on the news and heard what I already knew, an extensive search was under way for the missing child. I watched Temple sob into the camera again. It was damned depressing.
I felt stymied. The lab hadn’t come up with much. Anselmo had told me the fingerprint under the deck wasn’t made by Lincoln, Temple, Bryce, Nikki, or Wesley. The bloody tracks in the house matched Mercer’s blood type. Precious few clues, no way to trace the money, no witnesses, and no motive.
I ran a bath and dripped in some lavender oil. Lavender’s supposed to calm and relax, and I gave it ten minutes to work, studying my toes and grinding my teeth as my dark thoughts churned. Bryce grunting as he pressed a massive kettlebell over his shoulder, his blond hair dripping sweat. Nikki’s gray eyes watching her mother. Plumbers and a backhoe. Buckets in Fern’s attic. Fern might know something about the missing toddler. I would get it out of her one way or another.
CHAPTER 9
Wednesday morning
At six a.m., my phone chimed. Anselmo’s voice was gruff. “Lincoln Teller was in a bad car accident about thirty minutes ago. Chamberlain’s there. Graham Parkway, Silver Hills. She said he’s hurt but alive. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Sure. Thanks.” My brain felt like cold mashed potatoes as I tried to process what Anselmo had said. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Merle clack-clacked across the floor, expecting a run—the only reason in his mind I’d be vertical at dawn. When I pulled on slacks and a leather jacket instead of running shorts, he sighed and jumped onto the bed, stared at me gloomily. I put my arms around him, fighting an urge to crawl back under the covers. “Sorry, buddy. Wish we could trade places.”
Deputy Chamberlain was taking pictures of Lincoln’s blue Jag convertible, its passenger side crumpled like tinfoil. “I don’t understand,” I shouted over the whomp-whomp-whomp of the ambulance helicopter as it took off.
“Me either,” Chamberlain yelled back. We watched the helicopter turn and head north to Community Hospital. Lincoln had lost control on a sharp curve, spun nearly one-eighty, and slammed into a recycling truck. What made it odd was the location. In Silver Hills, the speed limit is twenty-five. Only the suicidal would speed in this neighborhood of hilly, narrow streets with slow-moving, random traffic.
“How bad is he hurt?” I asked. There were no air bags in the vintage car.
“Hard to say. He couldn’t move his left arm. He was conscious but incoherent—concussed, I’d say. He didn’t want to sit up, which made me worry about spinal cord damage, so I called airlift.”
I hated to ask the next question, but it was important. “Alcohol?”
“Didn’t smell it.” Chamberlain knelt down to peer underneath the smashed car. Her camera flashed three times.
I walked up Graham Parkway. I didn’t see tire skid marks. Maybe he was on the phone or texting. Maybe the brakes failed. Maybe he had an argument and was steamed up, not paying attention.
I drove to the hospital. I doubted they’d let me see him, but maybe someone could reassure me. Lincoln had always seemed heavy-duty, tougher than us ordinary mortals. Surely he’d be all right. In the emergency room, I learned Lincoln had been wheeled off for scans. I made my way through a fluorescent-lit maze of corridors to the radiology waiting room, deserted at this hour of the morning except for two little boys and their mother, a tall African-American woman wearing a softly wrinkled linen pantsuit the color of butterscotch pudding. She was slender, elegant, confident, and had to be Clementine Teller, Lincoln’s wife. According to a recent magazine article, she had a law degree and was the brains in the family.
She talked with the receptionist while her two boys rolled on the floor. The younger one was on top, pummeling the older one as they both roared until their noise distracted their mother.
“Come over here and settle down now,” she said, untangling them. She led them by their arms to sit on either side of her, where they proceeded to make faces at each other.
I introduced myself. “I talked with Lincoln just yesterday. I’m so sorry to hear about this accident.”
“I don’t understand it. He’s gone down that hill a thousand times. The deputy said he’d been speeding? Nonsense. Lincoln drives slow. You know how laid back he is. Now me, I like speed. I like to get where I’m going.”
“Has he been troubled about anything? Preoccupied?”
“He’s always worried about the restaurant.”
The receptionist came over and told Clementine that Dr. Newell wanted to talk to her.
“Okay, give me a minute.” Clementine looked at me and grimaced, her dark eyes shadowy.
I offered to watch the boys. “Thanks,” she said. “That’ll help. I have a hard time with doorways.”
I must have looked quizzical because she explained, “Going from one room to another.” She puffed out a breath. “I have to get through the door. May take me a while.” She walked to the door and patted the door frame with her left hand, then her right, over and over again, her head nodding in unison with the taps. The boys stopped their play and watched her. She must have tapped the door frame over fifty times. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, it looked like. OCD hadn’t been mentioned in the magazine article. I wondered how else the illness manifested itself, and whether she was being treated. Finally she walked through.
The boys watched her struggle. “She made it,” said the older one, who looked about six. “Made it,” repeated his younger brother.
“She sure did,” I said. “What’re your names?”
“I’m Jimmy and he’s Ben,” said the older one. “Can I see your gun?”
Right now I needed to occupy them with something that wasn’t wrestling. I thought back to my babysitting days, recalling t
he lessons I learned from the Sampson twins, four-year-olds with two behavior modes: walkabout and destroy. “Okay, let’s play a quiz. You have to guess what animal I am.” I stood up and started zooming around the room. “Bzzzzz . . . bzzzzz . . . where’s the flower? . . . Bzzzz . . .”
“You’re a bee,” said Jimmy. “That’s easy.”
“Bee,” said Ben.
I got down on my knees and started pretend-licking my hands and rubbing them on my face. “Let Ben guess first,” I said. “Meow!”
“Kitty!” said Ben.
“Right! Okay, what’s this?” I got on my hands and knees and growled, “I’m king of the jungle! I’m the baddest cat there is! Grrrrr!”
“You’re a lion,” I heard, a voice that could only be Anselmo’s. I looked behind me and saw him standing in the doorway. I hoped he wouldn’t notice my full-body blush.
“A lion!” yelled Jimmy.
“A lion!” echoed Ben.
“Can I play too?” Anselmo asked. He quacked and the boys yelled “Duck!”
With his uniform and willingness to play, he was an instant magnet for little boys. We’d cycled through Old MacDonald’s farmyard and started on the Serengeti when Clementine returned. She found it just as challenging to come back through the door into the waiting room, with much tapping and head nodding. How difficult her life must be, I thought.
I introduced Anselmo to her and he stood up, with difficulty, a boy attached to each leg, all three of them laughing. It was an endearing picture. He liked kids, I could tell. Probably had some. With his lucky wife.
He untangled himself from the boys. “How’s Lincoln doing?”