by Edie Claire
Melvin did not seem to take offense at the nosy question. “It’s just that she’s not been quite herself lately. I suppose it’s because of losing Lucille so suddenly like that. The two of them were rather close, I gather.”
The last part was news to Leigh. “They were? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
Melvin looked thoughtful. “I didn’t either. I knew they spoke on the phone and visited, but Olympia’s been so very upset…” He stared out the window another moment before breaking his reverie. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting the car back into gear. “I really must catch up with her. Thank you so much, Ms. Harmon.”
“You’re welcome.”
Leigh stepped toward her car again, but kept watching as Melvin’s sedan cruised around the corner and out of sight. Olympia and Lucille? Close? Frances insisted that Olympia didn’t know about the fraud plans, that Lucille hadn’t trusted her. But could Frances really be sure of that? What if Lucille had lied to her?
For that matter, how well did Frances really know any of the Floribundas? She was so certain that none of them would hurt a child…
Leigh stopped moving. She pulled her phone out of her bag and dialed her husband’s number. “Warren?” she pleaded the second he picked up. “Can you come home early? I need to talk to you about Allison.”
His pause lasted only a second. “Sure. I’ll be right there.”
Chapter 21
Leigh leaned into her husband’s side as they stood on their front porch in the cold, looking out at the sky. It was a beautiful, clear night, and although their quota of visible stars wasn’t so great in the suburbs, the ones they could see were all twinkling brightly.
“Allison took it pretty well, I thought,” she said, digging her hands in her pockets and hugging her coat to her.
Warren tightened his long arm around her shoulders. “Yes, she did,” he answered. “She’s old enough now to understand the ‘why’ that comes with the ‘don’t.’ It also doesn’t hurt to have Mo being the one giving her the bad news.”
“You mean delivering the punishment,” Leigh said with a sad smile. “For Allison, this is basically house arrest. You know she’d be back over at her Grandma’s house if she could, sniffing around and asking more questions. She can’t help herself.”
Leigh shivered, and Warren rubbed her arm briskly. It had turned sharply colder, but they were used to talking outside in the evenings. It was the only way they could be completely sure they wouldn’t be overheard, since Allison moved like a cat and appeared to have bionic ears. “Her heart didn’t seem to be in the tree-trimming,” Leigh added. “Did you notice?”
The Harmons put up most of their Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving, but they had always waited until after the twins’ birthday to put up the tree. Today they’d gone all out with the traditional celebration, which included picking out a live tree, carting it home, and then decorating it with all their handmade treasures. The popcorn-string tradition had been abruptly discontinued after Chewie’s first Christmas, but otherwise the ritual remained essentially unchanged over the years.
“Oh, I think she had fun,” Warren assured. “I think she was just anxious to get back to her computer.”
Leigh lifted her head and looked at him. “Her computer? Tonight? Why?”
“So she could dig into her birthday presents, of course,” he said with surprise.
Leigh relaxed a little. “Oh, you mean the genealogy database.” For a moment she’d been worried. But she really should try to stay calm. Maura had come over earlier, met with them both, and examined the charred notebook. As soon as school let out she had spoken with Allison herself, explaining what had happened and then recommending that the girl have no contact with anyone from the Holiday House Tour or go anywhere without a parent until further notice. She had deftly sidestepped all of Allison’s attempts to ferret out additional information, and she’d somehow managed to do it without making Allie feel like a kid. All of which was wonderful. On the downside, however, she’d also given Leigh no useful information and had told her only — in so many words — to be quiet and stay the hell out of it. Maura had also brought the unwelcome but not surprising news that she would soon officially be removed from the case.
“I don’t think it’s the genealogy database Allison was anxious to get into,” Warren replied.
Leigh stiffened again. She didn’t like something in his tone. “Well, what else did we get her?”
Warren stared down at her with his trademark “oh no, not this again” expression. “We discussed this already. At length.”
“Well, I can’t remember,” Leigh said with annoyance. Curse her over-forty mom brain!
“One was a membership in a genealogy service that gives her access to public birth and death records and military and immigration records and things like that,” he answered.
“Yeah?” Leigh prepared herself.
“The other was a people finder service that will let her perform background checks.”
Holy crap.
“She especially wanted that one,” Warren reminded. “And you said it wouldn’t be a bad idea to know if any adults in her orbit had criminal records or were listed as sex offenders.”
Leigh blew out a breath. She did have vague memories along those lines. “But I didn’t think she would use it to get more involved in a police investigation she shouldn’t be involved with in the first place!”
“I don’t know why not.”
Leigh glared up at her husband, but he merely smiled and put his other arm around her. “It’s all public information,” he assured. “The service just makes finding it easier. No one will know she’s looking at it, and we’re not letting her out of our sight. It’ll be all right. She’s a smart girl.”
“Why do you think I’m so worried?” Leigh said with a moan. She closed her eyes and buried her head in his shoulder. “Allison should be making crafts and crushing on pop stars and baking sweets and hanging out with other twelve-year-old girls, not sitting in front of a computer researching backgrounds on a bunch of a geriatric delinquents! Face it, Harmon. Our daughter is weird.”
Warren laughed out loud. “Leigh, you’re weird. I’m weird. It’s a miracle of genetics we had one normal kid.”
She smiled into his shoulder. “Good point.”
Her fingers had been curling and uncurling around a tiny ball of paper in one of her otherwise empty coat pockets, and its presence began to bug her. She pulled it out. The sight of it ripped the smile from her face immediately.
“Look at this,” she said with disdain, handing it to Warren. “If I’d never seen this stupid thing, I probably wouldn’t be half as freaked out right now.”
Warren let go of her, unwrapped the small slip of paper, and moved it into the dim glow cast out the window by their Christmas tree. “The blaxe you brew for your adversary often burns you more than him?” he read.
“That’s the one. Cheery, isn’t it?”
“I’m guessing it’s supposed to say ‘blaze,’” he surmised.
Leigh considered. The x was right next to the z on a keyboard. It made sense.
“‘Brew’ isn’t the right word, either,” he continued. “I’ve heard a proverb like this before. I think it’s supposed to say ‘the fire you kindle’ or something like that. You make a fire for your enemy, but it burns you instead. Get it?”
Leigh frowned. She grabbed the piece of paper and stuffed it back in her pocket. She liked having a smart husband, but only when he didn’t show her up. “The point is,” she explained, “it got me all freaked out about poisoning. I had it on my mind even before Lucille died. If I hadn’t, I’d be able to believe now that she died of natural causes. Because despite all the craziness, that really does make the most sense.”
Warren studied her face in the dim light. “But you think she was poisoned?”
Leigh shook her head. “I don’t really think anything. I just don’t feel good about it. I had a premonition that something bad
was going to happen, and it did, and now I feel like the danger is still out there. And I can’t reason myself out of feeling this way.”
Warren wrapped his arms around her again. They said nothing else, but simply stood in the cold silence for a while, watching the December stars.
***
“Mom? Dad?”
The tiny voice sliced its way into Leigh’s groggy consciousness.
“Mom!”
Leigh opened her eyes. She was in bed, it was still dark outside, and the ceiling light was on. Allison was sitting on the edge of the mattress, dressed and ready for school. Warren was just waking up as well. “What time is it?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Allison said quickly, but calmly. “It’s a few minutes before your alarm’s supposed to go off. I woke you up early because I want to talk to you. And we won’t have enough time otherwise.”
Leigh jolted to full alertness. “What is it?”
“It’s a couple things,” Allison began, talking more slowly than usual. Leigh got the feeling her daughter was trying hard not to get her parents any more upset than necessary, given the circumstances.
It wasn’t working.
“First off, I don’t know if you saw it before you went to bed or not, since your phones are in the kitchen, but Aunt Mo sent us all a text late last night.”
“No,” Leigh said, sitting up straight. “What did it say?”
“Bridget’s gone AWOL,” Allison reported calmly. “You know, Lucille’s assistant? It doesn’t mean anything to us necessarily, but Aunt Mo wants us to call right away if any of us see her or hear from her. And stay away from her, of course.”
“Of course,” Leigh echoed soberly. Bridget? Disappeared? The idea wasn’t too surprising, since the woman seemed afraid of her own shadow. But was she running because she felt guilty, or because she was afraid of something or someone else? Could it be both?
Leigh felt a sudden pang of terror. Had Bridget run, of her own free will, at all?
“Why would Bridget take off?” Warren asked.
“That’s another reason I wanted to talk to you,” Allison explained. “I found out some interesting things about her.”
Leigh tried to calm her pounding heart. Bridget was fine. Why must her brain always leap to the worst possible conclusions? “What’s that, Allie?” she asked, failing to hide the squeak in her voice.
“Well, Bridget grew up in Beaver County, and she never had any kids of her own. She didn’t get married until she was in her late thirties. Her husband was older and had grown kids and she moved in with him and his parents. I think she was taking care of them. Not long after they died, Bridget’s husband divorced her.”
“Nice,” Leigh grumbled.
“He was the one who filed, yeah,” Allison agreed. “Anyway, after that she started working as an assistant for elderly people. But she ran into trouble about a year ago. The man she was taking care of died, and his daughters sued her for negligence.”
Leigh leaned forward. So Bobby hadn’t been making that up. “Seriously? How did you find this out?”
Allison smiled a little. “It’s all in the public record, Mom.”
A vision of Bridget’s fidgety nervousness floated before Leigh’s eyes. It was replaced with the memory of the assistant’s response after Lucille was proclaimed dead, when Bridget had begun to blubber from her chair, this cannot be happening again!
“The case was dismissed,” Allison continued, “I’m guessing for lack of evidence, but the documents I saw didn’t get into a whole lot of detail. It was a civil case, not criminal, but it was a mess. I don’t know how she could have afforded a lawyer. And you’d think it would make it really hard for her to get another job.”
Leigh mulled the thought. “Yes,” she said soberly. “You’d think it would.”
“But Lucille and Bobby Busby hired her,” Allison stated.
Yes. They did. Leigh needed coffee. She smelled coffee. She had to be imagining it, though, because Warren wasn’t out of bed yet.
“Here, Mom,” Allison said cheerfully, handing her the steaming mug that was sitting on her bedside table. “Yours is over there, Dad.”
Leigh and Warren exchanged an incredulous glance. “Okay, Allison,” Warren asked with a laugh as he reached for his. “What is it you really want?”
“Nothing!” she insisted, raising her palms in a gesture of innocence. “I just wanted to wake your brains up.” She paused a second. “And make sure you didn’t get mad at me.”
Leigh sipped a hot dose of sweet caffeine. Ah, nectar. Thank God for coffee machines even a twelve-year-old could operate. “We’re not mad, honey,” she assured. “Thank you for the coffee.”
“There’s something else,” Allison continued, the tightness in her tone extinguishing any joy from the moment. “Something I really don’t know what to make of.”
Leigh took a large gulp of coffee. She steeled herself for the worst again.
“I keep feeling like I should tell Aunt Mo,” Allison said, “but then I think that’s stupid, because the police must already know. It’s just that she can’t tell us about it, which is annoying. It’s a whole lot more fun talking to her about this kind of stuff when she’s not working the case. I mean, you think you’re having a discussion with her, but then you realize you’re not, because she’s not really telling you anything from her side, you know?”
Leigh chuckled. “Welcome to my world, kid.”
“Anyway, the thing is, Olympia and Melvin Pepper don’t exist.”
Leigh sputtered as a drop of coffee detoured down her windpipe. “Excuse me?” she coughed. “What do you mean, ‘don’t exist?’”
Allison waited until her mother could breathe again. “I mean that I can’t find them on any database I should be able to find them on. The people we know exist, obviously, but those can’t be their real names.”
Leigh felt a chill. “Fake names?” she murmured.
“Why would they be using aliases?” Warren asked. “This is the president of the chapter? And her husband?”
Allison nodded. “Strange, isn’t it? Olympia’s a pathological liar, Dad, so it’s hard to know what she’s making up. She doesn’t seem to do it to be mean or anything. She just… does it. So maybe she makes up names she likes, too. Maybe she thought calling her husband ‘Dr. Pepper’ would be funny. Who knows?”
Warren threw Leigh a hard look, and she knew what he was thinking. In the political and financial realms in which he worked, people didn’t go around changing their surnames just for kicks. If you took on another identity, you generally had a damn good reason.
“I tried to look them up another way, since they both have kind of unusual first names, but I didn’t get anywhere,” Allison complained. “You wouldn’t believe how many MDs are named Melvin!”
“Proctologists?” Leigh muttered, still trying to think of a single good reason why the couple should need to go incognito.
Allison’s lips screwed up with annoyance. “Well, that would have helped. I didn’t know what kind of doctor he was.”
“Well, if this woman lies about everything, how do you know he’s a doctor at all?” Warren asked.
Leigh remembered watching Melvin as he attended to Lucille. “I don’t know, but I really think he is,” she answered. “At least, he was. My mother said he was a proctologist and that Olympia was a tax attorney, and that they’d both recently retired. Of course… Olympia could have told her anything. But I have noticed that the more boring it sounds, the more likely it is to be true.”
“Well, that’s really weird, then,” Allison said, slumping her thin shoulders.
“What’s weird?” Warren asked.
“I heard Lucille and Bridget talking,” Allison explained. “Olympia’s been telling everybody that they sold their house in Rochester and that they’re renting a condo while they shop for another house here. But Bridget has seen both Olympia and Melvin down where she lives, in Perry North, going in and out of one of
the scummiest apartment buildings in the neighborhood. Lucille thought they were living there because the truth was they were dead broke.”
Leigh took another swig of coffee, but her chill persisted. On the brink of financial ruin. Those were the words that Mason had used. Words to describe someone desperate enough to commit insurance fraud.
Leigh’s alarm clock went off with a deafening screech. She and Warren both jumped, splashing warm coffee all over the blanket, and for a moment Allison looked like an actual twelve-year-old as she exploded into a fit of giggles.
“Sorry about that,” she twittered. “Guess I should have reminded you to turn it off.”
“It’s okay,” Leigh replied, swinging her feet out of the damp bedcovers.
Allison’s tone turned serious again. “Anyway, I was wondering if you thought we should warn Grandma about Olympia. Aunt Mo didn’t tell her to stay away from either of the Peppers, so maybe they do have a good reason for not using their real names. Maybe they’re in the witness protection program or something.”
Right. If Melvin’s safety depended on Olympia keeping her mouth shut, God help him.
“I’ll call Maura and ask her,” Leigh promised. “But you’re right, if she thought Olympia was a danger to Grandma in any way, she would have warned her already.”
“Maybe I can find out more before the bus comes,” Allison murmured to herself as she walked out the door. “A proctologist named Melvin…”
Leigh closed the door behind her daughter and threw her husband a determined look. “That girl is going to school and coming straight back home and she’s not getting out of our sight otherwise until this mess is over with.”
“Agreed,” Warren said heavily.
“Who knows what else she’s going to find out as soon as she gets back on that computer?” Leigh lamented. “Maybe it should mysteriously disappear while she’s at school.”
Warren’s eyebrows lifted. His face showed an expression halfway between sheepish and terrified.