Dawn walked over to sit next to Sadie. She dropped her arm around her sister’s shoulders and gave Sadie a one-armed hug.
“He asked me to marry him last month,” Sadie said with a sigh. “And I didn’t give him an answer. Then he went off to do a cleanup job for his ex. You remember Paula, right? You met her before.”
“So what? Paula’s no big deal. They hardly dated even when they dated. Just because he’s doing a job for her doesn’t mean he’s—”
“It’s the ankle thing,” Sadie said.
“So?”
“Paula’s a nurse. She’s stepped into nursing him. She took him to his doctor appointment today, and earlier I caught her kissing his boo-boo better.”
“By boo-boo, do you mean his—”
“His foot!” Sadie shouted. “Geez, what’s with this family?” She picked up her coffee cup from the end table to keep it out of Dylan’s curious grasp and handed him her car keys instead. “Now Zack’s taking pain meds and drinking with them. God, when I talked to him he just sounded all messed up!”
“I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I’m sure he shouldn’t be on pain medication—at least nothing strong. Not if he was once addicted to Vicodin. Didn’t he lose his job as a cop because of that? What is his doctor thinking, giving him those kinds of pills?”
“I don’t think the doctor knows the history.” Sadie frowned. “And I’m pretty sure the pills are coming from Paula. She’d certainly have access to pills.”
“How unethical is that?” Dawn shook her head angrily. “Is there someone you can call? Someone who could bring the hammer down and—”
“How would I prove it? It’s not like Zack’s going to back me up. Not if he’s really thinking he needs the medication.”
“Everything will work out. You’ll see,” Dawn said. “A broken ankle is a temporary thing. After we’re done here, you track down that man and bring him home. Once you get him there, flush the damn pills and replace them with Advil. Then you just mother hen him until he’s past the worst of it, and all will be hunky-dory.” She hugged Sadie again. “You’ll see.”
Sadie blinked back tears and nodded but her heart didn’t believe it.
The two sisters sat around watching Dylan systematically try to reach for anything within his grasp. Periodically Sadie made a halfhearted attempt to contact their dad but he remained elusive.
Eventually a disappointed Dawn had to leave for domestic duties that involved laundry and putting Dylan to bed.
“Before you go . . .” Sadie stopped Dawn at the door. “Did you ever hear Dad talk about someone named Molly Macgregor?”
“You mean the woman Dad was in love with before Mom? Sure.”
Sadie’s jaw dropped. “You knew about her? Why didn’t you ever mention anything to me?”
Dawn dragged her heavy diaper bag over to the door and picked up Dylan’s little shoes. “One New Year’s Eve when Mom had too many martinis, I heard her arguing with Dad in the kitchen. It seemed like a stupid thing to argue about, considering Dad didn’t marry Molly Macgregor; he married Mom.” She pushed and wiggled Dylan’s chubby feet into his tiny Nikes and then hoisted him onto her hip. “Why are you bringing it up now?”
“Oh, just something I heard . . .” Sadie said vaguely. She leaned in to hug her sister and nephew in one tight embrace. “Anything you want me to ask Dad if he shows?”
“Sure.” Dawn nodded. “Make sure you tell him how much I love and miss him. Also, you could ask him if he’s got any parenting advice and maybe ask him what it feels like to be, you know, gone.”
Shortly after Dawn backed her car out of the driveway, their mom returned to the house. She looked both surprised and disappointed to find Sadie there.
Sadie attempted casual conversation, but Mom’s side of the dialogue consisted of stilted one-syllable words. Eventually her mom claimed to have a headache and disappeared down the hall on the pretext of going to bed.
“You gotta give her time to get used to this thing,” Dad spoke up.
Sadie turned to find her dad sitting in his favorite chair. His voice was more disembodied than usual, and only the bottom half of his body, from the waist down, was visible.
“Sure, now you show up. Dawn was here earlier, wanting to talk with you.”
“I know, but I couldn’t seem to manage an appearance.” He sighed, and after a moment he added, “You know, you should’ve told your mother about this stuff years ago.”
“Maybe,” Sadie admitted. Although she wasn’t entirely sure having her mom thinking she was a loon years ago instead of now would’ve helped any.
Wearily she plunked herself down on the sofa.
“I guess better late than never,” Dad insisted. “I don’t know that the timing was so great, given the amount of crap your mom’s dealing with, what with me just dead and all, but, hey, you can’t control that. What’s done is done. Remember the time you wanted a hamster? The very idea of having a rodent of any kind living in her house gave Peggy the heebie-jeebies, but after a couple months she came around.”
“It’s been a long time since I thought about Hammy the Hamster,” Sadie said with a small, tight smile.
“And when you and Zack wanted to shack up together, she wasn’t too keen on that either. She couldn’t understand why you needed to rush into living together. She thought a nice long engagement was a great alternative. But after a few times seeing his face around at Sunday dinners, she not only got used to the idea, she really liked Zack. Even tried to get me to like him.”
Talking about Zack had Sadie blinking back tears.
“What’s wrong?” Dad demanded.
“Things aren’t so great with me and Zack.” Sadie brushed away a tear. “Maybe Mom was right. We rushed in.”
“I heard what you were saying to Dawn about him being back on the pills,” Dad said. “I wasn’t eavesdropping; I just couldn’t seem to make it all the way here. It’s tough. As you can tell, I’m still not getting it right.”
Sadie glanced at her father’s foot that pumped up and down, but it was hard to talk to a vision without a torso and face.
“So what do I do? What’s your advice about Zack? Toss him to the curb, right? Who wants a drug addict in the family?”
“I don’t know all the answers, hon, but I do know that anything worth having is worth fighting for. As I recall you were Zack’s friend before you were his lover. If any of your other friends fell back into drugs after they’d beat it once, you’d fight to help them. I don’t get why you’re so quick to roll over and let him handle this himself. If he’s not worth the fight, then I guess you should just let him go.”
Sadie covered her face with her hands and sobbed softly. When she looked up her dad was gone. She knew he was right. With determination she left her mom a short note saying she’d call later but she was moving back home. She packed up her overnight bag and grabbed her keys.
All the way home she rehearsed what she’d say to Zack. She’d tell him that she loved him and planned on sticking by him 24/7 until he got over this thing. Then she’d call Zack’s doctor and his old rehab counselor and get some practical advice. After all, he’d taken the pills for only a couple days. It probably was too soon to say he’d fallen off the wagon. He was just having a bad week, and they were just having a hard time as a couple too. Everyone had ups and downs, right?
With bright new enthusiasm she parked her Honda in the garage of her house and walked inside. She called hello but got no response. Sadie’s heart quickened. She’d hoped to find that Zack had finally made it home.
Sadie strolled into the living room, still calling his name. Instead of Zack, she found a note from him in his firm, heavy script. He’d written on her Scene-2-Clean letterhead: “I’ve got to figure things out. Sorry. I’ll call you in a few days.”
With a sick feeling in her stomach, Sadie ran to their bedroom and yanked open the closet door. Zack’s black Samsonite suitcase was gone and so were all of his clothes except for
his go-to-funerals suit. She screamed in fury and yanked open his drawers in the dresser they shared. Empty, except for one mismatched pair of socks.
She sat down on the edge of her bed and swore furiously until her swearing became wracking sobs.
Sadie didn’t know how long she cried, but she had fallen asleep with tears on her face, and the shrill sound of her office phone brought her awake the next morning.
In a bit of a daze she stumbled across the hall to answer it.
“Scene-2-Clean,” Sadie answered. Her voice sounded rough and unused.
“My name is Cheryl Tu,” a woman’s voice announced. “I am looking for a trauma cleaner and you were recommended by the Seattle PD.”
“Could you hold just one moment, Ms. Tu?” Sadie put the call on hold, took a deep breath, and blew it out slowly. Then she cleared her throat and rolled her shoulders. Life went on. Work went on. She’d be damned if she’d curl up in the fetal position just because Zack Bowman was having a huge temper tantrum.
She pressed the phone back to her ear and put on her best business voice as she resumed the call. “Thank you for holding. I’m Sadie Novak. How is it that my company can be of service?”
“I run the Ocean View School in Capitol Hill,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Perhaps you’ve heard of us?”
A hoity-toity elementary school where the janitor was knifed to death alongside the building blocks last week. Yes. She’d heard of the place. Sadie answered the question with one of her own.
“Has Seattle PD released the premises to be cleaned?”
“Yes, and time is of the essence. School starts next week and I’d really prefer if no sign of our, um, unfortunate incident remained.”
“Of course. Give me the name of the detective working your case, and I’ll confirm the property can be released into my care. I assume you have insurance that will cover my services. I’ll need your policy number and then I’ll require that you sign a contract.”
Cheryl Tu provided Sadie with all the particulars. “How soon can you start?” Ms. Tu asked.
“You’re in luck,” Sadie replied. “My previous commitment today canceled.” And apparently he also moved out. “I can start as soon as you can meet me at the property.”
Sadie showered quickly, dressed, and left the house via the garage, where she came to an abrupt stop and frowned.
“What the hell . . . ?”
Her garage was spacious, and that was one of the main reasons she loved this house. It had room for her large company van and her Honda and still enough space for wide floor-to-ceiling shelving on either side of the vehicles. These shelves held bins containing everything a trauma cleaner would need. The majority of her supplies were housed in a warehouse at a separate location, but this second storage area with a smaller amount of everything she needed allowed her to pack up and go from home without stopping first at the warehouse. What stopped her cold was the fact that a number of the bins had their lids off or were sitting slightly askew. Like someone had checked each one hurriedly and couldn’t be bothered to replace the tight-fitting lids. Sadie might leave her jeans in a heap on the floor of her bedroom. She may even leave dishes in the sink overnight and not give it a second thought. But she never, ever left lids off her supplies.
Her eyes skipped to the corner where her A-frame ladder should’ve been and wasn’t. Instead, it was between the garage door and the end of the shelving. There was no way the garage door could’ve rolled up and allowed her to park inside yesterday with the ladder in that position. At the very least it would’ve made a loud scraping noise and probably would’ve toppled over. Somebody had been in her garage, rummaging through her supplies while she slept.
Sadie went through her boxes quickly, and though items appeared disheveled, nothing appeared to be missing. There were two doors, one leading into the garage from the house and one from the backyard. Both were dead bolted. Whoever had been in the garage had a key. There were only two people who had a key for her place, Zack and Dawn. She couldn’t imagine her sister wanting anything in any of those bins. Zack, on the other hand, knew exactly what was in the containers, and she couldn’t imagine he’d have a use for a single item. Not to mention the fact that she couldn’t imagine him climbing up a ladder, dragging his bad foot behind him. It made no sense. Unless he was so far gone on his meds that he felt no pain. She gnawed her lower lip with worry. She wanted to call Zack and ask him about the garage, but she was worried that call might turn into her pleading with him to come home.
With determination she climbed behind the wheel of her van and headed toward Ocean View School. A nice crime scene was just what she needed to take her mind off her deteriorating love life.
Ms. Tu was a petite middle-aged Chinese woman with sharp eyes and a crisp business suit. She shook Sadie’s hand vigorously and led her in through the front door of the school and into a meticulously kept office immediately to the right.
“I’ve taken the liberty of getting you a set of keys for the school.” She turned over a key ring containing two brass keys. “One is for the front door. One is for my office in case you need to use any office supplies while you work.”
“That’s very kind and efficient of you,” Sadie remarked.
“I’m very anxious to put this unfortunate incident behind us. I assume you brought the contract?”
Sadie laid her paperwork out on the table and waited patiently while Cheryl Tu looked it over. The office had a wall of fame that showed impressive photos of children between the ages of five and twelve shaking hands with dignitaries and world leaders: a young boy about eight shaking hands with President Obama, a young girl standing next to Seattle mayor Greg Nickels and cutting the ribbon of a new library, an entire troupe of children in the Ocean View School uniform standing on a stage next to Nelson Mandela.
“We’re very proud of our students,” Cheryl Tu stated when she caught Sadie admiring the photos. “At Ocean View we strive for world leadership and global citizenship amongst our young people.”
“You must do a great job. I used to teach second grade, and it was tough to get seven-year-olds excited about anything regarding world events.”
“The excitement has to begin with the teacher,” Cheryl Tu stated. “We expect our students to follow their lead, and they do.”
In other words, Sadie, you must’ve been a lousy teacher if your students didn’t aspire to cure world hunger. She bit back a retort and got to her feet.
“The detective told me only the rear of the building was sealed as a crime scene,” Sadie said.
“Yes.” Ms. Tu shook her head. “I still can’t believe it happened. Virgil Lalty worked here since the school started. His grandson goes to the school. What happened is a real shame.”
Sadie could only nod in agreement.
“The incident occurred in the janitorial facilities and the early years art center, as well as the hall area between the two rooms,” Principal Tu said. She was all business now, fully recovered from her moment of grief for Virgil Lalty. “All the, uh, damage was contained to that area at the farthest end of the hall.”
She signed both copies of the contract and placed one on top of her in-box and handed Sadie the other.
“Will you be working alone?” she asked.
Sadie wanted to tell her that she’d be joined by her associate, Zack Bowman, but then she realized that Zack hadn’t indicated he still considered himself an employee. This was the sad truth about mingling relationships with work.
“I’ll be on my own, yes,” Sadie replied, and the words stung.
“I’ll leave you to your work then. How soon can I expect you to be completed?”
“It’s hard for me to give an estimate when I’ve yet to see the scene,” Sadie advised. “I’ll do my initial walk-through immediately and estimate the equipment required. Tomorrow I’ll return and start the physical labor. By the end of tomorrow I should have a pretty good idea of a timeline.”
Principal Tu got to her feet. “Then
I’ll look forward to your report tomorrow.”
She shook Sadie’s hand again before leaving her alone in the school.
Once the principal was gone, Sadie carefully locked the front door behind the woman and then opened her bag of tricks. She slipped into a disposable hazmat suit and snagged her camera. She’d do her initial walk-through carefully, taking pictures both for her own records and for insurance purposes. Sadie slowly walked down the long hall past classrooms that were waiting to be filled with students. The school was small, consisting of one long hallway banked with classrooms on either side and a separate wing containing the library and gymnasium. Although the air was stale with disuse, there was no disguising the underlying scent of crayons, felt markers, and chalk dust. If she’d walked into the building blindfolded, Sadie still would’ve known she was in a school. A pang of regret clutched her heart as she wondered briefly if she’d made the right decision trading second graders for the dead.
Sadie let herself into the janitor storage room first. She was surprised to find the room as meticulously kept as Cheryl Tu’s office. In this room, instead of awards and books, the shelves held organic cleaning supplies and scrub brushes. There was a locker area in the corner of the room. Bits of cellophane tape were angled all over the wall, but whatever had been taped up here had since been removed.
Gratefully, Sadie allowed her mind to shut down the part of her that was distraught over Zack and grieving for her dad. She didn’t want to think of loss; she only wanted to focus on the job.
On the floor of the room was a sticky puddle of blood large enough to insist the victim had been badly wounded on this spot but hadn’t bled out here. Sadie photographed the puddle and the spray and spatter that ran up the wall behind it, and then she followed the blood trail. Drops of blood on the floor led out of this cleaning supply room, down the hall a few feet, and then into the next room. She flicked a light switch, and bright primary colors jumped out at her from floor and walls. The room was large, sunny, and a creative child’s paradise with a dozen painting easels lined up awaiting use. Blue walls were covered in framed poster prints by Picasso, Monet, and Rembrandt. High expectations for the kindergarten set.
Dead and Kicking Page 14