Pall in the Family

by Dawn Eastman

  On the porch, I found the key under the mat and let myself in. I didn’t linger in the living room but went straight to the kitchen to find Baxter’s medicine.

  Back outside, I locked the door and turned to replace the key, then let out a small yelp and dropped it. Cecile Stark, Joe’s wife, who lived across the street, was standing right behind me. Petite, with blonde-highlighted, spiky hair, she reminded me of a scruffy terrier. Never one to make eye contact, Cecile darted glances toward Tish’s front door, my car, and her own house.

  “Oh, I’m sorry I startled you, Clyde.” She tugged on her earring and glanced out at the street.

  “I didn’t see you standing there.”

  “I saw a car parked in the driveway and came to see if Tish had come back or if someone was looking for her. She’s been away since yesterday morning,” Cecile said, and did not back up. She had a habit of standing much too close.

  “I just came to get some medicine for Baxter,” I said, stepping back. “I’m taking care of him until she returns.”

  “Oh, that’s very nice of you. He’s quite a handful.” She gestured vaguely toward the car. She claimed Baxter was a menace and was always trying to cause trouble for Tish if he ever got outside without a leash. Cecile claimed Baxter terrorized her cats but that’s not the story Aunt Vi told. Vi said Cecile’s cats were antisocial and all the other cats in town were afraid of them. They just seemed like regular cats to me. She continued to block my way off the porch.

  “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “No . . . I just wondered if you knew when Tish would be back.” Cecile looked over my shoulder at the door. “She left in quite a hurry.”

  “Hurry?” I thought she had gone to a conference, but she probably didn’t share her plans with Cecile.

  “She looked like she was in a hurry when I saw her load up the car and take off before breakfast.” Cecile finally took a step back. “I was surprised, as I get up quite early and I never see Tish until my third cup of coffee.”

  Tish hadn’t called me until after nine. She’d said she’d forgotten to arrange for Baxter, and could I take him on short notice? Where had she been all that time?

  “Well, I’m sure she’ll be back soon. Do you want me to give her a message if I talk to her?”

  “Oh no. No message.” Cecile backed away and stepped off the porch. “It would be better if you didn’t even tell her you spoke to me.”

  She darted back across the street and disappeared through the gate to the privacy fence that surrounded her yard.

  Baxter let out a low growl as I got into the car. He didn’t mean it for me. He was looking at Cecile’s house.

  8

  Seth grew somber as we drove back into town. We had a lighter load of dogs to walk on Tuesdays and finished quickly. Baxter and Tuffy seemed to pick up on his mood and slumped in the backseat with lowered ears and droopy stares. I knew he was worried about giving his interview at the station. He’d watched too much TV about questioning witnesses and perps. I suspected he didn’t want to have to relive and describe the events of the day before. He was probably trying very hard to forget them entirely. Grace had given her permission for Seth to be interviewed, as long as I acted as his guardian and stayed with him. She’d been very interested in whether or not I was buckling under our mother’s influence and resorting to psychic resources. My abilities had always been the only source of jealousy for her, whereas I had had an abundant list from which to choose. She had normal-color eyes, had gotten the normal name, and the only thing she saw in her dreams was money.

  The crystal shop next to the police station always left a large bowl of water out for dogs. The shop owner had even set up a stake near the sidewalk to tie leashes. Seth hooked the leads to the post and told the dogs to behave. Baxter sighed loudly and sat with his back to us. Tuffy glowered from under his topknot.

  The police station was quiet when we entered. Lisa was behind the desk again, flipping through a catalog that featured flak jackets. She pushed a button on her phone, and Tom Andrews came down the hall.

  “Hi. Come on back,” he said.

  After leading us into the large workroom, he offered chairs near his desk. Seth immediately slumped into one and allowed his hair to fall over his face. Tom asked if he wanted a soda. Seth never turns down an offer of free food or drink, so he perked up enough to mumble, “Sure.”

  Tom signaled me to come with him to the vending machines. Seth plugged in his earbuds and began drumming on his knees.

  “Is Charla in today?” I asked while surveying the workroom.

  “She’s out on a call right now. She said she hasn’t seen you since you got back,” Tom said as we worked our way to the back of the room. “I wanted to let you know what we learned today.”

  I nodded and waited for him to continue.

  “Sara’s ex-husband, Gary, has an alibi. He was having breakfast with his daughter all morning and left straight from her house to catch his plane. She’s confirmed this over the phone, but we still need to get her in here for an official statement.” Tom began feeding coins into the machine.

  “So now there are no suspects?”

  “Not really. He was our best shot.” He shrugged. Tom banged on the machine to get the soda out. “Gary did tell us that Sara’d been receiving some sort of threats through her website. He doesn’t know whether she kept records or not. We’re looking into it.” Tom knelt on the floor to peer up into the dispenser. He gave the machine another whack. A can of soda shot out and caught him in the nose.

  Ten minutes later, Tom, with an ice pack to his face, gestured us back out into the hallway. We followed him to a small room with a table and three chairs. Seth shuffled behind us as if he were being led to his own execution. He hesitated at the doorway.

  “Dis id our inderbiew roob. Id’s quieder here dan by desk,” Tom said, the ice pack still on his nose.

  “Are there people watching through that glass?” Seth asked, and pointed to the wall.

  Tom turned around and looked at the mirror mounted on the wall as if he was noticing it for the first time.

  “Doh, eberyone’s out on calls ride now,” he said. He leaned toward us, removed his ice pack, and lowered his voice. “We actually store our office supplies in the observation room.”

  “Then why are you whispering?” I said.

  He snapped upright and pulled out a chair, gesturing toward the other two.

  Seth sat, crossed his arms, and peered at Tom from underneath his fringe of blond. I sent him mental messages to sit up and pull himself together. He clearly did not receive them.

  “So, Seth,” Tom began. His lips stretched across his teeth, but he didn’t pull off the smile.

  Seth gave him the dead-eye look perfected by teenagers the world over.

  Tom tried again. “Can you tell me, in your own words, what happened yesterday from the time you left your house until I came to Sara Landess’s house?”

  “You want to know everything?”

  “Well, just summarize what you did until you got to Ms. Landess’s house.” Tom wrestled with his small digital recorder.

  Seth reached out to turn it on for him.

  “We picked up Baxter, walked some dogs, went to the lady’s house, and found Tuffy. He was really scared, and then we saw the body lying in the kitchen.”

  “That’s it?” Tom asked.

  A crash and cursing sounded from the room beyond the mirror. Whoever it was, he wasn’t editing himself for Seth’s sake.

  “I thought you said no one would be in there,” Seth said.

  “I didn’t think anyone would be. I’ll be right back.” Tom jumped up, knocking over his chair as he rushed next door.

  We heard voices. Tom’s sounded pacifying and the other was a deeper angry rumble. Another crash. A door slammed.

  Mac and his cane clompe
d into the room.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. He looked at Seth carefully.

  Seth pushed his shoulders back and sat up a little straighter in his chair, glancing at me.

  “Seth Proffit? I’m Detective McKenzie.” Mac extended his hand.

  Seth wiped his palm on his jeans and stood to take Mac’s hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Detective.”

  My mouth hung open in shock at these newfound manners. It was as if Seth had been replaced by some other teen. But I realized this was the polished, private-school-on-the-east-coast Seth. I was used to the summer Seth.

  “Have a seat. Officer Andrews is needed elsewhere. If you don’t mind, I’ll take your statement.”

  “No, sir. I don’t mind,” said refined Seth.

  “Excellent. Let’s get started.”

  I still hadn’t said a word and decided not to. They were doing just fine without me. I watched the ice pack sweat on the table where Tom had left it. Mac’s interview led Seth through the morning, which touched on the bat-hunting episode and my brief wrestling match with Baxter. I was sure I didn’t imagine Mac taking extra care over these extraneous details. Seth managed to skate quickly over his own puking and finished his story with me talking Tom into allowing us to leave the scene. He made it sound like I had bullied the guy because I used to babysit for him. Since this was Seth’s testimony, I kept quiet.

  I had a lot of time to sit and observe the two of them. Seth seemed older somehow. He’d pulled himself together to impress Mac; he was well-spoken with a larger vocabulary than I had been led to believe he had. I tried not to study Mac too much, but he was right across the table from me.

  Based on my sweaty palms and racing pulse, I hadn’t gotten over him. But I was determined to avoid him as much as possible, which shouldn’t be hard considering the way he’d been acting thus far.

  When the interview was finished, Mac led us back down the hall to the front. As we passed a large window into the workroom, I saw the reflection of Mac and me walking together. He brought his hand up as if to put it on my shoulder, then quickly regained his senses and pulled it away before touching me. What was he thinking? He left me. What would I have done if he had put his arm around me?

  “Thanks for taking care of the permission part of things,” he said when Seth had walked ahead of us.

  I waved his thanks away. “No problem.”

  “I thought you’d want to be the one to tell her about it, and it saved me a catching-up phone call.”

  I knew Mac was not good on the phone. He saw the phone as a necessary evil and used it to convey straightforward information. I had been shocked when I’d received his first letter to me. There was a whole other side to Mac that most people never knew existed.

  I turned to say something—anything—that would keep him talking, but he had already turned back down the hall. He made pretty good time for a guy with a cane.

  “Clyde, are we going or what?” Seth called from the station entrance.

  “Yeah, we’re going. Here, take the keys and I’ll be right out.”

  I turned to Lisa, who was pretending to read Guns & Ammo. She’d clearly not missed one instant of my conversation with Mac and was already firing up her cell phone for distribution of the gossip.

  “Hey, Lisa, where’s Andrews?”

  “Oh, we got another call about vandalism in Greer’s Woods.” She flipped a page in her magazine, and clicked her phone off. “He went to check it out.”

  “What vandalism?”

  “It’s just kids. They’ve been digging out there for the past couple months. Some of it’s in Greer’s Woods, some on private property, some in the public park but all in the same general area. They dig holes and then fill them in.”

  “What’s the point in that?”

  “Dunno. It’s kids.”

  * * *

  Seth was starving after his “grueling” session with Mac, so we drove over to Stark’s place. I knew I was taking a chance with Alex still sensitive about yesterday, but he would be more upset if he’d heard we’d gone somewhere else. And he would definitely hear. Crystal Haven has its own information superhighway, and it isn’t on the Internet. Often the gossiper would be asked if he had gotten his information from a live person or from Spirit. I was still not sure which held the higher status.

  We were just in time for the lunch rush, but I managed to get a parking spot close by. We got out and let the dogs have a quick walk along the sidewalk. Baxter was a minor celebrity in town; he knew more people than I did. Therefore, it wasn’t completely shocking when a man came out of Stark’s to pet him. He called him by name, and Baxter slobbered appreciatively.

  The man was about my height, with a shaved head to either hide or embrace his receding hairline. He wore mirrored sunglasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes. I don’t trust people who hide their eyes. He nodded hello to Seth and me, and walked up the street. The whole encounter left me feeling weird.

  “Do you know him?” I asked Seth.

  “No, but Baxter does,” he said.

  “I feel like I’ve seen him before,” I said as we encouraged the dogs back into the car. Fortunately, Baxter was sticking with Tuffy and didn’t force us into our usual wrestling match right there in front of the lunch line.

  “You’ve probably seen everyone in town before,” Seth said.

  It was cooler after yesterday’s storm. But the line was long and I didn’t want to leave the dogs in the hot car for more than a few minutes. I told Seth to stand in line while I ran the dogs back to the house. He nodded, stuffed in his earbuds, and stood behind the other hungry patrons.

  I returned ten minutes later to find a bored, famished teen. After twenty minutes of listening to Seth describe the many stages of starvation he was enduring, we finally made it inside the restaurant.

  We sat close to the kitchen and ordered two burgers.

  Seth claimed he was breaking down his own muscle mass while we waited for our food. When the server brought the small bread basket, I feared for her fingers. Moments later she returned with an appetizer, compliments of the chef.

  This was an underhanded trick, even for Alex. He could never get Seth to try any of his creations. But the thing she brought appeared to be a pizza. Seth adored pizza above all other food groups. He picked up a piece, sniffed it, and put it back down.

  “I’m pretty sure there’s fish in there,” he said.

  “Do you think it’s anchovies?” I asked, suppressing a shudder in an attempt to be the adult.

  “No, I think it’s tuna,” he said, and lifted some of the cheese with his fork.

  “I like tuna,” I said. “We could try it. It would make Alex happy.”

  “I could even eat anchovies at this point.” Seth sighed and bravely took a bite. And then another—in three seconds flat, the pizza slice was gone.

  I grabbed a piece off the plate before he ate it all. It was tuna.

  “What’s this?”

  I looked up to see Joe Stark glowering at our pizza. When he noticed me looking at him, he flashed a dazzling smile.

  “It’s a new pizza Alex is trying out,” I said, and pulled the plate closer to protect it.

  “Of course. It’s always something new with him, isn’t it?” Stark nodded to us and strode in the direction of the kitchen.

  Seth and I looked at each other and shrugged. Alex claimed Stark was a harsh taskmaster, but Joe was always charming to the customers. We were happily finishing off the pizza and complaining because it was too small when the burgers arrived, followed swiftly by Alex.

  “Hey how did you like . . . ?” He looked at the plate. He glanced around for evidence we had hidden the pizza somewhere.

  “The pizza was good, but really small,” Seth said.

  Alex sighed dramatically. “I’m glad you liked it, burger boy.”
<
br />   “Did you see Stark in the kitchen?” I asked, licking my fingers.

  “Yeah, he was all worked up about an unapproved item in his dining room,” said Alex. He flicked his hand to dismiss it. “I’ll deal with it.”

  I watched Alex to see if he was concerned. He seemed more worried about whether we liked his pizza.

  “Hey, I had the strangest conversation today with Cecile Stark,” I said to Alex.

  “When has anyone ever had a normal conversation with Cecile Stark?” he said.

  “She is a bit odd, even for Crystal Haven.” I glanced around to be sure Joe Stark wasn’t lurking in our vicinity.

  “She came over while I was at Tish’s house, wanting to know where Tish was and when she might be back, but I wasn’t supposed to mention it to Tish. It was strange.”

  Seth had finished his burger and was eying mine in a dangerous fashion. I slid my plate out of his reach.

  “I’ve learned not to take anything she says seriously. She lives in some other dimension even further removed from wherever the rest of this town resides.”

  “Be careful, Alex. That’s the boss’s wife you’re talking about.”

  “Whatev,” said Alex. Then he and Seth did a complicated fist-bump handshake.

  “Have you heard anything about séances that Sara was doing before she died?” I asked when they were done grinning at each other.

  “Séances?” Seth perked up at this bit of news. He loved any talk of spirits or ghosts. Even though he had been visiting Crystal Haven his entire life, he had never actually seen any “good stuff,” as he liked to call it.

  “I did hear about that. I think one of them got pretty wild. Diana told me . . .”