by David Horne
They discussed what happened that night and if Lucas noticed the vehicle prior to the collision. Alex felt better after spending time with Connor’s chauffeur, and they bonded over pizza and co-op online video gaming. Since Lucas was still out of work, healing, he had nothing better to do at home, and Alex felt obliged to join him for a few hours of video games after what he’d been through. He didn’t want to go back to the house until after Jeanette left because he felt she’d do better if he weren’t there when she finally did.
Returning to the house before sunset, Alex made a walk around the property. He had security install inferred cameras around the yard, facing the black patches of wooded areas. They had more security flood lights installed with motion sensors. So far, every time the lights came on in the blackest time of night, it was a small band of raccoons that only saw fences and barriers as inconveniences to their nightly foraging.
He stood in the quiet kitchen. Connor was in the office on the phone doing his best to handle business through electronics instead of face to face meetings. When he had to go, their system meant random hours, different paths, and now after the attack at the intersection, never at night.
Alma was due to arrive for dinner preparation. Alex had requested that anyone she brought with her to do weekly housework, were people she’d known for a while.
“You look deep in thought,” Connor commented of Alex’s faraway look.
He stood with his back against the kitchen island watching through the large window over the sink. The expansive backyard with its manicured lawn and trimmed trees and no oak leaves on the vibrant green lawn. He thought that strange.
“Do you have landscaping crews come take care of the leaves around your property?”
Connor looked out the same window. He shrugged. “Honestly, I get so caught up in work, that I feel like I’m never home during the day. I don’t think I noticed.”
“So, you can assume that someone—”
“Hola!” Alma said as soon as she bustled through the door. Alex and Connor immediately collected the plastic grocery bags from her. Already interrupted, Alex lost his thoughts until they finished retrieving the bags from her car.
Connor and Alex stayed in the kitchen, helped put away the groceries. Alma had a credit card supplied by Connor’s accountant. She did the shopping for the house and probably knew Jeanette better than Connor ever did. She concentrated on her chores, and Alex saw by her sudden glances that she expected to be next on the list for eviction.
“How’s Jeanette?” Connor asked, breaking the tension.
“She’s good,” Alma mumbled. But her look at Connor held pleading eyes. “She misses you.”
Connor didn’t respond immediately. Alex noticed when Connor had conversations that involved matters of emotion; he wasn’t prone to immediate reaction. He put thought into his words, took a breath or moment before he spoke. It was a matter of control that most people missed because people let their feelings dictate their dialogue. “I miss her too,” and left it at that.
But Alex wanted to press Alma about what she knew about the lawn care. “Did Jeanette hire a landscaping company to take care of the yard?”
Alma didn’t speak immediately. There was some bitterness she held back. Alex understood as the newcomer, the stranger in the house who wedged himself between Connor and Jeanette. A clash that broke apart a surrogate family, Alma had made up her mind about Alex. But he knew Jeanette had poured poison into the woman enough to influence her without making a more informed decision about him.
“She had all the contacts on her phone.” Alma was short with her answer and went back to chopping fresh bell peppers on the cutting board.
“Do you know if she had a certain contract or if she hired different landscapers whenever she needed them?”
Alma shrugged; she looked at Connor when she answered. “You have to ask Jeanette those questions.”
Connor nodded. Making eye contact with Alex, he motioned with a tilt of the head to the hallway. Alex followed Connor out of the kitchen.
He’d never breached the sanctity of Jeanette’s personal living space. Connor just opened the door and marched inside. Alex hung back for a brief moment. When he followed, a vast and comfortable living space opened to him. Jeanette had a studio apartment, complete with a large flat screen television, a queen-sized bed, en suite master bathroom that rivaled Connor’s personal bathroom. Apparently, the space was meant for housekeepers. She’d made it her own. But the bed was clear. The oak armoire against the back wall was empty with the doors open.
Connor went to the desk—a spacious, tidy dark wood desk with a leather blotter and a Rolodex on its surface. “I think Jeanette was the last person in the world to use a Rolodex. He spun the dial until L and went through the address listings. When he found something, he removed the tab from the roll and handed it to Alex.
A business card was stapled to the tab. It had a landscaping number on it. “What are you thinking?”
Alex gave Connor a hard look. Including him on a full thought process meant to incorporate him into something that might put him in direct danger. But attempts had been made on his life. He was already in jeopardy. Maybe involving him was better than where they’ve been all along: in the dark.
“I feel like we’re dealing with one person. An amateur,” Alex started
“Okay,” Connor agreed with a nod. “And you’re under the impression we’re missing something.” He pointed to the business card. “You think someone targeted me through a landscaping company?”
“I think if I was starting at the bottom. If I didn’t know what I was doing, I’d use any means necessary to get at your house.”
“We know because of the break-ins, this guy doesn’t have a key.”
“Thank God,” Alex said. He didn’t want to finish the thought.
“Well.” Connor fished the smartphone from his pocket. “Let’s find out who this guy is.” He dialed the phone number on the card.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Joshua Carballo built his landscaping business from the ground up. A Mexican-American that had a collection of work vehicles and teams that spread out over the acres of Fawn Lake to do any contract work available. He underbid most competing landscapers and had a reputation to rotate through laborers. It wasn’t that Joshua appeared to be a harsh or intimidating man; there was always a shortage of laborers who saw landscaping as a permanent career move. He took time out of his schedule to meet with Connor.
Outside the house, he stepped from the white Ford pick-up truck. Alex saw a man who believed in hard work. Coarse hands and a hearty handshake, along with a weather-beaten face and genuine smile, Joshua greeted them.
“Mr. Carballo, thank you for coming by the house.” Connor, the consummate businessman, had a knack of making his guests feel as if it was their idea to be in his presence. Alex witnessed Connor’s unique ability over the time they were together. He was good at winning trust within a few minutes of first acquaintance. “We don’t want to keep you.”
“Not at all Mr. Haynes,” Joshua started. He immediately scanned the hedges along the house and the trimmed grass. Alex suspected somewhere in the pockets of the man’s dingy cargo pants there was a ruler for measuring the height of grass length. The HOA was particular about grass length in Fawn Lake. “Is there something wrong? Did someone on my team damage your property? We will be happy to replace—”
“No, everything is fine,” Connor assured the man.
Alex intervened. “Have you had the contract on the property long?”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Bouchard and I set up that contract about ten years ago.”
“So, you do all the work on the property?” Alex asked. “Including leaf removal, and anything that has to do with the lawn?”
“Yes, I don’t always come here myself, but I have a schedule,” he started and retrieved a notepad from the driver’s seat in the car. “We put the contracts on a rotating schedule to ensure the time my crew comes around again, a
nd they take care of anything.”
“Do you have the same workers come to the house?” Connor asked.
“Probably not the same people all the time, no.”
“I know it’s none of our business, but have you ever had any problems with any one of your employees.”
“No, sir.” He shook his head. “I have each of my employees submit a background check before I hire anyone.”
“Have you recently let any of your workers go?”
“Well, most of the time, any of the young men who come on board, don’t stay past a season. They work through winter and leave when it gets too hot outside in the summer.” Summers in Virginia were stifling and sultry.
“Anyone recently you had to let go?”
It appeared Joshua felt his company wasn’t a target anymore. His shoulders relaxed. “Well, sometimes we have trouble between people. I did let one guy go who made trouble with a few workers.”
“Any chance we can get his information?” Alex asked immediately.
There was a line employers were supposed to maintain when it came to integrity or protection to individual employees. But the landscaping business wasn’t exactly a target for corporate infiltration and indeed no espionage.
“It would be a big help,” Connor added. “And I just wanted to let you know that I’ve noticed how well your crew does around my property. We were just commenting the other day how you’ve managed to keep up on the oak leaves.”
“It’s not easy, but falling leaves is job security.” His chest swelled with pride.
“I’m interested in making sure our contract is set with you for as long as you want to keep doing my lawn work.” Connor gave the man a modest smile. “I’d like to talk to you about how we can incorporate your leaf collection into renewable energy. Do you have the ability for reclamation?”
And it went on like that for the next twenty minutes. Connor listened to Joshua’s future business plans. And Connor interjected when he thought of how to make changes that benefited not only his business but the health of the properties Joshua maintained.
In the end, they got the name of the disgruntled employee. Connor and Alex returned to the house.
“What were you thinking?” he asked.
“I was just mesmerized at your ability to get a man you just met to commit to meetings about recycling the leaves and grass collected.”
Connor smiled. “We have to respect our planet, Alex. He hauled the mulch to the landfill. And while that benefits the decomposition, it's not getting the full effect of renewable energy. I just gave him a few suggestions.”
“And it sounded like you’re going to help him finance a truck designed to collect leaves and debris around the neighborhoods.”
He shrugged. “It might happen.” Then he went back to the name they got from Josué. “What about this guy?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking that he knows how to get into Fawn Lake. He’s got onto your property more than a few times. He knows the layout of the grounds, but I think he’s only been in the house a few times.”
“You think he might be the guy?”
“I’d just like to check it out.”
“Why not give it to Captain McBride.”
“She’ll take the information. She’ll do a background check on him. If he has any outstanding warrants, she’ll arrest him. But if the guy doesn’t have anything out of the ordinary or maybe just prior arrests, she can’t really do anything.” Alex took Connor’s hand. He looked at the man who he’d fallen in love with after everything he’d experienced in his life. A widower who found love again was better than anything he’d ever known. “This is what I’m here for. I was hired to protect you. Along the way, I fell in love with you. Now it’s not just a matter of protecting you for you. Now I’m doing it because if I lost you, I don’t know if I’d survive.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alex left Connor alone promising to stay home. It wasn’t as if he was out of contact with the man. Instant messaging kept them in constant connection while he drove to the block where the man lived. According to the information Joshua supplied, Shawn Rivers lived in a low-rent apartment complex on the south side of Stafford, Virginia, a housing area only accessible off Route 1. The townhouses had tenants who lived paycheck to paycheck and never had enough to get ahead. Sometimes it meant desperate people did desperate things to get by, including burglary.
Alex walked along the broken sidewalk outside the dilapidated townhouses. There were collections of broken-down cars, stray cats skirting the metal debris. Litter amassed along the cement walls near the parked vehicles, rainwater heaping the trash on storm drain grates. There was no lawn care because each plot of land in front of the townhouse steps had patches of thick grass or unruly bushes. People who didn’t have a lot of money had nothing extra to spend on lawn care.
Shawn’s dwelling had dark windows and no porch light. The back of the townhouses had stacks of personal items that didn’t fit inside the eight hundred square foot houses. When the majority of the interior of the two-story homes had stairs, it didn’t leave a lot of extra storage space. Among the collection of items hoarded outside Shawn’s back door was an overflowing trash can. Alex learned early in his career as an agent. One can learn a lot from trash. Using a penlight, he scanned the surface garbage inside the trashcan. He used a length of broken wiper blade to stir the mix. There were envelopes inside the can, first-class envelopes that had Shawn’s name on them from various bill collectors. Unopened, they went from mailbox to trashcan.
Alex turned off the penlight and waited in the pitch behind the stacked townhouses. The majority of activity came from within the buildings. Neighboring televisions and stereos played through the thinly insulated walls. No one went out back in the dark. The rattle of air-conditioning units among the heaped junk piles told Alex he was alone in the dark. People used the front doors to enter and exit the buildings. Shawn’s place was still and inky black inside. He cupped his hands and peered through the tiny window beside the door. Inside was the outline of a faucet and condensed countertop.
Alex went to the door, wearing gloves because he intended to break the law, he slowly turned the doorknob with index finger and thumb. Shawn had nothing worth stealing. He lived in a neighborhood surrounded by people who didn’t have anything to share and weren’t interested in the personal property of others around them. When the door swung inward, Alex stood outside, waiting, holding his breath, listening.
There was a strangled cough of the refrigerator in the kitchen. Once inside, he closed the door behind him and held his breath. It wasn’t because he was trying to be quiet. Shawn wasn’t the most organized or clean person. Food containers occupied available counter space. There was a strong odor of something spoiled in the kitchen. Near as Alex could guess the stench came from the dishes nestled in the stagnant water of the sink.
He made quiet steps further into the house. The layout of the building was unaffected. He knew just from quick observation. There was the kitchen that immediately opened to the living room. The couch facing the small flat screen TV had broken boards or springs that caused the seat cushions to sag in the middle.
There was a full-sized bathroom next to the living room, a wall separated the kitchen and bathroom, but the rest of the opening was a rudimentary archway. That left one room upstairs. Likely the stairwell led directly to a bedroom without a door. And as Alex climbed the steps, pressing his feet near the wall where boards were stronger and less likely to squeak, he peeked over the edge of the top floor. A disheveled bed with a comforter on the floor more than the bed, a single nightstand, a closet with an open door, and Shawn wasn’t home.
Relaxing, Alex climbed the stairs and peered around the bedroom. There was a thick miasmic of stale cigarette smoke — overflowing ashtrays made from discarded plastic containers from grocery delis. Knowing people, Alex wandered deeper into the loft space. Like most people who worked hard all day and went to bed exhausted, Shawn was no exception. Ther
e was a television on the broken dresser. Around the bed were magazines. The nightstand had collected loose change and whatever he emptied from dirty pants before he shed clothes and went to bed.
Playing the penlight over the nightstand, Alex saw scribbled notes. There was a license plate, make and model of a car. The model of the vehicle misspelled. There were code numbers, and Alex took pictures of the evidence. He saw handwritten phone numbers and the sheet of crumpled paper had writing that didn’t match the scribbling on other notes. Alex took pictures with his cell phone.
***
Back at the house, he shared the details of Shawn River’s house with Connor. They sat at the dining room table, pressed shoulder to shoulder, looking at the pictures.
“That’s Jeanette’s handwriting,” Connor announced. He pressed his index finger against the glass face of Alex’s phone. “I should know what her handwriting looks like.”
“There’s a description of your cars too.” Alex flicked through the pictures. “Here’s one note about Lucas. What about these?” Alex showed Connor the code numbers.
“Jesus, that’s the house passcode from a few months ago. When I felt something was going on, I changed the code.”
“So he had access to the house.” Alex closed the pictures. “It looked like a few things in the house didn’t belong to him.” Seeing Connor’s face morph into surprise, Alex said, “I don’t think he stole anything from here.”
“So tell me what you’re thinking. Obviously, you can’t take that information to the police.”
Alex shook his head. “We have a suspect, right? And he has or had access to your house. The question comes why and where did he obtain this.” Alex stopped talking. He sighed, comfortable with Connor’s proximity. “I know when I say this, you’ll find fault and defense about it. But I think this has something to do with Jeanette.”