by June Shaw
“They do eat meals early, you know.” Spinning backward to reply, she pointed at us. “One day you’ll both get old, too.” She turned around toward wherever she was going.
Eve and I stared at each other. Was that a new crease in her forehead? How many wrinkles lined my face? Was I really worried about what a kid like her said?
The ladies room provided three stalls. The doors to two of them were slightly open. Our mother’s most comfortable shoes, the white flats with straps that closed with Velcro were visible beneath the door of the third one.
“Hey, Mom,” I said.
“It’s us,” Eve told her.
A minute passed. “Is this where you need to wait for me?” Her tone wasn’t its most cheerful.
I pushed my hand out to Eve to let her know I had this. “No, but we’ve got a little situation and need to kind of hurry to get some answers. We were looking for that friend of yours who takes a lot of pictures with her phone.” And darn it, why hadn’t I sent the picture I wanted to my own phone or Eve’s? Oh, because the phone dropped back into the woman’s bosom and she took off before I had time to think of it.
“Yes, I know who you’re talking about. Grace.”
It felt so weird talking to her shoes. I didn’t want to envision the scene behind the shut door. “Well, we just need to hurry and go talk to her. Would you know where she is?”
Mom let out a small huff. “She got to check out of the manor and go off with her daughter.”
Gloom dropped inside me.
“So she’s not here?” Eve’s face leaned forward, almost against the door to Mom’s stall.
“No, she is not. And if you two would give me a chance, I could try to finish up in here and then come out there and visit with you in a more appropriate place.”
“Sorry, Mom.” I was the one now placing my face inches away from the stall door. “We’re in a hurry, and this is really important.”
I heard her inhale. Heard her breathe. “This is concerning those deaths, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Eve did little finger taps on the stall door. “Would you happen to be coming out of there soon?”
“Not if I keep having all this company.”
“We won’t stay.” I lifted my voice. “Did Ms. Grace happen to tell you and the others about somebody here getting pregnant by Eve’s neighbor Royce?”
“What? Someone here did? Are you sure?”
“Yes. No. But your buddy with all the pictures on her phone told us that.”
“Oh.” Her tone dulled.
The outer door pushed open. An attractive woman I had often seen visiting her aunt here at the manor walked inside. “Good afternoon. I guess we all got the same idea at the same time.”
Not actually. Did your idea concern finding a killer so you could prove yourself innocent? I nodded. “I guess so.”
“Are y’all waiting?”
“Oh, no. We’re done,” Eve said and washed her hands as though to prove she had just used the facility.
Once the woman entered the stall two down, I asked Mom, “Please tell me you know where her daughter lives.”
“I do. It’s straight down the street from here to the left only two blocks away. The third house from the corner on the right. It’s painted green.”
“Mom, we love you. Eve and I will come back and see you real soon.”
“Thank you. Love you, Mom,” Eve said.
“I love you both. Good luck.”
A surge of adrenaline made me rush down the hall and toward the exit, with Eve barely keeping up. Some people glanced at us, but at this point, I didn’t care. I needed to get that photograph, needed to identify that young woman who worked at the manor and could have had Royce’s baby but did not. And I needed to rush that information to the police station before a certain detective made cold thick silver cuffs the newest fashion bracelets I would be sporting.
Chapter 22
Eve and I sprinted to my truck and zipped out of the parking lot. Two blocks down, I would find my answer that I could then rush to Detective Wilet. A green house should be easy to find.
Brick and vinyl-sided finishes coated most of the houses around here. Sharing a slight smile with Eve, I pulled up in front of the wooden green one. A front porch, closed black shutters on windows, a huge azalea bush, one of my least favorite, in the front yard. No garage or carport at the other end of the empty driveway beside the house. My stomach jerked tight.
“Suppose they aren’t here,” I said to Eve the second she and I slammed ourselves out of my truck.
“They could be. Even if no car is here, they could be inside.”
Pulling in air for positive thoughts, I determined she was right. The person I wanted to see might be inside. Actually, I wanted to see her phone, to send that photo she had of the woman from the manor to my own phone so I could bring it back to the manor and get Mom or one of her friends to tell me the woman’s name. That’s all the detective asked for. No, he didn’t ask. He insisted I do it or else.
I ran up the steps to the front door, Eve coming behind, and rang the bell. Nobody answered, but I did hear the bell echoing inside. I rang it again. And again.
Eve pushed my hand aside. “You’re going to tick them off if they’re in there.” Instead of ringing, she knocked. She knocked against the glass storm door. Then against the doorframe. Against the wood near the door.
“Maybe out back,” I said and scooted down to the grass. We jogged to the rear yard, where a huge dog in a fenced area almost jumped over his chain link fence while he let out a tirade of rip-roaring barks at us and squirted urine straight at Eve’s dress.
We moved back to my truck and climbed in, Eve wearing a frown. “Get me home so I can clean up and change clothes.”
It didn’t take long to reach her house. We went inside, and while she got ready, I walked out the front door again. Her neighbors had told Detective Wilet they heard me threatening Royce. Or had it been only one neighbor? Who would have done that? Who could have heard me when I hollered at him over the sound of his motorcycle that he kept behind us while we sat in Eve’s car?
I stood in the sultry air on the circular drive. My throat squeezed up when I recalled here was the last place I had seen him alive. And I yelled at him? What a terrible memory.
I stepped off the driveway onto the grass and peered around. Since this street started the upscale section of the neighborhood, all of the lots were large, the houses big and fine and pushed back from the street and each other. People who lived here normally kept to themselves with their own employment and families and travels their main attention. The piece of property right across the street from Eve’s remained empty. The owners planned to build one day but hadn’t begun yet. Houses on both sides of that area were so distant from here I couldn’t imagine my voice had carried that far. I had only yelled at Royce the short distance between Eve’s driveway and the street behind it.
On one side of her yard, Royce and his mother had resided. I felt certain the families living beyond it had not been able to hear me. Jake lived on the opposite side of Eve’s. I doubted he would have told on me even if he had heard me holler.
I walked along that side of Eve’s house to the back, no sign of him at home. Behind Eve’s, her patio fountain burbled with the angel in its center pouring a constant stream of bleach-scented water onto plastic goldfish that rolled when the water struck them. The older neighbors beyond the rear fence were so hard of hearing, they could barely hear each other talk, so I was fairly certain they hadn’t heard me yell out front. Beyond the other close fence lived that young couple with the wife it seemed Royce had been spying on. With the sauna-like heat south Louisiana experienced much of the year, lots of people enjoyed their pools. Some liked their privacy surrounding them and occasionally took a dip in the nude. Or stretched poolside without swimsuits. Since Royce seemingly created that hole to watch the wife, Detective Wilet surely question
ed them and possibly believed the husband had discovered Royce’s voyeurism and put a permanent end to it. Whether he could prove that or not was another matter. One thing was certain. I was not going to their house to ask whether they had heard me yelling at Royce and told the police.
“Oh, there you are.” Eve’s sudden voice surprised me since I hadn’t known she’d come outside. Still wearing the same dress with the dog’s wet stain, she also wore a smile now and gripped her phone. “I’m talking to Nicole and little one.”
I smiled back at her. “Go on. Take your time.” I sat on a lounge chair to show her I was in no rush—although I really was. Otherwise, I would have wanted to talk to the baby, too. I needed to prove my innocence to Detective Wilet within twenty-four hours—no, I clicked on my phone and saw the time. Ugh, those hours were zooming by. A gray sky was creeping in, pulling darkness behind it.
The roar of a lawnmower sounded, making Eve return inside while she listened to either her daughter or babbling grandson.
The mower’s starter, I saw, was Jake Angelette. I liked seeing a man push a lawnmower that was not self-propelled. His arm muscles bulged and broad chest looked nice through his T-shirt. The shorts he wore exposed more of his muscular build. I wished Eve would hurry and finish her business inside and get out here to see the man like this. I hoped it wouldn’t be long before she’d totally fall for him and then once Dave got out of prison, I could have him without experiencing the fear of hurting her.
Simple? How nice that would be.
The long hours of daylight were coming to an end and would surely make Jake rush to get his work outside done. He cut a swath of grass coming this way and glanced up. Taking on a smile, he waved.
I trotted over there, grinning myself. “How are you?” I asked, although before I’d completed my question, he turned off the mower so that the last word and a half I said came out more of a yell. He and I both laughed at that.
“I’m great. And you?”
“The same.” I nodded, aware that I needed to move away from this small talk and get down to asking what I wanted to know. I hoped he didn’t answer in the positive.
He wiped his brow, making a strand of his hair stand up at an angle. My instinct was to reach over and pat it down in place. I needed to hold myself back from doing that action. The upturned section was rather cute.
“And your sister?”
I had to think of what he meant. “Oh, she’s doing fine.” I jerked my finger back toward her door. “She’s on the phone with her new little grandbaby. What a sweetie he is.”
Jake’s smile widened.
“But I need to ask you something. I’m sure you know that the people who lived on the other side of Eve’s house have both died—first the mother and now her son. Royce was his name.”
He watched me and didn’t nod or give away anything about his knowledge or lack of it.
“Of course neither Eve nor I would hurt anyone, but the detective in town called me in because he said one or more of Eve’s neighbors said they heard me yelling at Royce and threatening him.”
Still no reaction of any kind. No sign of shock. No lifted eyebrows. I would have to continue the whole thing.
“You wouldn’t happen to be one of those people who said that about me, would you?” I gave this handsome man the best tight-lipped innocent smile I could muster.
“Yes, I’m afraid I am.”
Well knock me out and call me a crayfish. I couldn’t believe what he said. I certainly didn’t want to continue to stand here in front of my accuser.
Jake spread his hands. “I’m sorry. I hope that doesn’t hurt you, but the detective came over and asked whether I had seen or heard when Royce stopped his motorcycle in front of Eve’s driveway.”
“And what did you say?”
“I’m a truthful man. I told the officer I had just walked in front of my house to put my garbage out when I heard the bike being revved up at Eve’s. Her car was partway out of her driveway, but the bike rider was blocking the exit to the street. That’s when you got out of the passenger side and yelled at him.”
Air left my lungs. “And then what?”
“And then Royce left. So did you and Eve. You drove off in front of my house, opposite the way he was going.”
We stayed silent a long moment. “You said I threatened him?”
Jake shook his head. The attractive lock of raised hair looked silly now. “I said what I heard. You told him to get that bike out of your way.”
“That’s it?”
He gave his head a brief nod. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me telling that to the officer. Nothing about what happened would incriminate you or your twin.” He rolled his thick shoulders up. His eyebrows wrinkled. “I certainly hope I haven’t said anything that would hurt either of you.”
I let a long exhale escape. “No, we should be fine. Thank you for telling me about it.”
“Please keep me informed about what takes place.”
“I will,” I said, walking away. Just as my mind was conjuring him to be a bad guy for squealing to the police, I decided otherwise. He would still be a good catch for Eve. He was a man that a woman could trust to tell the truth, even though I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the truth he admitted to police.
Eve was coming out of her back door. She had changed into another nice dress and looked especially fresh since her happy phone call. “Ready to go?”
“Sure. Do you have any suggestions for where?”
“Let’s go see if that woman with the phone and the picture went back to the manor.”
Right before we left the backyard, I angled a finger toward Jake, again pushing his mower, this time away from us. “He asked how you were doing.”
She stood a moment and watched him. Her cheekbones lifted from her smile of admiration. I was glad to see it but needed to tap her arm to regain her attention and hurriedly rush ahead out of her yard.
I drove to the manor. In the parking lot, I inched across to one end and then back toward the entrance while we looked at every parked car and truck, searching for any sign of Ms. Grace possibly exiting a vehicle with her daughter. As I expected, almost every one was parked in its usual place. Seniors were not known for doing many things out of the ordinary. I left my truck in the place I’d parked in earlier, a thought crossing my mind that I was becoming one of them.
We hurried inside. Eve and I turned our heads one way and the other to try to find the woman with the picture or the worker who might have gotten pregnant by Royce. Few residents remained in the common areas. One, though, almost ran into us.
“Mom,” Eve said, catching her by the shoulders to keep from knocking her over, “where are you going in such a rush?”
“I need to get upstairs to see the movie from the beginning.”
“What movie?” I asked.
“Oh, one where an older couple fall in love with each other. I don’t recall the name.”
The movie would be played in the much smaller common room used for various get-togethers on the second floor.
“Where were you coming from so fast?” Eve asked, and our mother just pouted and shook her head.
What was that about? She wasn’t saying more, but I needed to know the answer to another question. “Do you know whether Ms. Grace came back here?”
“She did not.” Mom glanced toward the way she had come from and quickly turned to us again. “And I need to go.” She planted quick kisses on our cheeks and hurried toward the nearest elevator.
I glanced toward the hall where she had come from. An elderly gent wearing a small grin used a cane to make his way toward the space we stood in. With wispy white hair, pale blue eyes that looked washed by too much sunlight, and large gray hearing aids, he nodded to Eve and me as we did to him. He reached the elevator’s door that had closed since Mom just rode upstairs on it.
My sister and I stared at each other. “Have you ever seen that man be
fore?” I asked her.
Her eyes were wide, her lips formed an O. She shook her head, then did like I did and looked back down the hall where the male who might be a new resident had come from and right before that, our mother rushed from. She hadn’t wanted to tell us anything.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Lips now pressed together, Eve mustered up a slow shrug.
Both of us looked at the man again. He appeared to be whistling now while he waited, and I battled with emotions. The first that flared up was fear. Why, I couldn’t immediately tell but noticed I hummed a bar of a carol. Anger pushed up while I stared at him, but I quickly realized I was comparing him to our father, who had been deceased for almost six years. This man was clean-shaven and dressed well in khakis, loafers, and button-down shirt. He seemed patient while he waited for the doors to slide open in front of him.
“But he might not be Mom’s new boyfriend.” Eve’s words shook me, startled me.
“So you think he could be?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Worse things could happen.”
“You’re right. And it might not even be what we’re thinking.” Obviously I knew my twin, and she knew me, and we were aware that the thoughts of one of us were often those of the other.
Eve’s phone rang. The gent at the elevator looked back at us. Probably his hearing aids worked well. I smiled at him. He did the same back at me. Maybe he wasn’t so bad I was figuring while Eve did her quick conversation that I’d thought would be with baby Noah again.
“We need to go.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the building’s exit.
“Okay, but who was that?” I was almost running to keep up with her. We slammed ourselves into my truck before she took a breath and told me.
“The granite shop. They’re about to close and need the measurements we said we would get them for Cherry’s kitchen.”
“Why such a rush?” I backed out of my space, barely slowing to check behind. Which reminded me—I would soon need to pay for that police car I had rear-ended. I let out a moan. I had been getting used to the sound of the rattle behind my truck from that incident, so even if I didn’t get it repaired soon, it probably wouldn’t matter much. Our police department wasn’t that large and probably didn’t feel the same way about one of their vehicles. I hoped the officer wouldn’t call soon with the estimate for what it would cost to repair his squad car.