I sighed. “It’s like you said. The list includes just about everybody she ever knew.”
“I told you on day one, Popper. The answer to this one isn’t in the forensics. It’s in the backstory. Who Cassandra Thorndike was and what she was into.”
“Thanks anyway, Forrester,” I said, hating to admit that he was being a tremendous help. “It never hurts to have all the information.”
“Just trying to be of assistance,” he replied. “See that, Popper? I’m really not such a bad guy, once you get to know me....”
I was barely listening. Instead, I was already plotting how and when I’d return to the Scene of the Crime.
It wasn’t until I pulled up in front of 254 Cliffside Lane a few hours later that I realized that a bright red Volkswagen was likely to attract as much attention as my Reigning Cats and Dogs van. So much for sneaking into Cassandra Thorndike’s neighborhood. I only hoped that my nondescript outfit, which consisted of my navy-blue jacket and a pair of jeans, would make it difficult for any bystanders to pick me out of a lineup, if it ever came to that.
Besides, I told myself, there’s nobody around in this quiet residential neighborhood. Not in the middle of the day. And the bright yellow crime-scene tape is gone, so there’d be no reason for anyone who happened to drive by to be suspicious.
My theory fell apart as soon as I started up the front walk that led to Cassandra Thorndike’s house.
“Hi-i-i!” a high-pitched voice called.
I glanced over at the house next door and saw Maggie Rose standing on the porch, dressed in pale pink corduroy overalls and a yellow T-shirt. She gave me a big wave and an even bigger smile. “It’s me, Maggie Rose. Remember?”
“Of course I remember,” I replied, trying not to appear dismayed.
Not that I hadn’t found Maggie Rose charming—and enjoyed our conversation, even if I was forced to admit that I’m a little weak in the lepidoptera department. But given the fact that I was trying my darnedest not to be seen, the last thing I wanted was to stand outside on the front lawn, chatting with a four-year-old.
“How’s it going, Maggie Rose?” I added without breaking stride.
“Good.” She drifted halfway down the front steps of her great-grandmother’s house and draped herself across the banister. “You’re the doctor who takes care of animals, right?”
“Right. Except butterflies.” I wondered if there was any way I could ask the exuberant little girl to speak a little more softly.
“I know a story about a bunny,” Maggie Rose said. “Want to hear it?”
“I wish I had time. But I’m afraid I’m kind of busy—”
“But this is a really good story. It’s from a book. Cassie used to read it to me.”
My ears pricked up at the little girl’s use of the words bunny and Cassie in the same sentence. Still, I’d come here on a mission. If I let myself get distracted by Maggie Rose, who was no doubt desperate for a playmate who preferred telling stories to watching the Shopping Channel, I might run out of time.
Or, worse yet, lose my nerve.
“I’m afraid I can’t,” I told her. “At least not today. I just stopped over for a minute to...uh, check something.”
“Maggie Rose! Are you outside again?” Virginia Krupinski’s voice called from inside the house. “Didn’t I tell you not to go out without your sweater?”
And I bet there’s one with a mean popcorn stitch that has your name on it, I thought.
“I’m not cold, Grammy!” Maggie Rose whined.
“You come back in here right now!” Virginia insisted. “Besides, it’s time for your nap!”
I had a feeling it was really time for Virginia’s nap, but that wasn’t any of my business.
“You’d better go inside,” I told Maggie Rose. “It sounds like your great-grandma means what she says.”
“She never reads me stories!” she returned, sticking out her lower lip in an unconvincing pout. But she turned and marched up the stairs and onto the porch, not even waving good-bye before disappearing into the house.
Perfect timing, I thought, silently thanking whoever had invented naps.
After glancing around one last time to make sure no one was watching, I headed around toward the back. Sure enough, there was a cat door. Just as I remembered from the other time I’d been here. A knot immediately developed in the pit of my stomach.
Funny, I’d imagined it would be so much bigger.
I suddenly regretted helping Nick finish off those pastries Jean-Luc had forced upon me a couple of days ago. Still, I’d come this far. I had to give it the old college try, whether it turned out I could actually manage to fit through the small space or not.
I yanked off my fleece jacket, trying to minimize my resemblance to the Michelin Man. And wishing I could come up with some other ways of making myself narrower.
Here goes, I thought, crouching down and pushing the swinging door open. As I extended both legs through the square opening, a horrifying image popped into my head—one that involved me getting wedged inside the cat door at the hip, firefighters arriving on the scene with the Jaws of Life or at least large containers of cooking oil, and Lieutenant Anthony Falcone watching the whole thing with a smirk on his face and a pair of cuffs in his hands, thrilled that he’d caught me breaking and entering.
Suppressing the urge to shudder, I wriggled across the back steps, inhaling as deeply as I could. When I got to the hips, I tightened all the relevant muscles, chastising myself for never taking those “Buns of Steel” videos seriously.
True, it was a tight fit. But I made it.
So far, so good, I muttered. But the next challenge, getting my shoulders through, wasn’t far behind.
It turned out that I had a lot more play with my upper body. A wrench of the arm here, a twist into an extremely uncomfortable position there, and I managed to squirm all the way through.
My heart was pounding and I felt oddly light-headed as I stood up. Whether that was from having just stuffed a round peg into a square hole or the fact that I was standing in Cassandra Thorndike’s kitchen, I couldn’t say.
Once I got my bearings, of course, I realized I could have simply stuck my head and one arm through and unlocked the back door.
Next time, I told myself, even as I hoped against hope there wouldn’t be a next time.
What mattered for the moment was that I’d made it inside and was free to explore.
I glanced around, breathing in deeply and trying to get a feel for the woman who had lived here. Died here too, although at the moment I was more interested in discovering whatever I could about Cassandra’s life than her death.
The kitchen was an excellent place to start. People’s kitchens tell a lot about them. How organized they are, how much time they spend at home...and their idiosyncracies about eating. I grabbed a dish towel and used it to open the refrigerator without leaving any fingerprints. Empty. Whether that reflected Cassandra’s lifestyle or the Norfolk County Police Department’s level of efficiency, I couldn’t say.
The cabinets were much more revealing. From what I could see, Cassandra was not exactly what you’d call a homebody. For one thing, she didn’t appear to own a complete set of anything. Three mugs, five plates, a smattering of unmatched silverware. A few staples had been shoved onto the shelves, but they didn’t strike me as ingredients that went together very well: salt, honey, Nutella, tea bags, Cap’n Crunch. I bet even Jean-Luc couldn’t come up with a way to combine those.
Her apparent lack of interest in creating fine cuisine at home was consistent with the rest of the room. Her collection of cooking utensils consisted of a can opener, a bottle opener, and a corkscrew. Even I own a slotted spoon.
Still, I reasoned, maybe her Spartan kitchen was simply a by-product of being a restaurateur’s fiancée. After all, why make dinner at home when you could order up anything you wanted—and not even have to do the dishes afterward?
But beyond the lack of tools required to feed on
eself, the kitchen had very few of the cozy little touches that typically make kitchens the most popular room in the house. There was no calendar hanging on the wall, not even one of those freebies from a local bank or supermarket. No photographs were stuck on the refrigerator, not even one of Beau. And I’d met very few pet owners who were able to resist decorating with images of their favorite living, breathing cuddly toy. Forget cute curtains or a set of matching canisters. Cassandra didn’t even appear to own a drain board.
Okay, I told myself. There’s nothing surprising here. The fact that Cassandra Thorndike didn’t spend her Saturdays baking cookies isn’t a great surprise. But you’re also not finding out anything about her life that may help you figure out who killed her.
I moved on. As I stepped gingerly through the house, aware that my heart wouldn’t stop pounding and that two giant wet spots were forming under my arms, I noticed cartons and shopping bags on chairs and next to dressers. Somebody—Joan Thorndike, according to Theo Simcox—was in the process of packing up Cassandra’s things.
I peeked into a couple of cartons and saw they were filled with jeans and jewelry and books and CDs. But it wasn’t Cassandra’s possessions I was interested in; it was her home office. Not only was it the place in which she conducted her personal business and no doubt some of her job-related dealings. It was also the room in which she’d been killed.
The simple act of stepping into the smaller of the house’s two bedrooms, outfitted as a home office, was sobering. This is the last place Cassandra was alive, I thought. These walls are the last thing she saw.
It was also the place in which she looked into the eyes of her murderer—most likely a person she knew, and knew well.
Cassandra’s home office was as cluttered as her kitchen was bare. I estimated the room to be about eight by ten feet, yet she’d packed in an amazing amount of stuff. Wooden bookshelves lined two entire walls, and every inch was crammed with books, boxes, and file folders.
The room was dominated by a large desk, placed at an angle with the window overlooking the sea behind it. It was covered with Cassandra’s possessions, just as Forrester had described it. They were in a state of complete chaos. Here, a pencil cup lay on its side, the pens and pencils and markers it had once contained splayed out like a child’s game of pick-up sticks. Papers were strewn across the desk’s surface, along with the manila folders that no doubt had originally held them in an orderly fashion.
There were other signs of the terrible incident that had occurred here. The rug was stained a dark red-brown, and dried blood spattered two of the walls.
I took a deep breath, trying to remain objective and forcing myself to take an inventory of the rest of the room. The trash can was nearly empty, and the plastic tray that served as an in-box contained nothing besides a coffee mug.
I moved closer to the desk and, still clutching the dish towel, gingerly opened the drawers. I found more file folders, each one labeled with the name of an East End restaurant. Thorndike Vineyards’ clients, I assumed, the restaurants Cassandra had visited in her capacity as salesperson for her family’s winery. I checked a few of them, noting that all the well-known eateries were there. At least, the ones I’d heard of.
I checked the rest of the drawers. A stapler and some other office supplies, a couple of packs of gum, a comb and a small mirror. Nothing too interesting.
Frustrated, I turned to the bookshelves. After all, that was probably where the copy of The Scarlet Letter had come from. As I perused the spines of the hardcover and paperback books crammed onto the shelves, I learned little besides the fact that Cassandra had had eclectic taste. Her library included everything from classic novels to best-sellers to books about wine.
Then I spotted a book with a dark red leather cover stuck up on the shelf between Jonathan Kellerman and Stephen King. It didn’t have a title printed on the spine.
Intrigued, I pulled it out—and saw that the cover was embossed in gold with the year.
Cassandra’s date book. She’d kept it on a shelf with her other books, and the cops had missed it.
“Bingo,” I muttered. If anything could help me get a feeling for how Cassandra spent her last days, it was the book I was holding in my hands—cradled in the dish towel, of course.
I began flipping through it, searching for the previous week. Unfortunately, the few entries Cassandra had made for the last week of September didn’t tell me much. Most were appointments with restaurants, the same ones whose names were on the file folders. Della Marina and Barbie’s and The Washroom in East Brompton, La Cuisine and Allie’s in West Brompton, Cashew and Rick and Terri’s in Poxabogue. There was one restaurant I didn’t recognize: THOR.
I flipped back a few weeks, landing in the last week of July. Tuesday, dentist, cleaning, 1:00. Thursday, 2:00, THOR.
The following week she’d written, Friday, 1:00, THOR.
What’s Thor? I wondered. Cassandra was going there too frequently for it to be a restaurant. An organization, maybe...or some local business, like a gym?
Or maybe a man?
As I skimmed through her entire year of appointments, I saw the name again and again. In fact, the name Thor was scribbled in at least once a week. Twice, sometimes.
Whatever or whoever this Thor was, I mused, he or it certainly seemed to play a large role in Cassandra’s life.
“Hey!” I cried aloud when I spotted the February 12 entry. In addition to the name Thor and the time, Cassandra had scrawled a phone number. Checking the weeks before, I discovered that this was the first time Thor had been entered in her date book.
I pulled a pen and a gas station receipt out of my purse and wrote it down.
I put the book back where I’d found it, then glanced around the office one more time. At least I got something, I thought.
Now that I had, it seemed like a good time to get the heck out of there.
I headed out of the room quickly. Too quickly. As I did, I accidentally banged into the wall of shelves with my arm and managed to knock over a box of tissues, one of those cube-shaped ones with a never-ending supply popping out, one after another.
But as it fell to the floor, they all popped out at once.
“Klutz,” I grumbled as I bent over to pick up the pieces and put Humpty Dumpty together again.
As I did, I realized there was a reason the wad of tissues had fallen out. The wad itself wasn’t very thick, only a half inch or so. But there had been something else in the box that helped push them out.
Film. Rolls and rolls of film, each in its black cylindrical box. Seven, I counted before flipping open the lids.
Every one was exposed but undeveloped.
And hidden at the bottom of a tissue box.
The sound of a crash made me jump. The kitchen. Somebody was in the kitchen. My mind raced as fast as my pounding heart as I conjured up the most likely scenario: Somebody had been hiding in the bushes, watching me break in to the house. And then that individual had followed suit, wriggling inside exactly the way I had.
Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to slip the rolls of film into my pocket.
I let out a cry when a shadow moved across the doorway and I realized that the explanation that had run through my panicked mind was absolutely correct. Fortunately, Beau, being a cat and all, wasn’t likely to turn me in.
“It’s you!” I cried, half-relieved and half-accusing.
The satiny black feline just stared at me with his round, green eyes. Maybe it was my imagination, but he also looked both relieved and accusing. Still, having been found out—even by a pussycat—was a chilling reminder that I was taking a great risk. The idea of getting out while the getting was still good suddenly seemed incredibly attractive.
“The place is all yours,” I told him. “Enjoy.”
Beau just blinked, then trotted into the living room and leaped onto the couch, immediately settling into what I suspected had long been his favorite spot. I, too, was suddenly desperate to be in my favorite spo
t.
Which, at the moment, happened to be anywhere but here.
I was feeling pretty creeped out by the whole breaking-and-entering experience by the time I slid out through the cat door, wanting to keep the back door locked. The fact that the sun had dropped low in the sky and was blanketing the cliffside neighborhood in ominous-looking shadows didn’t help.
As I neared my car, holding out the remote to unlock it, I happened to glance at the front seat. And nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that somebody was sitting in the driver’s seat.
At least, I thought it was somebody at first. But as I got closer, I saw that it wasn’t a somebody. It was a something.
A dummy, in fact. The horrid little wooden doll that was Ethan Thorndike’s alter ego.
Chapter 10
“He lives in the halflights in secret places, free and alone, this mysterious little great being whom his mistress calls, My cat . . .”
—Margaret Benson
Realizing the intruder inside my car was made of wood, rather than flesh and bone, didn’t do much to alleviate my discomfort. Neither did the fact that he was once again dressed like somebody’s prom date instead of something threatening like a kung fu fighter or a WWF wrestler. In fact, anything at all that was related to Ethan Thorndike automatically increased a situation’s creepiness factor by at least a hundred.
I opened the door and grabbed Ethan’s version of Mini-Me by the armpits.
“Okay, Woody,” I muttered. “I don’t consider myself a violent person, but I’m beginning to harbor fantasies of turning you into a pile of toothpicks.”
“I don’t think he likes that,” a male voice said. “Being handled so roughly, I mean.”
I wasn’t particularly surprised to turn around and find that Ethan was standing behind me. Uncomfortably close, as it turned out. This guy sure didn’t seem to know much about boundaries. Of any sort.
“Then he shouldn’t go around breaking into people’s cars,” I told him.
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