Closet Full Of Bones

by A. J. Aalto

  “Uh huh.”

  “That does matter, Frankie.”

  “Uh huh.” She didn’t sound convinced.

  Gillian fired a second throw pillow at her sister’s head, which startled the old dog into a rattling, claws-on-hardwood departure from the room. “Incorrigible.”

  “You just need to get some, lady,” Frankie told her. “I’m just saying. Been a while. You could use a little.”

  Gillian listened to her sister go on a pretend rant about her lack of sex life, finishing her pizza and feeling, for the moment, as though all the worry of their past week, all the threats and the deception and the danger was just slipping away. Like nothing could pop this bubble.

  Like for the night, they were truly safe.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Saturday, November 1. 9:50 A.M.

  Frankie licked her ice cream cone and looked at the wrought iron gate as they drove through it. “Why are we stopping here?”

  Gillian parked beside the custodian’s spot, turned off the Jeep, and glanced in the rear view mirror at the other car that pulled in further away. She didn’t recognize it, but she had seen the driver once before, in the Sunnyside Up Diner last Tuesday, the plain clothes police officer checking her out. She was not at all concerned about his second appearance in her life. If anything, she felt safer; a cop’s widow, she saw the law as being on her side, even when that wasn’t black and white. Regardless of what he might be up to, sniffing around her tail, it was good to have him nearby. Travis Freeman would be sorry if he threatened them physically if he was witnessed by a cop. Gillian almost hoped he would. Almost. If not for that stupid missing diary. She fought her temper, cast an outwardly calm smile at her sister, and shrugged.

  “We need a nice, quiet place to talk where we won’t be disturbed,” Gillian said, “but it’s nothing disastrous. Enjoy your ice cream.”

  “Sorbet,” Frankie corrected.

  “Whatever,” Gillian said with a smile, and rolled her eyes.

  They got out, and Gillian zipped her coat against the fresh November chill, while Frankie adjusted a vintage cream knit shawl over her peasant blouse. She stepped over a few small puddles along the walk, and headed into the cemetery. The late autumn foliage drop was scattering red and gold leaves across their path. Frankie’s tan, high heeled boots — vegan leather, she’d crowed, upon flashing them this morning — struck hard against the pavement. Gillian’s black work boots were relatively silent except for the crunch where the damp gravel was beginning to frost over. Frankie’s untamed blonde curls tossed in the wind and bounced against her shoulders, turning to gold silk where the sun caught a thin lock or two. Gillian buried her bare hands in her pockets and cast a quick glance over her shoulder. The cop wasn’t following them, but he’d been joined by a familiar silver Audi, two other cars, and a big black truck. Well, well, Gillian thought. Isn’t this perfect.

  Frankie was oblivious, finishing her sorbet and munching the cone. “So this is Pleasant Pines. Isn’t Great-Aunt Willa buried here?”

  “No, that’s over in Pleasant Fields,” Gillian said.

  Frankie admired the landscaping. “Everything’s pleasant when you’re dead, huh? At least it’s peaceful. And pretty. Did you plant here?”

  “Some, yes.” Gillian pointed to a swath of graves on a little sun dappled rise. “This family up here, for one. Their relatives are in Ottawa; can’t make it down to plant. The usual. We haven’t done the winter clean-up yet.”

  “Those are beautiful, what are they?”

  “They’re just a fancy kind of begonia.” The wind picked up and the sisters flinched against it, ducking their heads into the gust. “They wanted pinks, but I couldn’t get them from my usual supplier, so I planted white.”

  Frankie murmured thoughtfully, content to wander. “Surprised you didn’t go with red. That’s closer to pink.”

  Gillian faked a mild smile and shrugged. “Let’s take this path.”

  They ended up at the top of a rise overlooking a small fountain surrounded with willow trees. Near it, there was a bench with a plaque that read “Ellis.” Gillian had bought it in memory of Greg. Behind the bench was a large area for plantings, and behind that was a drop-off into a gully full of tangled trees and bushes and vines that teemed with insect life and small scurrying creatures during the warmer months. There was still some shade from the taller trees, oaks and maples mostly, that hadn’t yet lost all their leaves. An ATV with a flat bed was parked there; the driver had presumably wandered off to take a break. She recognized Aaron’s jacket slung over one of the seats and a fabric tote he used to carry drinks and snacks at work, and wondered where the new guy was.

  “Wanna sit?” Frankie asked, and the wind shook her earrings, adding a fine, silvery tinkle to the sounds of rustling leaves around them. She didn’t wait for her sister’s agreement, and swept some fallen twigs off the bench for them. Gillian remained standing before her for the moment, cautiously not looking at the gully behind her sister.

  Frankie seemed less anxious today, and Gillian supposed that it was defeat that she was seeing on her sister’s bright face, a resignation to whatever punishment was coming. With the diaries missing, especially the one she’d written in during the Mike Deacon fiasco, their secrets were vulnerable to someone who clearly wished them both harm. There wasn’t much left to do but wait for the axe to fall, if it was going to.

  Gillian was not so willing to roll over and accept her fate. “I have something to tell you about Bobby,” she started carefully. “You’re not going to like it. And you must keep it very quiet. If she ever finds out it was me who told…”

  Frankie blinked rapidly but didn’t move another muscle. She stared straight ahead, dread momentarily brushing the defeated serenity aside, and her large brown eyes, that Gillian thought were the most beautiful of her sister’s many lovely features, gained the glossy sheen of tears. Frankie wrestled with words.

  “Okay?” Frankie finally got out.

  Gillian glanced behind her to make sure neither their new cop shadow, or Paul Langerbeins, or Travis Freeman was anywhere nearby to hear her. “Bobby has been poisoning Barb. Maybe her mother, too. With antifreeze.”

  Frankie deflated, shoulders slumping, the remainder of her sorbet falling from her hand to drop on the grass. “The coffee.”

  Gillian’s stomach lurched to have it confirmed. “The other night when you thought you had food poisoning? Was Bobby with you that night?”

  “Bobby came over late with coffee from the drive thru,” Frankie confessed.

  “Oh, shit,” Gillian said, though “shit” did not go nearly far enough to describe her anger.

  “And it was way too sweet. I didn’t want it, but it was such an awkward night. I felt I should be careful not to piss her off.” Frankie shook her head. “Why me? Why would she do this? Are you sure about this?”

  “I think her motives with Barb are twofold. One, she’s after Barb’s money,” Gillian said. “She had to share her mom’s inheritance. Barb says she doesn’t have anything left, but she has the house. That’s got to be worth a fair chunk of change. Two, I think she’s making Barb sick so she can gripe about being burdened, to gain attention and pity for herself. As for you… she seems to have a problem with feeling used and unappreciated, but at the same time she thrives on being needed. I wonder if you’re being punished for not keeping in touch, for not being as close as she wants you to be. If you were to fall sick, she could swoop in and take care of you, and then you’d owe her. Need her. Appreciate her. Love her.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong?” Frankie said faintly.

  “Frankie, we always knew she wasn’t quite right. The good news is, you’re not dead,” Gillian said wryly. “If she dosed you, it was obviously not lethal. And you seem fine. Do you feel fine?”

  Frankie nodded mutely. “I do now.”

  “But that’s the only good news. I phoned in an anonymous tip and begged the dispatcher to send someone over for a wellness check, have
them get in there with some excuse to look. It’s in the police’s hands.”

  “Can’t they just arrest her?”

  “Honey, they can’t even look in her cabinets without a warrant, you know this,” Gillian said. “I told them as much as I knew. I hope it was enough.”

  Frankie stared at the dregs of her cone on the ground, kicked at it with the tip of one pretty new tan boot. “What if the cops go in, don’t find anything, and leave Barb at Bobby’s mercy?”

  Gillian nodded. “Then I’ll have to go back and tell Barb what I suspect. Which means I’ll need you to get Bobby out of the house.”

  “Oh my gawwwwd,” Frankie whispered, hugging herself and rocking back and forth on the bench. “Gillian, if she’s killed her mother and is killing her sister and maybe tried it on me, I caaaaaan’t spend time alone with her. How? How can I?”

  “By playing stupid,” Gillian said. “This is Barb’s life we’re talking about, here. Suck it up, Francine. We cannot be responsible for another death. I won't allow it.”

  Frankie opened her mouth to object to that then snapped her jaws shut. “You’re right, of course you’re right. Should we tell Paul?”

  Gillian blinked with surprise. She hadn’t even considered that. “We should tell Paul that we suspect it was Bobby who’s been coming to your house to mess with you.”

  “Wait, what?” Frankie shook her head. “No, I know Travis was there. I saw his stupid, big, ugly truck cruising up the firelane. The firelanes are for local traffic only, they’re not through roads. Most of them are dead ends. There’s no reason for him to be there.”

  “Who left the rose?” Gillian asked. “Bobby or Travis?”

  “Travis,” Frankie said, knee-jerk. “I think. Bobby’s too cheap. She buys carnations.”

  “Who broke in through your basement window and stole your diary?”

  Frankie thought about it. “Either one of them could have fit through that window. It’s larger, an emergency exit for fire safety. But Travis read my diary without permission before, and he was furious about things I said about him in there. It feels like something he’d do.”

  “And would either of them have been able to guess your pass code for the new security system?”

  Frankie squirmed. “I used my birthday.”

  Gillian’s lips tightened unhappily but she didn’t scold; there was no point in that now. “You’ve since changed it, right?”

  “Yes,” Frankie said, nodding rapidly.

  “And not to some other obvious anniversary?”

  “Random number, wrote it down, it’s hidden in a zipper pocket in my wallet.”

  Gillian sighed. “Throw that out as soon as you’ve memorized it, please.” Then she thought about what Paul had said about stalkers stealing your garbage and going through it. “Better yet, flush it.”

  Frankie agreed. “Is Travis still calling you?”

  Gillian nodded, and glanced toward the parking lot. She hoped very much that he would be stupid enough to vandalize her car again, this time in front of the cop and Paul. It would be worth the repair bill just to see him punished. “He tries. I don’t listen to voice mail from blocked numbers. I don’t read his texts, I just select-all-delete-all and turn my phone off at night.”

  Frankie nodded. “I haven’t even glanced at my phone. If Henry and the boys have an emergency, they’ll try both of us. I can’t bear to look at the phone right now. I haven’t touched it.”

  Gillian knew as much; Frankie’s phone was still in her purse, not Frankie’s. She pulled her scarf up to cover the hollow of her throat against a frigid finger of wind and zipped her coat up even tighter. She looked down at Frankie’s slim legs in pale woolen leggings, the peasant blouse and shawl, no gloves, no hat. “You must be freezing.”

  “Do I need to go to the doctor?” Frankie wondered aloud, staring into the distance.

  “Might be a good idea to get blood tests,” Gillian suggested, “to make sure everything is okay? I can take you.”

  Frankie stood. “Maybe we should do that now, just in case.”

  Considering Gillian knew little about antifreeze poisoning, she thought this was a good idea. She hooked her arm around Frankie’s and they started back to the car, mostly silent.

  Gillian cast a last glance over her shoulder at the gully behind the bench, where impassable vines and brush choked the whole deep ditch and trees grew so closely together that they sometimes became intertwined. It looked untouched, but of course it was; who would bother with such an overgrown, steep drop-off? The saw that rested there was very likely safe.

  “We need to get that diary back,” Frankie whispered, and her words were mostly snatched away by wind. “Before someone uses it.”

  Gillian nodded. And she knew just where she wouldn’t dispose of it.

  **

  Paul Langerbeins watched as Travis Freemans’ truck pulled away. He noted the officer in his personal vehicle was taking notes. He did not make eye contact with Paul, but Paul didn’t doubt he’d been spotted. He watched his clients get back in Gillian’s Jeep. Something new was wrong. He could tell by the way Frankie’s usual vivacious nature had been nearly extinguished. She was walking like she was exhausted, wilting. Gillian was supporting her right up until she set her inside the passenger seat of the Jeep.

  He didn’t follow them when they drove away. He made some notes of his own. Then he turned on the scanner that tracked the GPS device he’d hidden in the undercarriage of Travis Freeman’s truck on Wednesday night, watched on the display as the truck did a few circles in a nearby suburb and head in the direction of Frankie’s house. So far, the truck had not once gone to the Hearth sisters’ new home at Higgins Point. Paul was convinced that Travis wasn’t aware of the purchase or the address of the new house. That was good. He also didn’t think Bobby McIntyre had been invited to the new place, though he’d seen her at Frankie’s home twice.

  He slapped his notebook shut and headed off to get some greasy fast food, needing to fortify with calories and carbonation. Something ugly was brewing with the Hearth sisters, and Paul didn’t like the way it felt. He was missing a puzzle piece. The big picture was unclear. He felt like he was watching a train rushing down the tracks to hit something, and if he could warn them, if he could flag them down…

  Paul didn’t realize it yet, but the Ugly being brewed was only a day away.

  He wouldn't be able to warn them in time.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sunday, November 2. 12:20 A.M.

  Gillian set the mug of herbal tea beside the bed and listened. She thought she’d heard a knock at the door. If she’d considered Paul’s suggestion to get a dog, she’d know for sure. She checked the time: after midnight.

  There was another knock, and this one was certain. She checked the time again, exhausted and disoriented, wishing she’d decided to stay at the new house again. Maybe it was Paul or Frankie at the door. She grabbed her robe and slipped it over her tank top and boxers, cinching the belt tightly. Maybe it was Colin, far too early for their meeting. He shouldn’t be at her house so late at night, but he’d never been one for rules.

  She didn’t put on the overhead light because she didn’t want to immediately announce her presence. She peered through the curtain at the unfamiliar shadow standing there; big, male, shifting uncomfortably on the porch. Too big to be Travis Freeman. Who and why? Her pulse started drumming hard, but she told herself to settle down; not everything was a goddamn disaster. Maybe a neighbor needed help. At twelve-thirty? Sure. We don’t choose when trouble strikes.

  She turned on the overhead light, and it illuminated a stranger’s face; she noted details as she’d been taught. Then she slid the security chain on, and eased the door open.

  “Something wrong, sir?”

  He glanced back at the firelane and then made hurry-up motions with his hands. “We doin’ this or what?”

  “What is it we’re doing?” Gillian asked.

  “Your ad said—“

&
nbsp; “My ad? What ad? I’ll stop you there,” she said, curious but no longer afraid. “Sir, I don’t know what you read, and I’m sorry if it gave you the wrong impression, but I don’t have an ad. Anywhere. Where did you see it?”

  He showed her his phone. The ad had her photo, her goddamn wedding photo with Greg cropped out, and her current address and cell phone number. It read: I’m all alone now. Come anytime. I like to be “convinced.” Hard. I get so wet when a man just takes what he wants.

  She blinked rapidly and the fear returned; the man standing in front of her had showed up to “convince her hard,” but luck had been on her side, and this was no fool. He had believed her initial confusion, hadn’t bought it as part of some role playing act, and he wasn’t about to go to prison for pussy. Genuine force wasn’t his thing. Role playing was. If this had been another type of man, Gillian could be having a very bad night.

  She met his eyes to judge his reaction, to make sure she was still reading the situation right, while half her mind searched the area around her for possible weapons she might use if she saw him make a move.

  “Not your ad?” he said quietly. No anger. Mild disappointment. By the look of him, he probably had plenty of ladies crawling into his lap, just perhaps not in the way he’d prefer. Judging by his reaction to the ad, showing up at a strange woman’s home at twelve-thirty to “take what he wants,” maybe easy wasn’t what he craved.

  “Someone else placed this,” she told him, “trying to get me hurt.”

  “Not your idea of fun,” he confirmed, and he was already moving off the porch, a subtle shift in body weight, but enough to make Gillian’s shoulders ease down a bit. He said, “Better lock up when I go.”

  “I’m sorry someone did this,” she said, genuinely horrified not just for herself but for this man who came for aggressive role play with a stranger and could have ended up in prison for rape.

  “Yeah, you should probably report that. I’m not the worst who’ll show,” he advised, which she found surprising enough to shock a laugh from her.