“And it was a great day,” she said, her defensive hackles rising.
“Have you ever thought about looking closer to home?” I asked, hedging.
“What do you mean? Like, in my family? Because that’s normally frowned upon.”
“No, like in your house.” I nodded toward Tre as he added shadow to a tentacle.
At first her face contorted with a jolt of revulsion; then she rethought her expression. I could hear the cogs clicking as she peeked around the wall to take another look. “He is hot.”
“Duh.”
“But he’s just so … I don’t know, slutty.”
“You’re one to talk. Wait a minute.” I cast her a knowing smile. “You’re worried about the competition.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not.”
“Are—”
“Boss!” Tre called out, his voice full of mirth. “If you’re finished talking about my awesomeness, your client has decided on a color.”
She straightened. “Oh, that’s me. Tell Harper hey for me.”
“You got it.”
I wound toward the back room, but Harper wasn’t there. I checked the whole area, including the front of Pari’s parlor. No Harper. Darn. I was running out of time.
* * *
Since Mrs. Beecher had been so helpful the first time I spoke with her, I decided to question her again, only this time I’d focus on what Harper was like when she’d come back from her grandparents’ after the Lowells got married. I parked in front of her house again, admired her purple flowers again, and knocked on her door, wondering where Harper could have gotten off to.
Mrs. Beecher pulled open the solid wood door, but stayed behind the screen like last time. However, unlike last time, she seemed annoyed at my being there. Couldn’t blame her. I annoyed the best of them.
“Hi again,” I said, waving inanely. “It’s just me. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple more questions.”
She glanced over her shoulder, then said, “I have dinner on.”
“Oh, it’ll just take a minute.”
After pressing her mouth together, she nodded. She wore a gray dress this time that matched her hair and eyes, and a pale yellow apron.
“Awesome, thank you. I understand Harper stayed with her grandparents while the Lowells went on their honeymoon. Do you remember anything odd about that trip? Did Harper seem like she’d been abused in any way? Or bullied? Anything out of the ordinary?” I took out my memo pad again, just in case she gave me some juicy tidbits, because the best tidbits were juicy.
“Not especially.” She shrugged and thought back. “She’d come in every evening after playing out in the sun with the neighbor kids all day. Got a horrible sunburn. Other than that, she had the time of her life. She loved it out there on her grandparents’ estate.”
I paused, then ran my tongue over my bottom lip. “She’d come in?” I asked in surprise. “You mean, you were there? You were at her grandparents’ house with her?”
Her smile stretched as false as a bad face-lift. Suddenly every movement she made was calculated, every expression rehearsed. “I was, yes. I just assumed you knew that.”
“No. No one mentioned it.” Was it really so easy to dismiss the help like they didn’t exist?
A ripple of unease radiated off the woman, and I realized I might have assigned the wrong source to the fear I’d felt the first time I met her. I’d assumed she was afraid of speaking to me because of Mrs. Lowell and what she might do. I’d never imagined …
No, I couldn’t jump to conclusions. Besides the fact that I wasn’t that strong a jumper, this was a sweet old lady. Sweet old ladies didn’t stalk children. They didn’t terrorize them or bully them without a reason, and what reason would anyone have to oppress a five-year-old child?
I decided to play my ace, see if she’d show her hand. I waited a heartbeat, then said, “Well, when I talked to Harper a couple of days ago, she didn’t mention you’d been with her. But you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?”
The moment the words of left my mouth, Mrs. Beecher’s emotions went wild like I’d hit the jackpot on a slot machine. But she was a pro. Her poker face was a thing of beauty. The emotion roiling underneath her calm exterior was like a summer hurricane as seen from the calm of space.
I stood there stunned. The housekeeper? Seriously? She was four feet tall and as round as a muffin.
“I’m sorry I keep asking the same question,” I said after a quick shake to recover. “We’re just really worried about Harper. Any information you have will help.”
She suddenly seemed more fragile than fine china as she craned open the screen door and hobbled to the side. “Certainly, certainly. I’m sorry for being so rude. You come on in.” Even her voice quivered more than it had when she first answered.
Oh, yeah. This was going to end badly.
I wondered who else she had inside. A burly beefcake who did all her dirty work for her? A crazy daughter who followed her every order? She didn’t look like the type who would kill a rabbit and put it on a little girl’s bed, but stranger things had happened.
Forcing my feet forward, I stepped inside the spider’s web.
“Can I get you some tea, dear?” she asked.
So you can lace it with arsenic? I think not. “Um, no, thank you, I’m good.”
We stood in the foyer, and I couldn’t help but notice the seventeen million photographs she had of one man. They spanned his entire life from the time he was an infant until he was probably in his early forties. Her son, perhaps? Grandson?
“Now, what else would you like to know?”
Well, what I wanted to know was how on Earth I was going to prove that this sweet old lady had been threatening Harper practically her whole life. But I didn’t think I should ask her that. I totally needed evidence. Or a full confession in high def.
She looked past the foyer, but I couldn’t tell at what. Sadly, I couldn’t turn and look, too, without seeming suspicious, and I wanted this woman to trust in the fact that she had me completely and utterly fooled.
“I know this is silly,” I said, rolling my eyes with a helpless smirk, “but Ms. Lowell insists someone is trying to hurt her. Can you tell me what you remember from that time at her grandparents? Do you remember when the supposed—” I added air quotes. “—threats started?”
Her smile softened with relief. As far as she was concerned, I was just as gullible as her employers had been all those years. But I had to admit to more than my fair share of bafflement. Why would this woman terrorize a five-year-old girl? Then continue to do so her entire life? So much so that Harper had to be institutionalized? The mere thought was horrific.
I looked at the pictures that surrounded us. Maybe she had some help. It didn’t take a genius to realize there was something a tad left of kilter about the guy in the pictures. His blue eyes seemed a little too bright. His brown hair a little too unkempt. His expressions a little too feral. He reminded me of Gerald Roma from grade school, who used to burn ants with a magnifying glass. He was never quite right. It was weird that he spontaneously combusted during finals week our freshman year in college. Payback was a bitch.
Mrs. Beecher chuckled and led me farther inside. “That girl and her imagination, I tell ya. She started telling stories when she was around five and never let up.” She strolled all the way into her kitchen. I peeked into every nook and cranny I could along the way, trying to assess exactly what I was dealing with.
As luck would have it, Cookie called, her timing impeccable. “I’m sorry,” I said, pushing the icon to accept the call, “will you give me a minute? I have to take this.”
“You go right ahead, dear.”
I turned and walked a few feet away toward an open door just off the kitchen, and I found it interesting that the closer I got to that door, the more apprehensive Mrs. Beecher became.
“Hey, Cook,” I said, all cheer and goodwill. But before she could respond in kind, I
said, “Yeah, I’m here talking to Mrs. Beecher now. This case is a dead end. I can’t find any evidence whatsoever of what Harper Lowell was talking about.” My words calmed the woman a bit, so I took another few steps that way.
“Okay,” Cookie said, catching on, “are you in immediate danger?”
“I don’t think so, but one never knows with cases like this.”
“What can I do?”
“Sure, I can meet Uncle Bob for coffee. Can you call him and have him meet me at that address you gave me?”
“I can definitely do that. Do I need to get emergency over there?”
“Oh, no. That’s okay. Just tell him to take his time. I’m almost finished here.”
“Okay, calling Ubie now. Be careful.”
“What? You like to look at naked men on the Internet?”
“I mean it.”
Darn. Didn’t even get a rise out of her. What good was harassment if she didn’t rise to the occasion? I hung up and took one more step closer to that door. I couldn’t see past the thick blackness, but it was cooler than the rest of the house, possibly a basement of some kind. Nothing good ever seemed to come of basements, so I started to turn back, when I heard a loud thud. A sharp pain exploded in my head; then the world tumbled around me in a series of somersaults and painful bounces.
I landed in a heap of hair and body parts at the bottom of a very solid set of stairs. One would think pine gave more than that. But crap on a cracker, that hurt.
I curled into a fetal position, cradling my head and gritting my teeth against the pain shooting through every molecule in my body. Above me, I heard a door close and then Mrs. Beecher’s feeble steps descending the stairs. She moved at a pace that would have given a baby turtle a run for his money. A cast-iron skillet hung from her hands, and I was fairly certain that was what started my tumultuous journey into the unknown. Who knew cast iron was so hard?
I still needed evidence of her involvement in Harper’s case. Right now, all I had was an assault with a skillet by an elderly woman who could claim dementia and most definitely get away with it in court. With every ounce of strength I had, I forced my muscles to relax, my body to go limp like wet noodles. Uncle Bob was on his way. Maybe I could wrap this case up before he got here.
My eyes had watered and the air felt cool against the wetness on my cheeks, but that was the only positive I could wring out of the situation. Well, that and the fact that I could probably outrun Mrs. Beecher if push came to shove. She was about halfway down the steps at that point, so I decided to save my mental strength and ponder what it would be like to live in a world where butterflies ruled and humans were their slaves.
It didn’t help. All I could think about was the pain shooting through Barbara, my brain. Normally, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to Barbara—she didn’t get out much—but today was her day to shine. I was certain parts of her were oozing out of Fred, my skull.
As I lay there channeling spaghetti, Mrs. Beecher headed toward a stack of shelves and started rummaging through old boxes, probably looking for a rusty old hacksaw to dismember me before she buried my parts in this very basement. I couldn’t help but notice it had a dirt floor. Convenient.
Then I heard something else. I looked up as Harper tiptoed down the stairs. I glared at her, but she rushed down the minute she saw me.
“Charley,” she whispered, glancing around in horror, “what happened?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked through gritted teeth, trying not to move my lips. Not sure why. I wanted nothing more than to hold my head and writhe in agony.
Harper spotted Mrs. Beecher. She put a hand on my shoulder as recognition dawned on her face. “I remembered something, so I came over here.”
“You really need to leave. She may not look like much, but that woman has a wicked left hook.” I glared at her over my shoulder. “Freaking cheater. How the fuck did she wield a cast-iron skillet? She’s the size of a tennis ball.” But I’d lost Harper. She was staring at Mrs. Beecher’s back, a combination of astonishment and anguish in her eyes. I had anguish in my eyes, too, but for a completely different reason.
“Harper,” I whispered, trying to coax her back to me. Thankfully, Mrs. Beecher seemed to be unable to hear anything under a dull roar. “Sweetheart, what do you remember?”
Harper’s huge brown eyes glanced down at me but didn’t quite focus. “Her grandson,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Dewey was a little older than me. He lived with us. With Mrs. Beecher in her apartment.”
The pain ebbed slightly, the throbbing becoming almost tolerable. “What happened, hon? She stayed with you at your grandparents’ house while your parents went on their honeymoon. Did her grandson hurt you?”
Her expression was so distant, I was afraid she wouldn’t answer. But after a minute, she said, “No. Not me.” She put her hands over her mouth. “A little boy. I think he killed a little boy.”
My eyes slammed shut in a feeble attempt to block the mental image her words had conjured.
“Mrs. Beecher found Dewey. He was trying to wake the little boy up, but he couldn’t. That’s when she saw me.”
I looked back at her. “Mrs. Beecher? She saw you nearby?”
“Yes. We were playing hide-and-seek in the barn, but Dewey got mad when the little boy found him. I’m not really sure what happened, but they started wrestling. Dewey got him down and sat on him until he stopped struggling. Stopped breathing.” Harper shut her own eyes, and tears spilled out from them. Then she jumped, remembering more. “I came here. I came to ask Mrs. Beecher why she did it. Why she covered it up.”
Mrs. Beecher had apparently found what she’d been looking for. She was headed back our way. I had to hurry. “Harper, what did she do? What did Mrs. Beecher do that day when you were in that barn?”
“She grabbed me.” Harper refocused on her arms. “She had sharp nails and she shook me. Said that Dewey had accidently killed a rabbit. A white rabbit. And that if I ever told anyone, he would do the same to me. Then she put the rabbit in a suitcase and brought him back to the city with us.”
My shock must have shown.
Harper nodded as sadness welled in her eyes. “But it wasn’t a rabbit. I remember now. That little boy is buried somewhere on our property. In a red suitcase.”
My lungs seized. Cookie told me there’d been a missing child from Peralta around that time, and Peralta and Bosque Farms sat back to back. It was hard to tell where one stopped and the other began. The case had never been solved.
Well, it was certainly about to be.
Still pretending to be unconscious, I lowered my lashes to slits as Mrs. Beecher ambled near. I could see just enough to make out her image as she shuffled into view. Carrying an ice pick. An ice pick. What the hell? This woman was cold. Harper gasped and huddled over me protectively. It was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for me.
The door above us opened, and heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. Sadly, it couldn’t have been Uncle Bob. Not enough time. And Uncle Bob almost always yelled things like, APD! Get your hands up! This guy didn’t yell anything.
I cringed as the guy from the pictures stepped beside me. Partly because he was ginormous, almost twice the height of Mrs. Beecher, but mostly because shit just got real. Now I’d have to outrun both of them with Barbara oozing out of Fred.
“Who are you?” he asked me. He apparently talked to spaghetti, as I was doing my best impression of a wet noodle.
“This woman wants to take you away from me. We’re going to have to plant her in the ground so she can grow.”
He lowered his head. “I don’t think I want to do that anymore.”
“I don’t want to either, but I need you here with me, honeybun. Who else is going to do the yard work?”
The yard work?
“I know, Grandma, but—”
The fucking yard work?
“No buts. Now, you take care of her like you did Miss Harper.”
He
looked over into a dark corner of the basement. Toward a fresh mound of dirt. “Harper was nice to me.”
I’d mow her lawn, for fuck’s sake. This was honestly about yard work?
She reached up and patted his big shoulder. “I know. I know. But she was going to turn you in to the police. They would have taken you to jail, sugar britches. What would I do without you?”
He shrugged and she cackled in delight, pinching his cheek as if he were four. I was in so much trouble.
Gripping the ice pick like her life depended on it, she looked down at me. “Hold on, though. I have to make sure she’s dead first.”
She bent to one knee beside me, a laborious act that took her enough time for me to ponder what would happen if the polar ice caps melted. After that played out, I wondered if I should make a run for it or try to reason with Dewey. He seemed to be slightly saner than his counterpart.
“Now, where do you suppose her heart is?” said counterpart asked.
Betty White? She was going for Betty?
Instinctively, my hands shot up to cover her. She was so fragile. So vulnerable. And Mrs. Beecher wanted to jab her with an ice pick? Not on my watch.
The woman jumped back in surprise, and I started to scramble toward the stairs when a weight comparable to a cement mixer landed on my back.
“Oh, that’s good, sugar pie. You hold her there. Now, where’d that ice pick go?”
Harper lunged forward, intending to knock Dewey off me, and was surprised when she flew right through him.
Damn. I should have told her. It was hard when people didn’t know they were dead. The realization sent them into a state of shock, and sometimes I wouldn’t see them again for years. But I really should have told her, because the stunned expression on her face as she turned back and reached through Dewey’s head broke my heart.
She locked gazes with me. “I’m dead?” she asked, her voice hoarse with emotion. She sank to the ground, her expression a thousand miles away.
I strained against the weight of Dewey, wondering what the heck his grandmother fed him but thrilled she’d lost the ice pick. “I’m sorry, Harper.” I could barely get out the words. “I wanted to tell you.”