“Carly is Dr. Clifton’s daughter?” I was trying to put this all together in my head. I wondered if Dr. Clifton was going to recover fully. He was a consulting psychiatrist at the hospital and he had a busy private practice, I’d heard.
“So now I can’t ever go back to Carly’s.”
“Oh?” I was trying to keep up.
“But it’s okay, because I don’t really like her anyway. She can be okay, but she’s mean to people she thinks aren’t popular.”
That I could relate to. Even back when dinosaurs had walked the earth (when I had been in high school) there had been girls—and boys—like that, aplenty.
“So you think it was Duncan who fired into the house?” Brad Rodenheiser had thought it was likely.
She nodded vigorously. “I didn’t think about it then, but after Tuesday, well, it seems likely, huh? Carly’s party gets shot up, and then Carly’s dad gets shot?”
Yes, it did seem likely. Really likely.
I debated whether or not to say anything to Phillip and Sarah about letting me know when they were together in the house, about leaving Phillip’s door open, about … but then I thought, I either trust them or I don’t. I took a deep breath and said, “Good to see you, Sarah. Tell your mom I said hi.” She nodded amiably.
“Back in a while,” Phillip said, and they were gone.
In five minutes or less, the carport door opened. Robin came in with his hands full of bags.
I jumped up to help him put the groceries away. It took quite a while, since our cupboards had been pretty bare. Then I got out what I needed for supper, and I began pounding chicken breasts thin while the butter melted in the microwave. I asked Robin to turn on the oven, but he didn’t seem to hear me.
I turned around to see that Robin was rummaging through the “miscellaneous” drawer, a messy catchall for things I couldn’t place logically elsewhere. After watching this in silence for a long moment, I realized this was my cue to say, “What are you looking for?”
“I still haven’t found my keys. I’ve been using my spare car key since I got back.” He sounded very irritated.
I said mildly, “I looked for them the day John went to the hospital. Obviously, I didn’t find them. I know a lot of places they aren’t.” With everything that had happened, the keys had been low on my list of things to worry about.
“Why don’t you check your purse?” Robin was very careful not to delve into my purse without asking. He’d had two sisters. “It’s the only thing I haven’t searched.”
Since I had chronically interrupted sleep patterns these days, I had done a number of strange things, like put the peanut butter in the refrigerator. Maybe I had had a brain fart and mistaken Robin’s keys for my own. Repressing a sigh, I prepared for this major operation.
My outsize bag was sure to have all kinds of crumbs and lint inside. (I don’t put food in my purse, but there are always crumbs, just another mystery in my life.) I spread a sheet of newspaper on the island, and turned my purse upside down. A shower of debris rained down on the newspaper: loose change, old tissues, shopping lists, grocery receipts, a credit card case, a billfold, a change purse. Lipstick, ChapStick, a compact. An ancient mint. Two pens. A case containing my dark glasses (bright blue frame). Crumbs, of course.
And Virginia’s telephone.
Chapter Sixteen
Robin and I stood on opposite sides of the island, staring down at the pile of detritus crowned with a bright turquoise telephone decorated with rhinestones.
“You got a new phone?” Robin said. He looked at it askance.
“That’s not mine,” I said.
Phillip came in the front door at just that moment. “Hey, when’s supper?” he asked, surprised at the absence of any visible preparation.
When I didn’t answer, he came over to see what we were staring at.
“Where’d you get Virginia’s phone?” He cocked his head, waiting for my (no doubt) simple explanation.
I shook my head. “I have no idea.” We three regarded the bright phone as if it had been a snake. After a moment, I said, “I guess I’d better take it to the law enforcement complex. I can put it in a plastic bag or something. I am just … tired of having people come in and out of this house.” I didn’t add especially Levon. I felt guilty—he was doing his job—but that was how I felt right now.
“This puts the theft of your diaper bag in a whole different light,” Robin said, thoughtfully.
“Wait, what?” Of course I’d told Phillip about being in the parking lot of the hospital, but the regaining of a diaper bag had seemed like a small item in the bigger picture.
“Why don’t I take the telephone there?” Robin said. “You’ve already started supper. You can brief me, if you want to. But I figure you’d rather not go. And Sophie is going to wake up sooner or later, and she’ll want her mom.”
“Well, she’ll want my boobs, anyway,” I said absently. I looked up at my husband. He was letting me know he might not return for a while, but he was willing.
The relief I felt when he offered told me I should take him up on it.
“Hey, should I go, too?” Phillip was smart enough to pick up the subtext. “And should we check out the phone before we take it in?”
Clearly, that would be very wrong, but I confess I felt a moment of temptation. I suppressed it nobly. “We can’t,” I said. “That’s a police thing. Robin, do you want Phillip with you?”
“Thanks, Phillip, but if—if they decide I need to stay there for some long interview—Roe will need you to help her, and you couldn’t do anything but sit in the waiting room at the station, if you came with me.”
“Okay,” Phillip said. “But I’m willing.”
“Noted,” Robin said. “Thanks. I’ll just bag it up and take it to SPACOLEC.” I handed him a plastic bag from a kitchen drawer. I found a set of tongs, and with careful precision I lowered the phone into the bag. Probably ridiculous to take such precautions after Virginia’s phone had been bouncing around in my purse, but we had to try.
“Oh, wait!” I’d had a thought. I was not a mystery reader for nothing. “Don’t they use paper bags now? Or…?”
Robin said, “They bag people’s hands. But I don’t know about telephones. It’s already in there. Let’s go with it.”
“Fine with me.”
It wasn’t far to the law enforcement complex, but I didn’t know how many people he’d have to talk to.
Before Robin could return, I had a call from Levon. He had a list of questions, of course. He opened with, “How did you get the phone? Why was it in your purse?”
“I have no idea,” and “I don’t know,” didn’t satisfy him.
“What’s your best guess, Roe?” Levon was clearly exasperated.
Robin came in the garage door. I pantomimed whom I was talking to. He shook his head, rolled his eyes, and pointed to the chicken. In return, I pointed to the bowls of melted butter and mixed Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs. The oven had preheated.
“My best guess,” I said, aware my voice was weary and limp. I was ambling around the room as I talked, and I passed by the mirror near the front door. I rolled my eyes at my reflection; “death warmed over” was an apt description. I resolved to avoid mirrors for a while. “I always put my purse in the same place on the kitchen counter. I don’t remember exactly what kind of purse Virginia carried, but the first time she worked here, she stowed her bag right there beside mine, I remember that. I almost picked up hers by mistake once.”
“So do you think she popped her phone into your purse to draw it to our attention? Or did she believe she was putting her phone into her own bag?”
“You asked me to guess. That’s all I’ve got.” I hung up.
I’d always been a friend of law enforcement, even though I’d met police who hadn’t liked me one bit. Anyone working in this field had a dangerous and demanding job. Just at the moment, I was frustrated and angry, convinced Levon wasn’t really listening to me. “Aaaaargh,??
? I said out loud. Nothing I could do about it now. Time to pull my socks up.
Robin had coated the chicken and put it in the oven, bless him. I assembled a green salad. Then I chopped up fruit, and I preheated the lower oven for garlic bread. Dinner was on its way to being ready. The pasta and sauce (from a jar, sadly) could be left until the last minute.
This was the quickest I had moved in a week. I felt virtuous and efficient. I also felt tired—but I was better, physically. A couple more nights of regular sleep, and I’d be back on my feet. Since I’d done all the prep work I could do for the moment, I sank down on the couch and picked up my book, wriggling into a comfortable position.
I registered nothing more until I woke as Sophie was just beginning to complain. I shook my head, trying to clear it.
“Roe, you want me to get her?” Phillip called, in no very happy voice, and I saw Robin was hurrying down the hall from his office.
“If you’ll change her diaper, I’ll be there in a minute,” I said. I stumbled into the kitchen to peek at the chicken, took it out of the oven, turned up the heat on the pasta pot, drank a large glass of water, and went to the baby’s room. Robin was jiggling her and walking with her. I looked at them from the doorway, marveling again that I had my own family. This seemed incredible to me, still.
“Baby,” I crooned. “Mama’s here.” Sophie knew my presence meant food, and she was anxious for it. I sat in the rocking chair and prepared myself. This is like being on a treadmill, I reflected. But I loved her so much that it was worth it.
After a few minutes, my mind began to wander. I thought about the night of the murder, picturing everything that had happened. It had worked so well when Robin had suggested I picture everyone in the ICU; maybe it would be helpful, again.
This felt oddly like a board game set out for last Saturday night.
My token would be in the square representing our bedroom, and it would not move. Sarah’s would have gone down the sidewalk. Phillip’s was stationary, as was Sophie’s. I assumed Virginia had been roaming the house, with the nursery monitor in one hand and her telephone in the other, so I pictured her token zigzagging around in an unpredictable way. But then Tracy had arrived on the scene, somehow, steered by some unfathomable purpose. Her token (red) would suddenly appear over the edge of the board.
I moved these tokens around in my head. Had Virginia been in the house when Tracy came in? Surely they would have had a noisy confrontation, if that had been the case. I was working on the assumption the two had never met, that Virginia would raise an alarm if she encountered a stranger in our house. That was what I believed, based on nothing but gut feeling.
How had Tracy gotten in the house? I should have asked myself that question days ago. Obviously, one of the doors had been unlocked. Had Virginia simply been careless, or had she been complicit? Had Tracy known she could get in? Surely she hadn’t been coming by the house, testing the doors … that idea made my skin crawl.
Robin came in, moving quietly. He sat on the stool of the rocking chair, and whispered, “How did Tracy get in?”
And that was another reason we were married. “Exactly!” I said, but in a hushed voice. I told Robin what I’d been thinking.
“If she’d been lurking for a few nights, I’d think we’d have seen her, or one of our neighbors would have,” he said. “The Herman sisters are always out late at night with Chaka. I’ve seen them when I was up with Sophie.”
When Sophie wasn’t ready to go back to sleep after she fed, Robin liked to wander around with her in his arms, gently jiggling her (and singing to her when he thought I wasn’t listening).
“So maybe this was the first time she’d tried to get in. Assuming she took her sister’s car, where is it now?”
“I don’t think the police have found the car,” Robin said slowly. “We would have heard?”
“At the very least, the Cohens would have heard and come over to tell us all about it.”
Robin nodded. “So we need to find out how she came to be in our backyard at all.”
Chapter Seventeen
As if the universe had heard us, but slowly, the landline rang early the next morning just after Phillip had left for school. Robin, showered and dressed, picked up the phone in our bedroom. He came into Sophie’s room with the phone to his ear, conveying his astonishment by waggling his eyebrows.
“Mrs. Beal,” he said, looking at me significantly.
I pantomimed amazement. Why would Tracy’s mom be calling us?
“Yes, I’m Robin Crusoe.” He listened. “Yes, I’m sure this whole thing has been a shock to you. Us, too.”
What an unexpected turn of events.
Moving carefully, I rose to place Sophie in her crib. Robin and I left her to her sleep. He was still talking as we went across the hall. Though I was intensely curious, I needed to shower. I had some errands to run, but mostly I wanted to get out of the house for a while.
Though I take short showers, I was slightly surprised to find Robin still talking to Mrs. Beal when I turned off the water.
“No ma’am, we didn’t hear anything. I was out of town, and my wife was sick in bed with the flu. That’s why we had a babysitter here. Yes, she’s still missing. I don’t have any idea why Virginia would harm Tracy. I’m not sure she did. We won’t know what actually happened until Virginia shows up.”
Robin listened, the corners of his mouth turning down. He rolled his eyes at me. “Well, Mrs. Beal—okay, Sandra—I don’t know why Tracy had strong feelings for me. And I’m sorry that made her behave like … ah, got her into so much trouble. I’m hoping the police can get to the bottom of her death.” He listened. “Since we’re talking, may I ask you a question?”
Evidently Tracy’s mom agreed. Robin continued, “I know Tracy left the hospital when she wasn’t supposed to. I understand she took her sister’s car?” He listened for a minute or two. “Um-hum. Um-hum. Well, we’d just wondered if the police had found the car. They haven’t? Well, I agree, that’s really strange. Yes, I’m sure Sharon’s missing her car.”
Robin did some more listening, made sounds of agreement or sympathy here and there, and finally hung up with obvious relief.
“So?” I was anxious to hear a summary.
“As you can tell, Sandra Beal is prone to oversharing. I learned that she’s divorced, that Tracy was her second daughter, that Mrs. Beal can’t understand this whole thing. She didn’t know Tracy had escaped from the hospital until hours after it happened. And of course, Sharon didn’t know Tracy had walked off the hospital grounds. Sharon was camping. Sharon didn’t get home for two more days. Then she reported her car missing.” He thought for a minute, reviewing the conversation. “Oh. Tracy knew where Sharon kept a spare set of keys. Because they were sisters.”
“What kind of car is it?”
“A silver Nissan Sentra. Bought at the year-end closeout, so Sharon got a really good deal on it.” Robin shuddered, just a little.
“Sandra told all this to you, the man her daughter was stalking.” I shook my head. “I’m amazed.”
“The woman’s so stunned by having a daughter as disturbed as Tracy, she was glad to have someone to talk to. Sandra doesn’t seem very smart, frankly, and she hasn’t been able to track down her ex to tell him about Tracy. She’s very unhappy all the way around.”
“I’ll try to feel sorry for her.” Just at the moment, I was out of pity.
Robin grinned at me. “Don’t apologize to me for any lack of feeling. I have sympathy for the woman, but I was counting the seconds until I could get off the phone. And someone at SPACOLEC gave Sandra Beal my phone number,” he added grimly. “Our landline is unlisted. I’m still wondering who gave it to the reporters who called.”
“That’s really disturbing. Sounds like after talking to Sandra, you could kind of feel where Tracy had gotten the wobbly mind.”
He eased down on the bed beside me as I pulled my sweater over my head. “I sure don’t think most mothers would have want
ed to tell me so much. Or to talk to me at all.”
I nodded in agreement as I began to brush my hair. “I wonder why the police haven’t found the car. Could Tracy have hidden it somewhere? Why would she do that? I’d think she’d park it as close as possible, for a quick getaway. In case one of us raised the alarm.”
“We can’t know what she imagined would happen.”
I tried to figure that out but gave up very quickly. It made me shiver all over.
I remembered the first time I’d seen Tracy, wearing a catering company shirt, arranging food on the craft service table for the Whimsical Death crew. She’d even seemed pleasant.
“I wish I’d known who she was right away.” Robin’s thoughts had been paralleling my own. “But I’d never seen her, or a picture of her. Just gotten the letters. To me, my publisher, my agent, my publicist … Celia … and my mother. That one really made me take alarm,” Robin said.
“How did Corinne handle that?” I couldn’t imagine her reaction to something so outlandish.
“I had a hard time explaining the situation to her,” Robin said. He looked very grim. “She’d never encountered a woman like Tracy. Someone mentally ill and fixated on her son … of course, that shook her up.”
“I’m sorry that your mom had to go through that. She’s so nice.” I was sincere. “When you actually met Tracy on the set … you didn’t get any vibe from her? Any creepy feeling?”
“Maybe it’s hindsight, but I did sort of register she watched me all the time. Didn’t you tell me when she met you, her reaction was almost excessively excited?”
I nodded. “It struck me as strange, but you know … people are. Especially true-crime buffs.”