Chapter
Twelve

Our yard looked like a porcupine. A stiff wind during the night had blown the brown pine needles out of the trees. They stood straight up, poking up in the air, coating our lawn and our neighbor’s lawn, which seemed a little unfair since Ed and Mabel didn’t even have a pine tree in their yard.

I twisted the trash bag closed and dragged it to the pile on the curb. The crisp, cool air held the faint smell of wood smoke. Just a few days ago we were sweating and running the air conditioner. I pushed up the sleeves of my turtleneck and listened to the baby monitor. It broadcast static from the top porch step, not cries. I surveyed the other side of the yard and the tall trees overhead. Lots of dry needles still up there. I pulled a Hershey Kiss out of my pocket and popped it in my mouth.

Mitch shook his head. “You and your chocolate,” he said.

“Energy boost. Do you think it will warm up again?” I called to Mitch as he tied up our latest bag. But it wasn’t Mitch’s voice that answered.

“Once the needles start to fall, that’s it. Summer’s over.” Mitch waved and I turned to see Ed Parsons standing on his side of the hedge. He wore a sport coat and tie and Mabel had on a sturdy raincoat over a shirtwaist dress. They must have just returned from church.

Ed pulled a toothpick out of the corner of his mouth and used it to point to the trees. I wondered if he always had a toothpick in his mouth or if they had returned from eating out again. “We cut all of ours down. Had the stumps ground and everything. Can’t even tell we used to have four in our yard.”

“Such a mess. Needles and branches and pinecones everywhere,” Mabel said with a tiny shake of her head.

I glanced at the unbroken lawn and thought it looked boring. Having grown up in dry west Texas, where trees were scarce, I thought our tall pines were beautiful, even if they were a little work.

“So you don’t think it will warm up again?” I asked.

“Nope. It’ll start to snow soon. Fall is our shortest season. But don’t worry, I have a snowblower and I’ll do your sidewalks and driveway. Do almost everyone’s on the block, in fact.”

“Does it snow that much?” I asked, dreading the thought of a long winter, especially driving on ice. After living in California, I was out of practice.

“Well, it depends. Sometimes we don’t get that cold and we get more rain than snow, but other times …” He grinned and offered to show Mitch the snowblower. Mabel rolled her eyes as if to say, “Men and their toys.” She waved and went inside.

Mitch returned in a little while and said, “It’s huge. He could probably clear the whole street with that thing.”

I shook my head. “But we don’t need one, especially if Ed is going to snow blow our driveway for us.” Mitch could be a rather impulsive shopper when he actually went inside a store. To change the subject I said, “We’d better leave the blinds open at the Vincents’ since it’s overcast. I opened them this morning. The plants need as much light as they can get.”

Livvy’s wake-up sounds reached us from the monitor. “I didn’t close them.” He frowned. “I wasn’t even over there yesterday. You took the paper in.”

I leaned on the rake. “I did?” What had I done yesterday? Oh, the mall and then I had taken their mail and paper inside. “Maybe I closed them because it was getting late the day before and I just forgot. I’ll get Livvy.” I propped my rake against a tree trunk.

Abby and I walked briskly through the park in the predawn haze. The air inspired us, or rather me, to keep up the quick pace and get back to my warm house, where Mitch was probably walking a fussy, hungry Livvy around from room to room. Of course, last week I’d returned home from our walk expecting Livvy to be crying for her seven-thirty A.M. feeding, but she was cooing at Mitch from her bouncy chair while he poured cereal. One look at me and she’d switched to crying. Did she cry when I was close because she knew I would feed her?

“I wonder when Joe is coming back from Houston,” Abby said.

“I don’t know. We haven’t heard anything from him. Have you heard anything about the investigation?” I asked Abby.

“No.”

Why hadn’t Jeff been arrested? Don’t get me wrong, I was glad he hadn’t been arrested, but he did have the big three against him: motive, means, and opportunity. I checked Abby’s face. Her usually smiling lips were pinched tightly together. I wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t know what to say. This was awful. Cass’s death and the investigation had made my life into an emotional minefield. I tiptoed through every conversation with Mitch and Abby.

We were quiet as we crossed from the park back onto my street. Then Abby broke the silence. “I’m going to ask Rachel what she knows. She teaches first grade and her husband is in the Security Police on-base. She might have heard something. I’ve been debating whether I should call her or not, but this whole thing is driving me crazy.”

I picked up the paper from the Vincents’ driveway and said, “Sounds like a good idea. See you tonight. Six o’clock?”

“I’ll be there.” Abby headed down the street to her house.

I pulled my set of keys out of my sweatpants pocket and unlocked the door. I had put Joe’s key on my key ring because I was always running something inside or checking the plants. I felt a small itch of irritation at Joe for being gone so long and not letting us know when he would be back. The good neighbor routine was getting tedious. Immediately, I felt guilty. He was grieving and I should be able to do a small thing like take in the paper and water the plants for weeks if it helped someone after a loved one died.

As I opened the door, a headline on the rolled paper caught my eye: NO ENVIRONMENTAL DEBATE FOR CLAIRMONT. I skimmed the first lines of the story as I flipped on the lights and walked to the kitchen. I knew this floor plan almost as well as I knew mine. I could walk and read at the same time.

I slapped the newspaper on the kitchen counter beside the mound of mail and papers awaiting Joe’s return. I froze.

The kitchen looked like the video clips on the news after an earthquake—tumbled cans and broken glass. Cabinet doors gaped open. Canned food and silverware covered the floor. I poked a can of green beans out from under the lower cabinets with my toe. Pots, pans, and mixing bowls tilted in piles on the counter-tops and the floor. Sugar and flour trailed over the counter from upended canisters. I turned in a slow circle and surveyed the living room. Couch cushions ranged over the floor beside scattered DVDs.

I groaned and hurried down the hall to the bedrooms. Someone had not only broken into Joe’s garage while we were “watching” the property for him, but now they had broken into the house itself. Lousy neighbors we’d turned out to be.

I glanced into the pink bedroom. Open boxes, shoes, wrapping paper, folders, and clothing tangled together on the pink and white rag rug. Mounds of clothes surrounded empty dresser drawers.

I stopped short at the door to the master bedroom. I didn’t want to walk in the room. The devastation here had a violent quality to it. A vicious blow had shattered the mirror on the antique dresser. Shards of glass dotted the feathers from the white goose-down comforter and the slit pillows. The mattress, stripped of its sheets, tilted to one side of the bed. The closet door yawned open. I could see the upper shelves were empty. The clothes were in a twisted mess on top of open plastic storage containers. In the corner, beside a dented hard drive, spiderweb cracks spread across the computer monitor. Papers covered everything like leaves sprinkled across the ground in the autumn. I shook my head and took a deep breath. This was bad. This was more than a burglary. It was an attack. Even the plants had been knocked over and stepped on, grinding potting soil into the carpet.

A muffled thud sounded behind me.

An Everything in Its Place Tip for an
Organized Move

When packing your belongings, keep a supply of plastic zip-top bags nearby. As you disassemble each piece of furniture, put all the screws in a bag, then tape the bag to the bottom of that piece of furniture so all the nuts and bolts will be together when it’s time to reassemble.