Chapter 20 The Walkabout
The Walkabout
Margaret deposits two paper sacks in the breakroom refrigerator.
One contains her lunch and the other her dinner: a tomato sandwich and a mason jar of milk.
She came up with the plan this morning, just before she dressed for work in her dark skirt and hummingbird blouse, even though it isn’t Thursday.
She will be like the tiny avian creatures on her shirt—hidden, quick, efficient and agile—adjusting her routine to sleuth out what she learned from a conversation with Joe the custodian-journalist last night.
She was just checking the stove and turning off the lights before bed when her phone alerted a text.
“Torres, Joe,” was the sender.
Call me when you can, it read. I have interesting information.
Who could sleep after a message like that?
It turned out there was lots of interesting information. Not only had one Levi P. Blackstone and his wife, Amy R. Blackstone, been delinquent on their latest property tax bill for the 2.3-million-dollar house they bought three years earlier, but Blackstone had recently sold off some of his assets.
“A sailboat for $25,000 two months ago, a motorcycle for $9,000 late last year plus the sale of a cabin in Idaho worth $275,000, which was once owned by his parents,” Joe said. “I’d say the guy has some serious money trouble.”
Margaret remembered the worn state of Blackstone’s shoes.
“Revenge and desperation are a pretty powerful mix,” Joe continued. “If he thought your Dr. Deaver had stolen his idea and was about to make a ton of money from it, it could have driven him to murder so he could claim the discovery.”
Margaret explained that the university and research sponsors also share in any profit from findings, although there was still money to be made. Lots of scientists start their own companies, including Dr. Deaver.
“Money was never at the top of Dr. Deaver’s mind. He could have gone to any university he wanted or worked for a drug company, but he chose Roosevelt, where he said he could do better work.”
Joe paused, then: “I might have to disagree with you about the money thing. If his divorce petition is any indication, your professor cared a lot about money.”
Margaret recalled the filing with a small wobble of her heart. Was Joe right? Had avarice infected Dr. Deaver after all?
“How did you find all this?”
“Public records pretty much. I could do more, but I only had an hour. Kind of a full plate.”
Margaret wondered what a custodian-journalist filled his plate with but didn’t ask for details.
“What’s next?” she asked.
“If it were me and I was chasing a story, I’d probably put some boots on the ground. Talk with neighbors, colleagues, the Realtor who sold the Idaho house. I’d want to find out what prompted the sell-off and the late taxes. Documents don’t tell the whole story.”
“OK,” Margaret said.
“OK what?”
“I’ll talk to his neighbors. I’ll call the real estate agent.”
“I don’t know, Margaret. It’s tricky business. You don’t want to arouse suspicion. You need to be discrete; walk a thin line between lying and the truth. Ask questions without being obvious. For instance, you might say you wanted to buy a house in the area or something.”
Margaret glanced down at her house clothes. They looked nothing like what a person who could buy a 2.3-million-dollar house might wear.
“I’m not so great at lying. Maybe I can just tell the truth, that I’m investigating a possible crime.”
“Not if you don’t want doors slammed in your face or that Blackstone fellow to find out. Don’t think of it as lying. Think of it as…as adapting to fit a situation, camouflaging yourself for the greater good.”
Margaret considered Boquila trifoliolata, the Chilean vine that can shape-shift its leaves to mimic the plants next to it in order to conceal itself from its predators. Perhaps she should go to the secondhand shop and buy a new old outfit.
“I guess I could do that.”
“I’ll email you the documents after we hang up. Let me know how it turns out.”
“I will.”
“And remember. Be careful.”
The admonition made her insides feel warm, like a cup of hot cocoa.
The day passes remarkably quickly, and at five thirty p.m., Margaret retrieves her sack supper and drives to the address Joe Torres provided.
It’s in a fancy neighborhood at the edge of town where houses sprawl over grassy lots dotted with pine and cypress and expensive cars sit in driveways.
The problem is not just clothes, Margaret realizes, it’s that a twenty-year-old Toyota pickup parked on these pristine streets would be like a flashing sign announcing, This Person Couldn’t Afford a Garden Shed Here.
Margaret cruises slowly past Blackstone’s house, a two-story Tudor-style home with red brick, a pitched roof and crisscrossing half timbers that remind her of an English country home.
Only the roof has been reduced to tar paper, three-quarters of the brick facade is tumbled on the ground as if an earthquake had struck and there is a huge dumpster full of what looks like broken drywall, lumber and possibly a discarded bathtub parked in the driveway next to Blackstone’s Lexus.
That explains the white dust on Blackstone’s turtleneck—and possibly the need for more money. How much would a remodel like that cost?
As Margaret passes the house, the front door opens and a woman shoos a large black poodle outside.
The woman is short with brown hair pulled into a long ponytail.
She wears dark yoga pants, a green sweatshirt and a scowl on her face.
She glances at the pickup and Margaret quickly turns her head toward the front of her vehicle as if she’s a motorist with an exact destination in mind rather than a meandering snooper.
She’s never met Amy Blackstone, but she is taking no chances that the woman wouldn’t report a broad-shouldered woman driving a small blue pickup to her husband and he would recognize Margaret.
She takes a quick right turn at the next intersection, then a left and another left, driving out of the neighborhood and parking near a boutique coffee shop, which seem to be on every street corner these days.
A few people are out front sipping coffee and eating sandwiches at wrought-iron tables.
Margaret’s stomach growls, reminding her it is time for her own dinner. Plus, she needs time to think.
She rolls down the truck window and fishes her sandwich and the jar of milk from the paper sack.
Laughter and conversations drift in Margaret’s direction as she eats.
Not a single diner seems to question why a woman would eat in her truck when there was a café right next to her. It gives Margaret an idea.
She drains the last of the milk, wipes the crumbs from her lap and neatly folds the paper sack and the waxed paper to be used again.
She locks her truck and heads on foot back to Blackstone’s neighborhood.
Her disguise will be not her outfit but her age.
Spot a gray-hair wearing shabby clothes, eating a homemade tomato sandwich next to a café or asking too-personal questions and everybody will think: That’s what happens when you get old.
They won’t assume “robber” or “spy” like they might about a younger person.
Perhaps the CIA should only hire older people to do its clandestine work.
Still, she is nervous when she rings the first doorbell at a sprawling white board-and-batten house that looks like it belongs on a ranch in Texas. She wipes sweaty palms on her skirt.
The door is answered by a woman in an ivory pantsuit. From what Margaret can see behind her, it appears the entire house along with all its contents and possibly its inhabitants are garbed only in shades of white.
“Hi, um, my name is…”
The words clog in Margaret’s throat. She’s forgotten to pick a pseudonym.
The woman cocks her head expectantly.
“My name is Forsythia.”
As she left for work this morning, Margaret noted a few black-spotted leaves on her forsythia plant, which could indicate a fungus issue, and now it’s the first name that comes to her mind. The woman, however, seems to accept the odd sobriquet. “How may I help you?” she asks.
Margaret stumbles through the story she concocted.
She’s a grandmother scouting neighborhoods for her grandson, who is a very busy doctor and has just secured a new job in the area.
The woman, while sounding helpful, is the exact opposite.
She says the best part of the neighborhood is that it is quiet and everyone keeps to themselves.
A bald man in an impressive colonial pronounces that the HOA “has too many rules” and that he, personally, has no use for anybody who lives here.
His mustachioed next-door neighbor claims the community is nice except for those who flout regulations and gives a glance toward the neighbor who complained about the rules.
“Just look at the height of his grass, a full inch over regulation,” he says of his neighbor’s lawn.
Margaret is feeling desperate.
“What about the house over there?” She points toward the Blackstone home, which is across the street and three houses down. “They seem to be doing quite a bit of construction work.”
“Oh, them,” the man says. “Young family. Three kids. They missed their HOA fees for eight months. We almost had to start a lien process against them, but then they came up with the cash. My wife heard he was a professor and that he’s got some big invention in the works. You know how girls talk.”
He winks at her. Should she wink back?
Lucky for Margaret, the man rambles on.
“They’ve got a pretty tasteful remodel going, I’ll say that.
Black marble entryway, gold fixtures. Chandeliers, a fireplace in the bedroom.
French chateau exterior, which fits the architecture here more than that horrible Tudor.
As a member of the board, I had to review the plans.
If you ask me, the wife wears the pants in that family. Is your grandson married?”
The speed of the question throws Margaret off.
“Yes, um. He and his partner have been together five years. Lovely man. Basil. No children, though.”
Why did she make her imagined grandson childless and gay with a spouse named after a shiny, ovulate-leafed herb?
The man beams. “We welcome everyone here. We don’t see differences.”
Which means, of course, that they do.
“Well, thank you for your time,” Margaret says. Nervous sweat is trickling down her back and between her breasts. “I’ll let my grandson know.”
As she leaves, the man calls after her. “What kind of doctor is your grandson anyway? I’ve got this foot problem that nobody seems to be able to fix.”
“He’s a nephrologist,” Margaret blurts.
A childless gay kidney doctor whose grandmother is named Forsythia and whose spouse shares a name with a cooking herb? Improvisation is not her strong suit.
The next two homeowners offer nothing except that they don’t appreciate the construction noise but the neighborhood is usually pretty peaceful.
“One dog per household, two cats maximum, no parties larger than twenty-five people without a permit, quiet time is eleven p.m. to nine a.m., which is when the gardeners and housecleaners arrive,” says one. “Did you say your grandson was a doctor?”
Heaven help a physician who moves into this neighborhood. He’d never have a moment’s peace.
Margaret’s feet ache and her brain is mush from so much lying.
She plops herself on a rock wall two houses from Blackstone’s semi-demolished home.
She will rest a few moments before starting the walk back to her truck.
She pulls off her boot and begins to massage her left foot.
There’s probably some HOA rule against removing your shoes outdoors but, right now, she doesn’t care.
Let them write her a ticket or give her a scolding. Whatever these people do.
As she rubs, she considers what she learned: Blackstone definitely had money problems and his wife had claimed an upcoming and lucrative invention, which would support Margaret’s hypothesis that he had killed Dr. Deaver to usurp research that he believed was stolen from him.
It was even more important now that she get hold of Dr. Deaver’s research books to prove the discovery’s origin.
Then she would confront Blackstone with the evidence, lay out the facts of his financial difficulties and that he was probably the last person to see Dr. Deaver alive, and force him to confess.
But how to stop the planned cremation of Dr. Deaver’s body so there could be a toxicology screen?
Maybe she will contact Joe Torres and see if he has ideas.
It’s as she’s thinking these thoughts that she sees lights go on inside the Blackstone household, revealing a kitchen that is a disaster zone of remodeling: plywood floor, gaping holes where appliances once rested and a backsplash of dark tiles that are being either installed or taken out.
Margaret isn’t sure. She leans forward to see better.
Amy Blackstone is at a folding table setting out paper cups and a carton of milk. Three children, two girls and a boy, swarm around her. They are all dark-haired and under the age of eight or nine. The youngest, the boy, looks about three. He wears tiny blue eyeglasses.
Margaret knew Blackstone had children, but she didn’t know they were so young.
There were no photographs of family in his office.
Only that bust of Seneca. As she watches, Blackstone comes through a back door bearing a platter of what looks like hamburgers.
The kids jump up and down. The two girls wrap their arms around his legs.
Blackstone laughs and ruffles the hair of one of them.
For a moment, Margaret doubts herself. How could a man whose children appear to adore him commit a horrible murder? Is she chasing after another innocent?
Margaret lets out a long sigh and zips her foot back into her boot.