Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
I awoke at daybreak to the scent of coffee. The pot sputtered and dripped in the kitchen. I blinked my eyes open, bleary and disoriented, my bare legs tangled in the throw blanket on the couch. Nick’s shoes and tie had been lying on the floor beside my sweatpants when I’d finally lost the battle against sleep last night. I rolled over to look for his clothes, but they were gone.
I got dressed and padded to the kitchen as the coffeepot gave one final hiss. A sticky note hung from an empty mug beside the pot, written in Nick’s familiar block letters.
Today. No excuses.
A door opened in the upstairs hall. I braced myself, expecting Mrs. Haggerty, but it was Vero who came down the stairs. She paused in the entry to the kitchen and frowned at me, her heavy eyelids blinking slowly as I handed her a mug from the cabinet.
“When did you get home?” I asked as she shuffled to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup.
“Couple hours ago.”
“Why didn’t you spend the night with Javi? Trouble in paradise?”
“Far from it.” Her mascara-streaked eyes took on a faraway look as she pulled a carton of milk from the fridge. “We had one of those amazing nights, if you must know. The kind when you stay up for hours and talk about everything. All the things we dream about and the stuff we’re afraid of. All the little things we never told each other before.”
My mouth went dry. I plucked the carton from her hand. “What do you mean, you told him everything? Like everything everything?”
Vero pulled a face. “Of course not! I’m not an idiot. Don’t worry,” she said at my dubious look. “I left all your personal shit out of it.” I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant since all of her personal shit had been tangled with my personal shit since the night we buried Harris Mickler together. She waved away my unease. “Relax. I didn’t tell him about any of that ,” she whispered.
I released a held breath as I sat down at the table and poured myself some cereal. “If it was such a perfect night, then why’d you come home?”
“Apparently, my husband snores. Why’d you sleep on the couch? I told you to use my room.”
“Nick came by after work and we fell asleep before we made it upstairs. Is Mrs. Haggerty awake yet?” I asked quietly between bites.
“Don’t think so. Your bedroom door is still closed.”
“Figures,” I muttered. “The woman was up half the night.”
“That makes two of us.” Vero blew steam from her mug, swallowing her first sip of caffeine with a rapturous expression. “Your boyfriend is a saint.”
I was struck by a sharp stab of guilt as I glanced at the sticky note he’d left beside the coffeepot. Vero was right. Nick was a saint. And after putting up with Mrs. Haggerty’s nonsense and sleeping on my couch last night, he had only asked one thing from me.
Today. No excuses.
I took the card with Brendan’s number from the counter and reached for my phone.
“What are you doing?” Vero asked.
“I’m calling Brendan to pick up his grandmother.”
“You told him she could stay until her heat was back on.”
“She pulled a gun on Nick last night—”
Coffee shot out of Vero’s nose.
I patted her back as she choked and handed her a napkin. “She thought he was a home invader when he let himself in, so she came downstairs waving her late husband’s pistol around, threatening to shoot.” A laugh bubbled out of Vero. It turned into a full-blown cackle as I tried to shush her. “Would you be quiet! You’re going to wake her up!”
She waved me off. “Mrs. Haggerty’s hearing is as bad as her eyesight, Finn. I’m surprised she even heard Nick come in last night.”
“I doubt she would have if she hadn’t been on her way out of the house. Apparently, she takes her neighborhood watch duties very seriously. She insisted on patrolling the neighborhood last night.”
Vero frowned. “That’s weird. According to the whisper network at the playground, Mrs. Haggerty got voted out of the neighborhood watch right after she was arrested. Stacey’s been acting as interim president since.”
I covered the receiver in case Brendan picked up. “Stacey? The same Stacey who sells sex toys out of her hatchback?”
“Among other things. She’s running a special on edibles this month, and not just the panties. The moms at the playground say her brownies are pretty good. I’m saving mine for a special occasion.”
I gasped. “That’s what Stacey brought you the other night?”
“Don’t look at me like that. They’re hidden in the freezer. The kids don’t even know they’re there.”
I hadn’t had enough coffee for this conversation.
“Brendan’s not answering,” I said as the phone continued to ring.
“He’s probably still sleeping. Leave him a voice mail.”
“It’s not rolling over.”
Vero shrugged. “We’ll try him again later. He can pick up Granny Oakley when he wakes up.”
Later that morning, I eased my van to the curb in front of a two-story Colonial in Broadlands. The homes in Broadlands didn’t look much different from most of the homes in South Riding, all of them having been constructed around the same time from a handful of cookie-cutter shapes. Some had orange or redbrick facades, all with an alternating color palette of neutral vinyl siding and two-car garages either on the left or the right. Vero climbed out of the back seat of my minivan and opened the passenger door for Mrs. Haggerty to get out. Letting Mrs. Haggerty ride up front with me had seemed preferable to listening to her complain about the children’s sticky, crumb-speckled seats in the back, but she’d only managed to find other things to fuss about on the short drive to her book club meeting. She did not, she said, want a reputation for being late. Punctuality was not a virtue she was willing to compromise, regardless of the heavy traffic on Route 7 or the length of the take-out line at Panera Bread when we’d stopped to pick up lunch on the way.
I reached for a platter of sandwiches. Mrs. Haggerty took it from me. “Wait here,” she said when it occurred to her she didn’t have enough hands to carry both the platter and a tray of cookies into the house by herself. “I’ll come back for the rest.”
“Please,” I insisted when she nearly dropped the plastic dome. “Vero and I are happy to help.” Vero was all too willing to take the tray of cookies. I took the sandwiches and handed Mrs. Haggerty the paper bag full of sides and condiments so she wouldn’t object to being left with nothing to do.
“Very well,” she harrumphed, “but there’s no need to come inside. We don’t read your kinds of stories.”
“What kind of stories?” I asked.
“The kind with shirtless hunks on the covers.”
“I think you mean under the covers,” Vero clarified. “They don’t put hunks on the covers of those books anymore. Nowadays, they put lots of flowers on the front, so you can read them on an airplane and the person next to you won’t know you’re reading smut. Like those Georgia O’Keeffes,” Vero explained. “You can hang one of those in your living room and everyone will say, oh it’s so sophisticated and lovely, but we all know that sophisticated orchid is just a painting of some lady’s twa—”
“Those paintings have plenty of artistic merit,” I said, slamming my van door shut. “And I do read other kinds of books, you know.”
Mrs. Haggerty rolled her eyes, and Vero smirked. I wondered if this is what it would feel like to drop Delia off at a sleepover once she became a teenager. Thanks for the ride and the snacks, Mom, but could you please stay in the car so none of my friends see how uncool you are? I didn’t know many senior citizens—my parents were barely sixty—but I’d made some observations after all the time I’d spent with my mother and Mrs. Haggerty over the last few weeks, and getting old seemed a little like going through adolescence backward. Between my mother’s romantic drama with my father, his brooding one-word answers to just about everything, Cam’s constant demands for food and money, and Mrs. Haggerty’s petulant know-it-all attitude, I had amassed enough research material to write a YA novel.
We followed Mrs. Haggerty toward the house. The other cars parked along the street were an odd mix of luxury brands and more price-sensitive models. Some had stick-figure decals of mothers with children. Others had parking stickers for government offices or hospitals. Several had bumper stickers about coexisting with nature, fucking the patriarchy, and loving Jesus.
The front door of the home opened as we approached. Women’s voices and laughter spilled from inside it. A middle-aged woman in a smart pantsuit stepped outside to greet us. The warm umber skin around her eyes creased with her smile.
“Maggie, it’s good to see you! We’re all so glad you’re back.” She glanced at Vero and me over Mrs. Haggerty’s shoulder as she took the older woman into a wide, enveloping hug. The voices inside seemed to quiet at Mrs. Haggerty’s arrival. Several curious faces appeared beyond the doorway inside. “We’ve all been watching the news,” the woman said, taking Mrs. Haggerty’s bag for her. “We’ve been so concerned about you. Everyone is eager to hear what happened. Who did you bring with you?” she asked brightly, inviting Mrs. Haggerty to introduce us.
“My neighbors,” Mrs. Haggerty answered, dismissing us with an impatient wave. “The police took my car and I needed a ride. Don’t worry. They’re not staying.” She let herself into the house, leaving the rest of us standing on the porch.
The woman looked abashed. “Please, come in,” she said, realizing she didn’t have enough hands to relieve us of all the food. “You can set those trays down inside.” Vero and I followed her into the house, where Mrs. Haggerty had already been absorbed by a gaggle of women. They helped her with her coat and purse and ushered her into the living room.
The host showed us to the kitchen, gushing over the assortment of pastries and sandwiches as she took the platter from me and pried off the noisy plastic lid. She set it on the counter with the rest of the food. Someone else had brought vegetable crudités. Others had contributed bowls of fruit salad and chips.
“I’m Viola,” the woman said, extending a hand once all the trays had been set down.
“I’m Finlay,” I said, “and this is Vero.”
A spark of recognition lit in Viola as I shook her hand. “Finlay Donovan? The author?” Her smile faltered when I nodded, but she quickly recovered. “Maggie’s mentioned you. It was so kind of you to take her in.”
“Yes, Finlay,” Vero deadpanned. “So kind of you.”
“Why don’t you fix yourselves some plates?” Viola offered. “Our book club discussion won’t start until we’ve all visited for a bit. You can go after you’ve had a bite to eat. I’m happy to drive Maggie home after our meeting.”
Viola left us in the kitchen and excused herself to mingle with her guests. I studied the women as Vero and I loaded our plates with sandwiches. It was an oddly diverse group. While they all looked like they’d been cut from the same suburban Virginia cloth, they represented a broad spectrum of age and ethnicities. I had envisioned a handful of elderly ladies discussing Wuthering Heights or The Great Gatsby as they gossiped about their neighbors over cucumber sandwiches and bragged about their great-grandchildren, but Mrs. Haggerty seemed to be the oldest person there. Viola herself couldn’t have been much older than my mother. There were others who looked much younger, like the one who’d arrived carrying a laptop bag and wearing mom jeans; she couldn’t have been much older than me. Or the twentysomething who’d arrived in pink Hello Kitty nursing scrubs and a pair of thick-soled, pristine white sneakers, as if she’d just come from work.
A statuesque woman in a coordinated sweater set brought Mrs. Haggerty a heaping plate of food. She set it in the older woman’s lap and fluffed a pillow behind her. Another brought her a steaming cup of tea on a saucer. They all hovered close, lobbing questions in concerned low voices about how she was treated in jail and the damage to her home. Vero and I hovered in the kitchen, quietly eating our sandwiches. I felt like the unwanted parent chaperone at a high school dance.
After a few minutes of gossip and small talk, Mrs. Haggerty’s friends began clearing their plates. Mrs. Haggerty pulled a well-worn copy of a mystery novel from her handbag and set it in her lap. She uncapped a fountain pen as the women used their chairs and ottomans to form a circle around the sofa, scooting in tightly to close the gaps. Mrs. Haggerty opened her book and threw me a pointed look across the room.
Something Nick had said the other night bobbed to the surface of my mind as Mrs. Haggerty watched me. He said he’d seen books and a diary in her room—in my room. I’d always been curious (and more recently, concerned) about Mrs. Haggerty’s strange obsession with the daily happenings of my life, but now might be my only chance to know how much of it she’d actually seen. How much had she documented over the last few months, since the night Harris Mickler was murdered in my garage?
I tossed my empty paper plate in the trash can and waved a discreet goodbye to Viola as Vero and I headed to the foyer to show ourselves out. As I slung my purse over my arm, the strap caught the edge of a vase, nearly knocking it off the credenza where it perched. I reached to catch it, surprised to find it wasn’t a vase at all, but an urn. The gold plate affixed to the front bore a man’s name, presumably Viola’s late husband, judging by the engraved set of dates, and I quickly set the urn back in its place, hoping none of the women in the other room had noticed my close call.
“What’s wrong?” Vero asked as I took a step away from it.
“I can’t imagine putting Steven’s ashes in a jar,” I whispered.
“Speak for yourself. I think about it all the time.”
I nudged her out the door, waiting until it closed behind us to wipe my hands on my pants with a shudder.
“I thought Brendan said his grandma didn’t have any friends,” Vero mused as we walked back to my van. She gestured to the long line of cars parked along the street in front of Viola’s house. “These women all look pretty friendly to me. Why couldn’t Mrs. Haggerty have stayed with one of them?”
“She said she wanted to be close to her house.”
“I’d rather she be a whole lot closer than she is. In her own damn bed would be preferable. When did Steven say he was coming to look at her place?”
“Soon. We should probably head out.” I climbed into the van and checked the time on my phone. There was a text message from Sylvia, informing me she’d be arriving at Union Station on Monday at noon. She’d followed it with a firm reminder not to be late and instructions to “wear something hot.” I closed the thread without bothering to read the rest, determined to deal with one crisis at a time. If we hurried home, I might have time to do a little snooping before Steven and the kids arrived.