Chapter Seven
SEVEN
Finn stands in the middle of the Allards’ giant kitchen, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, waiting to be assessed.
He was late for the interview after helping that Caren woman back to her house, but Jo Allard didn’t seem to mind, which surprised him.
She didn’t seem like the laid-back type.
He could hear movement above him, his potential employer searching for the aging Muffinhead somewhere on the second level of the immense house.
“He’s old and sleeps a lot. I’ll be back in a flash,” Jo told him before excusing herself to look for the dog.
Finn takes the opportunity to gather himself.
Finding Caren so confused and disoriented like that in front of the Prison House had shaken him.
He knew of her and her husband, Miguel, the way he knew of almost everyone in this neighborhood, but her house wasn’t that close to where Autumn lived, so she had never pinged his radar.
But there was something so strange about seeing her, dressed for a night out, come out of that house and slip and fall in the mud.
Finn shakes the thoughts of Caren away. He needs to focus.
He looks around the kitchen, obviously an addition, with one redbrick wall demarcating where the original house ended.
The expansion takes up most of what was once a very large backyard, with so many recessed skylights in the high ceiling that the room is bright even without the lights on.
He walks past a worn farmhouse table to the French doors and stares out at what looks like the remnants of a party.
A few Mylar balloons float lazily in the air, not quite deflated but clearly leaking life.
A gold garland stretches across the boxwood hedge that separates the lawn from the backyard of the Prison House, which seems to strain angrily at the edges of the property, bullying the Colonials and Capes around it.
“Here we go,” Jo says as she enters the kitchen, cradling a small dog with hair so curly Finn cannot make out his eyes. She’s dressed in mint-green leggings and a sports bra, and Finn notices that Muffinhead wears a matching green bow tie.
“This is Muffinhead,” she says in a baby voice. “Muffinhead, this is Finn.” She bends down to put him on the ground. “He’s going to be your new dog walker.”
Finn crouches, offering his hand for the dog to sniff. “Hey there, Muffinhead.”
The dog ambles over and allows Finn to scratch him behind his ears.
“He’s a sweetie,” Finn says.
“He is. But his bladder is getting worse, and he needs to be walked more often. My son, Van, is still in Europe. He took a gap year to charter a yacht across the Med. Tough life, right? And Elo?se, that’s my daughter, is at lacrosse camp.
And I’m running around like a crazy woman getting ready for our trip to France.
I’m rarely home during the day.” Jo babbles on, buzzing with the energy of a thousand espressos.
“Happy to help.” Finn stands.
The woman narrows her eyes at him, and Finn feels himself grow uncomfortable.
He still doesn’t like to be stared at like this, even though he hasn’t been clocked as trans in almost a year.
He can feel his whole body go on high alert, from his tense jaw to his clenched fists.
He hates this full-body reaction, prepping for the worst. It used to be what every day was like for him in high school and even his first year of college, before his top surgery.
Now when these moments do occur, and they are rare, it makes him realize how far he has come.
“I swear I’ve seen you somewhere,” she says.
Oh God, he thinks, his mind switching immediately from the anxiety of being clocked to the fear of having been seen putting up the flyers. “I work at the library, Little Falls.”
She wags a finger at him. “Oh right! I have seen you there. You’re not from around here, are you?”
“That obvious?” He smiles. He’s safe, for now.
She holds two fingers about an inch apart. “You have just the tiniest bit of an accent.”
“I grew up in North Carolina, but I’ve been here since college.”
“Oh, North Carolina. We love North Carolina!” She makes an exaggerated frowny face.
“We don’t get back much now that we have the house in Provence.
But we used to spend every summer in the Outer Banks when the kids were little.
Southern Shores? Do you know it? Did you get out to the beach a lot growing up? ”
“A little.” Finn smiles at the thought of his uncle’s ramshackle house on stilts named Country Time.
The stretch of beach he visited as a kid, with its nearby penny arcades and biker bars, may have been in the same state as Southern Shores and its private beaches, but it felt like an alternate universe.
“Where are you from?”
“Oh, a small town outside Fayetteville. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”
She chews at her bottom lip. “Fayetteville. That’s kind of in the middle of the state, right?”
He nods.
“Yeah, I’ve been to the mountains—Asheville. I love, love the Biltmore. And the beaches, of course, but the middle? Not so much. Did you go to school there? UNC?”
“No. Like I said, I came up to DC for school.” He doesn’t mention American University, on the off chance that she knows that’s where Autumn attended.
He never knows with these suburban moms. Some seem to flit about their days oblivious to the news, while others are obsessed with true crime.
He doesn’t know which category Jo fits into. “I graduated a few years ago.”
“Huh, even with UNC as an option? Where did you go?”
“American,” he says as casually as possible.
“I got a full ride.” When he was applying to colleges, he knew little to nothing of national rankings.
Almost everyone in his high school who was going on to college—and that was two-thirds of the students at most—chose in-state schools.
North Carolina had plenty to offer. It was his guidance counselor, Mr. Perkins, who not only let him eat lunch in his office during the worst parts of high school but had also taken the time to explain that with his high grades and the fact that he was the first in his family to attend college, he might qualify for generous aid.
“Well, good for you! Both my kids are heading off to Stanford in the fall.”
“Congrats. Both of them, huh?”
“I know. It’ll be wonderful to have them at the same school. Some of my friends with kids at Yale, Princeton, Stanford.” She waves her hand. “It’s too much. Parents’ weekend is a nightmare. We just had a big party for Elo?se last night.” She gestures to the yard. “That’s why it’s still a mess.”
Jo walks around the island, pointing out Muffinhead’s bowls, where the food and treats are kept, and explaining that he likes his food warmed up just a tad. “Ten seconds in the microwave will do it. Easy peasy. Oh, and only filtered water for him.”
“Of course,” Finn says.
She laughs. “I know. Obvious. But some people…” She shakes her head. “Follow me, I’ll show you where the leash is and give you the code to the door.”
He follows her into a narrow room off the kitchen that boasts four full-length cubbies on one side, painted black, with metal letters spelling out names above—elo?se, VAN, JO, DANIEL. The leash hangs nearby from a hook on the wall.
Jo opens the back door and tells him the code to her house as nonchalantly as if informing a stranger of the time of day.
“I use the same code for everything,” she says. “My son’s birthday. I should probably be more creative.”
He tries it once with success, amazed at the ease with which she’s handed over the virtual keys to her house to someone she’s just met.
“How did you hear about me?” Finn asks once they are back inside.
She frowns. “Somebody, I don’t remember. I’ll have to check my texts. I posted something on the neighborhood Facebook group and someone responded.”
As they walk back to the kitchen, she pauses beneath a large black-and-white portrait.
It’s a picture of her, a man, a boy, and a girl on the beach, wind whipping their hair.
They are all so tan that their crisp white shirts seem to glow.
The beach is empty, a private backdrop provided by nature just for them.
“Oh, that was taken at Southern Shores. It was our Christmas card picture when the kids were little, years ago.”
A sadness tints her voice, as if she’s talking about something lost to the mists of time. For a split second, her mask falls and Finn glimpses a deep pain written on her face. Just as quickly, she recovers, clapping her hands together.
“So! What we need is someone to come in Monday and Thursday, midmorning. Does that work?”
“Perfect. My shifts change every week, but I never have to be in at work before eleven, so I could come in around ten, ten fifteen.”
“Would you ever be willing to house-sit? Muffinhead’s traveling days are behind him, I’m afraid.”
“Happy to.” Happier than he wants her to know. His heart thrills at the thought of uninterrupted time in this house. Time to investigate. Could she or her husband be “the neighbor” that Autumn referred to? It’s not the kind of question he can just come out and ask.
“I remember now,” she says, snapping her fingers. “You live with Paula Dunker, right?”
He nods.
“She’s the one who told me about you.”
Finn cocks his head. Funny, his landlady hadn’t mentioned that to him.
A cell phone trills from inside the house. “I’ve got to get that,” Jo says as she rushes out of the mudroom. “Just let yourself out the back door. Pull it tight! And thanks, Finn!”
Left alone, Finn hesitates before leaving.
To the right, a small desk in the mudroom serves as a landing spot.
The surface is cluttered in an attractive way.
Small dishes hold change and keys, while a large wicker basket holds the mail.
He doesn’t dare go through it right now or open any drawers, not when she might pop back in at any moment.
He doesn’t know what he is looking for anyway. Some sign, some hint.
He pulls out his tarot card, the familiar image of the Star bringing a bittersweet pang to his chest. Autumn gave it to him the day before his surgery. For hope and renewal, she’d written on a sticky note attached to it.
He doesn’t believe in ghosts or communicating with the dead.
He doesn’t foster any hope that the universe might deliver some message to him if he only opens his mind.
When he used to tell his mom that she needed to be more open-minded, she would laugh and say, “If you’re too open-minded, your brain’s gonna fall out.
” Yet he asks the question he’s asked for the past year whenever he steps inside a house in the Eastbrook neighborhood.
Did someone who lives in this house kill Autumn?