“Well, she did have a family. Her father was a Boston cop who was shot during a bank heist. Her mother was left with two kids, your mom and her brother, but she died soon after.” Lucy decided to omit the fact that Mimi’s mother had committed suicide.
“And this homeless guy who drowned? He really was her brother? Our uncle?”
Lucy nodded. “His name was Thomas Preston O’Toole. You were both named after him.”
“This is really blowing my mind,” said Preston. “I wonder why she never tried to contact him.”
“Maybe the past was so painful she didn’t want to open it up.” Lucy didn’t say what she thought was the more likely reason: that Mimi felt reopening the past would be dangerous. It certainly seemed that the key to her murder would be found in the past. “If you think of anything, anything at all that might help, please tell me. And remember, if you need anything, my offer’s still good.”
Lucy stood in the doorway as the boys left, but when Preston started his motorcycle there was no hideous roar. It turned over smoothly and quietly and purred as he rolled down the driveway.
“What happened?” asked Lucy.
“Tommy told me,” chirped up Sara, who had come back downstairs, her hair still damp from her shower. “He got a new muffler. The lawyer advised him it would help community relations.”
Esterhaus sounded like one smart cookie, thought Lucy, making a mental note of the name. You just never knew when you might need a good lawyer.
Lucy waited until after supper, when Sara had gone out to the movies with her friends and Zoe was upstairs getting her homework out of the way before the weekend, to tell Bill about the day’s events.
“Something’s going on with that football team that isn’t right,” insisted Lucy. “I just feel it.”
“Yeah, they’re winning,” said Bill. “They beat Lake Wingate twenty-one to six today. Amazing.”
“What are you saying? That it’s okay for the boys to haze each other and harass the cheerleaders so long as they keep winning?”
“Well, whatever’s going on, you can’t argue with the result.”
Lucy couldn’t believe her husband, Sara’s doting father, was talking like this. “Are you actually telling me you’d sacrifice your daughter’s well-being for a winning season?”
Bill shifted uncomfortably in his recliner, making it squeak. “No. Of course not. But maybe she just needs to develop a little tougher skin. That’s what this stuff is all about and to tell the truth, if it’s hazing that’s producing the desire to win, well I can’t say I think it’s such a bad thing.” He shrugged. “We all go through it one way or another. You’ve got to pay your dues.”
“Well, the team may be winning but Sara’s throwing up every morning before school. This can’t go on.” Lucy leaned forward. “I think she should talk to a counselor.”
Bill’s eyebrows shot up. “Like a psychiatrist?” He shook his head. “She’s not crazy.”
“But she is unhappy. I can’t get her to tell me what’s going on but maybe she’d open up to a professional. They know all sorts of techniques for establishing trust and getting kids to open up to them.”
“Why would she trust a stranger when she won’t trust her parents?”
“Apparently…” began Lucy, but she was interrupted by Libby’s frantic barking. The dog’s hair was standing straight up on her back as she paced from window to window, growling and barking.
Lucy looked at Bill. “Probably just a skunk,” he said, as the window behind his chair suddenly shattered with a crack like a gunshot. They both dove to the floor, where Lucy lay on her stomach, panting with fear. Bill began crawling, propelling himself by his elbows, and unplugged the lamp, plunging the room into semi-darkness. Then he grabbed the phone cord and pulled the instrument to him.
“What was that?” demanded Zoe, standing in the doorway.
Lucy’s heart was in her throat. “Get down,” she hissed. “I think somebody’s out there with a gun.”
Zoe began wiggling across the rug to her mother.
“Stay put. There’s broken glass.”
“I’m scared, Mommy.”
“Everything’s okay,” said Bill. “The cops are coming. All we have to do is stay low.”
Moments later, they heard the approaching siren of a police cruiser coming up Red Top Road. When they heard the scrunch of tires in the drive and saw the powerful lights reflected on the wall they cautiously got to their feet and Bill went to the kitchen door.
Lucy switched the overhead light on and surveyed the damage. It wasn’t a shot after all that had broken the window, she discovered, but a baseball-sized rock with a piece of paper wrapped around it.
“Don’t touch that,” she warned Zoe, hurrying into the kitchen. There she found Bill and Officer Josh Kirwan, Dot’s youngest, who looked barely old enough to vote.
“It was a rock,” Lucy informed him. “With a note.”
“What does the note say?”
“I didn’t touch it. Don’t you want to check it for fingerprints?”
“Oh, right,” said Officer Kirwan, nervously fingering his notebook. “I better call this in to the station.”
“I’ll make some coffee,” said Lucy, figuring it was going to be a long night. She gave Zoe a hug. “You go on back upstairs and start getting ready for bed.”
“But tomorrow’s Saturday,” she protested.
“Okay. You can watch the TV in my room.”
Officer Kirwan went outside to check that the rock thrower was gone and to look for evidence. Lucy and Bill sat at the kitchen table, listening to the coffee pot drip and hiss.
“I wish we could read that message on the rock,” said Lucy.
“It’s probably not anything you want to hear,” said Bill.
“Even so. It might have something to do with Mimi’s death.” She sniffed the comforting smell of coffee. “Maybe the murderer threw the rock.”
“Maybe you better calm down and let the police handle this.”
Lucy wasn’t at all encouraged when Detective Horowitz arrived, followed immediately by a white crime scene van and two technicians. They went straight into the family room, carrying an assortment of equipment cases and powerful lamps. Lucy had that odd feeling you get when your house isn’t quite your own. After what seemed an eternity Horowitz emerged with the note encased in a clear plastic bag. As ever, he seemed gray and tired with his thinning hair, rumpled suit, and pale eyes.
“I’d like you to take a look at this. Do you have any idea what it’s about?”
He set it on the table so Lucy and Bill could see.
It was a torn piece of yellow foolscap with blue lines. The words “You could be next” were written in large penciled block letters.