Nancy.
Charlie found her Dorito-dusted pen. She had put on her list that she needed to talk to Flora’s teachers at school, but she should go ahead and check out Nancy Patterson, too. And she might as well throw Oliver Patterson into the mix. He was likely long-gone from school, but teachers tended to remember bad kids, and Charlie guessed by the fact that Oliver already had a criminal record that he had been memorable in high school.
There was a low rumble of a car engine gurgling from the street as she got out of her Subaru. Charlie watched a stunning, sapphire blue Porsche Boxter roll past the driveway. If she had to guess, she would say the scrawny young man behind the wheel was approximately nineteen years old with a rap sheet as long as Maude Faulkner’s dick. The boy who could only be Oliver Patterson had a shock of bright yellow hair and a flattened nose that had clearly been broken many times over. Oliver saw Charlie and pushed his wrap-around sunglasses up on his head. He narrowed his eyes at her, his lips pursed. He was trying to be a badass, but all she could think was that he looked like a capuchin monkey.
The tires screeched as he hooked a sharp U-turn around the cul-de-sac and sped back the way he had come.
“Okay,” Charlie mumbled, wondering what that show was about. If Oliver Patterson was really Flora’s boyfriend, then the girl needed a lesson about the frying pan and the fire.
She hefted her purse onto her shoulder and turned back toward the house. Up close, the peeling paint gave way to rotted wood and large patches of missing stucco. Some of the bricks were chipped. There were large cracks in the walk as she approached the front door. Weeds sprung up between the gaps. The lawn was patchy, like a dog with mange. The leaves on the boxwoods in front of the porch were curling from some kind of fungus. One of the panes in the bay window was broken; others were fogged up between the double layers of glass. Some shingles had fallen from the roof and landed in the yard. The porch steps were rotted. Even the paint on the front door had faded from red to almost pink.
Charlie had dealt with her share of rich people. Either the Pattersons were from old money and they didn’t know how to take care of things or they were from new money that had run out too quickly.
She remembered what Leroy had said about Oliver being as crooked as his father. Charlie cursed herself for not looking into the family before coming over. Her intrinsic nosiness, her joy of delving into other people’s business, was paramount to her job as a criminal defense lawyer. Normally, she knew more about her clients and potential witnesses than they knew about themselves. Not this time. She didn’t even know how Mark Patterson made a living. Or didn’t, if that turned out to be the case. She was too distracted today, taking too much of what she was being told at face value.
The doorbell was Scotch-taped over, so she knocked four times and waited. Then she knocked again, but harder, thinking a more timid sound would go unheard in the gigantic house.
Charlie watched another car roll by. The neighbor across the street, she assumed, as a brand-new Mercedes pulled into the driveway opposite. A woman got out with her suit jacket over one arm and a briefcase hooked on the other, personifying the clip art of a working mother. She stared openly at Charlie, her nose wrinkled as if she could smell out Charlie’s purpose for being on her neighbor’s front porch.
“Hello?”
Charlie jumped back, almost falling down the steps. The front door was open. A petite, forty-ish woman in black yoga pants and a neon green tank top stood with a water bottle in one hand and a shotgun in the other.
“Shit!” Charlie’s hands went up, though the barrel of the gun was pointed down.
“Oh, sorry. It’s not loaded. At least, I think it’s not loaded.” The woman set the shotgun down beside the door. She wiped her forehead with a towel. She had that slight glisten of rich-people sweat that came from doing Pilates or yoga or some other form of stretchy exercise that took a lot of time and money to learn.
She told Charlie, “I thought you were our neighbor from across the street. I was upstairs working out and saw her car. She’s such a bitch. Knocks on the door every day giving us shit about this or that—like it’s any of her business.” She motioned for Charlie to come in. “You must be the lawyer?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m Jo Patterson. Flora told us you’d be coming over. Such a wonderful young woman. Did you know she sold the most cookies of anyone in the state? Plus, she’s Nancy’s best friend. Those two are like peas in a pod. We just love her to bits. Do you want some iced tea?”
Charlie felt like she needed to shake her head to make the jumble of information settle into a sensible, linear pattern. “No, thank you.”
“Let’s go to the back. Only a matter of time before that bitch knocks on the door.”
Charlie was delighted to follow her to the back, mostly because she’d always wanted to see inside one of these big houses. Jo pulled closed huge, wood-paneled pocket doors as she walked down the hall, mumbling apologies about the mess. In her wildest dreams, Charlie couldn’t imagine having so many rooms, let alone how to decorate them all. Jo Patterson had apparently run into the same problem. There was a den with nothing but two beanbags and an old tube TV with a gaming console underneath. The dining room was absent a table and chairs. The chandelier was listing sideways as if someone had tried to swing from it. Even the powder room showed signs of neglect. The wallpaper had rolled down from the ceiling. Someone had made a half-hearted attempt to tear it off, but that had only made it look worse.
Charlie asked, “How long have you been here?”
“Five, six years?” She shut another door to what had to be an office. There was a metal desk like they gave high school teachers, metal filing cabinets with heavy locks, and boxes and boxes overflowing with papers. “We’re remodeling, but I’ve been saying that for a while now because I simply cannot make a decision. There are too many choices, you know what I mean?”
Charlie would love to make the decisions if it meant a new dishwasher that didn’t flood if you put more than four plates on the bottom rack.
Jo said, “Here we go.” She held out her arms, indicating a large family room and kitchen. Sunlight streamed in from the humongous windows. The vaulted ceiling was at least thirty feet overhead, wooden beams making it somehow feel homey. The back of the house, at least, had been decorated. It was the only part that looked lived in. Deep leather couches. Recliners. A giant flat-panel TV mounted above a stone fireplace. There was an open concept kitchen that made Charlie’s eyes water with jealousy—not because she was a cook, but because she wanted a kitchen that made people’s eyes water with jealousy.