Maybe if he liked me and my olives, which I happened to have, he’d go easy on our next lease negotiation, I mused.
Strains of Sondheim floated on the warm, early summer breeze as I walked across the grassy field between the Coop and the solar-paneled farmhouse. There were cars in the driveway—two Jeeps, a gray Mercedes, an Aston Martin. I heard laughter as I stepped onto the wraparound porch. The front door was open, so I went right in.
A half dozen tanned, attractive men were gathered around a white desk in the corner of the airy living room. I glanced around at the skylights, the oversize windows and bleached wood floors. The contemporary furniture upholstered in chocolate, pale blue and various creams. A tall, tanned man in jeans and a white linen shirt, who I assumed was Jack Mance, stood at the center of the group regaling them.
“I found it when my sister and I cleared out my father’s study last week to get his house ready to put on the market. We had no idea he even owned one.”
No one had noticed me yet. They were busy listening to Jack and admiring some object he was showing them.
“I’m registering it in my name and keeping it for sentimental reasons, but it’s staying out here. I can’t have it in the city. I’d be too tempted to use it on Bigfoot, my upstairs neighbor. Or on the Tony Soprano look-alike with the jackhammer tearing up the street in front of my apartment at seven a.m.”
The men laughed. Jack lifted a martini to his lips. He finally saw me across the room.
“Ah, this must be Nora Glasser, my tenant. She’s a journalist with the local paper. Our resident Joan Didion.”
“Thank you. I’m very flattered, but you exaggerate.”
“Come in. Come in.”
He waved me in with his other hand, the one that held a gun, and I instinctively ducked and shielded my face with the olive jar.
“Jack! Put that fucking thing away,” shouted the man I’d pegged as his partner, David.
“Sorry. One martini and I’m Annie Oakley,” Jack said sheepishly.
He put down the gun and his martini, opened a gray metal box that sat on the white desk and deposited the weapon in it.
“Ms. Glasser, did you hear me?”
“What? Sorry.”
“I’ve noticed you drift off a lot.”
“Yes, well, I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.”
Roche gave a fake smile. “That can happen when you’ve got too much on your mind.” He studied me. “I said the lockbox contained a .22-caliber handgun, which happens to be the caliber of the bullets in our investigation.”
I experienced a strange sensation in my gut akin to snakes slithering.
“You think the same person who took the box used the gun to commit the murders?”
“That’s a possibility we’re considering, yes.”
“How would they get the gun out?”
“Those boxes aren’t difficult to open. Any one of a number of basic tools can do it.”
He looked at the Swiss Champ in my hand. We both did. I slipped it into my robe pocket.
“Ms. Glasser, you’re trembling.”
“Am I? It is chilly in here. I need to light the woodstove,” I said, and wrapped my arms around myself.
“We wondered if you’d seen or heard anything unusual on the property between say October eighteenth, the last meter reading, and November fourteenth, the night before the murders.”
As far as I knew, there hadn’t been anyone else on the property besides the mailman and me.
“No.”
“Since you’re the closest neighbor, I was hoping you might have seen something.”
Roche’s eyes bored into mine. I blinked first, and he cracked a triumphant smile.
“Well, thanks for your time. Give me a call if you have second thoughts. Even the smallest detail can be helpful.”
He rose from the chair and started for the door.
“Detective?”
He stopped.
“If possible, I’d like to have my phone and computer back, please.”
He didn’t even bother to turn.
“We’d like to hold on to them.”
As soon as the police car was out of the driveway, I unpacked my new pink Acer Aspire computer, set it up and did a Google search. There were at least fifteen entries on the subject. Turns out you don’t even need a tool to open a lockbox. One video on YouTube showed how to pop it with a paper clip in less than a minute.
Chapter Seventeen
“Yvonne!”
I sprinted down the hall, dodging the empty wheelchairs and gurneys lined up against the wall. A bright-yellow-and-black-striped turban bobbed near the nurses’ station like some sort of cartoon bumblebee.
“Whoa. Put on the brakes, girl,” Yvonne said, raising her palm traffic-cop style as I closed in on her.
“How is she?” I said between huffs.
“She okay. The doctor’s gone, but he says your auntie gonna be fine. No worries.”
She wrapped herself around me in a big bear hug, and my nose bumped one of her bracelet-size hoop earrings. After a few pats on the back, she released me. I must’ve still looked shell-shocked because she grabbed my shoulders and shook.
“She be fine. You hear?”
I nodded. “So, what happened, exactly?”
Yvonne took my arm and headed for the row of plastic chairs across the hall. She plunked herself onto one and patted the seat next to her. I sat down.
“It was eight o’clock when I went up to give her your number like I said I would, I hear her yelling inside. But she don’t answer the door. I get security to open up, and we find her in the tub shakin’ from cold. Too weak to stand up. ‘Why you don’t let out the cold water and fill it with hot?’ I ask her. But her mind not thinkin’ right. So she freezin’ in there. Doctor says she had a ministroke. Lucky she didn’t catch pneumonia, too. The doctor be here in the morning.”
I leaned back and blew out a long breath. “The stroke. How bad?”
“Not so bad. I say three out of ten, if ten be dead.”
I prayed “three out of ten” didn’t translate into a permanent disability.
“But she also dehydrated. That’s why her mind fuzzy.” Yvonne shook her head in disbelief. “She sittin’ there in a tub full of water, dehydrated.”
“Thank you for staying, Yvonne. Let me pay you something, please.” I fumbled for my wallet, but she put her hand on mine.
“You goin’ through bad times. Spend it on yourself or your auntie.”
She gathered her black patent leather coat and matching purse from the chair on her other side and stood up.
“Show this girl some love, Marie,” she instructed the young night nurse who’d been eavesdropping from behind the counter. “She gettin’ beat up by the world this week.” She turned back to me and tilted her head. “You have somewhere to go for the holiday?”
Thanksgiving. I hadn’t given a thought to Thanksgiving. It was coming up the next week. Between Lada’s condition and my precarious legal situation, I couldn’t imagine making plans for the holiday. I might be spending it in the hospital or in jail.
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“You both welcome at my house,” Yvonne offered.
“Thank you. That’s very kind. Can I let you know?”