Address to Die For Read online

  From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald

  Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

  Thursday, August 28, Afternoon

  I pushed Max away and stared at him, convinced his words were an unfunny joke or that I’d misheard him.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The body might not be our biggest problem.” Max stuck his hands in his pockets and kicked at the ground like a kid who knew he should tell the truth, but who knew the truth would get him into trouble.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but questions flew around my head, forming sentences and breaking apart. Forming again and exploding. I closed my mouth and stared at him.

  “That phone call? The one from Jim, from Influx?” Max said.

  I waited. He looked at the ground.

  “They want me in the Bangalore office on Monday.”

  “India?”

  Max nodded. “I told them I needed to talk to you. That we hadn’t moved in yet and I didn’t know where my clothes were.”

  “And?”

  “The moving company called. Their driver had emergency surgery last night, and they can’t get a new team together until Monday, and Monday is Labor Day.”

  “And?”

  “They don’t work on Labor Day.”

  “And?”

  “They’ll call later to reschedule.”

  “And you’ll be in Bangalore?”

  Max bit his lip, stared at me, and said, “I told Jim I’d talk to you and call him back. I wanted to discuss the ramifications without the boys around so we’d have a chance to think about it together, first. But then I found the guy in the basement and the police arrived. Jim’s called twice since, but I let it go to voice mail.”

  I shook my head, trying to recalibrate my expectations for the week. “I don’t even know what the time difference is or the travel time. What time do you have to leave here to be in Bangalore on Monday morning?”

  Max’s mouth dropped open and snapped closed. I guessed it wasn’t the question he’d expected. I suspected it wasn’t a question he’d thought to ask. I looked at him. I had nothing to say. And no idea where we went from here, except that I needed an Oreo.

  Without warning, I started laughing and sort of crying. I couldn’t stop. I laughed until my stomach ached. I bent at the waist, put my hands on my knees, and turned my head to look up at Max. He was laughing too. What else could we do? Crying wouldn’t help. Our plans were a mess. I’d need to scrap my priorities, schedules, and lists, and start over.

  After days of packing up our belongings and wrapping up our lives in Stockton, we were exhausted—too exhausted to nimbly adjust to drastic changes. I fell over and sat on the ground, still laughing, snorting, and wiping my eyes. Belle bounded up from the barn, not wanting to miss a minute of fun. She bounced around me and licked my face, then head-butted Max, wanting in on the joke.

  My laughter died out to a few maniacal giggles. Max stood, reached out a hand to help me up, and said, “Let’s go talk to the kids. Figure out how we’re going to make this work.”

  I stood, brushing off my jeans and wiping my hands on my shirt, surveying the neglected landscape that the caretaker had promised would be in perfect condition when we moved in.

  “Oh, Max. Do you really think the man in the basement could be Javier? He was so nice when I phoned him about the measurements.” My eyes filled with tears and my throat tightened. I’d called the caretaker months earlier, worried that my grandmother’s antique wardrobe wouldn’t fit in the house. Javier provided the measurements of doorways, hallways, and stairs, but also asked for the dimensions of the old armoire. A few days later he sent me a short video of his grinning nephew carrying a refrigerator-sized cardboard box into the house, up the stairs, and down the hall to the master bedroom. They’d crossed out refrigerator on the box and marked it NANA’S CUPBOARD 4’ x 3’ x 8’.

  I smiled, sniffed, wiped my tears, and refocused my attention on Max.

  “I hope not, Maggie, but it has to be Javier, doesn’t it? Who else would it be?” Max brushed something from his eyes and scraped the ground with the toe of his shoe. “He was a great guy. Not only when I came to inspect the property in April, but back when I was just a kid and an annoying teenager visiting Aunt Kay.”

  “But why wouldn’t someone report him missing? How long do you think he’s been dead? Doesn’t he have family?”

  Max sighed. “I don’t know, Maggie, and with all due respect to Javier, I’m not sure I care at the moment. We need to focus on us. Our family. You, me, and the kids. Javier had some good innings. I thought he was an old man when he taught me to recognize animal tracks as a kid. Maybe he caught the flu or something after we last talked to him. He could have come out here desperate to catch up on his promises and fallen down the stairs, or had a heart attack, or a stroke. Let’s let the police sort it out.”

  I looked back at the house and the driveway packed with emergency vehicles. I sighed and smoothed my T-shirt. I’m not sure why I’d decided to wear a white shirt on moving day. It was getting grubbier by the minute.

  “We said we wanted to break out of our rut,” I said, trying to find something positive in this dreadful turn of events. “We craved a new adventure.... I guess we got what we asked for, but I’m a little afraid to find out what happens next: the zombie apocalypse? An earthquake?

  “Sharknado?” said Max. “Be careful what you wish for.” We walked toward the barn and our responsibilities.

  * * *

  “Mom, come look!” said Brian from the dark center of the barn, beyond its open doors. “This is so cool!”

  Max and I walked inside. The barn was straight out of Charlotte’s Web: quiet, cool, a tiny bit musty, smelling of hay. Roof beams soared above our heads. A loft graced the far end of the room. Like many barns in the area, this one was a drive-through. A central two-story corridor ran the length of the building. Enormous rolling doors enclosed both ends. On each side of the main door, single-story hips jutted out, separated from the main section of the barn by a row of rough-hewn support posts.

  Small windows in the upper story and on the lower side walls let in some light, but I needed to give my eyes time to adjust to the relative dimness compared to the bright sunlight outdoors. Square footage–wise, the barn might be as big or bigger than the house, but it was difficult to compare them.

  Max walked to a bank of light switches that were more modern than anything inside the house. He flicked them up with two swipes of his hands and we had light.

  “Mom, Mom, we can put in a swing!” Brian said. “Like the one in Zuckerman’s barn!”

  “We’ll see, honey,” I said. I wasn’t the only one channeling the kids from Charlotte’s Web.

  “I don’t suppose there’s a barn bathroom?” I asked Max. The iced tea I’d had at lunch was reminding me that we hadn’t talked to the police detective about access to facilities in the house.

  “I’m not sure,” said Max. “Let’s look around. There was an outhouse back here when I was a kid.”

  “Eww,” the boys chorused.

  Max laughed. “It wasn’t bad—not when it’s just for family use. But Aunt Kay considered putting a bathroom and shower out here and making the barn into a rustic guesthouse. I don’t know if she ever did. Let’s look.”

  I let them explore while I wandered behind the barn.

  Live oaks cast purple shadows on the golden hillside above a dry creek. Max had told us that the land beyond the creek belonged to the Mid-Peninsula Open Space District and was public land that could never be developed. He’d told us stories about backpacking there when he was a kid. From here you could access trails that would take you to the coast and back. I was tempted to let my mind venture at least that far, but I yanked my thoughts back to the business at hand.

  We were going to run out of daylight in a few hours and we still didn’t know where we were sleeping or eating. I hadn’t a clue when our furniture would arrive. I sniffed at my shirt. We could use a change of cl
othes. We were dusty, tired, and in need of showers. I was desperate to find a toilet.

  I looked up at the hills and watched a hawk banking into a turn and diving for food. I winced, waiting for the cry of a captured rabbit. I could grasp the whole circle-of-life concept, but wasn’t keen on seeing it play out in front of me. The hawk rose with a writhing snake in its beak. It was gross, but I smiled. I hoped it was a rattlesnake. This was the second time today I’d been soothed, watching the hawk soar and float on thermals, rising above the nonsense complicating our life on the ground. And now I’d discovered that hawks hunt snakes. That was my kind of bird.

  Max came back, put his hand on my shoulder, and watched with me as the wind rustled the grass. I put my hand over his. We both took a moment to just breathe.

  “It’s beautiful here,” I said.

  “I found the bathroom,” Max said. “Light and water are both working.”

  “The boys?”

  “Hunting for arrowheads by the creek.”

  “Are there arrowheads here?” I said, thinking there was no end to the enchantments this property held for my kids.

  “I’m not sure,” Max answered. “I found one once, but I half suspect Aunt Kay planted it. Arrowheads are about the hunting, though, not the finding.”

  I turned and scanned the inside of the barn. I thought about its working electricity and plumbing.

  “We could sweep up this floor,” I said. “Get it cleaned up enough to stay here tonight. Same plan as before, but with our sleeping bags in here instead of upstairs in the house.”

  I looked at the shadows of the clouds moving on the hill. “Do you think Detective Mueller will hold his questions long enough for me to find a Target? I could pick up a few towels and change of clothes? Find a pizza or burrito place and order takeout?”

  “And wine? Lots of wine?”

  I nodded. “A baguette for us? With cheese and grapes?” I was starting to like this plan. A lot. My phone would tell me how to find the nearest Target and how to get back home.

  Max smiled and nodded. “Marshmallows and stuff too? We used to have bonfires down here when I was a kid. I can keep our little savages busy hunting up some kindling, but grab a box of firewood, just in case.”

  “I think we’ve got a plan, at least for now. We can sort out the rest after we’ve had food, showers, and we’ve got our beds organized.”

  I kissed Max, took a quick break in the bathroom, and walked back up the hill to the car. Belle scampered behind me. She expected to ride shotgun whenever I was in the car, but I sent her back to Max and the boys.

  “Not now, girl,” I said. “You go back to protect the guys. We’re finding our way ’round this setback, but on a day like today, you never know where the next crisis will come from.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, refueled with a latte I’d grabbed at the kiosk inside the Target in nearby Mountain View, I pulled my car back into the driveway and experienced a brief flicker of that coming-home feeling. Parking the car at the barn and having Belle race out to greet me made it seem even more like coming home.

  But entering the barn was like . . . magic. Max and the boys had transformed it. Our sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses were lined up on the right side of the main corridor. A cloth-covered folding table and chairs graced the center of the barn. Drooping wildflowers filled a plastic soda bottle, creating a centerpiece. The whole barn was backlit by a bonfire that crackled outside the open back doors.

  “Amazing!” I said to the boys and Max, who all began talking at once.

  “I picked the flowers,” Brian said.

  “I set up the beds,” David added.

  Max shrugged. “About fifteen minutes after you left, a volunteer from the police department came down and asked what we needed. He felt bad that we were new to town and, instead of being greeted by the Welcome Wagon or a neighbor with cookies, we met up with a dead body and were kicked out of our house. He came back a while later with the table and chairs. He brought us some cookies, along with breakfast and lunch stuff in a cooler for tomorrow. The rest the boys scrounged from the car and the barn loft. We’ve had a blast.”

  I spun around like the lead in a Disney movie and felt every inch a pampered princess.

  I set a grocery bag on the table, sank down on one of the chairs, and pulled a towel from the Target bag. “Who wants the first shower?”

  Later, when we were stuffed with food, sticky with marshmallows, and Belle and the boys were tucked into bed, Max and I snuggled next to the fire. The stars twinkled and the evening felt like an odd fairy tale: disaster followed by a happy ending.

  “I don’t suppose the fairy godmother who brought the cookies solved the rest of our problems?” I said, refilling Max’s wineglass and sighing.

  “’Fraid not,” Max said. “But I bought us a little time with Influx, and Detective Mueller says his team is going to work all night and should be out of here by lunchtime tomorrow.”

  “Did he say why they’re taking this so seriously? Why they brought all the equipment and personnel? It’s like they thought it was a murder or a terrorist attack.”

  “No, nothing like that. It still looks as though Javier fell or had a heart attack.”

  “Are they sure it was Javier?” I said. “Are they sure it wasn’t murder? Wouldn’t a murderer try to make it look like an accident? Why didn’t someone miss him or call the police?”

  “That’s what the police are for. Let them do their jobs.”

  Max put his arm around me and drew me closer. “The detective seems more concerned about the broken windows, the hole in the porch, and some evidence of tampering with the electrical box. He thinks someone may have been working hard to make the house look more run-down than it should have been. He had one of his guys pull the police records. There were several vandalism reports from Javier going back as far as March. The police got a picture from the Department of Motor Vehicles and confirmed it’s him. He was probably so busy trying to keep teenagers from partying in the empty house that he didn’t have time to keep up with the normal chores, let alone arrange the work we requested. Poor guy.” Max again brushed something from his eyes and sniffed quietly.

  “Why did they have to contact the DMV? Wouldn’t he have identification on him? How did he get here? There was no car or truck parked near the house, and he wouldn’t have walked, would he? If he’d had the tools he needed to do his caretaking thing, he’d need a car.”

  “I really don’t know,” said Max, starting to sound a little testy. “Let me tell you what I do know.”

  I nodded and sipped my wine while Max continued the story. “The first report the police took from Javier mentioned broken windows. He called a second time to report that someone had tried to start a fire in one of the upstairs rooms. He thought it was kids, and so did the police, but they had no leads. They sent an officer to investigate and were monitoring social media, but nothing came of it, and Javier didn’t report any more damage.”

  “But the house is a mess,” I said. “Why did he stop reporting the damage? Why didn’t he tell us about it?” I shivered. He’d probably hadn’t wanted to worry us. We were used to gang tagging and vandalism in parts of Stockton, which was a bankrupt urban center with no money for maintenance and cleanup. Graffiti was an eyesore, annoying when the paint obscured street signs and expensive for store owners who struggled to keep their properties looking nice. But this was the first time I’d looked at vandalism as a violation of my personal space. It had never before hit this close to home.

  “Maggie, I’m sure Javier thought he had plenty of time to repair the damage and didn’t want to scare us away. He was excited that we were coming and that a family would be living in the house again. But it doesn’t matter, now. We need to focus on getting the kids settled into school, not on all these questions the police are better suited to answer.” Max sighed and tilted his head from side to side, stretching tight neck muscles. We were all sore from packing up for the move.
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  “Really, Maggie, think about it. The police need to figure this out, not us,” he said. “Detective Mueller—he asked us to call him Jason, by the way—is going to bring coffee down in the morning and have breakfast with us. Fill us in on where they’re at with the investigation. After that, he’ll have someone interview us for the file, and they’ll be done.”

  “Can they wrap things up that quickly?” I asked. “I mean, I’m thrilled that they’re clearing out”—I took a giant swallow of my wine—“but a man died.”

  “All I know about crime-scene investigations, you could fit in an hour-long TV crime drama,” Max said, pouring the last drops into his glass.

  “Oh, wait,” he said. “I do know something. Jason said they have a policy now of turning a crime scene over to professional cleaners when they’ve finished their investigation.”

  I tried to wrap my head around that, wondering why, and whether I’d had too much wine to figure it out.

  “You know, for health reasons,” Max said. “Bodily fluids, diseases—”

  “Okay, okay, that’s enough detail,” I said, scrunching up my nose and trying not to gag. “I get it.”

  I watched the fire and jumped when the call of a coyote broke the silence.

  Max laughed. “A coyote. Wait, you’ll hear more. Like a chorus calling good night.”

  Minutes later, other coyotes chimed in, each one with its own unique tone coming from a different direction.

  “I guess we should head to bed too,” I said. I stood, stretched my sore muscles, and reached out a hand to Max. “A professional cleaning company, huh? Do you think they’d be willing to stay longer and clean up the whole house? Would they help out with some of the repairs too?”

  “I’ll ask. If the cleaning team won’t, maybe we can find someone else to help.”

  “Leave that to me. I’m the professional organizer, remember? I’ll find someone. Maybe several someones. I’ll need them to refer to clients after I get Simplicity Itself up and running again.”

  We poured water on the fire and covered the coals with dirt. We checked on the boys. They were nestled in their sleeping bags with Belle sandwiched between them. As my head hit the pillow, I realized Max and I still had not addressed the issues of Bangalore and the moving van. I wondered if our decision to move had been reckless, whether we were in over our heads, and whether I’d ever get our family moved in so that I could focus on my business. I hoped I could find a way to salvage our plan to settle in quickly, especially if the police were right and there was an angry vandal out there. A vandal who seemed as determined to move us out as we were to move in.