Address to Die For Page 4

  Chapter 4

  Moving and organizational overhauls are stressful. As an organizing professional, it’s my job to know when to encourage clients to take a break and when to push through to the finish.

  From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald

  Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

  Friday, August 29, Morning

  I woke to the sound of Belle barking. Rubbing my face, I felt ridges where I must have slept on the zipper of my sleeping bag. I smelled hay, sneezed, and then inhaled the aroma of fresh coffee and wood smoke. I got up when I heard Brian trying to convince Max that s’mores were an appropriate breakfast food.

  The night before, we’d fallen asleep in our clothes. This morning, I was happy to be fully dressed when I saw there were two strangers seated at the folding table. I was dying to brush my teeth, but my need for coffee overpowered my desire for good dental hygiene. I pulled a chair up to the table and sat.

  A large person next to me handed me a cup of coffee. His bearlike paw palmed the milk carton and it hovered over my cup. I nodded. The paw poured, then set down the carton and passed me the bagel bag. Still warm. I took a large gulp of coffee, pushed the hair from my eyes, and examined the strangers. On my right, a large, bald, bearded man scooted a plate of cream cheese toward me.

  “This coffee is . . . amazing,” I said. I took another sip, put down my cup, and reached out my hand. “I’m Maggie McDonald.”

  The stranger smiled and shook my hand. “Stephen Laird, purveyor of coffee and bagels and other emergency provisions. Thank you for welcoming us into your—”

  I nearly spit out my coffee, laughing as I watched the gracious man’s gaze dart to all corners of the barn, as if searching for a polite word for our situation.

  “—home.” He settled confidently on the word. “It is a home, isn’t it?”

  I lifted my cup to Stephen Laird and to the younger man sitting across from me. I thought I’d seen him before but couldn’t place him.

  “Officer Paolo Bianchi, ma’am,” said the second man. “I hope you don’t mind that I grabbed a cup of coffee?”

  Officer Bianchi looked dreadful. He was unshaven with dark circles under his eyes. Thin to the point of gauntness, he drowned in the dark-blue police windbreaker he wore over a T-shirt.

  “Ahhh,” I said. “I remember you. The Subaru with the kayak?”

  Officer Bianchi nodded and pulled out an iPad. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you a few questions, when you’re ready.”

  “Give the woman a break, Paolo,” Stephen said. “Finish your coffee and bagel, Mrs. McDonald. Take a shower if you need to. Paolo can wait.” Stephen grabbed a chocolate-chip cookie from the plate that we’d not put away last night.

  “Did you make those cookies?” I said on a hunch. “Are you our fairy godmother from last night? The police volunteer?”

  Paolo’s eyes widened and he choked on his coffee. Stephen smiled.

  “I am, indeed,” Stephen said. “I hope my contributions helped.”

  I nodded, my mouth too full of warm bagel to answer.

  “I aim to please.” Stephen pushed back his chair, picked up his paper dishes, and tossed them in a blue garbage bin labeled recyclables. He must have brought the bin with him too.

  “I can’t begin to thank you, Stephen. You’ve made all the difference.”

  He waved off my thanks and made a sharp whistle through his teeth. I heard a scrambling noise and a huge mastiff scooted out from under the table like an infantryman elbowing his way across enemy territory. The dog was as big as the table. How had I missed him? His breathing alone should have created a draft across my feet.

  Stephen caught me staring and smiled as the mastiff circled him and plopped in a perfect, silent heel on his left. “He’s my stealth dog,” Stephen said. “Invisible until . . . well, until he’s not.”

  I crossed the room to pet the dog, taking two swipes to rub his massive head.

  “What a good boy you are, you gorgeous thing. Do you have a name?” I stroked floppy ears as big as my hand.

  “Munchkin,” answered Stephen.

  I raised my eyebrows and rocked back on my heels to look Stephen in his blue eyes—eyes that dared me to ask the obvious question: How on earth did this beast earn the name Munchkin?

  Instead I asked, “How did he come to be yours?”

  “That’s a story for another day.” He turned and Munchkin loped after him. “He wasn’t always this big,” he called over his shoulder, answering the question I hadn’t asked.

  Inscrutable mysteries. Both of them.

  I watched them head back up the hill toward the house and wondered where my family had gone. Officer Paolo Bianchi cleared his throat. I turned toward him, but not before I saw Jason leave the house and head down the hill, clapping Stephen on the shoulder and stooping to greet Munchkin.

  “What can I do for you, Officer Bianchi?” I said, taking a seat, refilling my coffee cup, and taking a bite from my bagel. Sesame seeds tumbled to the table and a great glob of cream cheese landed on my T-shirt. I didn’t care. The bagel was too good and, after all, I lived in a barn. I could eat like a pig if I wanted to.

  “We need you to tell us what happened yesterday, ma’am,” said Paolo, turning red and looking past my ear instead of looking me in the eye. “Confirm everyone’s whereabouts.”

  Jason’s shoes made crunching noises as he walked over the gravel outside. He strode into the barn. Like Bianchi, he was unshaven and exhausted, but Jason’s stubble gave him the look of an edgy fashion model and fatigue made him look brooding.

  “Good morning, Mrs. McDonald,” he said. “Bianchi—good work, but I’ll take it from here. Go home, get out of that kayaking gear, get some sleep. I’m calling the team in for a briefing at three o’clock. The day is yours until then.”

  Bianchi looked at his watch and winced. “Six and a half hours,” he said. “I’d better get going. Thank you for your help, Mrs. McDonald.”

  I nodded to Bianchi, shook Jason’s hand, and invited him to sit. I poured coffee and passed Jason a plate. While his manners were perfect, probably well-honed to put the public at ease, he gave food and coffee his full attention before addressing me. Eventually, he opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him.

  “I suspect this breakfast was your idea, Detective. Thank you. It was very thoughtful. We’ve eaten now, though. Would your team like some of it? They’re welcome to come down or I can have the boys bring it up to you at the house.”

  “It’s Stephen Laird you have to thank,” said Jason. “He has an uncanny sense of what people need in an emergency. You’re new here, but the rest of us are used to seeing him at callouts, feeding people, handing warm blankets to displaced kids, comforting.”

  “Does the man never sleep?”

  “Not much, he’s—well, that’s his story to tell.”

  Jason pulled out a dog-eared notepad and stubby pencil. He caught me looking at his note-taking tools. “I’m old school,” he said. “No iPad for me. If I drop this or sit on it, it’s still good. And I like to drive the bad guys nuts while they wait for me to finish writing and ask the next question.”

  Jason flipped the pages of the notebook. The pause in conversation gave me time to wonder whether I was being manipulated like those suspects he’d mentioned. I squirmed in my chair.

  “Okay, then, Mrs. McDonald,” he said.

  “Maggie, please.”

  “Maggie. Your boys and Max tell the same story about yesterday morning. I need to hear it from you. You want to take me through it from the time you arrived?”

  It didn’t take long to tell, even with the other questions Jason asked about the condition of the house.

  “Max is nuts about this place and tends to look at the world through a forgiving lens,” I told Jason, explaining about our brief visit in February and Max’s trip alone in April. “After the April inspection, Max said the house was perfect. But I don’t think even Max would have described the house, as it
is now, that way.”

  “That’s what’s worrying me,” Jason said, leaning back in his chair and sipping his coffee. “We’re finished with the basement and are going to turn the scene over to the cleaners in”—He looked at his phone—“forty-five minutes. I called in the fire department arson investigator to take a look at your electrical box.”

  Jason handed me two cards. “I’m giving you these as an Orchard View neighbor, not as a police officer. Those are electricians who have worked on my own house. I put the arson investigator’s name and number on the back in case any electrician you hire wants to consult him. The electrical box was rigged so that, once it drew enough power—like when a family moved in—it would have caught fire.”

  I felt as though a mouse with icy feet had run up my spine. I shivered, though the day was growing warm. I picked up the cards for the electricians and stared at them.

  “Our arson guy fixed up the box so that it’s safe to use the power,” Jason said. “But he recommends you do a full rewire. He’s got kids the same age as yours and says that as soon as you fire up the oven or try to do laundry, you’re going to be blowing fuses. But there’s no longer any danger of fire.”

  The full impact of the dangers Jason was describing broke through my attempts at denial. “Fire?” I dropped the card and stared at him.

  “The arson guy said the whole place could have gone up.” Jason flipped through his notebook while I tamped down panic over the thought of my family being trapped in a flaming house because I’d done something as simple as preheating the oven.

  “That sounds more serious than ordinary vandalism,” I said, making fists with my hands under the table.

  “We’ll be investigating. Let us know if you see anything unusual.”

  “We’ve just moved in—not even moved in. How would we know what’s usual?” My rising concern for my family’s safety was tightening my throat and making my voice squeak.

  Jason looked up from his notebook. “Okay, then, let us know if you see anything that concerns you. I doubt you’ll see anything that our trained investigators wouldn’t have spotted, though. I wouldn’t worry.” He pushed the chair back and slipped his pen and notebook into his jacket pocket.

  Before he left, I started to ask him another question that had been bothering me. My single question morphed into many, which I asked in a tone of rising panic. “What about Javier? Do you know what happened? Why did he die here? Why did no one report him missing? Was he murdered? Are we safe? Should we change the locks?”

  Jason stood and looked down at me with a patronizing expression I’d not seen him make before.

  “We’ve confirmed what I told Max yesterday. The body was that of Javier Hernandez, a caretaker employed by your aunt’s estate. He worked here three days a week. The medical examiner will make the determination on cause of death. As for your other questions? You concentrate on moving and let us focus on the investigation. It’s my job, not yours, to ask questions and discover the answers to them.”

  He spoke slowly and emphasized every word. “Please let our officers handle the investigation. Orchard View does not need amateur detectives. This is not a television show.”

  He smiled to lessen the sting of his words.

  “I was curious,” I said. “God knows I have no interest in becoming Orchard View’s Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher. We just want to move into our house. And get started on school and our jobs, and”—I resisted the urge to act out my frustration like a bratty toddler—“I don’t know, maybe pay our respects to Javier Hernandez, Max’s only remaining link to his aunt? Mourn for someone who loved the house as much as we do?”

  “We’re doing our best to make sure you can do that as soon as possible.” He cleared his throat and looked up the hill toward the house. “You’ll see our cleaners arrive in hazmat suits. Don’t let their outfits upset you. It’s standard protocol, but Mr. Hernandez’s body hadn’t been there long enough to require much in the way of hazardous material treatment.”

  Eww.

  I hesitated to ask whether the cleaners could be hired to clean and repair the rest of the house. Hazmat suits? That wasn’t what we needed, not after today, anyway.

  Jason handed me yet another card. A Realtor card.

  “We don’t want to sell,” I said, surprised at the conviction I heard in my voice. I still hadn’t had a chance to talk to Max about Bangalore and the house or my doubts concerning our decision to move. But I didn’t have to talk to Max, not really. I knew what he wanted, what I wanted, and what the kids wanted.

  “We’re staying. Even if we have to fight off vandals ourselves.”

  “Finding and taking care of the vandals is my job, remember?” said Jason. “As is uncovering the full story behind what happened to Javier Hernandez. The card is for a friend of mine, Tess Olmos. She’s got teams of people she can call to clean up a house in a hurry and stage it for a quick sale. I’d go with her contacts for anything you need.”

  I drained my coffee cup. “It looks like there’s nothing left for me to do but make a few calls.” I knew better, of course. I’d learned my lesson yesterday. My plans to move this project forward could slip sideways at any time. I took the proffered card, but I wasn’t sure how smart it would be to use the first referral I’d received. I didn’t yet know whether Jason was a good investigator, let alone a good judge of quality in home-maintenance providers. I changed the subject.

  “Have you seen my family? I heard them when I woke up, but I haven’t seen them yet.”

  “They took off down the drive with your dog—Belle, is it? They looked like they were headed off to explore the neighborhood. One of the boys was carrying a stick like an expedition banner.”

  Jason slapped the table with his palm and left. I looked at my watch. I had time to clean up before Max got back with the kids and we planned our next step.

  My cell phone rang. I glanced at the display. My mom. Much as I loved her, she was the last person I wanted to talk to at the moment. She’d been against the move, insulted because she said Max and I were leaving her and the rest of my family.

  I was sure Mom was calling to see how things were going, but I knew how the phone call would progress. I’d outline the roadblocks, including the late moving van, Max’s impending flight to India, the body in the basement, the vandalism, and the devastating electrical fire we’d narrowly sidestepped. There would be a painful pause in the conversation. She’d take a deep breath and suggest moving back to Stockton. In fact, she’d probably drive her van out here and start loading us into it.

  That couldn’t happen. For me, there was no going back.

  I’d return Mom’s call later.

  After my shower, I chose a clean white T-shirt and underwear from the Target bag, pulled on my jeans, and shoved my feet into my sneakers. Max and the kids still weren’t home, so I headed up the hill, past the house, planning to walk to the end of the driveway to check the mailbox and to see if I could spot my family returning from their walk.

  The herd of emergency vehicles had thinned. The jumpsuited pair with the generator was shoving their gear into the back of the same SUV it had emerged from almost twenty-four hours earlier. I thanked them and continued down the rutted drive toward the mailbox.

  Pleased to see that someone had kept the mailbox clear of weeds and overhanging branches, I peered inside and plucked out a flyer advertising lawn services. I’d normally recycle something like that without reading it, but today, in a new place, it was mail. And it added to the growing feeling that I was at home.

  The sound of raspy breathing made me look up. A tall, lean, blond man walked toward me down steep Briones Hill Road. He held the leashes of three wheezing Pekinese dogs, all of which began yapping once they saw me. Their high-pitched barks made me feel as if all the marbles in my head were loose and banging into one another.

  The man’s dress shoes slipped a bit on the gravel at the edge of the road. His neatly pressed pants, shirt, and jacket were huge leaps up, styl
e-wise, from my jeans and sneakers. His hair, and the hair on the Pekes, made them all look like they’d stepped from a salon. I ran my hand through my still damp hair, thinking maybe it was time for a cut and highlights. My light-brown hair, dusted with what I liked to call tinsel, had a tendency to look drab and scruffy without routine maintenance.

  I put out my hand and said hello. The man ignored both overtures. He looked me over, head to toe.

  “Mrs. McDonald?” he said.

  “Yes, yes I am,” I said, pleased that someone in the neighborhood seemed to have known we were coming. “I’m Maggie McDonald.” I stepped forward and held out my hand again. He ignored it.

  “Quite a lot of noise here last night. This is a quiet neighborhood. I hope we won’t be disturbed by sirens on a regular basis now that you have moved in.”

  “Umm . . .” I had no idea how to respond to his comments, which were oddly unfriendly. I’d expected more of a Welcome to the neighborhood, I’ll bring cookies over later, do you need to use a phone? kind of greeting.

  But the man shifted tacks and held out his hand. “I’m Dennis DeSoto. We heard you were coming this weekend. I noticed no moving van has arrived. Are you staying or cleaning the house to sell?”

  “Good morning, Mr. DeSoto,” I raised my voice to be heard over the yapping Pekes. “We’re staying, but still waiting for our furniture to arrive.”

  DeSoto made a face. “That house has become an eyesore since old Mrs. Kay McDonald left. It’s dangerous. You might as well tear it down and start over. Build something fresh and modern. And I hope you’ll be paying more attention to the landscaping.”