Closet Confidential (29 page)

Truffle and Sweet Marie were quite happy to come along with me and try a walk in another neighborhood. We piled into the Matrix. I parked two blocks away from the construction site, took the doggies and the roll of brightly colored poop bags, and set out. “No barking,” I admonished.

It was a soft and fragrant evening, the end of a beautiful sunny day that I hadn’t enjoyed at all. The old lilac trees here and there were at their peak, and the scent was wonderful. The warm days and convenient heavy rains in the middle of each night had been great for the greenery. Woodbridge was in bloom. I noted a small but steady amount of traffic in the area. The man I’d seen previously with the jaunty straw fedora whizzed by on his motorized scooter, setting off a blizzard of barking from my canine companions. He tipped his fedora at me and seemed to find the dogs amusing. That was more than I felt as the dream of therapy dog success continued to fade. As we sauntered along, we passed an elderly couple out for a stroll. Luckily they didn’t have a dog for Truffle and Sweet Marie to bark at. A police car drove slowly down the street, and a man in a leather jacket melted away before it did its slow roll past. I could tell from his shape and movements that he was young. Dimitri? I couldn’t be sure. We strolled past the point where he had disappeared. I saw there was a dingy alley leading to nowhere that could be any good.

As we approached the construction site, I slowed, pretending to wait for the dogs to sniff every pole. A yellow pickup with the construction company logo was parked nearby. It was exactly the kind of fence that the misfits used to hurl themselves over for the hell of it, when we weren’t in Jack’s basement watching slacker movies.

I stopped and stared as the gate to the site stood open. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could this company be so careless after what had happened to Anabel? I reminded myself that the truth was, I didn’t know what had happened to Anabel. I stepped closer to the door and let Truffle follow his twitchy black nose into the opening. I followed and found myself staring at a pair of work boots. I glanced up and met the eyes of a scowling man with a yellow hard hat. Make that two men in hard hats. The second one grinned and pointed at Truffle and Sweet Marie, who had joined him.

“Oops,” I said. “The gate was open and the dogs pulled me in.”

“It’s a dangerous spot, miss,” the second man said. “Especially for wiener dogs.” He bent down to let Truffle and Sweet Marie sniff his hand. They might bark at babies and little old ladies, but they wagged their tales at this huge, scary individual. Not barking? Maybe that was good news for my training project.

“Isn’t this where that terrible accident took place?” I asked. “It is dangerous. I’m surprised the door was still open.”

The first man said, “That gate was open because we’re here to check out something in the site. It’s not open to the public, and I have to ask you to move back onto the sidewalk. We have insurance issues.”

“I’m sure you must,” I said.

“The project is about to go ahead again. And we’d like everyone to stay alive. The mud is real slippery,” the second man said, standing up again. “You need to have boots with grip.”

“Of course,” I said, glancing at the foundation, which had even more water in it than the first time I’d peeked through the slot. “Come on, Truffle and Sweet Marie. This isn’t a place for us. Remember what happened to Anabel.”

Was it my imagination or did the two men exchange that cliché known as meaningful glances?

“That was tragic,” the second man said. Mentally, I thought of him as Mr. Friendly, while the other guy had become Mr. Grumpy.

Mr. Grumpy said, “Yeah, and it was brought on by her being in a place that she didn’t belong at a time she shouldn’t have been here.”

I said inanely, “I don’t see how she could have fallen into that foundation.”

Mr. Friendly said, “But the fact is that she did. And we wish to avoid liability for—”

Mr. Grumpy jumped in. “Idiots who get into places they don’t belong.”

“Don’t mind us,” I responded with a smile. “We’re on our way. I imagine you’ll be getting that foundation pumped out soon.”

There were still people around on the street as I exited. Granted it was now June, and Anabel had died in March. But it would still have been light enough at that time of year. After daylight saving starts in March, if the weather’s nice, people are happy to step out for a bit in the evening after the dreariness of winter. How could no one have seen or heard Anabel?

Brad Dykstra’s comment echoed in my mind. It could have been an accident. Had I exaggerated the doubt in his voice? I stared back toward the site. I knew the wooden formwork around the foundation hole was muddy and high, with nowhere to get a grip. There was still enough water to drown in easily. I could see how the police, never looking to boost either the murder rate or the unsolved rate, would consign it to the “accidental” category.

What the hell had Anabel been doing behind that fence in the first place? The dogs chose to bark at something across the street, and I turned to look. The fedora man zipped by on his scooter again. He waved up at someone in the apartment building. I noticed a figure appear by a row of plants in a second-floor balcony across the street. Did those people worry about the lonely death of a young woman practically under their own windows? Did any of them ask themselves,
If only I had glanced out or chosen to water my plants at the right time, could I have prevented that tragic death?

At nine o’clock I settled the dogs in and headed for Rose’s place. I was wearing a pair of running shoes, black yoga pants, a stretchy tee, and my jean jacket with a jaunty scarf. Comfortable enough to jump a fence. Rose was happy to comply with the favor, which was to lend me her car.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Lilith asked.

I shook my head. “In case there’s any issue, I’d like to keep you out of it. You don’t need the cops on your back. Not that I’m doing anything illegal.”

Shortly after ten, it was finally dark enough. I cruised down Old Pine Street. I didn’t see any signs of the unmarked car. Maybe they were getting smarter. I parked around the corner and sneaked across the backyard, dodging moonbeams and hoping none of the neighbors spotted me. Luckily the mature trees in Pepper’s backyard were in full leaf, so I was probably safe.

The key worked, the code worked, and I was in. I locked the door behind me, in case the smart, young police officer came back and gave it a try.

It was a beautiful night with an inconvenient full moon. I reminded myself that I had Pepper’s permission to enter her house. It was not in any way a crime scene, and I didn’t have to worry much about the police. Still, I didn’t want Tierney knowing what I was up to, even if it wasn’t illegal. I didn’t turn on the lights. At this point, the full moon came in handy. There were no signs that Nick had been around, although who knows what those signs would be? Based on my theory that everyone has a secret in their closet, I was hoping to find Nick’s.

The bedroom closet was full of Pepper’s clothing. No surprise. The second bedroom was the nursery.

I tried the closet in the third bedroom. If I had my geography right, this one was right over the front porch. I took a peek out the window. No police car in view. That was good. This was Nick’s playroom all right. I found workout gear, weights, and a treadmill set up in front of a television with a DVD player attached. Lots of action DVDs stored underneath. I ran my finger over the equipment. Even in the pale moonlight, I could tell it was dusty. Pepper had said that Nick had been distracted lately, so no great surprise. I opened the closet and found it full of men’s clothing. Nick’s spare uniform and his neatly pressed shirts, long and short sleeved, were hanging there as well as a lot of casual clothes, neatly hung up, shirts together, casual shirts folded on a shelf, jeans neatly positioned. I found a stack of men’s magazines. Nick probably thought Pepper wouldn’t touch those, so that he would feel that was a good place to hide something, if he had something to hide, which being Nick he would have to have. Pepper on the other hand would be well aware of the fact that Nick would have something to hide and Nick would think she wouldn’t check the men’s magazines. I shook them all out, but nothing suspicious fluttered from their pages. So much for my complicated thinking. I felt around the back of the walls and on the shelves about. I stuck my hands in the shoes. Nada.

Was Nick capable of finding an unusual hiding place for anything? I was somewhat hampered by the fact that I had no idea what kind of secret item I might be looking for. I had nothing more than my lame theory.

I jerked my head back out of the closet at a sound. What was that? A scrape? The sound came from downstairs. Had the police officer watching the house spotted me entering the back door? But I’d locked that door behind me. Had a neighbor seen me and alerted the cops? A wave of panic washed over me. Why hadn’t I reset the alarm? Where could I hide? The closet seemed a possibility, but it was way too small for me and Nick’s clothing.

The scrape had turned into a slight bumping noise, then a soft
thump
,
thump
,
thump
. I have spent enough time with Jack Reilly to recognize that as sock feet on the stairs. I gasped, whirled foolishly, and dived into the end of the closet. I pressed myself to the far wall and did my best to get my breathing under control. I thought I sounded like a locomotive pulling out of a historic station. I stayed slumped in that corner and hoped if worse came to worse that I’d be hidden by Nick’s Levi’s. Minutes passed. Or possibly hours.

I jerked when the closet door opened, barely surpressed a gasp. I held my breath as somebody rapidly whipped through the clothing. Whoever that somebody was, he was breathing hard. And he was also in desperate need of a shower. Sometimes your deodorant isn’t up to the job, and this guy was having one of those days. A cop? I didn’t think so. Whatever you can say about them, cops are well groomed, proud of their appearance. As the last pair of jeans shielding me from view shifted, I squeaked in panic. Not that my would-be attacker heard because he screamed. A familiar voice.

I said, “Shh.”

“Charley?”

“Nick?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I might say the same for you.”

He decided to brazen it out. “I live here.”

“Yeah and there’s an APB out for you.”

“That’s a mistake.”

“I’m sure it is.” I crawled out of the closet and managed to hold my head high.

Nick said, “Why were you in my closet?”

“Hiding, of course. Why else would I be there? I’m here to get some stuff for Pepper and I didn’t want the cops to see me and—”

Nick burst out, “They say she’s in the hospital. I heard it on the radio. They say she’s badly hurt and she may not even—” To give him credit, his voice rose in anguish.

“She’s a bit better. She can talk. But she’s been horribly injured.”

He ran both hands through his hair, speechless for once.

“They’re saying that you did it, Nick.”

His eyes were wild, like those of a panicked horse, handsome but doomed. “Ah, Charley, you don’t believe that, do you?”

“You are connected somehow. So you’d better tell me what the hell is going on.”

He let out a long wail. “I don’t know.”

“Pull yourself together. What happened at Bakker Beach?”

He shook his head. In the pale light in the room, Nick Monahan looked like death not even warmed over. He smelled pretty revolting, too. “I wasn’t there.”

“Your squad car was there.”

“They took it. They took it, and they must have tricked her into meeting me there.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

Nick slumped against the wall. “I don’t know who they were. They got behind me somehow and must have knocked me out. I guess they took the squad car and got Pepper somehow.”

“Nick, no one is going to believe that. It’s too crazy.”

He whispered in his best little boy voice, “But I need you to believe me. I was out cold. By the time I came to, it was night. I had to hitch back to town. Losing the squad car like that is the worst thing that could happen to a cop.”

“Not the worst thing, Nick. I’d say what happened to your wife beats being embarrassed about losing the car.”

He hung his head, still a bad little boy at heart. “You’re right, Charley. That’s the worst thing ever.”

His cell phone rang, and he reached into his pants pocket, pulled it out, and flicked it open. He closed it. “Tierney, trying to psych me out. They all keep calling.”

“Why do you keep it on?”

“In case it’s Pepper.”

Well, Pepper had instructed me to find Nick. At least he was alive. That would be good news for her. The fact that he didn’t make sense was a blip. And of course, his story could be true. Not even Nick was dopey enough to make this up.

“Okay, let’s go over it. Where were you when this happened?”