Happiness Key (39 page)

At Alice’s door, Tracy paused and listened before she knocked. As expected, there was no answer, even when she called and knocked louder. She turned the doorknob and pushed. It opened an inch or two, but she couldn’t push it farther.

“Alice?” Tracy put her shoulder against the door and shoved. “Alice, are you in there?”

“Tracy…”

Tracy had envisioned a body on the floor against the door, Alice’s cold dead body. She was filled with such relief that tears sprang to her eyes. “Alice, are you all right?”

“Lee…”

“It’s okay. He’s not here. He left, but I don’t know when he’s coming back.”

“Trying…”

Alice fell silent.

“Alice, can you open the door? Can you let me in? Look, we’ll get you out of here, okay? Whatever’s going on, we’ll fix it. But we have to get you to my house first.”

“Dress…”

Tracy tried to translate. “We’ll get you dressed, don’t worry. Just open up.”

“Dresser. In front…”

Now Tracy understood. Somehow Alice had managed to shove her dresser in front of the door. There was only one reason Tracy could think of for that. Alice was frightened that when Lee came back, something horrible was going to happen.

The old woman was not in the early stages of dementia
or delusional. Maribel’s phone call had laid that possibility to rest. Alice was justifiably terrified.

Tracy tried to think what to do. If Alice could move the dresser away from the door, she would. But moving it in the first place had probably taken all her strength. Tracy tried to picture Alice’s windows. Were they the kind that opened out? Or were they the old-fashioned jalousie windows that she herself had in several rooms?

“Alice, can you open your windows? Are they large enough for me to crawl through?”

No answer.

“Alice, are you awake in there? Can I get through your window? Then I can move the dresser and we can get out of here.”

No answer.

“Alice, open the windows if you can. Please. I’m coming around.”

She took off for the front door, planning to leave it unlocked so she could get back in if necessary. As she passed the kitchen phone she lifted the receiver to call Janya, but the line was dead. She hung up, then tried again, but either the storm had interrupted service or Lee had disabled it.

She picked up speed, darted through the front door and around to the back, giving one brief glance up the road. No headlights in sight, a good sign. With relief she saw that the room at the end had windows that cranked out, but they were closed, and most likely locked against intruders.

Or old women fleeing for their lives.

She picked her way through overgrown shrubs and banged her palm against the window. “Alice, open the window.” When there was no response, she flattened her face against the glass and peered inside. With horror, she
thought she saw Alice sprawled on the floor between the beds.

She grabbed a chunk of concrete from the ground nearby and smashed it hard against the glass. The window shattered, and she grabbed the jagged pieces that remained, tossing them to the bushes beside her and away from the frame. When the frame was clear, she rattled the screen. It came loose in her hands and followed the glass shards to the ground.

She lifted herself up by her palms, one stinging badly from a cut as she forced it to bear her weight. But she managed to swing herself inside the room, saying a brief prayer of gratitude that she had spent the summer at the rec center chasing children and hauling equipment.

Alice was lying face down on the floor. Tracy grasped her shoulder and shook it. “Alice, wake up. You’ve got to wake up.”

She was rewarded by a moan. Tracy threaded her arms under Alice’s torso and tried to lift her to a sitting position, but it was like lifting a rag doll, a one-hundred-pound-plus rag doll. She tried again, and this time, using every bit of strength, she was able to pull Alice into something approximating a sitting position, so she was lying against Tracy’s chest.

Tracy shook her, and not gently. “Alice, we’ve got to get you out of here.”

Alice’s eyes opened, but she didn’t speak.

Tracy debated what to do, and as she did, she heard the sound of a car pulling to a stop out front.

“You get here now,” Wanda said into her cell phone. “And turn on that siren of yours, Kenny. I mean it.”

She hung up and motioned to Janya. “It’s going to be a while before he arrives. Grab those flowers.” She
pointed to a motley silk bouquet in a basket on her coffee table. The bouquet had been ready for the trash can for months. The only thing that had stopped her from tossing it out was inertia. “We’re going to call on our neighbors and see if they’re home.”

Janya grabbed the basket. “Tracy has been at Alice’s house for more than ten minutes.”

“I told her not to go unless I was here!”

“She told me to call you. She didn’t want to wait.”

“Yeah, well, good thing
you
had my cell number.” Of course it was too bad Janya’s call hadn’t come five minutes later, after Wanda had already checked out and put her groceries in the car. Now she was going to have to go back and shop all over again. She just hoped she got a different cashier.

Outside, Janya peered up at the sky. “It’s starting to rain.”

Wanda had noticed that, too, although the lightning worried her more than the splatter of raindrops. “And that husband and brother of yours are coming home when?”

“Rishi is showing Yash his office.”

“Well, we’re on our own here, then. Let’s get going.”

As they sprinted toward Alice’s house, Wanda saw Lee Symington’s SUV driving up the road toward it.

“Lord have mercy.” This time she wished she were a Catholic, so she could cross herself. Not only did they have confession, Catholics had an edge over Baptists in emergencies.

Janya was making plans out loud. “We will tell Mr. Symington we bought these flowers for Alice. Then we’ll keep him talking.”

“I’m not sure that’s going to do it. We don’t know
where Tracy is. And if he hears her opening the back door to get out…”

“By then your husband will be here.”

Wanda thought of all the times Ken had failed her. “Don’t count on it.” She glanced at Janya. “You happen to know karate or kung fu? Something like that?”

“You only have the continent right.”

“This isn’t my lucky day.”

Wanda took a deep breath and turned up the walk to Alice’s house. Lee was just getting out of his car. She’d been a fan of
All My Children
for so many years, she figured she would just pretend she was on camera, walking through her part. She would be Erica, who always got what she wanted.

“It’s going to be a gully washer,” she called cheerfully. “Good thing you got home when you did, Lee. Someday that road’s just going to wash away. Shame the city doesn’t take better care of it.”

Lee slammed his door, but he stayed in place.

Wanda marched right up to him, as if he had welcomed her with a smile and extended his hand. “Janya and I have a little gift for your mother-in-law. I hear she’s having a hard time of things. We want to cheer her up.”

She saw Lee glance down at the arrangement in Janya’s arms. “You
must
be worried about Alice to come out in a storm.”

“Well, we are, you know. We never see her anymore. And we miss her.”

“The doctor says no visitors.”

“Does he? You just never know what a doctor’s going to say these days, do you? One minute they’re preaching this, then the next they’re preaching that. Now, Janya here’s a vegetarian, and some doctors think that’s the way to go, but then you read about iron and protein and
all that other slobber. And you have to ask yourself if anybody knows anything, whether they have letters tagging along behind their names or not.”

“I’d love to debate this with you,” he said in a tone that made it clear he would rather tie his incisors to a doorknob, “but I need to check on Alice.”

“Mr. Symington,” Janya said with a pleasant smile, “I have wanted to share with you some thoughts about Olivia’s artistic talents.”

“Yes, I understand she’s been bothering you at home. She won’t anymore.”

“She’s a lovely little girl and never a bother. I wonder if you have time to come and see some of her artwork?”

Now he looked annoyed. “I just said I have to check on Alice.”

Wanda broke in. “You certainly did, but I could check on her for you. Why don’t I, while Janya shows you Olivia’s drawings? I can take her the flowers, too, let her know we’re thinking about her. I won’t tire her out.”

“Ladies, it’s starting to rain. I’ll let you know when it’s appropriate to see Alice.” He moved around them and toward the house.

Wanda kept up with him. “You know, I hate to say it, but you’re right about the rain. I don’t think we
can
make it back now without getting soaked, not until it slows a little. What were we thinking?”

“Oh, I think you’ll be okay if you head right home. You can probably beat the worst of it.”

On the steps, he opened the screen door and reached in his pocket for his key. There was a slight overhang, and Wanda got right up next to him so that opening the door would be a challenge.

“I wish it weren’t so,” she said, “but I always catch a cold if I get caught in a downpour like this. Something
about the change in temperature, maybe. Would you mind too much if we just wait inside a little while?”

Now his anger was unmistakable. “What is it with you women?” Then he frowned. “What’s going on here?”

“Just the rain, far as I can tell. They say it’s linked to that tropical storm coming up the—”

He ignored her, and, without inserting the key, he twisted the knob. The door opened with a flourish, nearly knocking Wanda in the face. He cursed; then in a moment he was inside and Wanda heard the lock click into place.

“Around back,” she told Janya. “Ditch the flowers.”

Until she heard the car pulling up, Tracy had hoped she could move the dresser and get Alice to the back door. Now she knew that was impossible. Her best chance was to get Alice out through the window, the same way she herself had come in. In the time since she’d heard the car, she had managed to drag Alice upright and almost far enough. Alice had awakened twice and attempted to help, but Tracy was sure she was heavily drugged. Alice’s mental state was no longer in question. She had managed, even under the influence of something mind altering, to try to protect herself.

No,
Alice
was not the problem.

Tracy could hear voices out front. The low rumble of a man’s, the higher pitch of a woman’s, maybe even two. She knew her friends had come to help, that they were trying to keep Lee from entering the house, but she also knew it was only a matter of time until he did. She wasn’t sure what he could do. Or what he
would
do when he found her here. She was close to panic. Then the voices stopped, and she heard the front door open.

Alice slumped against her. Tracy summoned what strength she could and dragged her a little farther.

She heard the bedroom doorknob turn, heard Lee cursing when he realized he couldn’t get in. The storm had arrived with full fury. Rain was pouring through the broken window and flooding the floor, but she continued to haul Alice upright and position her at the window. Figures materialized on the other side, and through the sheets of rain she saw Wanda and Janya.

Wanda immediately realized what to do. She reached inside, beckoning. “Quick, a little closer.”

Alice rallied. Maybe it was the water streaming over her, but she revived a little and tried desperately to reach for Wanda.

Tracy heard Lee kicking the door, and she knew they had only moments before the dresser was shoved aside.

“Killed Karen…” Alice shook her head, as if she were shaking away fog. “Trying to kill…me.”

Tracy got behind Alice and wrapped her arms around her, pushing her toward Wanda and Janya, who was now perched on the sill grasping Alice’s nightgown.

The door flew open with a bang, and Wanda screamed. “Watch out!”

Tracy turned just enough to see Lee charging into the room. She pushed Alice toward the other women and faced him. Then she threw her hands in front of her and shoved him with all the strength she had left. He stumbled backward, then caught his balance and leaped toward her, grabbing her around the throat.

“That’s enough!”

A man’s voice cracked like a pistol. Over the storm. Through the panic. Lee pushed her away. Tracy saw him turn, then, with one jerk of his elbow, shove his way past Ken Gray, who was standing in the doorway.

Ken took off after him. Tracy didn’t know what to do. Wanda had crawled through the window, and now she was
holding Alice with Janya’s help. Tracy ran after the men, afraid Lee was going to escape. She ran through the house and out on the steps just in time to see Lee on the ground and Ken standing over him, gun drawn.

Lee was lying in the rain with a pistol trained on him. He had lost. The man
had
to know he had lost, yet he scrambled up, and Tracy was sure he was going to run again.

“You wouldn’t shoot me,” he shouted. It sounded like a taunt. It sounded like he believed it.

Between flashes of lightning, Tracy saw Ken extend his arm and point directly at Lee’s chest with the steadiest hand she had ever seen.

“No?” Ken almost sounded as if the two neighbors were having a normal conversation. “I’ve killed better men than you, Symington. So just give me an excuse. I only need one.”

Tracy forgot to breathe.

Finally, almost in slow motion, Lee raised his hands over his head. Tracy went back inside as Ken began cuffing him.

Tracy positioned herself so she had a clear view of Olivia and Bay. The two children were ten feet from the water, creating a sand castle with carefully molded parapets and sawtooth battlements. Bay had explained the blueprint in mind-numbing detail. They would be busy for a while.

Marsh lowered himself to the blanket, and gave her a cold bottle of spring water and a quick neck rub. He had strong, sensitive hands, and it was wonderful to be pampered a little.

“You think Olivia’s doing okay?” he asked.

“She refuses to talk about what happened, and she hasn’t cried. She was up two or three times last night, when she should have been asleep, but I think she’ll feel better once Alice is out of the hospital.”

“Are you going to tell me everything?”

Tracy thought this was one of the endearing things about Marsh. He was interested in her life, but he was also patient. In the three days since Lee’s arrest, there had been no opportunity to discuss details. Marsh had dropped off
dinner every night, and when Tracy agreed it was time, he’d organized this Friday-night barbecue to help Olivia take her mind off everything. Afterward they would go back to his house until it was time for Olivia to visit Alice.

“Well, you know the basics,” she said. “Lee’s in jail, hopefully for a long time. Alice is in the hospital recovering, and Olivia’s staying with me until Alice comes home, probably Sunday. So far, Alice’s doctor is hopeful there won’t be any long-term effects.”

“Has anybody pieced the whole story together?”

“Some of it will be tricky to prove, maybe impossible, but here’s what we think so far. You know about Olivia’s mom?”

She waited until he nodded. “After Karen died, Lee claimed he and Olivia had to move in with Alice to help out. Nobody knew Karen had been making plans to leave him. With a friend’s help, she’d rented a house in Lakeland, and gotten a job. As part of her plan, she moved Alice out to Happiness Key, where she only had a month-to-month rental agreement. When everything was set, Karen was planning to move her to the new house. Unfortunately, she never explained this to Alice, because she didn’t want to worry her. I think she figured the less said the better, because she was afraid Lee would turn violent.”

“I’m guessing she was right.”

“Somehow Lee found out, and her worst fears were realized.”

“Or so you think.”

“So we think. Lee and Karen went out on their boat, and Karen didn’t come back.”

“So why the sudden suspicion on Alice’s part?”

“Because a couple of weeks ago, the friend who’d
helped Karen tracked Alice down and told her Karen had been afraid of Lee, and planning to leave him. The friend asked Alice if she wanted her to go to the police and ask for a more detailed investigation into Karen’s death.”

“But she didn’t?”

“By then, what would they have found? Karen drowned, and her body wasn’t discovered for days.”

“Too bad reality’s not one long episode of
CSI.
”

She linked her hand with his, the good one, not the one that had required twelve stitches after her adventure with Alice’s window. “The police will have to find out a lot more before they can charge Lee for Karen’s murder. But it’s going to be easier to prove he tried to murder Alice.”

“It doesn’t hurt that he went charging into her bedroom and choked you.” Tracy still had bruises on her neck to prove what had happened that night. In their own way, they were as valuable as the diamond necklace CJ had given her on their first anniversary.

“That’s a good start,” she agreed.

“So after the friend’s visit, Alice came to believe Lee had killed Karen?”

“It never made sense to her that Karen would be out on the water during a storm, particularly not without a life jacket, because she was a fanatic about water safety. On top of that, Alice had turned all her finances over to Lee, and suddenly her retirement money was disappearing. So her suspicions were growing anyway. Of course, she was afraid to go to the authorities. If she was wrong, and it was just a bad economy as Lee claimed, he would be so angry, she would never see her granddaughter again.”

“He really had her trapped, huh?”

“She tried to think the best of him, but she was getting more and more concerned. Then Karen’s friend mailed Alice copies of e-mails Karen had sent her, all of which
said pretty much what the friend had reported. But having the printed e-mails in her hands changed everything, only Alice still didn’t know what to do or where to go.”

“So when did Symington decide to go after her?”

“As near as anybody can figure, either Lee found the packet of e-mails, or Alice said or did something that made him suspicious. He wasn’t ready to leave town, because he wasn’t finished draining her investments. I guess you don’t just go in, close accounts and take the next flight to Buenos Aires.”

“Our vulnerable senior citizens. It happens more often than anybody realizes.”

The kids were bringing buckets of wet sand up to the castle again, but Tracy thought Olivia looked tired. She sped up her explanation.

“At that point, we think Lee decided that if Alice died, whatever money was left would just pass to Olivia, and he would have unfettered access. Plus, he was probably sacrificing a lot by cashing out Alice’s accounts when stocks were so low. He could make more if he let the funds sit where they were for a while. So getting rid of her was the best option. Only there was just one problem. Us.”

“The neighbors.”

“Exactly. When he moved out to the cottage, Lee must have figured he could keep Alice isolated, that nobody would pay attention to anything that was happening. To make it easier, he planted the idea Alice was in the early stages of dementia, so people would discount whatever she said. Only that didn’t work, because we all got to be friends, and we started noticing things weren’t right. If a so-called accident had occurred, we would have been all over it—and him.”

“So it wasn’t as easy as dumping an old lady out of a boat.”

Olivia looked up toward the blanket and waved, and Tracy smiled and waved back. After a few seconds Olivia started in on the castle again.

“I get all that,” Marsh said. “What I don’t get is how he planned to end this story without putting himself under suspicion.”

“Well, he set himself up to look like an attentive son-in-law. As Alice got more and more upset, her blood pressure naturally went up, too. He was still taking her to the doctor for checkups, probably because if he didn’t, it might come back to haunt him during an inquest. Only at the last checkup, the doctor played right into his hands. Since the hypertension meds Alice had been on weren’t working, the doctor prescribed a different class, one they rarely use unless the others aren’t doing their job, something called MAO inhibitors. Heard of them?”

Marsh shook his head. Tracy was beginning to like the way his ponytail flip-flopped when he did that. She figured she was losing her mind.

She looked away. “The big problem is that a number of foods interact badly with the drugs, even fatally. Common things like cheese and bologna, a surplus of caffeine, too much chocolate, lots more. Swallow the wrong stuff and the drugs can actually cause strokes, instead of preventing them.”

Marsh guessed the rest. “And if they did, nobody would be the wiser. Lee could just say that despite all his warnings, Alice had, in her befuddled state, fixed herself a cheese sandwich and a cup of cocoa.”

“Exactly. Lee started feeding Alice foods that would cause another stroke and kill her. One night Olivia even told me he was bringing home pepperoni pizza, so Alice
wouldn’t have to cook. Of course, that didn’t set off any alarms, because I didn’t know about the meds.”

“Why didn’t it work?”

“Because he hadn’t factored in how stubborn Alice can be. She realized what was happening, so she refused to eat or drink anything he gave her except water. By then Lee was drugging her big-time, giving her extras of everything the doctor had prescribed, but she managed, somehow, to continue refusing to eat. He disabled the phone and told her the telephone company was slow getting out there to service it. And, of course, he had already staged incidents to make it look like she was losing her mind. I’m sure part of that was to confuse Olivia. That way the poor kid would be afraid to do anything Alice asked her to. It was all pretty diabolical.”

“So she stayed alive by refusing to eat or drink?”

“That’s pretty much it. She was so drugged that he couldn’t really force food down her throat or she might choke, and that would trigger an autopsy. So when she was awake, he just presented her with the forbidden foods and told her they were safe. I guess he figured eventually she would forget, or maybe get so hungry, she would start to believe him.”

“Poor Olivia.”

“I don’t think the kid fully knows what’s up yet. Ken Gray sat her down and told her the basics. She knows Lee was trying to hurt Alice. I don’t think she understands a lot more than that, certainly nothing about her mother. She knew something was terribly wrong, but Lee told her he was trying to keep Alice from going into a nursing home. He probably warned her that the authorities would take Alice away if Olivia told anybody Alice wasn’t eating.”

“She was at a friend’s house when all this went down, wasn’t she?”

“Lee was probably afraid we were about to report him. He’d lost his job at the realty, and he must have known I would find out from Maribel at some point. So he got Olivia out of the house. By that point Alice was so weak, he probably figured it was worth the risk of her choking to try to get enough of the wrong things down her. Then the whole thing would be over with and he could get out of town.”

“He was that sure she’d die?”

“In her weakened state? He was probably right. Plus he was giving her twice the medication she was supposed to have, hoping a bad reaction would be twice as strong. I guess he figured that would take care of it.”

“So how are you with all this?”

Tracy hadn’t had time to think about herself. On Tuesday night, after Lee’s arrest, she had given her statement to the police; then she’d made half a dozen phone calls until she discovered who Olivia had gone home with after camp. Finally she had undergone an extensive interview with a woman from the local child protection agency to make sure Olivia would be safe with her until Alice was released. From that point on, Olivia had been with her constantly, unless the little girl was visiting Janya.

“I just wonder if we could have done anything differently. Of course now that we know what was happening, it seems like we should have figured it out faster. But Lee set this up carefully, and there wasn’t anything we could point to and say ‘Look, here’s proof something bad is happening over there.’ So I guess we did what we could. We paid attention, we cared, we tried to intervene, and in the end, we put ourselves in the middle.”

He reached over and tickled her under the chin, as if he understood she needed to lighten up. “You know what I think?”

His opinion mattered, which was scary. “I’m sitting down.”

“I think if that old guy Herb hadn’t died on your watch, you might have looked the other way. But you learned something.”

“Right, it’s all about taking care of each other. Duh. Can the lessons stop now?”

“For a smart-ass California girl who says ‘duh’ way too much, it took a lot of courage to go in there the way you did and try to get Alice out. Even when you knew Lee was coming in after you. Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning that night?”

“So you could tell me not to go?”

He looked genuinely surprised. “No, so I could lend a hand. Didn’t you know I’d be there if you needed me?”

A shadow fell over the blanket, and Tracy looked up. Olivia was waiting to get her attention. “I’m tired.”

“How about a walk along the beach?” Tracy rose and brushed off the seat of her bathing suit.

“You two go ahead,” Marsh said. “Bay and I will light the charcoal so we can cook the burgers.”

Olivia didn’t agree or disagree; she just followed Tracy down to firmer sand, but she let Tracy walk on the side closest to the water.

“That’s a pretty extravagant castle you and Bay are building.”

Olivia didn’t answer, so Tracy fell silent. At the beginning of the summer she would have considered herself the worst possible choice to help Olivia. Since then, she’d learned she had a sixth sense when talking to the youth campers. She understood when to hang back and when
to step up. She had no idea how or where she had gotten that or some of the other qualities that seemed to make her good with kids, but she was going to have to make use of them now. Olivia deserved time and space to figure things out.

They walked until the beach nearly ended in an inlet surrounded by a flurry of scrub. Tracy was about to suggest they turn around when Olivia stopped.

“Tracy, my father’s a bad person, isn’t he?”

Tracy could hardly refute that. She scrambled to put a better spin on it, but in the end, she had to be honest.

“He’s done some very bad things. I wish it weren’t true.”

“Why are some people like that?”

“I don’t think anybody knows. Maybe something happened when your father was a kid, maybe he just started making bad choices, and one led to another. But it’s not something people inherit from their parents, Olivia. It’s not like blue eyes or brown hair. You’re nothing like him.”

“He says I’m too much like my mom.”

Tracy waited until she could speak calmly. “Sweetie, from what I understand, being like your mom is a good thing. Everybody loved her.”

Now Olivia was looking out at the water, as if she wished her mother would materialize and walk through the waves toward her. Tracy was afraid she knew what Olivia was putting together in her mind. She wished somebody else was there to help the girl, but there was nobody else. Just her.

There seemed to be a lot of that going around.

Olivia’s voice was tentative. “Daddy was angry at Mommy the day she died. She didn’t want to go out in his boat, but he talked her in to it.”

She looked at Tracy. “He told me I should never tell anybody about the fight they had that morning. He said if I did, they might take me away from him and Nana. And he told me not to tell anybody about Nana being sick and not eating. What if I had, Tracy?”