Rest in Pieces (9 page)

I didn’t remember noticing that Molly’s eyes were bloodshot.

“Magnifying app on my phone.” She turned her phone around so I could see. “It has a light too. Very handy for the elderly and the nosy alike.”

“Cool.” I looked down at the picture through Monica’s phone and Molly’s eyes were red and a little swollen. “Maybe she’d been crying?”

Had she been so upset about something that she’d pulled out a bunch of heroin and shot up? It just sounded so unlikely.

“The dog being dead is weird, too? Don’t you think?” I pointed to the trail of blood. “Do you think she hurt the dog?”

“Never.” Haley shook her head. “She loved that dog. She had this purse thing and used to carry him around. I saw her at Dillard’s with him not two weeks ago.”

“I agree. Paolo seemed to be her life.” I looked down at the picture again. “We’re missing something.”

“I have the same feeling.” Monica took her phone back and used it to scan every inch of the picture.

I turned back around. “We should check out the scene of the crime.”

“I can’t today. I have to take the girls to ballet.” Haley smiled. “Sorry.”

“I can’t either. Landon has a swim meet this afternoon.” Monica continued to scan the picture.

“I forgot about that. Max and I should come along and cheer him on. Is it at Nitro?” Max and Landon were both on the same swim team, but Max had no interest in competing in swimming. He was much happier crushing the competition at soccer.

“Sure. He’d love that.” Monica sat back.

“Oh wait. Crap, I forgot. Max has a soccer game at four.” I’d been so preoccupied with guns and Molly that I’d forgotten again.

“No worries. If you want, I’ll take the boys to the swim meet while you check out Molly’s house. We’ll meet you at the soccer field at three thirty.” She waggled her finger at me. “But I want a detailed explanation of what you find.”

“Deal.”

Chapter 6

I’d never actually been to Molly’s house before. I turned Bessie onto the dirt road that led to the twenty acres where Molly had lived. If memory served, this had been her grandmother’s house. Obeying my trusted iPhone, I took the second right and turned onto another dirt road with a gate.

Molly had said that her house was quiet. I looked around. When you lived out in the middle of nowhere, there wasn’t anything
but
quiet. I bet her internet speed sucked all the way out here.

This had to be it…mainly because it was the only road around. I put Bessie in park and hopped out. If there was a lock, I was doomed to climbing the gate and God forbid, walking to the house. If God had wanted me to walk, he wouldn’t have invented cars.

God was smiling on me because the chain holding the gate closed was just wrapped around the pole several times. I unwrapped it and the gate swung open on well–oiled hinges.

I jumped back into Bessie, pulled past the opening, stopped, and reattached the gate. In case someone did drive up, I wanted everything to look normal. I got back into Bessie and motored down the narrow, winding dirt road. The path twisted around trees and I nearly bottomed out in a low water crossing, but it brought me to a large clearing with an old farmhouse.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but the white clapboard house with lots of windows wasn’t it. It was charming and old fashioned and very Molly. I was a little disappointed that no yellow crime scene tape hung across the front door, but maybe there was some inside.

I grabbed the leather work bag that usually held my computer. Today I was putting it into use as a murder–scene photograph–holding bag and maybe something to collect evidence in.

On the front porch, wind chimes of all shapes and sizes hung down from the eaves. I opened my door and stepped out. The bonging cacophony wasn’t charming or old fashioned; it was just plain loud.

I didn’t remember Molly being deaf, but I wondered how she managed to sleep through all this racket. I peeked in a window on the side of the house on my way to the backyard.

The interior was dark and I could only make out shapes. Just for fun, I tested the window. Painted shut. I mashed my nose against the glass, but still couldn’t see anything. I walked around to the back, unlatched the wooden gate, and let myself into the yard. A few large trees dotted the perimeter, but for the most part, the yard was a barren dust bowl…except for what looked like a clear plastic tent about twenty–five feet from the back door. As I got closer, I saw a tree inside the tent.

Why would anyone have a clear tent? I wasn’t much for camping, but even I knew that you needed privacy at some point during a camping trip and this tent reminded me of those clear plastic umbrellas—only a lot larger. Lost in those thoughts, I nearly tripped over a brown extension cord that ran from the back of the house to inside the tent.

I came across what resembled a doorway—little more than a zippered archway actually—and ran my finger along the interlocking grooved teeth until I found the zipper. I pulled the zipper up and around the doorway until the plastic fell free. Hot, dry air radiated out. The electrical cord I’d almost stumbled over was attached to a heater. Despite the chilly October day, inside the tent it had to be at least seventy degrees.

I pulled my iPhone out of my back pocket and shot a couple of pictures of the tree.

This was a greenhouse? I walked around the perimeter. A greenhouse protecting one tree?

Yes, it was a giant weird–assed chrysanthemum–y looking tree, but why did it have it’s own greenhouse?

I stepped out into the yard again and looked around. There were no flowers or bushes or potted plants. Besides the ancient oak trees that had probably been planted when Texas was still a Republic, and this one weird tree, housed by an even weirder plastic tent, Molly’s backyard was a blank, dirt slate. It didn’t appear that she was even able to grow grass. But she’d bought a plastic greenhouse to protect one tree.

I cocked my head in thought. At least she was trying. But it didn’t make sense.

I could so vividly remember Molly proudly saying that she was a black–thumb–smith. But clearly she wasn’t. The tree inside the greenhouse was thriving. Not that I was a master gardener, but it seemed to me that people who wanted to learn to grow things would start with something smaller, like a potted plant or some flowers.

I glanced at the back porch and stopped short.

The back door was wide open.

I looked around, suddenly feeling that someone might be was watching me. I don’t know why I thought there would be. This house was in the middle of nowhere. But something made me look around. Nothing.

I was totally alone in the middle of nowhere.

I knocked loudly on the open back door. I had no idea why. Clearly I was the only one around, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d never barged into someone’s house uninvited—well, except for Tommy Wilcox after he dumped me the day of senior prom. And I might have been wielding a butane curling iron, but in my defense that had been the only weapon I could find in the blind rage induced by too much hairspray and not enough sleep.

I would have given anything for that butane curling iron now. It’s not that I was particularly afraid of the dark, but I wasn’t that big on creepy situations, and walking uninvited into the home of my dead friend’s head minus her body was high on the list.

“Hello.” I said loudly in case anyone was inside and hadn’t heard me knocking. “Anyone here?”

Did I really expect someone to answer me? I rolled my eyes.

I stuck my head inside and felt around for a light switch. My hand made contact with the switch and I flipped it. A ceiling fan light blinked on.

It took a minute for my mind to process the scene.

The large room was filled with white banker’s boxes.

What was obviously meant to be a den was missing a sofa and television. Instead, long folding tables lined all four walls. On the tables were white banker’s boxes neatly filled with envelopes. Large postal envelopes, small white envelopes, and everything in between. The weirdness factor was growing by leaps and bounds.

From the box closest to me, I pulled the first envelope out. It was a heavy brown one lined with some sort of shredded paper. The seal wasn’t broken but it was opened and had obviously been through the postal system. I turned it over. The return address was a Mary Hargrove, Richmond, Virginia, with no street name. The addressee was L.M. Alcott. I picked up a small white envelope. It was from Anchorage, Alaska. The addressee was J. Arc. This label had been printed from eBay.

So Molly had bought something from eBay and had it shipped here to J. Arc? I flipped it over. It too had been carefully opened so as not to rip the envelope.

After a quick inspection, I realized that a good portion of the envelopes had labels printed from eBay. I looked at the front of the boxes. It looked like Molly had them categorized by date.

So Molly had a little eBay shopping addiction? Now I’d been known to partake in some eBay binge–shopping before the asshole ran off with his girlfriend. These days I binge window–shopped—it wasn’t nearly as much fun.

Molly had always been the queen of orderly, but this was excessive, even methodical. Had she been some sort of envelope hoarder?

Was that even a thing?

None of this fit with her personality, but here was the proof.

I headed to the only doorway out of this room. A thought struck and I turned back to the envelopes. There were ten banker’s boxes stuffed with envelopes, but where were the things that came in the envelopes?

In the kitchen, I flipped on the light and found nothing but a long, narrow, spotless galley kitchen. I opened every single cabinet looking for something out of place, but all I found were pots, pans, dishes and glasses. A small bistro table with two chairs sat next to the room’s only window. A napkin holder filled with paper napkins and a generic salt and pepper set sat next to a small stack of unopened mail. I picked through it. There were two small white padded envelopes—one addressed to Sus B. Anthony and the other to Sandy D. O’Connor.

So Molly had felt so bad about her eBay addiction that she’d had her items sent to famous historical women? I ripped open Ms. Anthony’s package. Inside was a small box of cinnamon flavored toothpicks. Okay—so Molly loved toothpicks?

I ripped open the other one. A push–button drain assembly, according to the label. I didn’t even know what that was, much less come up with a reason that Molly would want one. I almost put the items and the envelopes back on the table and then thought better of it and shoved them in my leather shoulder bag. I needed to find out what these things had in common.

I stood back and studied the kitchen as a whole. It was warm and cozy, if slightly outdated, but it looked like any other kitchen. Reaching into my leather bag, I pulled out the crime scene photo. I could tell by the linoleum floor that she died in the kitchen. I held the picture up and used it to find the exact place where Molly’s body had been found.

I glanced down. I was standing in roughly the same spot where Molly had died.

Someone had cleaned up the blood. I got down on my hands and knees looking for anything that might be helpful. The floor was spotless and smelled faintly of bleach. Who had cleaned this up? The police?

There was absolutely nothing on the floor, not even the dust that always seems to gather on baseboards. Spotless didn’t come close to describing this. Some considered me a neat freak, but this was beyond even me. Either Molly had been pathologically clean or someone had gone to great lengths to clean the floor.

I rolled back on my knees and then stood. I walked down a little hallway, passed the front door, then moved on into another den. This room had apparently been turned into a bedroom.

I looked back at the opening I’d walked through. There was no door or even a curtain. No privacy.

I walked further into the room. It was large and clearly repurposed as a bedroom after the fact. A double bed with a pink comforter and an sturdy old wooden nightstand held a pink lamp and an alarm clock. Across from the bed, a set of double doors caught my attention. It was the kind of closet where a family kept board games for the weekly game night.

I opened the doors and stood back in awe.

Floor to ceiling, it was stuffed with clear plastic bins. I pulled the one right in front of me out and popped the lid. Inside were buttons…hundreds of buttons. Some in packages and some loose. Had Molly loved sewing?

I didn’t remember her mentioning it.

I slipped that box back and pulled out another one. It was filled with electrical wall plates. Some had Disney characters, some were white, and then there were the abstract ones. There had to be hundreds of electrical wall plates. Was wall plate collection a hobby?

I pulled out another box. It was filled with baseball cards. The one next to it had hundreds of anti–slip bathtub appliques. From the top row, I pulled out the center box. It held thousands of refrigerator magnets…everything from Lucille Ball eating chocolates to various metal bottle openers.

Okay, Molly was a hoarder? At least she was organized.

I was beginning to think that I didn’t know my friend at all.

I slid that box back in and closed the cabinet doors.

I took the narrow, steep staircase to the second floor. There were two bedrooms separated by a bathroom. The first bedroom clearly had been Molly’s. It held a brass queen bed covered with a flower print comforter. The bed was made, but the comforter was wrinkled, like someone had recently sat on the bed. There was a chest of drawers and a nightstand. I went to the double closet doors and opened them. Clothes hung neatly with shoes lined up on the floor beneath. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I went to the other bedroom and flipped on the light. I took a step back. The same kind of plastic boxes that I’d found downstairs were neatly stacked from floor to ceiling. There was a little walking path between the boxes, but the room was filled. I stood on my tippy–toes and grabbed one of the boxes off the top, careful not to disturb the ones it was stacked on. I pried the lip off and found patches. Different sizes and colors…some were Girl Scout patches, there were ski resorts patches, and even those dark brown ones that were supposed to be sown to elbows of tweed jackets popular with snotty college professors.