Robards, Karen (20 page)

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“It’s not over,” she repeated, crossing her arms over her chest to ward off the chill and glaring at him across the table. “You said it was over, and it’s not. Whoever wrote on Jessica’s mirror and stole Mr. Bear did this.”

“Jesus.” Marino shook his head at her. “You really are getting paranoid, you know that?”

“I am not getting paranoid.” Grace fought down a bubble of rising hysteria so as to sound cool and collected and forceful. “You see the cake, don’t you? It’s real, and it’s on my kitchen table although it wasn’t here when I left the house, and my daughter and I don’t eat cake and didn’t order it. The writing on the mirror was real, too, and Jessica’s teddy bear was really down by the road, and I really chased an intruder fi7orn my yard the night I found it there. So explain to me exactly how all those circumstances add up to my being paranoid, if you please.”

“It’s a cake, Grace.”

His use of her first name, the first time he had called her by it, appeared to slip out unnoticed. Grace noticed, but she was too worried and upset and generally beside herself with concern for her daughter to do more than register in passing what he’d said.

“It’s a threat.”

A horn blared in the driveway. Grace started, unnerved by even that homely sound. Marino and the other police officers glanced around toward the front of the house from whence the sound had come.

“Mom, Mom, it’s them!” Jessica flew into the kitchen, fresh from her shower and dressed to go out, which meant the usual jeans and top with the addition of dangly earrings, shoulder bag, and a black leather

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jacket styled as a minitrench, which was belted around her tiny waist. Determined not to terrify her daughter, Grace had played down the significance of the cake. But she had thought Jessica understood that its arrival precluded any chance of her being able to go to the mall.

“Jess she began helplessly, shaking her head as she started to tell her daughter that she could not, after all, go.

“Oh, Mom, please.” Jessica must have read her intention in her eyes and from her body language. “Please. I want to go so bad! I haven’t been out of the house in weeks, and I’ve been so good, and it’s driving me crazy being cooped up here like this and everything’s okay with my friends again and I don’t want to screw it up… . Please!”

“Jessica, sweetie, I know I said you could go, but-” “I don’t care about the stupid cake,” Jessica said passionately. “Or the rmirror or anything else! This thing is ruining my life, and I’m not going to let it happen. I just can’t stay cooped up in the house forever, Mother! I have a 1fe!”

From the driveway, the horn sounded again.

“Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please,” Jessica begged, her hands clasped prayerfully beneath her chin. Without in the least meaning to do so, Grace

glanced at Marino. He was watching the two of them with a sardonic expression that said more clearly than words that he considered her putty in Jessica’s hands. Grace’s lips tightened. Not that his opinion mattered to her in the least.

“Mom, please.”

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Jessica’s eyes were huge, and beseeching. Against her better judgment, Grace felt herself caving in. She couldn’t keep Jessica under guard forever, couldn’t build walls around her no matter how much she wished to do so.

The truth was, she had a hard time denying her daughter anything, and always had.

“Will you prornise, promise, promise me to stay with the other girls no matter what?”

“Oh, Mom, yes! Thank you, Mom! You are the best mother in the whole world!”

Taking Grace’s question for consent, which in a tacit way Grace supposed it was, Jessica darted over, dropped a kiss on her cheek, and, to avoid Officer Gelinsky who was testing the latch on the rear door, ran out of the kitchen toward the fi7ont door.

Grace was already getting the terrible feeling that she might have made a mistake. One look at Marino’s face told her lie felt the same, although for a different reason. He was thinking about discipline; she was worried about danger. She shot him a defiant look: her daughter, her call.

“Excuse me a minute, I’ll be right back,” Grace said, to Marino and the others. “I just want to have a word with the mother who’s driving.”

She hurried afterjessica. Ann, who was driving the girls to the mall, was of course burning with curiosity about the presence of a police car (the one Ayres and Gelinsky drove was marked) in the driveway. Grace told her that they had had a breakin, without going into the matter in depth. She did, however, ask Ann to keep an eye on Jessica. This Ann promised to do. The

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conversation was short because the girls were in a hurry to get going and made no bones about their impatience. Still, when she watched the car pull out of her driveway, Grace felt a little better about her decision to let Jessica go.

When she returned to the house, rain beaded her hair and dampened her clothes. Her face was wet, and she could taste the cold moisture on her lips. The house’s warmth enveloped her like a blanket. Its familiar smell, a mix of what she had decided long ago was furniture polish and old wood and the Love My Carpet powder Pat sprinkled on the rugs on Wednesdays, was comforting. She passed Officer Ayres, who was on her way outside, in the hall, and nodded to her. The woman nodded back, but did not smile. As it had been when she had come to the house before, her demeanor was so professional it bordered on unfriendly.

“There is no sign of forced entry,” Gelinsky was telling Marino as Grace walked back into the kitchen. The overhead lights were on, although it was only early afternoon, to combat the darkness of the day outside. With its soft, warm colors and homey furnishings, the kitchen looked far too cheerful to be the scene of a police investigation.

“What about footprints? It’s been raining all day. There should have been some footprints if someone came in from outside,” Marino replied.

“I didn’t notice any,” Gelinsky said apologetically, looking around on the floor. If there had been footprints, Grace thought, following his gaze, it was too late to discover them now. If they had existed, they had been obliterated by more footprints as first she and

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Jessica and theu the three police officers had walked around the kitchen without any thought for evidence that might lurk underfoot. The area circling the table and the paths to the front and back doors all showed traces of a damp, mud-smudged path, but it was clear even to her untrained gaze that no single footprint was distinguishable from the rest.

“Did you lock the doors when you left?” Marino glanced at Grace as she shook her damp hair with her hand to rid it of as much moisture as possible. Their eyes met.

“Yes, of course.”

“What door did you come in?”

“The back door. Behind you.” She nodded toward it.

“Was the door locked?” “Yes. “

“Isn’t that the door where the latch doesn’t catch right?”

“Yes. But it did this time. I had to use my key to unlock it.”

“You’re sure?” “Yes.”

“That doesn’t mean much, though.” Marino frowned thoughtfully. “If someone did find the door improperly latched, entered by it, and then left by it again, the latch might have caught when whoever it was left.”

Officer Ayres returned at that juncture, her hair and clothes wet just as Grace’s were. Her shoes made squelching sounds as she crossed the tile floor to the table. She carried a Polaroid camera and immediately

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began taking pictures of the cake. The continuous dickwhir sound of the camera at work was loud in the quiet house.

Moving away from the area where she was taking pictures, Marino leaned a hip against the center island, drummed the fingers of one hand on the tile countertop, and focused on Grace, who stood just a few feet away, near the sink.

A lone cereal bowl that had not yet made it into the dishwasher waited in the sink, Grace noted absently. Jessica had had cereal for breakfast.

“Who has a key to your house? Besides your sister.” “The Allens do. They live next door.” She picked up the bowl and put it in the dishwasher. Her breakfast dishes were already there, waiting to be washed until there was enough for a full load.

“What about your housekeeper?”

“Oh, yes. Pat does.” She closed the dishwasher door without turning it on-it still was not full-and turned to face him again.

The look he gave her said as plainly as if he had spoken the thought aloud that almost forgetting that her housekeeper possessed a key did not enhance his opinion of the quality of her testimony. In other words, what else was she forgetting?

“Anybody else? The babysitter?” There was a slight edge to his voice now that spoke of impatience. “Linda? No. Jessica has her own key, which she uses

to let them in after school.” Grace leaned against the island, too. The tile countertop felt cool and slick as her hand rested on it.

“Ah.” There was a world of enlightenment in the

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syllable. “Jessica has her own key. Who’s had access to it, I wonder?”

“What do you mean?” She frowned at him.

“I mean that it’s entirely possible that she’s had a friend or two make a copy.”

“I don’t think-why would any of her friends do that?”

“So they can write messages on her mirror and deliver a surprise cake,” he said dryly.

“Oh.” Grace hadn’t thought of that possibilitythat one of Jessica’s friends might have copied Jessica’s key. It would explain things-

“Yes, oh. Okay, that considerably increases our list of possible cake-delivery suspects with access to a key. Let’s see, there’s your sister. Your next-door neighbor. The housekeeper. And any or all of Jessica’s friends. And their friends, ad infinitum.”

“I’m having the locks changed on Monday. And a security system installed.” But Grace was almost certain that the person she had chased out of the yard the night she had found Mr. Bear down by the road had not been one ofJessica’s friends. At least, not one she knew.

“Good idea.” Again his voice was dry.

“I’ve got the pictures.” Ayres was holding several instant snapshots in her hands, waving them in the air so they would dry, and more lay in front of her on the table. The camera dangled from her neck by its strap.

“Great.” Marino walked back over to the table, and stood looking down at the pictures for a moment. Ayres touched his hand and said something to him, smiling. It was the first time Grace had seen her smile.

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So Officer Ayres was flirting with Detective Marino. She was surprised at herself for being surprised. The policewoman was young and attractive. Why shouldn’t she find Marino appealing? Grace did herself, whether she liked to admit it or not.

Marino, however, appeared oblivious to what was going on. He never even smiled back at Ayres. Instead, he was all business as he glanced over his shoulder at Grace. “What I want you to do now is call your sister, the next door neighbor, and the housekeeper, and see if they still have their keys and if any of them made you a gift of the cake.” He held up his hand to stop her when Grace would have protested that none of them would have done such a thing. “Just on the off chance, okay?”

“All right. Fine.” Grace called the Aflens first and spoke to Judy. Who said the key still hung on a nail in her pantry. She personally hadn’t so much as looked at it in months and from its dusty state didn’t think anyone else had either, and she knew nothing about the cake. Called next, Pat said she’d used her key on Wednesday as always, but not since then. It was still on her key ring, and she knew nothing about the cake. Jackie was not at home.

Marino and the others had been looking through the house as Grace talked on the phone. Marino entered the kitchen just as she tried Jackie’s number for the second time.

“None of them brought the cake. Jackie’s not home, but I know she didn’t,” Grace said, hanging up. Marino acknowledged her words with a nod. “Everything in the house looks fine. No one lurking in the

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closets or under the beds. Nothing seems to be missing, but you might want to check yourself.”

Grace nodded. A quick tour of the house with Marino at her heels showed everything seemingly in its place. Officers Gelinsky and Ayres were standing in the kitchen talking in hushed tones when they returned.

“There’s really nothing else we can do except file another report,” Gelinsky said apologetically to Grace. Grace’s mouth thinned. Filing a report was useless.

“I want whoever is doing this caught.” She looked at Marino as she spoke. Talking to Gelinsky and Ayres was, as she had already learned, a waste of breath.

“You’ve said that before,” Marino said. “And, believe me, we’re doing our best. What I’m going to do now is have someone check with all the bakeries in the area to see if anyone made a cake like this, and for whom. It shouldn’t be hard to find out where it was made if it was done locally, which it probably was. If you have no objections, I’m also going to take the cake and have it tested, just to make sure that it isn’t poisoned or anything.”

Grace hadn’t thought of that. “That sounds good.” “Okay.” He picked up the cake, looked down at it thoughtfully, then glanced at Grace again. “You have anything to put this in? A box or something?”

Grace shook her head. A shoebox wasn’t going to do it, and she had nothing larger. “I don’t have a box, but I have some plastic wrap. At least that would make it less messy.”

“What about a garbage bag? One of those big plastic ones.”

“I have that.”

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“If you don’t need us any longer, Detective … … Gelinsky said as Grace fetched a garbage bag from the pantry. It was obvious from the rather furtive glance he cast her way that he was not 100 percent certain how she would receive his desire to leave.

Marino shook his head. “Go ahead and take off. There’s really nothing else to do except take care of the cake, and I’ll handle that.”