The Back Door of Midnight (3 page)

Uncle Will was requesting a transcript of all the information the police had collected on the unsolved murder of Joanna O’Neill. He had attached to his letter a copy of a newspaper article, with the date circled.

YOUNG MOTHER KILLED IN ROBBERY,
the headline blared. I took a deep breath and read.

Last Monday evening, twenty-two-year-old Joanna O’Neill, niece of William and Iris, was found murdered in their home. The crime occurred in the living room of the O’Neill homestead, “old Doc O’s house,” as it is commonly called, next to the bridge over Oyster Creek. When William O’Neill and young Anna, Joanna’s three-year-old daughter, returned from shopping, William noticed that the entrance hall of the home was in disarray. After putting the toddler back in his truck, he found the bloody body
of Joanna. Rooms on both floors had been ransacked.

According to the coroner, the victim died from blunt force trauma to the head. A pair of silver candleholders and a large amount of cash were taken from the house. No weapon for the murder was found. There was no evidence of forced entry.

Iris O’Neill, William’s sister, was visiting a sick friend at the time.

According to Sheriff McManus, Shore residents “aren’t in the habit of locking doors, and someone thought he could just walk in and help himself to whatever he wanted.”

Joanna O’Neill, who was attending Chase College, hoped to embark on a career in health care. She was known in Wisteria as a psychic and had a loyal clientele for whom she read cards. A Mass of Christian Burial was offered for her last Thursday at St. Mary’s Church on Scarborough Road.

My mother read cards? She was psychic like Aunt Iris? Why hadn’t Uncle Will told me? Maybe he didn’t like the idea.

I slipped the letter and article back in the envelope, feeling strange. I knew I had loved my birth mother—I had seen pictures of us together. But the face I thought of with sadness was Uncle Will’s, when he saw the ransacked house, when he put me back in his truck, when he searched and found Joanna dead. The loss I felt from his death was beginning to seep through my initial state of shock, tightening my throat, making me blink back tears.

A loud knock at the front door jolted me out of these thoughts.

“Hello? Anyone home? Hello!”

I wiped my cheeks and blew my nose. Leaving bills and ads on the kitchen table, I carried Uncle Will’s letter into the hall, stuffed it in my suitcase, then opened the front door.

“So you found your way.” It was the guy from next door, without his hot costar. He held out his hand, a large hand with a silver wristband to show off the tan. “I’m Zack.”

“I’m Anna.”

Standing face-to-face with him—or rather, face-to-chest; he was about a foot taller than me—I found myself wanting to back up. His eyes were intense and didn’t miss a freckle.

After a moment he said, “I see Iris isn’t home. Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“No, I haven’t a clue. She rushed out of here.”

He nodded, then glanced toward the vehicles parked at one end of the house. “My stepmother sent me over. She would like something done about the goats on the back lawn.”

“The goats?”

“You didn’t notice them,” he said. “Unfortunately, Marcy did, and she went ballistic. They don’t go well with her . . . garden soiree.”

“Aunt Iris raises goats?”

“No. They’re clients.”

For a moment I was puzzled. “Oh, I see. She grooms goats.”

“No, she’s their therapist, their psychologist.”

“You’re kidding me!”

“I think the goats take it seriously,” he replied, then smiled. “Here’s the problem: Marcy wants the goats gone, like, immediately. Perhaps you could talk to their owner—”

I began to shake my head.

“Or the goats, whichever works best,” he said, his eyes bright, as if laughing. “Iris usually goes along with what Marcy wants, and while I don’t care and Dad doesn’t care, Marcy’s throwing a major fit.”

“Well, if she doesn’t want goats ruining her view, maybe she should get a house in town.”

“I’m not arguing
that
point. In the meantime, the party’s
about to start, and the goats are out back, and my stepmother is about to lose it.” He smiled at me, a flirty smile. “Tell you what: If you get rid of them, I’ll fix your car.”

“You know how to replace mufflers?” I asked, surprised.

“I know how to drive to Midas.”

“I thought so. Tell your stepmother I’ll ask the owner to take his goats and come back later. But I can’t promise he’ll listen to me,” I added, then closed the front door and headed down the hall to the back entrance. I couldn’t believe I was playing receptionist to a pet shrink.

The creek side of the house was just as I remembered it, sunny, with two big trees and a stretch of tall grass between the house and the water. A swath about ten feet wide was mowed around the house and ran in a path down to the dock. Two goats were grazing, watched over by a man who sat with his back against a willow.

As I approached the man, one of the goats raised its head and gazed at me with interest. The other kept its head down but didn’t eat. The owner, whose round, pleasant face made me think of a worn catcher’s mitt, nodded at me, then, realizing I wanted to speak to him, rose quickly to his feet.

“Afternoon, miss,” he said with a soft drawl, a Shore accent like my uncle’s.

“Hi. Listen. I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to take your goats somewhere else. My aunt Iris isn’t home and—”

“She’ll be back,” he said with certainty. “We had an appointment.”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure you did, but, you know, she doesn’t remember things as well as she used to.”

“Happens to all of us,” he said, smiling in that tolerant way an adult smiles at a child who doesn’t understand. “But kind of you to let me know,” he added, tapping the top of his head as if there were a hat he might tip to me. He sat down again, ready to wait.

“What I’m saying is that I have no idea when she’ll be home.”

“It’s Sunday,” he replied. “I’m not much in a hurry.”

I doubted he was ever in a hurry. “Unfortunately, the lady next door is having a party, and she doesn’t like goats.”

“Oh, they’ll stay on this side of the hedge.”

“I wonder if you could make another appointment?”

He considered the suggestion, then considered me. “You’re an O’Neill. You got the red hair.”

I bit back the word “chestnut.” “Yes, I’m Iris’s great-niece.”

“They say all the O’Neill women are either psychic or crazy. You don’t look crazy.” Before I could thank him for that acute observation, he went on. “Maybe you can help me out—do a reading.”

He saw the disbelief on my face and added quickly, “Oh, not for me! For Maria.
Maria.
She’s having a bad time.”

I followed his eyes to a black-and-white goat, the one that was gazing forlornly at the ground but not eating.

“She’s not looking good,” I admitted.

“You could ask her the problem,” he said hopefully. “You could ask her what she would like me to do. I just can’t figure out what’s botherin’ her. Her appetite’s off. She’s getting nasty with the other goats, even her sister, Daisy, here.”

“Did you take her to a vet?”

He nodded. “Can’t find anything wrong with her, just her usual dental problems—always had them. I give her special food.”

“Well, I’m sorry she’s unhappy, but—”

“Maybe you could just get down with her for a minute,” he said.

“Get down?”

“Like Iris does. Get down on her level, close your eyes, and listen to her mind.”

“But I know nothing about goats. Until now I’ve only seen them at petting zoos.”

“They’re not much different than us,” he replied. “They just can’t speak English. But I understand. I’ll wait. Sooner or later, Iris will remember.”

I glanced toward the property next door.

A stocky, white-haired woman stood at a tall gate in the
hedge, watching us. She was dressed in black and white, the outfit of a household employee. I wondered if Zack’s stepmother had sent her out to see what progress was being made. Well, it wasn’t my problem.

But I did feel sorry for Maria and walked over to see if she would let me pet her. When I leaned down to her, she lifted her head slightly. Whew! Talk about bad breath!

“I think you should brush after meals,” I said, and moved around to the side of her, where the smell wasn’t as strong.

She rolled an eye toward me.

“Not feeling so good, huh?”

She made a soft bleating sound.

“Feeling kind of cranky? And everybody else, instead of being nice to you, gets mad at you because they expect you to be your happy self all the time, like you’re just there for them and haven’t got any problems of your own?”

Another bleat.

“Iris usually kneels and lays her head against Maria’s,” the man called to me.

Grateful that my friends in Baltimore couldn’t see me, I knelt, but I was not going to put my head against a goat’s.
So what is it?
I asked, silently, of course—I’m not crazy.

If I were a goat, why would I be making myself miserable, staying apart from the others? Maybe they were dissing her.
Dental problems gave you bad breath, breath that might be foul even to a sister goat. I studied her skinny little chin.

Are they giving you a hard time about the way you smell? Those mean old goats! And I bet some people haven’t been so nice either.

She blinked, and had I believed in psychic connections, I would have thought she had just said
yes.

Do you like to be petted? I’m not going to hurt you.
I reached up, lightly touched her back, then stroked her. She turned to look at me full in the face, and I stopped breathing. Whew!

Guess it has been a while since anyone has wanted to pet you face-to-face. Maybe that’s part of the problem—you’re feeling unloved, taken for granted. How about if I tell your owner that?

I stood up, opened my mouth to suck in a big gulp of air and snort the smell out of my nose, then walked over to the man beneath the tree.

As I delivered my report, he squinted at the goat and nodded in agreement. “You know, the grandkids have been around a lot since school let out, and they like the goats—the others, not her. Never thought about it till now. She’s hurtin’ for attention, with that bad breath and all.”

From his pocket, he pulled out a cracked leather wallet, and I realized that he was going to pay me. I waved my hand. “No money.”

“But I pay Iris,” he insisted.

I couldn’t take money for making up stuff. “I’m just learning,” I said. “I can’t take money while I’m learning.”

“Well . . . well, I thank you. And Maria thanks you. Come on, you silly girl. I’ll give you a nice grooming when we get home.”

He herded his goats toward the long end of the house, and I figured the horse trailer parked out front was his. I also figured that Maria’s problems would prove easier to solve than Aunt Iris’s.

“Nicely done.”

I turned quickly and saw Zack sitting on the back step leading to the hall door. As I walked toward him, I could feel my cheeks getting warm, and I willed them not to. “I thought you went home.”

He smiled. “No, I walked around the side of the house. I was curious.” He jumped up and held open the screen door to the hall. “May I?”

What PBS miniseries had he hatched from? I didn’t know a single guy under thirty-five who would hold a door and ask to come in by saying,
May I?

He followed me into the house. “Are you psychic?” he asked.

“No.”

He tilted his head slightly, studying me again, considering my response. His eyes were the same kind of changeable blue as the creek. They were dangerous eyes.

“You’re sure?”

“Very. I arrived today expecting my uncle to be alive, hoping to spend a summer with him. That’s how psychic I am.”

Now his face grew serious. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. . . . No one told you?”

“According to Aunt Iris, Uncle Will always forgets to mention the important things.” I laughed, but Zack gazed at me, brow furrowed. “That was a joke,” I said, “although she really seems to have expected him to inform me of his death.”

“No one told your parents?”

I didn’t feel like explaining my family. “No.”

“Do you want to borrow my cell phone and call someone?” For the first time he was less than smooth. He reached in one pocket then another, fumbling for his phone. “I’ve got a zillion minutes—”

“No thanks. Mine’s charging.”

He nodded and put the iPhone back in his pocket. “Will you be staying the summer? Will somebody else be coming to help you?”

“I don’t know. My family’s on vacation, and I have a lot of things to figure out.” I looked up at him, meeting his eyes squarely. “What do you know about my uncle’s death?”

Zack didn’t move, but I saw him pull back from the question. “What do I know?”

“Aunt Iris says he was burned in the trunk of a car.”

“That’s what I heard.”

“And that it happened Wednesday night.”

“It did.” He sounded cautious, like a lawyer being interviewed by a TV reporter.

“If you’re worried about telling me something gory or morbid, just spill it. I’m going to learn what happened one way or another, the sooner the better.”

“I don’t know much,” he said.

I took a gamble, remembering my dream. “Were some kids there? Was it a party thing?”

“That’s what they’re investigating. There have been three other fires—arsons—which the police think were set by a group of kids just fooling around.”

“Murder’s not just fooling around!” The anger in my voice surprised me.

Even with his tan, I saw the red creep into Zack’s face. “I didn’t mean to imply that.”

He was holding back something, I could sense it. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You should talk with Sheriff McManus. His office is on the corner of Jib and Water Streets. I’ve got to go now.”

“I will talk to him,” I said as Zack headed for the door, “but I get the feeling you know something he doesn’t.”

Turning back for a moment, Zack gave me a half smile. “And you said you weren’t psychic.”

WHILE AUNT IRIS
was out, I checked out the rest of the house, searching for anything that might indicate what had happened to Uncle Will and what he had wanted to tell me.