The Deadly Neighbors (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) (15 page)

“Okay. I’m opening it.” I slid a cautious finger inside the corner, ripping the paper carefully. Why were my hands shaking? A fleeting image tickled my mind—someone sneaking into the kitchen, hiding something. Was I imagining it? Remembering it? No matter, the image was gone, and the envelope was open. At first glance, it seemed empty. No papers. No writing paper or letter. Puzzled, I turned it over, upside down, and shook it. And, gently, delicately, the contents tumbled out, drifting to the ground like autumn leaves. Five bills—a hundred, two twenties and two fifties—landed softly on the floor.

“S
OMEBODY’S SECRET
C
HRISTMAS STASH?
” Susan guessed.

“I guess.” More likely, somebody’s secret gambling stash.

Susan gathered up the cash. “Here.”

I looked at it.

“Take it.”

I didn’t move. “I don’t want it.”

“Why not?” She looked at me like I was nuts. “Well, what do you want me to do with it?”

I didn’t know. It wasn’t mine. “Just leave it on the kitchen table.” I didn’t wait for more questions or more discoveries. Before Susan could speak, I grabbed an almost full trash bag and dashed out through the mudroom door. I wouldn’t dwell on hidden money or its meaning. I would take the trash out. Then I would get my father some fresh clothes.

Dogs barked on the other side of the hedges, and I glanced over, saw Lettie in her backyard with two muscled young men in tight black T-shirts and huge protective gloves who worked with a couple of large dogs. Training them, no doubt. Something dangled from a tree branch, and the dogs yammered to get to it but held back as commanded. Lettie walked in my direction, and I looked away, hoping to pass unnoticed, not wanting to make conversation.

My trash bag wasn’t heavy, just bulky. I moved along, lugging it down the overgrown, weedy path toward the alley, thinking about the hidden money, besieged by fleeting memories. In one, my parents were dancing in the living room. Maybe the fox-trot. They whirled happily, avoiding the coffee table and the sofa, gliding into the hallway as I watched. But that memory faded away, replaced by a darker one: A woman—or was it a man? sneaking downstairs in the dark. I tried to freeze the image to see it more clearly. But, abruptly, it was gone. I closed my eyes, trying to recreate it, and saw a shadowy form dashing down the basement stairs. Or through the kitchen. Or along the hall. I couldn’t recall, couldn’t hold on to it long enough to see. Had I watched one of them hide money from the other? Probably. But which one? And what did I care? It didn’t matter anymore.

“Morning—” a deep voice rasped. “How’re you today?”

I spun around toward the voice. And faced a chest-high mastiff standing inches away, alongside the shed at the edge of the alley. I stepped back, instinctively lifting the trash bag for protection. The dog was huge, slobbering. A beast.

“Stan Addison,” the voice declared.

I blinked, assuring myself that the words had not come from the dog. Ridiculous.

“Don’t be frightened. Larry’s gentle as a rabbit. Sit, Larry.”

Larry sat, giving me a view of a skinny fiftyish mustached man with thick oil-slicked hair standing beside my father’s tool shed. He wore a white undershirt, several gold chains around his neck, bright-magenta madras shorts. Not an easy sight to miss. I must have been so absorbed in my thoughts that I hadn’t seen the two of them walking along the alley. The man walked around his dog, and I saw pale freckled legs, white socks, black-laced shoes. His ensemble was complete.

“I don’t mean to intrude.” Stan Addison reached a hand out. I had to put down the trash bag to shake it. “But I’m with Town Watch. Part of the patrol team. We keep an eye on what’s going on around the neighborhood. We look out for strangers, suspicious activity, the like.”

“Nice to meet you.” I didn’t give my name.

Stan Addison’s eyes darted around, looking down the vacant alley, up my father’s gnarly walkway. “Not to get in your business, but I saw you and another lady going into the Hayes house.” He eyed my trash bag. Did he think we’d been robbing the place?

“I’m Walter Hayes’s daughter. I’m here with a friend. No need to worry.” I didn’t explain further. I opened a trashcan and dropped the bag in. Larry’s muzzle nudged my rib. The dog weighed at least as much as I did.

Stan’s chin lifted, and he gazed down his nose as if sizing me up. “That’s good, that Walter has family looking after him. How’s he doing?”

“He’s coming along, thanks.”

‘Well, it’s tough on all of us. Beatrice getting killed. Especially tough for me—she was my Town Watch partner. Mind you, I don’t believe for a second that your father had anything to do with it. Not intentionally. The whole neighborhood feels that way. But everybody’s on edge this time. Town Watch Patrol is on red alert.”

Red alert? I imagined my father’s neighbors scurrying around wearing bike helmets, carrying flashlights and binoculars. “Good.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Larry nudged my arm, left a trail of foamy saliva. Stan leaned closer, confidentially. “I don’t know if Walter’s filled you in on the neighborhood. Our problems. The area’s changing. Getting more violent.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Did he tell you about Gavin?”

“Gavin?”

“The other murder?”

Other murder?

“Back in July, not three months ago. Right over there.” He pointed diagonally across the alley.

“What happened?”

“He didn’t tell you? Probably didn’t want you to worry.”

I followed Stan’s gaze across the narrow gravel alley, through lush green shrubbery, past the stillness of trees and hot haze. Not even a rustling leaf disturbed the quiet. The neighborhood seemed calm and peaceful, but I’d grown up with Walter Hayes. I knew not to trust appearances.

“Broderick. Gavin Broderick. An accountant. Young guy, twenty-eight years old. Murdered. So were his bulls.”

“Bulls?”

“Both of them. His dogs.”

Oh. Bulldogs. “Somebody killed his dogs?”

Stan gazed in the direction of the dead man’s house. “He found them on the front porch, gutted.”

Good Lord. I bit my lip, tasted blood.

“Like freshly killed deer.”

Larry nuzzled my rib cage. I put my hand on his head, partly for support.

“My guess is the dogs were his final warning.”

Warning? From whom? About what?

“But, even after that, he must not have paid up. Because a few days later, he was dead, garroted.”

I closed my eyes, saw Beatrice, her mouthful of betting forms.

Stan shook his head. “So the neighborhood had to get organized. Band together. Unite. This is Town Watch territory. We’re in charge around here. Some of us patrol. Others donate equipment like cell phones, flashlights, printed materials, T-shirts and hats, pepper spray, cash. One neighbor breeds guard dogs and she’s giving some away free of charge to elderly folks and single women.”

Did he mean Lettie? “Lettie Kinkaid?”

“You know Lettie? Sure, of course you do. She lives right here, next to Walter. She’s one of the Town Watch founders. An angel, giving those dogs away. Four, so far.”

Larry slobbered on my arm. I stroked his head, mostly to push it away.

“You know”—Stan’s small eyes narrowed—”about the only one who wouldn’t join us was your father. Walter wanted no part of Town Watch, wouldn’t even give his ten-dollar donation.”

I wasn’t surprised. By all accounts, Dad had been cutting himself off from people. Isolating himself. He wouldn’t be likely to join a community organization. Then again, in his undershirt, gold chains, white socks and madras shorts, Stan Addison didn’t seem to be my father’s type. Dad had let himself go of late, but he still had discriminating taste; Dad’s refusal might have been a mere fashion statement.

Stan leaned forward, whispering. “Between you and me, my guess is that Walter didn’t join because he was into a gang for something.”

A gang? “Excuse me; what?”

Again, Stan leaned too close, as if speaking confidentially. His breath smelled sweet and meaty. Liverwurst? “You know. Into some locals. I’m betting he got in over his head.”

“Wait. You think my father’s involved in—”

“Slow down, ma’am. It’s not like your father’s an actual gang member. But, see, around here, the gangs control a lot of stuff. Drugs. Loans. Weapons. Protection. Beatrice—I know this for a fact—Beatrice stood up to the gangs. She defied them and wouldn’t get on board. She got on the wrong side of the wrong people. Broke their rules. So, it looks to me—and mind you, this is just my opinion; I have no proof. But maybe Walter’s done that, too. Made the wrong people mad, I mean.”

I shook my head.

“Look what happened to Gavin. He owed them. Word is he got in over his head. Bottom line, Beatrice got killed, same as Gavin. Question is, why? I think she was executed, just like Gavin.” Stan studied my reaction. “You follow?”

I followed, but I didn’t want to. “Maybe.” I couldn’t stop thinking of the betting forms stuffed down Beatrice’s throat, of my father’s history. If a local gang handled loans and drugs, did they also handle illegal gambling? Had my father and Beatrice made bets through these gangs? Lost? Owed more than they could pay? Oh, Lord. Had my father’s gambling cost Beatrice her life?

I told myself that Stan didn’t know anything for sure; he was just fishing. A nosy neighbor, trying to find out what I knew. I needed to leave, and I turned, starting toward the house, but Larry blocked my path.

“See, if I’m right…” Stan went on, casually. “Of course, maybe I’m not… But if I am, your father has some serious enemies. If he stands up to them, if he’s into them for any sum of money, those people will do anything to get it, or to get even.”

For a moment I stood silent, staring into Larry’s eyes, absorbing the idea.

“The neighborhood isn’t like it used to be,” Stan went on. “Forget the genteel intellectual types, the professionals and academics. Undesirables are taking over. They blend in—a lot of them, they look like anybody else. These gang members aren’t punks—they have day jobs like the rest of us, dress like the rest of us.”

In madras shorts, gold chains and black-laced shoes?

“But see, they’re not like the rest of us. They make their own rules. They’d kill you like a roach and then take their kids to a Softball game. That’s why I joined Town Watch, to keep an eye on what’s going on. To get control.”

I looked over my shoulder, back to the house, but Larry blocked my view. Stan kept talking, as if he had all day.

“Beatrice and I were partners. I miss her. She was a sweet old gal. I tell you, it’s a shame, a terrible thing when a person can’t stake their own claims. But this is America. It’s a free country. Nobody’s going to shut me in; even with Beatrice gone, I sure won’t give up. I’ll carry on what we started. I’m still here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Indeed, he seemed determined to stay. Stan stood too close to me, talked too intensely. His hair was slicked but untrimmed. He was too thin and his mustache needed trimming. His clothes didn’t go together. He reminded me of some of my patients at the Institute, just a little bit off. It occurred to me that Stan might be imagining the gangs and their conspiracies; just because the man had a big dog didn’t mean that what he said was true.

“Well, good luck, Mr. Addison.”

“Call me Stan.”

I smiled, trying to be pleasant. “Nice meeting you.” I turned back toward the house.

“You need anything, you call.” He held out a card.

I took it, thanked him and, giving Larry a final pat, tried to leave. But Larry sat on the path, unmoving. Stan didn’t budge either. He stood still, blocking me in. I was surrounded, hemmed in by my father’s shed, a strange man, a leash and a dog. The dog panted in the heat, his mouth dripping. If commanded, he could drop me in a heartbeat.

“You didn’t mention your name.” Stan waited.

I edged sideways into the weeds, feeling trapped and distrustful. “Oh, I’m Trish.” Trish? The lie surprised me even as I said it. “Trish Hayes Wentworth. Pleased to meet you.”

And, stumbling over roots and stems, I made my way around Larry, got back onto the path and hurried back to the house. I wasn’t sure why I’d lied. Surely Stan, if he talked to Lettie, would find out my real name. How embarrassing. What would they think?

It doesn’t matter what they think, I told myself. None of them had anything to do with me. I shoved Stan’s card into the pocket of my jeans and kept going. Dogs were barking, and I heard Lettie calling commands, but I didn’t turn her way. I held my head down and hurried back to the house. At the end of the path, when I looked back, Larry was still sitting there, and Stan was still watching.

I
STOOD IN THE
mudroom, thinking about what stan had said. Gangs? Were local gangs actually taking over the area? Killing people? Had my father gotten involved with them? And who was Stan Addison? Was he a neighborhood crazy or a concerned citizen involved with Town Watch? I had no idea. In fact, I didn’t want to know. My father’s neighborhood was not my responsibility Neither was his involvement in clubs or gangs, real or imaginary. His life was not my problem. I was here to clean the place and get him some clothes, nothing else.

In the kitchen, Susan was ferociously rustling plastic bags, clanking glass jars, deeply into clearing out an upper cabinet. She didn’t notice me. So, glancing out the window to make sure Larry and Stan were gone, I went upstairs to pack up some clothes.

Of course, it wasn’t that easy. At the top of the stairs, I faced the long dim corridor and a thousand shadows of the past sprang out, distracting me. At the far end of the hall, through the doorway to my bathroom, I could make out stark white tiles, a clawed foot under the bathtub, and my mind glimpsed slender, soapy arms reaching a cloth gently toward me through a cloud of scented bubbles. I could almost feel the steam. Keep walking, I told myself. Don’t drift into the past. And don’t even glance at your bedroom door. But why shouldn’t I? What would the harm be? I stood there, forcing myself to look toward my room. See? I assured myself. Nothing was wrong. It was just a doorway down the hall. I started toward it, slowly. Maybe my old four-poster was still in there. Maybe the wallpaper with the birds…But out of nowhere, a vision whooshed past me. A wide-eyed, open-mouthed child, running into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Covering her ears. Hiding in her closet.