The Deadly Neighbors (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) (17 page)

Motors whirred. Life was going on as usual, but here, in the shade, Susan and I had a moment of stillness.

“It’s weird, digging a grave.” She leaned back on her elbows. “Makes you think about your own death.”

Actually, I’d been thinking about early labor. Not to mention the dead dog and my father.

“Tim and I have burial plots at Memorial Park. Right near Tim’s parents, beside a pond. We bought them when we buried his father. But tell you the truth, I don’t want to use them.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to spend eternity lying in dirt. It gets cold and wet. And claustrophobic.”

“You’ll be dead, Susan. You won’t know.”

“Still. I want to be cremated. Scatter my ashes in the wind. Set me free. Tim’s against it, though. He wants us to be together for all time.” She paused. “What about you?”

Me? “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”

“Really? You ought to. If you wait, you might not have a choice.”

“Susan. I’ll be dead. I won’t care.”

“You never know. Think of your kids. You might want a place where the kids can visit you. I don’t. I tell them to let me blow away. I’ll be in the air.”

I pictured Molly and the little stranger standing at a grave with my name. The breeze blew the leaves overhead, a ghostlike rustle. I eyed the hole in the ground, pictured my mother, her bones lying in the earth.

“Do you think there’s any kind of afterlife, Susan?”

She blinked at me. “Like heaven and hell?”

“Maybe. Or just some kind of consciousness.”

“Oh. Like ghosts?”

“Whatever.” I was sorry I’d asked.

“I wish there were. It would be cool to think so. Tim’s mother used to swear that her dead husband talked to her. She could hear his voice. We could hear her arguing with him.”

I smiled. “So she still nagged her husband after death?”

“Nothing as trivial as death was going to stop her.”

Go on, I told myself. Tell her about your dreams. “Sometimes lately, I have dreams about my mother. They’re so vivid, it’s like she’s there with me. I wake up feeling that I’ve just seen her, as if she’s trying to contact me.”

“It’s your own mind.” Susan shook her head, dismissing the thought. “You’re a therapist—you know that dreams are just pieces of your own experience, shuffled together. Some unresolved stuff, some random stuff all scrambled together.”

She was right. My dreams were not messages from my dead mother. They were just dreams, resulting from my reunion with my father. My mind trying to resolve the past.

We were quiet for a while, two friends lost in thought, watching sunlight pierce through branches. Susan seemed deep in thought. “We need to go shopping,” she concluded. “You need maternity clothes.”

I supposed I did.

“Meantime, it’s getting late. I better finish this hole.” She reached for her shovel and stood.

I reached for mine, started to get up, too.

“Zoe, no way. Don’t be stupid. Don’t even think about doing this. Go inside, have a cold drink and lie down. I can finish this in no time.”

I didn’t argue. I simply thanked her and got up. Shaky and weak, I headed for the house.

B
UT
I
DIDN’T MAKE
it there. As I neared the mudroom door, I heard growling, then angry voices through the hedges. I stopped, listening. Lettie was still out there with her guard dogs. Shouting, “Dammit Craig, don’t be a cretin. He’s got to learn.”

“Sorry, Miss Lettie. He’ll do it next—”

“Don’t give me sorry. I don’t pay you for ‘sorry.’ He’s got to perform, no hesitations, plain and simple.”

I couldn’t help it. Sweating and short of breath, I took a detour over to the hedges and peered through. Lettie was agitated, scolding one of the men. He was dark-skinned and twice her size, wearing a thick protective glove over one arm. At his feet, a large dog noticed me and lunged toward the bushes, snarling. Lettie’s gaze followed.

“Zoe?” Her scowl inverted, became a smile. “Girl, is that you? Don’t be shy—come on over. How’re you doing?”

She was already at the hedges, grabbing the snarling dog by its collar. “What are you doing out here in the bushes? You know, I’ve been calling your house, but I get your voice mail. I don’t leave messages, though. Don’t believe in it. What’s the point? To ask you to call me back? Give you one more thing to do when you’re already too busy?” I could barely hear her over the growls of the dog. “No, I just wanted to check on you and your daddy, not to add to your problems.”

Her face as parched and brown as the desert floor, Lettie studied me. Did she think I’d been spying on her?

I tried to excuse myself. “Lettie, I’m a little dizzy, so I was—”

“You’re dizzy? Oh dear.” The dog tugged violently at its collar, almost knocking Lettie over. “Craig—” she called. The dog yelped and growled, struggling to get free. “Come, take Walker.”

The man rushed over, obeying.

“Take him downstairs. Work him with some bait. He’s got to learn.”

“He’ll be fine, I swear.” Craig led the dog away.

“I’m counting on it,” she called after them. “We’re training Walker, and he just won’t attack. You can’t have a guard dog that won’t attack.” Lettie shook her head. “Craig’s a good trainer, but he’s got to be more consistent. You want to train a dog, you got to be consistent. Now, come on over here and I’ll get you a nice cold drink.” Her gaze wandered over my shoulder, took in Susan digging under the tree. Lettie looked at me, confused.

“Lettie, did my dad have a dog?”

“You bet. Jackson’s an old golden.”

Jackson? I heard my father, insisting he had to go home; Jack was waiting for him. Now it made sense.

“Why?”

“I found a dog in the basement. Dead.”

“Oh, damn. Jackson died? What a sin—I’ve been looking for him, meaning to take care of myself, now that your father’s not here.” Her eyes flitted back to Susan, rested there. “So that woman over there, she’s digging his grave?”

I nodded, felt faint. “My friend. She’s helping me.”

“Well, no wonder you’re feeling dizzy. Come on, girl. It’s hot as hell out here. Let me get you a lemonade. And your friend, too.” Lettie pushed the bushes apart, clearing a way for me to cross onto her property. “Poor old Jackson. Does your daddy know? He’ll be devastated, you know. He loved that old dog.”

Lettie took me by the arm into her kitchen, an expansive space painted yellow, full of eclectic flea-market furnishings, folk art and shelves of mismatched glassware, china, stoneware and teacups. A herd of a half-dozen puppies greeted us, swarming our ankles, yipping for attention. I knelt to pet them.

“No, don’t do that, girlfriend.” Lettie stopped me with a weathered hand. “See, these aren’t house pets. These pups are bred special. They’re pros. Working guard dogs. So you don’t want to be too friendly to them; we don’t want them to accept strangers.”

“Even as puppies?” They were fluffy and playful, impossible to resist.

“Right from birth. They have to learn loyalty to just one master. “Hey—Jimmy? Hardy?” Her shout was jagged, grating. “Somebody, come get these fur balls out of here.”

A freckled wirehaired man rushed into the kitchen, began herding the little dogs. Several escaped his notice, darting back into the kitchen. Lettie didn’t seem to mind. She took a frosty pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator and poured some into a purple plastic glass, set some pecan cookies onto a daisy-patterned platter. We sat on unmatched cushioned chairs at her big round wooden table, drank cool soothing lemonade and munched sweets while puppies scurried around the room, looking for mischief or affection, and feeling steadier, I struggled not to pet them.

“So, old Jackson’s dead.” Lettie shook her head. “But that says it all. You can see why I called you.” Her voice scraped raw, like an emery board. “Walter’s not right. Imagine. He left without tending to his dog.”

“But you said Jackson was old. Maybe he died of old age.” Why was I defending my father?

“Zoe, you and I don’t have a lot of history yet, but as you get to know me, you’ll find out I say what I think, straight out. And I’m telling you your father’s just not all there anymore. Look, he doesn’t even wash. His place is going to hell. He let Jackson die. And he cut off all his friends, especially poor dear Beatrice.”

I knew about “poor Beatrice.” I’d seen him cut her myself. Ouch. Surely, Lettie hadn’t intended the pun. “So Beatrice and my father were…close?” The lemonade helped, but I was still sweating.

“Close?” Lettie brayed, her smile etching cracks into her parched cheeks. “You might say. Beatrice lives—well, she lived— across the alley.” Lettie pointed at the wall facing the rear of the property. “Diagonal from here, right behind my place—our backyards link up across the alley. She’s been with your dad for, I don’t know how long. A couple years.”

“With him? So they were a couple?” I had no idea what my father’s life was like. Or who’d been in it.

“A couple?” Lettie shook her head, cackling. “Lord. Nothing that formal. Beatrice was—what do you call it—Walter’s squeeze?” I pictured Beatrice, her blood-soaked perm, lying dead on my father’s kitchen floor. “They were on and off for years. Until, I don’t know, maybe a month ago.”

“They broke up?”

“No, not exactly.” Lettie picked up a puppy. Her hands were rough and gnarly, nails short, polished iridescent pink. A bracelet dangled on her wrist, rhinestone dog charms of various sizes and breeds. “One day, Walter just dumped her. Poof, just like that, Beatrice was out. Yesterday’s laundry. He tossed her off and had nothing more to do with her.”

My mother floated to mind, crying as she was folding laundry.

“Now Beatrice, she was no angel. She got into some messes, from what I heard. Did things she shouldn’t have. But without Walter, she fell apart. She was a mess.” Lettie fingered her necklace. The golden head of a dog hanging from a chain. “But I guess she couldn’t stay away from him. Look how she ended up. Look what he did. I told you he’s not right—”

“He didn’t kill her, Lettie,” I began. “He was trying to save—”

“It’s a tragedy.” Lettie shook her head. “Walter isn’t himself anymore. It’s like he’s gone. And Beatrice is gone, too. And now, so is old Jackson.” She sighed. “My, all of this must be hard on you, walking into the middle of it. Have another cookie, girl. You’re skinny; you can afford it.” She thrust the plate at me. “So now that Walter’s moved out, what’ll you do—sell the place?”

Would I? I had no idea. “I’m not sure.”

“Of course you’re not. It’s too soon. Well.” She finished her lemonade and set the glass on the table. “When you’re ready, talk to me before you put it on the market. I’m thinking of expanding my property, putting up kennels and dog runs. So I might make an offer on the place, save you the trouble. Make us both happy; that’s what friends do, isn’t it?” Her smile formed deep crevasses in both cheeks.

A muscle-bound man in a black T-shirt knocked at the back door. “Yo, Miss Lettie. You said to get you. They’re ready.”

“Okay, Hardy.” Lettie sighed and squeezed my arm. “Well, girl, if you’re feeling all right, I got to get back to work. Are you okay?”

“Much better, thanks.” I stood to leave, but couldn’t get out the door. Hardy was still standing there, as if waiting for a command. Somewhere close, dogs howled nonstop. The sound was grating but constant around the neighborhood; it had begun to blend into the background like the sounds of traffic or ocean surf.

“Oh, goodness, I haven’t introduced you. This is Hardy, one of my boarders. Hardy, meet Zoe, Walter Hayes’s daughter.” As she chatted, Lettie’s eyes locked with his, silently instructing him to step aside. “Craig, Jimmy and Hardy. They live here, help me out with the dogs. Believe me, I need the help, too. We’ve got Rottweilers. Bull mixes. These days, people are looking for protection, so business is booming.” She opened the door; Hardy dodged out of her way. He was huge, bigger than Craig, towering over Lettie. His arms were purple murals of flowing tattoos. “Wait. Don’t’ forget the lemonade for your friend. And take Hardy. Hardy, go dig a grave for my friend Zoe, hear?”

Wordlessly, carrying a mug of icy lemonade, Hardy hulked after me to my father’s property, crossing the hilly tree-covered yard to the willow tree. Susan wiped sweat off her forehead, grateful for the drink, and she gladly surrendered her shovel to Hardy. In no time, he’d finished a perfect rectangle, a yard long and at least as deep.

“Okay, miss?” Sweat dripped down his torso. His voice was polite. Soft.

“Perfect,” I said, as Susan said, “Wonderful. Thank you.” Then, returning the shovel, Hardy nodded good-bye and left us alone under the tree beside the fresh empty grave.

“P
URE SOLID
U.S. G
RADE
-A beef,” Susan whispered. We headed to the house to retrieve Jackson’s body.

“Whoa, Susan. He doesn’t actually speak. He grunts.”

“Please. A man built like that does not need to speak. Better if he doesn’t. Did you see his shoulders?”

“Did you see those bizarre tattoos?” He’d taken off his T-shirt as he dug, revealing raptors, snakes, skulls, flowers and naked women, all intertwined.

“Body art is cool now.” We entered the mudroom. “Besides, the man has biceps wider than my thighs. No wonder the neighbor lady keeps him around.”

We crossed the kitchen to the basement door. “So”—Susan sounded thoughtful—”do you think his job has benefits?”

Wow. What? Withered Lettie and buffed Hardy? Was she kidding? Susan hadn’t met Lettie yet, so she couldn’t share the image. I grabbed the flashlight and started down the steps, but Susan wouldn’t drop the subject.

“He seems too obedient, too passive. I swear; it’s not normal. There’s something kinky going on. I just sense it. Wait…Think your dad’s neighbor is a dominatrix?”

Oh, Lord. I pictured Lettie in black leather, cracking a whip. “Not likely.”

“I bet I’m right. But never mind. She was nice, lending him to us. I was about to die out there.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have let you dig.”