Address to Die For (4 page)

“Are they sure it was Javier?” I said. “Are they sure it wasn't murder? Wouldn't a murderer try to make it look like an accident? Why didn't someone miss him or call the police?”

“That's what the police are for. Let them do their jobs.”

Max put his arm around me and drew me closer. “The detective seems more concerned about the broken windows, the hole in the porch, and some evidence of tampering with the electrical box. He thinks someone may have been working hard to make the house look more run-down than it should have been. He had one of his guys pull the police records. There were several vandalism reports from Javier going back as far as March. The police got a picture from the Department of Motor Vehicles and confirmed it's him. He was probably so busy trying to keep teenagers from partying in the empty house that he didn't have time to keep up with the normal chores, let alone arrange the work we requested. Poor guy.” Max again brushed something from his eyes and sniffed quietly.

“Why did they have to contact the DMV? Wouldn't he have identification on him? How did he get here? There was no car or truck parked near the house, and he wouldn't have walked, would he? If he'd had the tools he needed to do his caretaking thing, he'd need a car.”

“I really don't know,” said Max, starting to sound a little testy. “Let me tell you what I
do
know.”

I nodded and sipped my wine while Max continued the story. “The first report the police took from Javier mentioned broken windows. He called a second time to report that someone had tried to start a fire in one of the upstairs rooms. He thought it was kids, and so did the police, but they had no leads. They sent an officer to investigate and were monitoring social media, but nothing came of it, and Javier didn't report any more damage.”

“But the house is a mess,” I said. “Why did he stop reporting the damage? Why didn't he tell us about it?” I shivered. He'd probably hadn't wanted to worry us. We were used to gang tagging and vandalism in parts of Stockton, which was a bankrupt urban center with no money for maintenance and cleanup. Graffiti was an eyesore, annoying when the paint obscured street signs and expensive for store owners who struggled to keep their properties looking nice. But this was the first time I'd looked at vandalism as a violation of my personal space. It had never before hit this close to home.

“Maggie, I'm sure Javier thought he had plenty of time to repair the damage and didn't want to scare us away. He was excited that we were coming and that a family would be living in the house again. But it doesn't matter, now. We need to focus on getting the kids settled into school, not on all these questions the police are better suited to answer.” Max sighed and tilted his head from side to side, stretching tight neck muscles. We were all sore from packing up for the move.

“Really, Maggie, think about it. The police need to figure this out, not us,” he said. “Detective Mueller—he asked us to call him Jason, by the way—is going to bring coffee down in the morning and have breakfast with us. Fill us in on where they're at with the investigation. After that, he'll have someone interview us for the file, and they'll be done.”

“Can they wrap things up that quickly?” I asked. “I mean, I'm thrilled that they're clearing out”—I took a giant swallow of my wine—“but a man died.”

“All I know about crime-scene investigations, you could fit in an hour-long TV crime drama,” Max said, pouring the last drops into his glass.

“Oh, wait,” he said. “I do know something. Jason said they have a policy now of turning a crime scene over to professional cleaners when they've finished their investigation.”

I tried to wrap my head around that, wondering why, and whether I'd had too much wine to figure it out.

“You know, for health reasons,” Max said. “Bodily fluids, diseases—”

“Okay, okay, that's enough detail,” I said, scrunching up my nose and trying not to gag. “I get it.”

I watched the fire and jumped when the call of a coyote broke the silence.

Max laughed. “A coyote. Wait, you'll hear more. Like a chorus calling good night.”

Minutes later, other coyotes chimed in, each one with its own unique tone coming from a different direction.

“I guess we should head to bed too,” I said. I stood, stretched my sore muscles, and reached out a hand to Max. “A professional cleaning company, huh? Do you think they'd be willing to stay longer and clean up the whole house? Would they help out with some of the repairs too?”

“I'll ask. If the cleaning team won't, maybe we can find someone else to help.”

“Leave that to me. I'm the professional organizer, remember? I'll find someone. Maybe several someones. I'll need them to refer to clients after I get Simplicity Itself up and running again.”

We poured water on the fire and covered the coals with dirt. We checked on the boys. They were nestled in their sleeping bags with Belle sandwiched between them. As my head hit the pillow, I realized Max and I still had not addressed the issues of Bangalore and the moving van. I wondered if our decision to move had been reckless, whether we were in over our heads, and whether I'd ever get our family moved in so that I could focus on my business. I hoped I could find a way to salvage our plan to settle in quickly, especially if the police were right and there was an angry vandal out there. A vandal who seemed as determined to move us out as we were to move in.

Moving and organizational overhauls are stressful. As an organizing professional, it's my job to know when to encourage clients to take a break and when to push through to the finish.

 

 

 

 

I
woke to the sound of Belle barking. Rubbing my face, I felt ridges where I must have slept on the zipper of my sleeping bag. I smelled hay, sneezed, and then inhaled the aroma of fresh coffee and wood smoke. I got up when I heard Brian trying to convince Max that s'mores were an appropriate breakfast food.

The night before, we'd fallen asleep in our clothes. This morning, I was happy to be fully dressed when I saw there were two strangers seated at the folding table. I was dying to brush my teeth, but my need for coffee overpowered my desire for good dental hygiene. I pulled a chair up to the table and sat.

A large person next to me handed me a cup of coffee. His bearlike paw palmed the milk carton and it hovered over my cup. I nodded. The paw poured, then set down the carton and passed me the bagel bag. Still warm. I took a large gulp of coffee, pushed the hair from my eyes, and examined the strangers. On my right, a large, bald, bearded man scooted a plate of cream cheese toward me.

“This coffee is . . . amazing,” I said. I took another sip, put down my cup, and reached out my hand. “I'm Maggie McDonald.”

The stranger smiled and shook my hand. “Stephen Laird, purveyor of coffee and bagels and other emergency provisions. Thank you for welcoming us into your—”

I nearly spit out my coffee, laughing as I watched the gracious man's gaze dart to all corners of the barn, as if searching for a polite word for our situation.

“—home.” He settled confidently on the word. “It
is
a home, isn't it?”

I lifted my cup to Stephen Laird and to the younger man sitting across from me. I thought I'd seen him before but couldn't place him.

“Officer Paolo Bianchi, ma'am,” said the second man. “I hope you don't mind that I grabbed a cup of coffee?”

Officer Bianchi looked dreadful. He was unshaven with dark circles under his eyes. Thin to the point of gauntness, he drowned in the dark-blue police windbreaker he wore over a T-shirt.

“Ahhh,” I said. “I remember you. The Subaru with the kayak?”

Officer Bianchi nodded and pulled out an iPad. “I'm sorry, but I have to ask you a few questions, when you're ready.”

“Give the woman a break, Paolo,” Stephen said. “Finish your coffee and bagel, Mrs. McDonald. Take a shower if you need to. Paolo can wait.” Stephen grabbed a chocolate-chip cookie from the plate that we'd not put away last night.

“Did you make those cookies?” I said on a hunch. “Are you our fairy godmother from last night? The police volunteer?”

Paolo's eyes widened and he choked on his coffee. Stephen smiled.

“I am, indeed,” Stephen said. “I hope my contributions helped.”

I nodded, my mouth too full of warm bagel to answer.

“I aim to please.” Stephen pushed back his chair, picked up his paper dishes, and tossed them in a blue garbage bin labeled
recyclables
. He must have brought the bin with him too.

“I can't begin to thank you, Stephen. You've made all the difference.”

He waved off my thanks and made a sharp whistle through his teeth. I heard a scrambling noise and a huge mastiff scooted out from under the table like an infantryman elbowing his way across enemy territory. The dog was as big as the table. How had I missed him? His breathing alone should have created a draft across my feet.

Stephen caught me staring and smiled as the mastiff circled him and plopped in a perfect, silent heel on his left. “He's my stealth dog,” Stephen said. “Invisible until . . . well, until he's not.”

I crossed the room to pet the dog, taking two swipes to rub his massive head.

“What a good boy you are, you gorgeous thing. Do you have a name?” I stroked floppy ears as big as my hand.

“Munchkin,” answered Stephen.

I raised my eyebrows and rocked back on my heels to look Stephen in his blue eyes—eyes that dared me to ask the obvious question: How on earth did this beast earn the name Munchkin?

Instead I asked, “How did he come to be yours?”

“That's a story for another day.” He turned and Munchkin loped after him. “He wasn't always this big,” he called over his shoulder, answering the question I hadn't asked.

Inscrutable mysteries. Both of them.

I watched them head back up the hill toward the house and wondered where my family had gone. Officer Paolo Bianchi cleared his throat. I turned toward him, but not before I saw Jason leave the house and head down the hill, clapping Stephen on the shoulder and stooping to greet Munchkin.

“What can I do for you, Officer Bianchi?” I said, taking a seat, refilling my coffee cup, and taking a bite from my bagel. Sesame seeds tumbled to the table and a great glob of cream cheese landed on my T-shirt. I didn't care. The bagel was too good and, after all, I lived in a barn. I could eat like a pig if I wanted to.

“We need you to tell us what happened yesterday, ma'am,” said Paolo, turning red and looking past my ear instead of looking me in the eye. “Confirm everyone's whereabouts.”

Jason's shoes made crunching noises as he walked over the gravel outside. He strode into the barn. Like Bianchi, he was unshaven and exhausted, but Jason's stubble gave him the look of an edgy fashion model and fatigue made him look brooding.

“Good morning, Mrs. McDonald,” he said. “Bianchi—good work, but I'll take it from here. Go home, get out of that kayaking gear, get some sleep. I'm calling the team in for a briefing at three o'clock. The day is yours until then.”

Bianchi looked at his watch and winced. “Six and a half hours,” he said. “I'd better get going. Thank you for your help, Mrs. McDonald.”

I nodded to Bianchi, shook Jason's hand, and invited him to sit. I poured coffee and passed Jason a plate. While his manners were perfect, probably well-honed to put the public at ease, he gave food and coffee his full attention before addressing me. Eventually, he opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him.

“I suspect this breakfast was your idea, Detective. Thank you. It was very thoughtful. We've eaten now, though. Would your team like some of it? They're welcome to come down or I can have the boys bring it up to you at the house.”

“It's Stephen Laird you have to thank,” said Jason. “He has an uncanny sense of what people need in an emergency. You're new here, but the rest of us are used to seeing him at callouts, feeding people, handing warm blankets to displaced kids, comforting.”

“Does the man never sleep?”

“Not much, he's—well, that's his story to tell.”

Jason pulled out a dog-eared notepad and stubby pencil. He caught me looking at his note-taking tools. “I'm old school,” he said. “No iPad for me. If I drop this or sit on it, it's still good. And I like to drive the bad guys nuts while they wait for me to finish writing and ask the next question.”

Jason flipped the pages of the notebook. The pause in conversation gave me time to wonder whether I was being manipulated like those suspects he'd mentioned. I squirmed in my chair.

“Okay, then, Mrs. McDonald,” he said.

“Maggie, please.”

“Maggie. Your boys and Max tell the same story about yesterday morning. I need to hear it from you. You want to take me through it from the time you arrived?”

It didn't take long to tell, even with the other questions Jason asked about the condition of the house.

“Max is nuts about this place and tends to look at the world through a forgiving lens,” I told Jason, explaining about our brief visit in February and Max's trip alone in April. “After the April inspection, Max said the house was perfect. But I don't think even Max would have described the house, as it is now, that way.”

“That's what's worrying me,” Jason said, leaning back in his chair and sipping his coffee. “We're finished with the basement and are going to turn the scene over to the cleaners in”—He looked at his phone—“forty-five minutes. I called in the fire department arson investigator to take a look at your electrical box.”

Jason handed me two cards. “I'm giving you these as an Orchard View neighbor, not as a police officer. Those are electricians who have worked on my own house. I put the arson investigator's name and number on the back in case any electrician you hire wants to consult him. The electrical box was rigged so that, once it drew enough power—like when a family moved in—it would have caught fire.”

I felt as though a mouse with icy feet had run up my spine. I shivered, though the day was growing warm. I picked up the cards for the electricians and stared at them.

“Our arson guy fixed up the box so that it's safe to use the power,” Jason said. “But he recommends you do a full rewire. He's got kids the same age as yours and says that as soon as you fire up the oven or try to do laundry, you're going to be blowing fuses. But there's no longer any danger of fire.”

The full impact of the dangers Jason was describing broke through my attempts at denial. “Fire?” I dropped the card and stared at him.

“The arson guy said the whole place could have gone up.” Jason flipped through his notebook while I tamped down panic over the thought of my family being trapped in a flaming house because I'd done something as simple as preheating the oven.

“That sounds more serious than ordinary vandalism,” I said, making fists with my hands under the table.

“We'll be investigating. Let us know if you see anything unusual.”

“We've just moved in—not even moved in. How would we know what's usual?” My rising concern for my family's safety was tightening my throat and making my voice squeak.

Jason looked up from his notebook. “Okay, then, let us know if you see anything that
concerns
you. I doubt you'll see anything that our trained investigators wouldn't have spotted, though. I wouldn't worry.” He pushed the chair back and slipped his pen and notebook into his jacket pocket.

Before he left, I started to ask him another question that had been bothering me. My single question morphed into many, which I asked in a tone of rising panic. “What about Javier? Do you know what happened? Why did he die here? Why did no one report him missing? Was he murdered? Are we safe? Should we change the locks?”

Jason stood and looked down at me with a patronizing expression I'd not seen him make before.

“We've confirmed what I told Max yesterday. The body was that of Javier Hernandez, a caretaker employed by your aunt's estate. He worked here three days a week. The medical examiner will make the determination on cause of death. As for your other questions?
You
concentrate on moving and let
us
focus on the investigation. It's
my
job, not yours, to ask questions and discover the answers to them.”

He spoke slowly and emphasized every word. “Please let our officers handle the investigation. Orchard View does not need amateur detectives. This is
not
a television show.”

He smiled to lessen the sting of his words.

“I was
curious
,” I said. “God knows I have no interest in becoming Orchard View's Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher. We just want to move into our house. And get started on school and our jobs, and”—I resisted the urge to act out my frustration like a bratty toddler—“I don't know, maybe pay our respects to Javier Hernandez, Max's only remaining link to his aunt? Mourn for someone who loved the house as much as we do?”

“We're doing our best to make sure you can do that as soon as possible.” He cleared his throat and looked up the hill toward the house. “You'll see our cleaners arrive in hazmat suits. Don't let their outfits upset you. It's standard protocol, but Mr. Hernandez's body hadn't been there long enough to require much in the way of hazardous material treatment.”

I hesitated to ask whether the cleaners could be hired to clean and repair the rest of the house. Hazmat suits? That wasn't what we needed, not after today, anyway.

Jason handed me yet another card. A Realtor card.

“We don't want to sell,” I said, surprised at the conviction I heard in my voice. I still hadn't had a chance to talk to Max about Bangalore and the house or my doubts concerning our decision to move. But I didn't have to talk to Max, not really. I knew what he wanted, what I wanted, and what the kids wanted.

“We're staying. Even if we have to fight off vandals ourselves.”

“Finding and taking care of the vandals is
my
job, remember?” said Jason. “As is uncovering the full story behind what happened to Javier Hernandez. The card is for a friend of mine, Tess Olmos. She's got teams of people she can call to clean up a house in a hurry and stage it for a quick sale. I'd go with her contacts for anything you need.”

I drained my coffee cup. “It looks like there's nothing left for me to do but make a few calls.” I knew better, of course. I'd learned my lesson yesterday. My plans to move this project forward could slip sideways at any time. I took the proffered card, but I wasn't sure how smart it would be to use the first referral I'd received. I didn't yet know whether Jason was a good investigator, let alone a good judge of quality in home-maintenance providers. I changed the subject.