Heaven Preserve Us (5 page)

"Mm hmm. Did you hear the phone ring after you'd gone to
bed?"

She nodded, her head cocked a little to one side. "Wasn't it
Barr?"

"Nope. It was Mr. Just-Call-Me-Allen. He wanted to let me
know he knew who I was. And my phone number." Her eyes widened a fraction. "And probably where I live," I added, almost
against my will.

"Does Barr know?"

"I'll call him. I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about, but
I'll call him."

Meghan looked worried.

"Listen," I said. "I still have a ton to do yet today. A gazillion
retail orders to fill, and I have eight dozen Saltea Bags to make for
that company in North Carolina that took all those samples at the
Handmade Toiletries Trade Show."

I was a soap maker. Well, to be more accurate, soap was only a
part of my repertoire-I designed, produced, and sold a variety of
handmade toiletries in my workroom in the basement of Meghan's
house. I lived in the house, too, and paid rent. We'd been housemates since shortly after my husband died and she divorced that
son-of-a-, well, you know... her ex. Richard.

Dick was pretty much out of the picture now, living in California with his mother, the Wicked Witch of the West, waiting out his
parole and no doubt whining like the dickens the whole time.

Anyway. Meghan and I both worked out of the house, which
made it handy Erin-wise, especially because we could coordinate
our schedules. I'd been so busy lately that I'd been really bad about
my side of coordinating things, though. Luckily, Meghan was
pretty understanding about that. She was a massage therapist, and
she had her busy times, too, when I tried to step up more on the
domestic front.

"You look tired," she said. "Need any help?"

"Kyla and Cyan are coming after school this afternoon, so they
can help me package up the wholesale order if I mix it up right
away. And I should be able to knock out the retail orders either
before they get here or after they leave, and then send those out
first thing tomorrow. Besides, don't you have clients today?"

She was wearing her work uniform: a soft white cotton T-shirt
and loose gray yoga pants folded down to expose a narrow strip of her tiny waist. This woman had had a child? I sighed and tugged
my sweater down.

"I do," she said. "Two this afternoon, starting in half an hour,
and then I'm going by the hospital to work on a couple of physical
therapy patients."

She'd recently branched out to work in the Caladia Acres Nursing Home and the hospital in the neighboring town of Everett. No
wonder she knew someone who would tell her what was going on
with Philip.

"I'll be here at three when Erin gets home from school," I said.

She looked relieved. "Good. I didn't have a chance to talk to
you before I committed to the hospital thing. I'll finish up this
jelly so you can get to work. And by the way, the Chase boys are
going to be working on the chicken coop today. Luke said they'd
be setting the corner posts in cement."

Luke and Seth Chase, both in their early twenties, had moved
into the house two doors down with their father. The previous fall
Walter Hanover, our local handyman, had died. We were thrilled
when both our clay artist friend Bette and Walter's former landlady, Mavis Gray, told us about the Chase brothers starting up a
handyman business. They'd put new vinyl in Bette's tiny kitchen,
and Mavis told us they'd done a nice job cleaning her roof and
gutters. When we decided to keep a few laying hens in the back
yard, we contacted them to see if they'd take on the job of building their quarters.

I bolted my coffee and poured another cup to take downstairs
to my workroom with me.

"Sophie Mae?"

I paused mid-pour. Something in her voice. "Yeah?"

"Did you see Kelly O'Connell when you were at Heaven House
this morning?"

"Who?"

She flapped her hand at me. "Never mind. Go. Work." The timer
dinged, and she began lifting steaming jars of jelly out of the canner.

"Okay." I'd find out what that was about later. Right now I
wanted to call Barr and tell him what had happened. Was I completely off-base, thinking someone had intentionally slipped Philip
something lethal? Fear had shown from his eyes as he whispered
those words to me. Or was I projecting that onto him? I was quite
frightened myself at the time, I had to admit. Maybe Barr could
put things into perspective.

Downstairs, I looked out at the back yard and alley from the
large windows that ran the entire length of my spacious workroom. I liked to have as much natural light as possible while I
mixed and packaged and labeled my various Winding Road bath
products. I watched a pair of stellars jays chowing down at the bird
feeder as I waited for Barr to answer his cell. No luck. I left a message. He'd get back to me when he had a chance.

Outside, the sky was a smooth, even gray, dark enough to make
me wonder whether dawn had given up rather than bother trying
to break through the muck above. I opened the back door and
took a deep whiff of the winter air of the Pacific Northwest, a mix
of green moss, red cedar, and yellowed leaves. The combination
calmed me. The moisture in the air was palpable against my exposed face and the backs of my hands.

Luke and Seth came around the edge of the house, each carrying a four-by-four post. Now I identified the scent of cedar as coming from the pile of posts stacked near the house and covered
with a bright blue tarp.

"Hey, Sophie Mae," Luke said, nodding in my direction as he
walked past. With his dark hair, dark eyes, strong jaw and high
cheekbones, he walked with the cocky confidence of someone
who knows they're good looking. His brother Seth's eyes flashed
up to meet mine for a split second. His mouth turned up in a
quick, nervous smile, and then it was gone. Without a word he
took his post over and laid it by one of the holes they'd dug the
day before. The younger boy had received the toned-down version
of his brother's looks, and apparently a toned-down version of his
personality, too.

"Hey," I said. "You're going to be setting those this morning?"

He nodded.

"What if it rains?"

Luke answered. "Won't hurt anything. Mostly taking advantage
of the mild temperature. Can't do cement work like this in the
winter where we come from."

"And where would that be?" I asked.

"Kansas. Wichita."

"What on earth brought you out to our little corner of the
universe?"

"Dad transferred. Boeing."

"Ah"

I'd heard their mother was dead, and Mavis Gray said it had
happened recently. No doubt Mr. Chase was ready for a fresh start.
I was a little surprised the boys had come with him, as old as they
were. It was nice to think they'd remained intact as a family.

Luke turned back to his post, a hint, no doubt, for me to let
him get on with his work. I took it and went back inside to face my
own to-do list.

Three hours later I'd mixed the salts, soda, citric acid, green tea,
herbs and oils for four kinds of Saltea bags-rosemary, citrus, lavender, and spearmint-and made a bit of headway on filling orders from my website. Kyla and Cyan Waters would be arriving
any moment to put in a couple of hours of work, and Erin was due
home from school. I'd called Barr again and left another message,
but he hadn't called me back yet. I was a little surprised. It wasn't
like I made a habit of calling him when he was working.

But a barrage of other phone calls had interrupted my taskfilled afternoon. Word was getting around about what had happened to Philip, and the HH volunteers were trying to decide
whether or not to go ahead with the preserves exchange that evening. Finally, I tracked down Jude Carmichael, and he said that
since he hadn't been able to reach all the participants, we'd go
ahead with the exchange as planned. I had mixed feelings about
that, but agreed.

Upstairs, I opened the front door, and Brodie charged out of
the house, rushed to the side yard, and lifted his leg. Poor guy; I
should have taken a break sooner. As I waited for him to finish, I
kept seeing Philip's gray face and the desperate look in his eye as
he tried to pull oxygen into his lungs. Being in the intensive care
unit didn't bode well, but surely they'd bring him around. Wouldn't they? And then he'd be able to share the name of whoever had
threatened him.

The little guy finished his business and trotted arthritically
back to the front porch where I waited. I looked up and down the
street, thinking about what Philip had said about Allen following
me home. I pictured him as a dark, shadowy figure waiting in the
dark parking lot of Heaven House, watching as I ran through the
rain to my pickup. Following me through Cadyville to my street,
my home, and watching me hurry inside to get out of the rain.

Wait a minute. That was silly. Following me wouldn't give him
my name. It wouldn't give him our phone number. Philip was full
of crap. Bless his heart, I amended.

I needed to think.

And that meant ... chocolate.

Brodie followed me into the kitchen, his nails clicking rhythmically on the wood floor. But we seemed to be out of the chunks
of dark chocolate we bought on a regular basis at Trader Joe's. I
rooted around in the cupboard and came up with a box of hot
cocoa mix. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When it
gives you a box of hot cocoa mix, make it triple strong and use
half water, half coffee.

It only took two sips of that mixture before my brain kicked in.
Two more swallows for fortitude, and I ran back out through the
drizzle to my Toyota. My unlocked Toyota. The only time I ever
locked it was when there was something to steal in it, and that was,
well, pretty much never. It didn't even have a decent stereo.

The glove box was open.

WHY DO THEY CALL them glove boxes, still? Did they ever hold
gloves? I mean, really? Because all mine ever held was my car registration and insurance card and a pile of napkins and straws dutifully collected from my rare forays to fast food restaurants.

It was all still there, just as I'd arranged it.

I straightened up and rested my hand on top of the open door.
Okay, I was stumped. How had Allen figured out my name? Had
he read my registration or not? A thought made my breath catch
in the back of my throat: could he have known it all along? Before
he ever called the Helpline?

A flutter of white snagged my attention. I turned my head. A
piece of paper was tucked into the steering wheel. With a bad feeling, I grabbed it.

Allen had left me a note.

Great.

The penmanship was atrocious, and I had a hard time making
out what it said. But with a little squinting in the artificial twilight
of the day I managed:

"Dear Sophie Mae. It was nice to talk to you on the phone.
I'll call so we can do it again. I'm looking forward to that. We
can have lots of conversations. About life. And about Death. I
have a lot to say about Death. I want to hear more about
what you think about it, too"

My head jerked up, and I scanned up and down the street. He'd
been in my truck in the short time since I'd been home. Was that
blue car across the street new to the neighborhood? The cocoa
curdled in my stomach. I cursed myself for not paying closer attention to my surroundings.

I shook my head. "Get it together, Sophie Mae." The thought
crossed my mind as I muttered that someone could be watching
my strange performance. I didn't really care. Maybe Allen would
think I was crazy and leave me alone. And the neighbors wouldn't
be seeing anything they hadn't seen a dozen times before. You
work alone enough, and you get in the habit of talking to yourself
even when you're not alone.

But for some reason I didn't feel afraid anymore. What a little
creep. I didn't like someone trying to scare me. It was beyond irritating, and not only about me. This spilled over into the lives of
Meghan and Erin, too.