Moving Is Murder (14 page)

“The planning meeting is tomorrow night.”

Planning meeting? “Well,” I paused, trying to buy
some time. Don’t sound stupid to the squadron commander’s wife if you can help it.

Jill zeroed in on my silence. “Cass didn’t tell you, did she?” Her tone made it a statement, not a question. “She was always so excited and got people involved, but she wasn’t a detail person.” Jill sighed with exasperation. Then seeming to realize that she sounded very critical of someone recently deceased, she added, “Of course, what happened is such a shame.”

I murmured an agreement while checking my wall calendar. Monday’s square was blank.

“Well,” Jill said briskly. With a dribble of solemnity for an untimely death out of the way, she was all business now. “I still have the sign-up sheets for the garage sale volunteers.” Her tone implied it was a good thing she had kept them instead of giving them to Cass. “We’ll need to discuss publicity, setup, the bank deposit, and cleanup. Seven o’clock at my house all right with you?”

I thought about Livvy’s feeding schedule. “How about six? But I thought we were postponing the garage sale.” It seemed like the appropriate thing to do. And I hadn’t given it much thought or planning.

“A lot of people have that impression. That’s why we need to get right on it. We’ve got less than two weeks left. If we wait any longer, it will be too cold. Then we’ll have to wait until spring.”

I suppressed a sigh. It seemed we were having a garage sale whether anyone wanted to or not.

“I’ll be there at six and I’ll bring Abby with me. She’ll be a big help.” She’d better be since she got me into this volunteer job in the first place. I pushed the button to disconnect from Jill’s call, intending to call Abby and tell her she had an appointment tomorrow night, but the phone rang again before I could dial.

“Hi, honey.” The voice that came over the line had just a hint of a Texas drawl.

“Hi, Mom.”

“How’s Livvy?” I smiled. There had been a definite change in the pecking order since Livvy’s birth.

“She’s doing better. Getting over an ear infection,” I said as I rinsed the tiny syringe and dried it on a paper towel.

“Oh, no! You should have called us. Was it bad?”

I skipped over the feeling of slight irritation I felt when she said I should have called. They were too far away to do anything but worry and sympathize. I thought we had worked out this calling-with-information business when I got married. They didn’t expect us to call with every bit of news, even trivia in our lives, and we didn’t hear from them that often either. But it appeared that things had indeed changed since Livvy’s arrival.

Then I felt guilty for even feeling irritated. It was her first grandchild and she wanted to know everything. “We were only up one night and then we got her on some antibiotics.” I gave Mom the full story of our marathon night and doctor’s visit to make up for not calling her. Rex whined from outside the kitchen door. He knew we were finished eating and wanted inside.

When Mom was sure Livvy was on the road to recovery, she turned the conversation. “Well, we were just sitting here on the deck reading the paper.” I could picture them at the glass-topped table under the tall cottonwood tree with the paper anchored with their thick cups of coffee. The climate in their part of Texas would, for the most part, stay warm for quite a bit longer, maybe even into November. Not like here. I opened the door just wide enough to let Rex inside. Somehow he’d become an inside dog. Rex trotted over
to his basket and curled up, watching me. His eyes seemed to be saying, “See, I can be a good boy.”

I shut the door on the wind and low clouds skimming across the treetops. The thought of coffee or breakfast outside made me shiver. But I could picture Dad reading the front page of the newspaper with the warmth of the sun slanting in through the tall limbs of the cottonwood. Then he would find the History Channel listings in the TV guide. Mom would read the travel section, the book reviews, the opinion page, and then who knew what she would do. She might sit and read the whole paper for another hour or two before they left for church, or she might make banana nut bread or she might balance the checkbook. Mom was always unpredictable. She moved in fits and starts of inspiration, enjoying each project to the fullest until she found a new one. And if she was in the middle of the last project, she’d just abandon it until later. Right now, her passions were yard sales and refinishing furniture. At least, they were last week.

“I was reading the birth announcements and it made me lonely for Livvy and, well, we’re wondering if y’all have decided what you are doing for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.”

I leaned against the cabinet. Just thinking of airline travel with a six-month-old baby made me feel exhausted. The price of the tickets made me feel queasy. “Mom, I haven’t even thought about Halloween! We’ve been so busy unpacking and getting used to our house and living here we haven’t made any plans.”

“No, of course not. But if you can’t come here, maybe we could visit you. We’d need to check into it soon. So let us know.”

We talked some more about Dad’s sideline business
of making cabinets, desks, and hutches, which had grown so big it was about to crowd out his main job of teaching history and government.

After hanging up, I jotted some notes on the calendar: garage sale, holiday tickets? When was I going to find the time to organize and run a garage sale? I felt like I was a cartoon character with my legs spinning so fast they blurred, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Taking care of Livvy, just feeding us, and keeping up the house, even though Mitch did work around the house, too, took all my time. Where would I find any extra? The holiday thing I decided to leave alone for a while, but I wondered how long it would be before we received a similar call from Mitch’s parents. Kids changed all the rules.

You’ll probably need some important papers to get started in your new location.

• Banks require bank statements and pay stubs to start loan paperwork.
  
• Schools need birth certificates, shot records, and transcripts, as well as the contact info of the child’s prior school.
  
• Kennels may require proof of vaccination and shot records.
  
• State motor vehicle departments often need proof of insurance and title to your cars before issuing new tags or license plates.
  

Make a few phone calls and find out exactly what paperwork you’ll need because requirements vary from state to state; then pull your documents and hand carry.

O
ur yard looked like a porcupine. A stiff wind during the night had blown the brown pine needles out of the trees. They stood straight up, poking up in the air, coating our lawn and our neighbor’s lawn, which seemed a little unfair since Ed and Mabel didn’t even have a pine tree in their yard.

I twisted the trash bag closed and dragged it to the pile on the curb. The crisp, cool air held the faint smell of wood smoke. Just a few days ago we were sweating and running the air conditioner. I pushed up the sleeves of my turtleneck and listened to the baby monitor. It broadcast static from the top porch step, not cries. I surveyed the other side of the yard and the tall trees overhead. Lots of dry needles still up there. I pulled a Hershey Kiss out of my pocket and popped it in my mouth.

Mitch shook his head. “You and your chocolate,” he said.

“Energy boost. Do you think it will warm up again?” I called to Mitch as he tied up our latest bag. But it wasn’t Mitch’s voice that answered.

“Once the needles start to fall, that’s it. Summer’s over.” Mitch waved and I turned to see Ed Parsons standing on his side of the hedge. He wore a sport coat and tie and Mabel had on a sturdy raincoat over a shirtwaist dress. They must have just returned from church.

Ed pulled a toothpick out of the corner of his mouth and used it to point to the trees. I wondered if he always had a toothpick in his mouth or if they had returned from eating out again. “We cut all of ours down. Had the stumps ground and everything. Can’t even tell we used to have four in our yard.”

“Such a mess. Needles and branches and pinecones everywhere,” Mabel said with a tiny shake of her head.

I glanced at the unbroken lawn and thought it looked boring. Having grown up in dry west Texas, where trees were scarce, I thought our tall pines were beautiful, even if they were a little work.

“So you don’t think it will warm up again?” I asked.

“Nope. It’ll start to snow soon. Fall is our shortest season. But don’t worry, I have a snowblower and I’ll do your sidewalks and driveway. Do almost everyone’s on the block, in fact.”

“Does it snow that much?” I asked, dreading the thought of a long winter, especially driving on ice. After living in California, I was out of practice.

“Well, it depends. Sometimes we don’t get that cold and we get more rain than snow, but other times …” He grinned and offered to show Mitch the snowblower. Mabel rolled her eyes as if to say, “Men and their toys.” She waved and went inside.

Mitch returned in a little while and said, “It’s huge. He could probably clear the whole street with that thing.”

I shook my head. “But we don’t need one, especially if Ed is going to snow blow our driveway for us.” Mitch could be a rather impulsive shopper when he actually went inside a store. To change the subject I said, “We’d better leave the blinds open at the Vincents’ since it’s overcast. I opened them this morning. The plants need as much light as they can get.”

Livvy’s wake-up sounds reached us from the monitor. “I didn’t close them.” He frowned. “I wasn’t even over there yesterday. You took the paper in.”

I leaned on the rake. “I did?” What had I done yesterday? Oh, the mall and then I had taken their mail and paper inside. “Maybe I closed them because it was getting late the day before and I just forgot. I’ll get Livvy.” I propped my rake against a tree trunk.

Abby and I walked briskly through the park in the predawn haze. The air inspired us, or rather me, to keep up the quick pace and get back to my warm house, where Mitch was probably walking a fussy, hungry Livvy around from room to room. Of course, last week I’d returned home from our walk expecting Livvy to be crying for her seven-thirty
A.M.
feeding, but she was cooing at Mitch from her bouncy chair while he poured cereal. One look at me and she’d switched to crying. Did she cry when I was close because she knew I would feed her?

“I wonder when Joe is coming back from Houston,” Abby said.

“I don’t know. We haven’t heard anything from him. Have you heard anything about the investigation?” I asked Abby.

“No.”

Why hadn’t Jeff been arrested? Don’t get me wrong,
I was glad he hadn’t been arrested, but he did have the big three against him: motive, means, and opportunity. I checked Abby’s face. Her usually smiling lips were pinched tightly together. I wanted to talk to her, but I didn’t know what to say. This was awful. Cass’s death and the investigation had made my life into an emotional minefield. I tiptoed through every conversation with Mitch and Abby.

We were quiet as we crossed from the park back onto my street. Then Abby broke the silence. “I’m going to ask Rachel what she knows. She teaches first grade and her husband is in the Security Police on-base. She might have heard something. I’ve been debating whether I should call her or not, but this whole thing is driving me crazy.”

I picked up the paper from the Vincents’ driveway and said, “Sounds like a good idea. See you tonight. Six o’clock?”

“I’ll be there.” Abby headed down the street to her house.

I pulled my set of keys out of my sweatpants pocket and unlocked the door. I had put Joe’s key on my key ring because I was always running something inside or checking the plants. I felt a small itch of irritation at Joe for being gone so long and not letting us know when he would be back. The good neighbor routine was getting tedious. Immediately, I felt guilty. He was grieving and I should be able to do a small thing like take in the paper and water the plants for weeks if it helped someone after a loved one died.

As I opened the door, a headline on the rolled paper caught my eye:
NO ENVIRONMENTAL DEBATE FOR CLAIRMONT.
I skimmed the first lines of the story as I flipped on the lights and walked to the kitchen. I knew this
floor plan almost as well as I knew mine. I could walk and read at the same time.

I slapped the newspaper on the kitchen counter beside the mound of mail and papers awaiting Joe’s return. I froze.

The kitchen looked like the video clips on the news after an earthquake—tumbled cans and broken glass. Cabinet doors gaped open. Canned food and silverware covered the floor. I poked a can of green beans out from under the lower cabinets with my toe. Pots, pans, and mixing bowls tilted in piles on the counter-tops and the floor. Sugar and flour trailed over the counter from upended canisters. I turned in a slow circle and surveyed the living room. Couch cushions ranged over the floor beside scattered DVDs.

I groaned and hurried down the hall to the bedrooms. Someone had not only broken into Joe’s garage while we were “watching” the property for him, but now they had broken into the house itself. Lousy neighbors we’d turned out to be.

I glanced into the pink bedroom. Open boxes, shoes, wrapping paper, folders, and clothing tangled together
on the pink and white rag rug. Mounds of clothes surrounded empty dresser drawers.

I stopped short at the door to the master bedroom. I didn’t want to walk in the room. The devastation here had a violent quality to it. A vicious blow had shattered the mirror on the antique dresser. Shards of glass dotted the feathers from the white goose-down comforter and the slit pillows. The mattress, stripped of its sheets, tilted to one side of the bed. The closet door yawned open. I could see the upper shelves were empty. The clothes were in a twisted mess on top of open plastic storage containers. In the corner, beside a dented hard drive, spiderweb cracks spread across the computer monitor. Papers covered everything like leaves sprinkled across the ground in the autumn. I shook my head and took a deep breath. This was bad. This was more than a burglary. It was an attack. Even the plants had been knocked over and stepped on, grinding potting soil into the carpet.