“I can’t imagine putting Steven’s ashes in a jar,” I whispered.
“Speak for yourself. I think about it all the time.”
I nudged her out the door, waiting until it closed behind us to wipe my hands on my pants with a shudder.
“I thought Brendan said his grandma didn’t have any friends,” Vero mused as we walked back to my van. She gestured to the long line of cars parked along the street in front of Viola’s house. “These women all look pretty friendly to me. Why couldn’t Mrs. Haggerty have stayed with one of them?”
“She said she wanted to be close to her house.”
“I’d rather she be a whole lot closer than she is. In her own damn bed would be preferable. When did Steven say he was coming to look at her place?”
“Soon. We should probably head out.” I climbed into the van and checked the time on my phone. There was a text message from Sylvia, informing me she’d be arriving at Union Station on Monday at noon. She’d followed it with a firm reminder not to be late and instructions to “wear something hot.” I closed the thread without bothering to read the rest, determined to deal with one crisis at a time. If we hurried home, I might have time to do a little snooping before Steven and the kids arrived.
CHAPTER 5
Vero and I pulled into my driveway a few minutes before noon and found a small green Prius parked in front of Mrs. Haggerty’s house. The rear window was laden with stickers about sustainability and social justice. Vero squinted at the peace frog and the tiny dancing bears on the bumper. “I’m betting that’s not the plumber.”
I was guessing it wasn’t a mysterious deranged murderer either. “Maybe it’s someone from the insurance company. I’ll go see what they want.”
Vero hopped out of the van and headed inside while I walked across the street to Mrs. Haggerty’s house. Voices carried from her backyard. I ducked under the sagging police tape and opened the fence gate, announcing myself with a quick “Hello?”
Two figures whirled to face me, hands in the air, wearing matching expressions of panic.
“Riley? Max? What are you two doing here?” Their shoulders slumped with relief when they recognized me. I had first met Riley Bernbaum and Max Sievers at the citizen’s police academy a monthago. The college journalism students were self-proclaimed true-crime fanatics, and they’d launched an amateur podcast featuring local unsolved murders. Annoyingly persistent (and just sharp enough to be dangerous), Riley and Max had signed up for the citizens’ police academy, hoping to glean a few inside scoops. The last time Vero and I had seen them, they’d been hounding Nick for details about a missing person case involving a man from New Jersey named Ike Grindley. Ike had worked as hired muscle for an Atlantic City loan shark and had come to Virginia a month ago to collect a gambling debt from Vero. He’d cornered us in a scrapyard and demanded his boss’s money. When we’d explained we didn’t have it, he suffered an unfortunate accident while trying to murder us instead. Riley, Max, and the police had no idea what had happened to Ike that night, and if Vero and I had our way, no one ever would.
The two podcasters stood side by side in front of the gaping hole in Mrs. Haggerty’s yard. Riley held up his phone. The video indicator light was blinking.
The little shit was recording me.
“Hey!” he shouted as I reached for his phone. His cheeks turned as red as his hair as I played back their podcast footage. The camera had zoomed in on the hole where Gilford Dupree had been buried, then zoomed back out to capture Max. She swatted her windblown curls from her eyes as she somberly recounted the details of the gruesome discovery of Gilford’s remains.
I paused the clip when my face filled the screen. My hair was unwashed and I had no makeup on, and as far as I was concerned, that was all the justification I needed. Riley and Max both gasped as I deleted the entire thing. “Did Mrs. Haggerty give you permission to record here?” I asked.
“The police haven’t been out here for days,” Riley said, trying to steal back his phone.
“No one’s here!” Max argued. “We’re not bothering anyone.”
I powered the phone down before giving it back to them. “This is private property. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Riley looked indignant as he took it from me. “This is an unsolved murder! The killer is still out there.”
“And there have been new developments in the case!” Max said stubbornly. “Things the police and TV news haven’t reported yet. Brendan Haggerty’s family owns this property. He’s running for public office, and the public deserves to know what happened here before they cast their votes.”
“And you know what happened here?” I asked sternly. I was only about ten years their senior, but somehow Riley and Max brought out my mom voice. “I’m ashamed of both of you,” I said when neither of them coughed up an answer. “If you know so much about the case, then you know Mrs. Haggerty was released because she’s no longer a suspect. And her grandson isn’t even a person of interest. Youmetthem both, for crying out loud, and you’re exploiting them for the sake of your ratings.” I wanted to call their mothers and have the entitled brats yanked back to school. “You need to leave,” I said, pointing to the gate.
“Fine, we’ll go,” Riley huffed. “But you’re going to want to hear what we have to say. There’s more to this story than you realize. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
I watched from beside the open grave as they stomped back to their car. A moment later, two doors slammed and the Prius whined down the street.
I stared at the pit of muddy red clay, a wound left to fester,wondering what—if anything—Riley and Maxdidknow about it. And, more important, why they’d felt a need to warn me.
I left Mrs. Haggerty’s yard and ran back across the street, hoping to take advantage of what little time remained before Steven arrived to do some snooping of my own. I scoured my nightstand, searching for the neighborhood watch diary that Nick had seen last night.
All I found was a collection of prescription medicine bottles and a golden-age mystery novel that still bore sticker residue on its spine. I fanned through the yellowing pages. A thick sheet of aged, lined card stock had been shoved between them like a bookmark. The card contained a list of phone numbers—the makeshift Rolodex of a woman who didn’t trust modern technology to remember her contacts for her.
I closed the book and dropped it back on the nightstand. She must have put her neighborhood watch diary in her handbag for safekeeping.
The front door slammed downstairs, followed by the thunder of tiny feet. I looked out the window and saw Steven’s truck in the driveway. I left my room just as the children crested the top of the stairs. Delia and Zach plowed into me for hugs. I scooped them up in turn, giving them each a kiss. Zach had his pants on and his Pull-Up felt dry through the fabric. I had just started to wonder how long that would last when I set him on his feet and he gleefully began stripping.
