When the kids had both finally drifted off to sleep, I slumped onto the sofa beside Vero with a pile of take-out menus, too exhausted from the events of the last few hours to even think about cooking. We’d taken the kids out for ice cream after our meeting with Delia’s principal, then Steven had gone back to work and we had spent the rest of the day at the park. The kids had been exhausted by the time we got home. We’d fed them an early dinner of frozen chicken nuggets and instant mashed potatoes and given them both a bath; neither one of them had the energy to protest when we’d tucked them in for an early bedtime.
“What do you want for dinner?” I asked, thumbing through the menus.
“Chocolate,” Vero said.
“We had ice cream for lunch. We can’t have chocolate for dinner.”
“Then booze.”
I was about to object to that choice, too, but on second thought, it wasn’t the worst idea she’d ever had. It was Thursday night, which meant the week was almost over. Steven would pick up the kids for the weekend after work tomorrow, and I could look forward to a quiet weekend at home, watching TV in my pajamas. And we definitely deserved a few indulgences after the day we’d had.
There was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it!” Vero looked a little too eager when she jumped up from the couch to see who it was.
Curious, I set down my take-out menu and followed her to thedoor. Stacey Pickens stood on my front stoop. Stacey lived two streets down from us and had three kids at the local elementary school. She was active in the PTA, the HOA, the BSA, and all the other A’s, which were mostly dominated by the same moms who churned the community rumor mill.
“Delivery!” she sang. She held a brown paper bag over the threshold. Vero took it with greedy hands, peeked inside, and crushed the top closed again as I came into the foyer.
“How much do I owe you?” she whispered to Stacey.
“Twenty even,” Stacey said, not bothering to lower her voice. “I wasn’t sure how much stimulation you were looking for, so I went with something with a little extraoomph.” I raised an eyebrow, wondering what Vero and Javi were up to. Stacey had a home-based business selling marital aids out of the back of her station wagon. Her products came in inconspicuous boxes and bags, but while Stacey’s packaging was discreet, Stacey was not. Vero slapped my hand away when I tried to get a look. “Need anything for yourself, Finlay? I’m running a special this month on lube. I’ve got a few new flavors if you want to try some samples.”
“Thanks,” I said politely, “but I’m all set.”
“You sure? The ladies at the bus stop were all buzzing about some hot cop they saw leaving your house the other morning.”
I bit my tongue, hoping they hadn’t been so loose-lipped in front of their kids. “I’m sure.”
“Speaking of cops, does your new boyfriend have any idea when they’re going to take down the police tape across the street? I know it’s only been a week since they found the body at Mrs. Haggerty’s place, but the Patels are getting ready to put their house on the market and they’re worried the whole crime-scene vibe will make it harder to sell. I told them I’d ask you and see if you knew anything.”
“I don’t,” I said, not only because I refused to contribute to the gossip in the neighborhood, but because I honestly had no idea. “Vero and I were out of town for a while. We missed the whole ordeal,” I explained. We had returned from Atlantic City just in time to see the police arrest my elderly neighbor after human remains had been discovered in her yard. Mrs. Haggerty was president of the neighborhood watch and our community’s biggest busybody. Since I wasn’t Mrs. Haggerty’s biggest fan, I hadn’t troubled myself with the details of the crime. All I knew is that the body had been taken away and so had Mrs. Haggerty. Truthfully, I didn’t mind the yellow police tape if it meant I no longer had to worry about living across the street from the woman who had nothing better to do than binge-watch my dumpster fire of a life and document it all in her neighborhood watch diary for her own entertainment.
If Mrs. Haggerty had murdered someone, she was exactly where she belonged—in jail.
“Poor Arlene was traumatized,” Stacey said. “She saw the whole thing from her bedroom window after that ice storm we had. Mrs. Haggerty must have forgotten to winterize her sprinkler system in her garden and a pipe burst. Arlene noticed the pooling in her yard and knocked on the door, but no one was home, so she called an emergency plumber to stop the flooding. He came with a digger to find the broken pipe, and that’s when he found the body.” Stacey shuddered.
According to Nick and my sister, Georgia, who were both cops in the next county over, the body had been badly decomposed and had been carted off to the crime lab for identification.
“Have they figured out who he was yet?” Vero asked.
Stacey nodded. “From his dental records. His name was Gilford Dupree.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?” I asked. “Did he live here in South Riding?”
Stacey shook her head. “Remember that news story about the forty-five-year-old mortgage broker who went missing from Ashburn five years ago? The one who left for work one morning and they found his abandoned car at Ashburn Park? It was him.”
Ashburn Village was less than thirty minutes away, but as far as I knew, Mrs. Haggerty didn’t get out much. “How did he know Mrs. Haggerty?” I asked.
“That’s the weird thing,” Stacey said. “He didn’t.”
Vero looked confused. “If they didn’t know each other, why’d she kill him?”
Stacey blinked at us. “Haven’t you heard the news?”
“What news?” Vero asked.
“It’s been all over the TV. The prosecutors dropped the charges today and told her she was free to go. Every network has been reporting it since they released her this afternoon.”
