A Mother's Day Murder (Mt. Abrams Mysteries Book 1) (4 page)

BOOK: A Mother's Day Murder (Mt. Abrams Mysteries Book 1)
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Going to the police. So, we were going to find out what had happened to Lacey and become neighborhood heroes, or we’d discover that nothing had happened at all and become neighborhood laughing stocks.

We walked a little farther, and Carol spoke again.

“So, I met someone on Fish.”

Carol had started dating. Her husband had been dead for almost five years, and recently she’d decided to sign up for every dating site she could find. Her conversations were peppered these days with a sort of cyber-dating shorthand—Fish, JDate, FOB and SOH. Fish was Plenty of Fish, a dating site, as was JDate. FWB meant friends with benefits (a big no-no for Carol), and SOH meant sense of humor (a must-have).

“Leon. He’s age appropriate and financially secure. He wants to meet for coffee.”

“Excellent,” Shelly said.

“I think so.” Carol was the type of woman who still wrote thank-you notes and used linen napkins when she had us all over for lunch. She approached dating with the same efficient sensibility that she used for changing her seasonal house decorations, sending out Christmas cards, and having her tires rotated. For her, there was a proper time and place for everything. Right now, Leon fit in perfectly.

“Does he have a friend for Ellie?” Shelly asked.

“Ellie,” I said loudly, “doesn’t need his friend.”

“Yes, you do,” Maggie said. “Do you want to grow old alone?”

I slowed to give Boot the chance to pee all over a fallen log. “I have children, Maggie. I’m never going to be alone.”

“Okay, then,” she countered. “Do you want Cait choosing your nursing home?“

What could I say to these women? Sure, they were all my friends, and yes, I’d throw myself in front of a bus for them. But I could never admit, not even to these best of confidants that I was still madly in love with my ex-husband.

“I’m sure Cait will do an excellent job, but thanks for thinking of me.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. We all liked to talk, but we all also enjoyed that moment, halfway around the lake, when the only thing you could hear was birdsong and the sound of our breathing.

It appeared that any Lacey Mitchell conversation was closed until we found ourselves directly in front of the Mitchell house. We all stopped and stared.

“I wonder if her car is still gone,” Shelly asked no one in particular.

“Are you thinking that someone returned it in the middle of the night?” Carol asked.

We all walked up the driveway. The left-side door of the garage was open, as it always was during the day. Yes, I suppose anyone could have snuck in and stolen any number of empty garbage cans or rakes or shovels, but that usually wasn’t a problem in Mt. Abrams.

We walked into the garage. No Suburban.

We started back down the drive, when Shelly stopped short. “The back door is open,” she said.

We looked. Yes. The screen was shut tight, but the actual door stood ajar.

“I wonder if somebody’s in there,” Maggie said in a somewhat hushed voice.

Shelly climbed the back steps, opened the screen, and yelled, “Hello.”

Silence.

Shelly opened the door further and yelled again.

“What are you doing?” Carol hissed.

“Checking to see if everything is all right,” Shelly said.

“What are you hoping to find?” I called softly.

She turned and grinned. “Who knows? But don’t you really want to see what the inside looks like?”

Maggie bounded up the back steps. “Right with you.”

Carol cleared her throat. “I refuse to participate in breaking and entering.”

“That’s fine. Then hold the dogs and yell if somebody comes.” I handed her Boot’s and Buster’s leashes.

She glared at me. “This is actually illegal,” she warned.

I climbed the steps behind Maggie and went into the Mitchell house.


I
t’s very clean
.” Maggie whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” Shelly asked. “No one is here, remember?”

“What if Lacey is tied up in the attic?” Maggie said, voice still hushed.

“Then she’d probably want to hear another voice so she can stomp on the floor and get rescued,” I said. “Do you hear her pounding on the attic floor with her tied-up feet?” We all stopped and stared up at the ceiling. Nothing.

“Okay, then,” Maggie said in her normal voice. “It’s really clean.”

It was. The kitchen had been redone in that pseudo-country style, with whitewashed cabinets, a farmer’s sink, and butcher block on the large island. We walked slowly through the kitchen into the dining room, then into the living room, turned left through the hall to a small office, then back into the hall to the stairs.

“And it’s pretty,” Shelly said.

She was right. The rooms were beautifully decorated, but showed no personality at all. There were no framed photos, no kid art on the side of the refrigerator. The pillows had obviously never been used to smack a younger brother, and nobody had dared to kick at the rungs of the dining room chairs.

It was very quiet. I could hear a clock ticking somewhere, but that was all. All the windows were shut, and the air had a faint potpourri scent. “It’s really quiet,” I said. My house was always talking to me—a creak of the floorboards, the wind through an off-center window frame, the rustling of leaves against the side of the house.

“With two boys, how is this so clean?” Maggie asked. “Where are all the toys?”

“They must have a maid,” Shelly said.

“Maybe they’re waiting for
Country Living
magazine to come by for a photo shoot,” I said. I put my hand on the stairway banister and looked up the stairway. “What do you think?”

“Well, in for a penny, in for a pound,” Maggie said, pushing me up the stairs.

The landing was big enough to function as the family room, and it looked like people lived there. The remote control was on the floor, and video games were crammed into a very large, and I knew, expensive Longaberger basket.

“I’ll take the master,” Shelly called. “You guys take the boys’ rooms.”

I stared after her. “Since when did we become Charlie’s Angels?” I muttered. Maggie giggled and slipped into a bedroom.

I walked into Jordan’s room. I’d like to say I used a clever detecting technique to figure out whose room it was, but since his name was spelled out on the wall in large wooden letters, I couldn’t boast too much. His bed was made. All his Legos were in bins, his completed sets on a shelf. There were lots of age-appropriate books on his nightstand and a very scruffy stuffed panda on the bed.

“Guys, come here,” Shelly called.

I went back out and followed Maggie into the master bedroom.

Shelly stood in front of the walk-in closet. A walk-in? In Mt. Abrams? Most of the old Victorians had a single closet for the whole family. A walk-in was unheard of.

“Wow,” Maggie said reverently. “Look at all that space.”

I looked. She was right. There was a lot of room in the closet, because it was half empty. Only men’s clothes hung there.

“Her clothes are all gone,” Maggie said.

I turned and looked around. There was nothing on the vanity, no perfume bottles, not even a comb. I crossed the room to start opening dresser drawers. They were all empty until I came to one filled with men’s socks.

“Nobody packs everything they own just to take a trip, no matter how long they think they’ll be gone.” I said, closing the last drawer slowly.

“Where did all her clothes go, if she didn’t pack them in her car and drive away?” Shelly asked.

Maggie shuddered. “Let’s get out of here. This place is too perfect. It’s giving me the creeps.”

As I stepped back into the landing, I looked up and saw the attic access panel. I stopped so short that Shelly bumped me from behind.

“What?” she asked, then followed my stare. “Do you think?”

I shrugged and reached up, grabbing the chain, and pulling open the attic steps.

My house had the same access. I unfolded the ladder, and we all looked up into the darkness.

“I went up the stairs first,” I said. “Somebody else can climb up there first.”

Maggie took a deep breath and climbed up the ladder.

I guess I was expecting her to scream in horror, or at least gasp. What she did is laugh and come back down the steps.

“Cleanest attic I have ever seen,” she said, refolding the ladder and pushing it back up. “Neatly arranged file boxes and an empty clothing rack. Totally boring.”

We went back downstairs and out the back door. Carol was sitting on the picnic table bench, a dog leash in each hand, and a disgusted expression on her face.

“Done? What were you all thinking, just going into that man’s house like that? You should all be ashamed of yourselves. And I bet you didn’t learn a thing.”

I took Boot’s leash and shook my head. “Wrong there. We did learn something. Lacey doesn’t live here anymore.”

Chapter 4

W
e were in my kitchen
, drinking coffee, not talking. I had three projects waiting for me upstairs, and I wouldn’t get paid this week if I didn’t finish them, but all I could think about was the empty dresser drawers in the Mitchell house.

Shelly had spooned sugar into her coffee and was still stirring it, and the spoon was making soft clinking noises as it hit the sides of the mug. I had been listening to it for what seemed to be ten minutes.

“Shel, stop stirring,” I growled. “I think your sugar has dissolved by now.”

She shot me a look. “What’s with you anyway? You’re a bit touchy.”

“I think something awful happened to Lacey,” I blurted out. “I can’t stop thinking about her. Which is so weird, because I don’t know her well and certainly don’t like her very much. Carol, do you have a number for this Sam person?”

She shook her head. “No, but I can get one. I’ll see if we can get an appointment later this morning.” She pushed away from the table, got up, and put her mug in the sink. “Shelly, all her clothes were really gone? How very distressing. And before Mother’s Day. Poor Lacey. And her poor little boys.”

I could hear Cait on the stairs, and she came into the kitchen wearing a T-shirt and a thong. She froze, looked around, then glared at me.

“Gee, Mom, thanks for the warning.”

I waved a hand. “Why are you worried? Shelly used to see you naked. So did Carol. You usually aren’t up this early.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s weird. Hey, everyone, just comin’ by for coffee.” She waved and popped a pod in the Keurig. “Are you having a meeting or something? You look pretty serious.”

“We’re going to the police about Lacey Mitchell,” I told her.

She nodded. “Wow. Well. Are you going to take it to Missing Persons?”

Carol shook her head. “No, dear, I know a detective there. Sam Kinali. Your mother told me about France. How very exciting for you.”

Caitlyn actually blushed. Cait grew up loving words, and for her, the library was almost sacred, which put Carol on some sort of pedestal from which she would never be able to climb down. “Thanks, Mrs. B. Yeah, I’m pretty stoked. You make sure Mom doesn’t go too crazy.”

Carol smiled graciously and left. Shelly sat back and stared at Cait. “Are you sure this isn’t about some boy?”

Cait looked at her in surprise. “Boy? You mean like go all the way to France just to be with some guy?”

Shelly shrugged. “Or to go all the way to France to
not
be with some guy.”

My daughter turned beet red as she added cream to her coffee mug.

“Cait?” I stared at her, then at Shelly. “Who?”

“It’s nothing,” Cait muttered and practically ran from the kitchen.

I pushed my coffee away from me and glared at Shelly. “What do you know that I don’t?”

Shelly looked very innocent. “Kyle Lieberman.”

I frowned. “You mean Kyle Lieberman who was her best friend in third grade? Skinny Kyle with the awful nose and big blue eyes?”

Shelly was smirking. “Yep. Only his nose isn’t awful any more, and his eyes are still as blue. Just graduated from Wharton. MBA. He’s been coming home to pack up his things from his parents’ house, and I know for a fact he and Cait were seen together down at Zeke’s.”

Zeke’s was Ezekiel’s Tavern, an old-style pub right next to the train station, with craft beers on tap and the best burgers in the county. It was a favorite of just about everyone in Mt. Abrams, not just for the food, but also because of its location.

I hardened my gaze at Shelly. “And you didn’t tell me because?”

“I just heard last night. Honestly. I would have said something this morning, but the conversation got hijacked.”

“Was that the guy in the beemer?” Maggie asked. She lived behind the Lieberman’s house. “He was way cute.”

My daughter and Kyle Lieberman. Cait, who according to our brief and infrequent conversations on the subject, had spent the last few years going from one casual hook up to another, was perhaps finally finding happiness with the boy almost next door.

Talk about the world being full of mysteries.

L
awrence Township may sound
small and country-like, but it was in fact, a very large, sprawling town of over fifty thousand people in an area of over twenty-five square miles, thirty minutes due west of New York City. The police station had been rebuilt about ten years ago, and it was a large, imposing place adjacent to the municipal court right across the courtyard from Town Hall.

Carol and I walked through the glass doors into a small lobby, past the bulletin board to a thick window. A very young-looking officer behind the glass leaned forward to speak into a microphone.

“Yes?”

“I have an appointment with Detective Kinali,” Carol said.

The officer nodded, spoke into a phone, and a few seconds later, the door clicked and swung open.

“Come on through,” he said.

We walked through the door into a short empty corridor. A door on the other end opened and a man stood there, smiling.

“Mrs. Anderson. How lovely to see you,” he said, and we followed him into the squad room.

There were a dozen or so desks, half of them empty, and a buzz in the room, but there didn’t seem to be much actually happening. No jaded hookers slumped in a chair, no shivering junkies, not even a happy drunk. Crime in Lawrence Township appeared to be nonexistent. Detective Kinali led us to a small glass-enclosed room, held the door open, then closed it behind us and sat across the small metal table from us. He took out a small notebook and asked us for our names, spelled out, please, then our addresses and phone numbers. He closed his notebook and folded his hands in front of him. “Now, what can I do for you?”

I almost said “marry me.” He was pretty much the sexiest man I had ever seen in real life, and I think my tongue was hanging down to the floor.

He was big. Not just tall, although he was probably over six feet, but big everywhere—broad shoulders and a barrel chest, thick neck and large, strong-looking hands. He was probably my age, maybe older, his hair turning silver, with a slight softening at the jaw.

And he looked…dangerous. He was dark skinned, probably Middle Eastern, with dark eyes and thick but beautifully formed eyebrows. There was an energy about him, as though he was ready to spring into action, but it wasn’t a nervous kind of energy. Every movement he made seemed deliberate and necessary. His teeth were very white, and his hair was that shiny, almost slick kind of gray that made women want to run their hands through it just to see if it felt as thick and soft as it looked. He didn’t have a mustache, but he should have.

“Detective, thank you so much for seeing us,” Carol said. “This is my neighbor, Elizabeth Rocca, and she and I have a problem, and we need some professional advice.”

He nodded encouragingly. I swallowed hard, but my mouth was so dry I almost choked.

Carol glanced at me. “Ellie?”

What, me? I was supposed to talk? About what? I had looked into Detective Kinali’s eyes and completely forgotten why I was here.

“Ellie,” she said, a bit more strongly. I tore my eyes from his face and looked at her. Carol. Oh—that’s right. We were here because of Lacey Mitchell.

I turned back to Detective Kinali. “We believe something has happened to another neighbor of ours,” I said. “We haven’t seen her for a couple of days, and there are, well, circumstances.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What kind of circumstances?”

I had a brief flash of this man dressed in robes, riding an Arabian stallion through the desert, sword held aloft, like a character from
Lawrence of Arabia
. “Her name is Lacey Mitchell, and she lived with her husband and sons in Mt. Abrams, and no one has seen her since last Friday when she picked up her boys at the bus stop. Her husband says she’s with her sick father in Buffalo, but he’s lying.”

He frowned. “Is he?”

“Yes. Her father died this past winter. Down in Virginia. Suddenly. Apparently, there was a lot of money involved. Millions. And there’s a wife, but she wasn’t mentioned in the obituary, which I find highly suggestive.”

“Of what?”

“Of some sort of separation or divorce, meaning that Lacey would have gotten all the money.”

He sat back. “And you know this how?”

I settled myself more squarely in my chair. “I looked it up. I found the marriage announcement, online of course, got Lacey's maiden name, and started looking for the parents. There was an obituary for the father and a small article about all the money. And the mother? Still has a phone in Fairfax, even though she didn’t answer, and there’s no trace of her online since 2002.”

His mouth twitched. His lips were very full and soft looking. “Very enterprising of you, Mrs. Rocca.”

“I’m not Mrs. Rocca,” I said. “I used to be Mrs. Symons, but not anymore. Now I’m Miss Rocca. Ms. Rocca. Ellie.”

“Ellie, then. You must be a very accomplished researcher.”

I nodded. “I’m an editor. Freelance. I often have to do fact checking for my clients.”

He tilted his head. “Really? Lucky you, spending all your time reading. Although, I imagine you have to read a lot of things that are not to your taste.”

I rolled my eyes. “You have no idea. I’m almost done with this mystery and let me tell you, these characters are deaf, dumb, and blind. I figured out whodunit by the second chapter.”

He threw back his head and laughed. His voice was so deep that he sounded like his laughter came from the bottom of a well. “If I ever write a book, I’ll be sure you read it first. I wouldn’t want
my
characters to be thought of so badly.” Our eyes met.

Can I tell you? They were the softest, gentlest, most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. And they were smiling at me. The lines around them crinkled, and there was a warmth and spark to them that made my blood pound.

This was ridiculous. I didn’t even know this man. How could I think he would be just perfect for me?

“I’m sure there’s more,” he said.

I leaned forward. “Her ten-year-old told my ten-year-old that his grandpa was killed.” I sat back, feeling rather smug. Now that was a tasty piece of information.

“I’m completely unfamiliar with ten-year-old children. Can they be inclined to exaggerate?”

I shook my head. “Not my ten-year-old. So, you have no children?”

He lifted his shoulders, then dropped them. “No. It’s better, perhaps. This job is not very family friendly.”

“Are you married?” What? What did I just ask him?

He shook his head. “Like yourself, not anymore.”

I leaned forward again. “Where are you from? There’s a slight accent, but I can’t place it.”

Beside me, Carol shifted in her chair. I didn’t care. I just wanted him to keep on talking.

“My family is from Turkey. I came to this country as a small child, and grew up in Queens. After law school, I went with the NYPD. Five years ago, I decided to look for a less, well, stressful position.”

I grinned. “I bet Lawrence filled that bill. Nothing much going on here besides stolen BMWs and rich kids getting drunk. Bor-ing.”

He laughed again. “Believe it or not, life out here in suburbia is much more interesting than you’d imagine. In fact, I am constantly surprised at the beautiful and amazing things I come across every day.”

He was looking at me. Yes, that’s right. At me. And I didn’t even blush.

“And now, the possibility of a missing housewife and mother,” he said, after a moment. “Is there anything else?”

“Well, her car and all her clothes are gone,” I told him. “And the house was just put on the market, and the realtor says Doug, that’s the husband, had a power of attorney, and the mortgage was paid off in full a few months ago.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You know, realtors don’t usually give out that kind of information.”

Carol cleared her throat. “That’s generally true, detective, but Mt. Abrams is a very…well, close-knit community. The local realtor is a close friend of a friend, and that particular bit of information came to us—how can I put this?—on the sly.”

Why wasn’t he taking notes? He should have been scribbling madly in a moleskin notebook. Instead, he was sitting there, looking handsome and slightly mysterious and powerful and masterful and…wait. Let me just stop there.

He smiled and folded his hands on the top of the table. “May I ask you a few questions?”

I nodded. Of course he could. No, I wasn’t seeing anybody. Yes, I loved walking in the woods and watching sunsets. Yes, I
did
like Italian food, and I’d love to have dinner with him this Friday…

“How do you know that all of Mrs. Mitchell’s clothes were gone?”

Of course, he’d have to start with
that
question. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

He shifted his gaze to Carol. “I would hate to think,” he said softly, “that curiosity caused someone to do something illegal.”

Carol leaned forward. “Detective, I swear to you, I did NOT do anything illegal. That particular bit of information didn’t even come from Ellie. It came from another source.”

Carol managed to tell the absolute truth. Amazing.

He unfolded his hands and placed them, palms down, on the table. “Before I do anything official,” he said, “I’ll call down to Virginia and see if anything was suspicious about the father’s death. I’ll also see if we can find a plane ticket issued to Mrs. Mitchell in the last few days. There are all sorts of perfectly reasonable explanations for what is going on. The first thing that comes to mind is that she packed up her belongings and left her husband. Most of our missing persons have usually run away on their own.”

Boy, did I feel like an idiot. Lacey left home. She took her five million bucks and just left. So much for my brilliant powers of deduction, honed by years of editing mystery novels. She left; he was embarrassed by it, and since the children don’t know yet, he’d made up an innocent lie

Poor Doug. I glanced over at Carol and could tell she was thinking the same thing.

Detective Kinali smiled graciously. “Nevertheless, this is certainly interesting. Thank you, ladies.” He stood. “Thank you for coming in.”

BOOK: A Mother's Day Murder (Mt. Abrams Mysteries Book 1)
10.91Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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