Acts of Violets (28 page)

“I haven’t had a chance to call him.”

“You sound tense.”

I hated keeping things from him, especially when I’d just scolded him about doing it to me. “A pipe burst in the basement this morning, but we got it fixed. Listen, Marco, I’m sorry to cut this short but I need to get back to work. We’re totally swamped this morning. I’ll check in later.”

I riffled the orders on the spindle and counted a whopping five. At least now I had time to work on the case. I took the photos out of my desk drawer and set them beside my purse so I wouldn’t forget them.

“Anyone I know?” Lottie asked, peering over my shoulder. Grace came hurrying in to see them, too.

“Violet and Lily, two clowns from Ryson’s troupe. I’m hoping his neighbors can identify one of them as the mystery girlfriend. It’s a very thin lead, but at this point I’ll try anything. Would either of you mind if I left for about an hour?”

“Of course not, dear,” Grace said. “But please be careful. You don’t want that nasty police captain to see you snooping.”

“And be back by noon,” Lottie added as I stepped into the cooler to gather a bouquet of purple lilies and yellow button mums. “I’m not facing your mother alone.”

 

With the photos in my purse and the wrapped bouquet under my arm, I headed out the back door, in case Kellerman was watching. Ten minutes later, after circling the block several times to make sure I wasn’t being followed, I parked a few doors down from Ryson’s house and hurried up the street to knock on Trina’s door. While I waited, I turned to glance at the Mazella house and at once the drape in the front window rippled. I knew Eudora was watching, so I lifted my hand in a friendly greeting. No sense pretending I hadn’t seen her.

The door opened behind me and I turned to find Trina carrying the same curly-headed tot on her hip as the first time I met her. His nose was still running, too.

“What do you want now?” Trina snapped.

I waved the photos in front of me. “I’d like you to look at these to see if you recognize either of the women in them.”

With a sharp sigh, she put the toddler down, then stepped outside. I handed her the photos; she studied them for a moment, then tapped a long fingernail against one of them. “That’s the woman I saw getting into that rusty white car.”

“Are you sure it’s the same woman?”

Trina rolled her eyes as if I were an idiot. “Yes, I’m sure. I saw her coming out of Ryson’s house at least twice.”

“Did you see that car in the neighborhood Sunday evening?”

“No. But if you’ll remember, I was gone by seven thirty. Why don’t you ask Eudora? She sees everything. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a houseful of sick kids.” She opened the door to go inside and the toddler waiting there sneezed, showering her with slime.

“Gross,” I said with a shudder.

“Welcome to my world.” Scowling at me, Trina shut the door.

Yet another reason I was happy being single. “Thanks for your help,” I called.

Checking to make sure there was no sign of a squad car or Ed’s tow truck in sight, I crossed the street and slipped up the Mazellas’ driveway to the back of the house, where I noticed that their big, wooden garage door was open. Wide open. As in, an
open
invitation to look inside.

The garage was tidy and organized, with big boxes labeled with their contents, a rack of tools hanging along the back wall, and a stack of lumber underneath—two-by-fours, two-by-twos, and one-by-threes. Hmm. Any one of those would make a handy weapon.

“Mrs. Mazella?” I called, knocking on the back door. “It’s Abby Knight from Bloomers. I brought photos for you to see. I’d really appreciate it if you’d take a look at them.”

“Are they clean?” came her muffled voice.

Not that again. “They’re clean.”

“Hold them up to the glass in the door.”

I selected one photo of Lily and one of Violet, then pressed them against the pane.

After a moment she said, “Yin, yang.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yin, yang.”

Whatever. “Have you seen either of these women before?”

“Yin.”

“You saw Yin? Which one is Yin?”

“His aura is confused.”

His
aura? She had to mean Violet, but how did she know Violet was a man? Was that what she’d meant by
yin, yang
? I took the photos down and looked at them. They were clear pictures, but still, would I have picked up on Violet’s disguise? No way.

Maybe there
was
something to this spirit stuff. “Did you see Yin visit Dennis—I mean Sinned?” I called.

“Yes.”

We were off to a good start. “Did you see him Sunday evening?”

“No.”

“Did you see a rusty white Ford Mustang?”

“Not on Sunday.”

That didn’t mean Violet couldn’t have parked around the corner. “Mrs. Mazella, was that pile of lumber in your garage on Sunday?”

Silence.

“Mrs. Mazella?”

“You must leave now.”

“Okay, but first can you answer my question?”

“Now!” she cried. “Go!”

What was the rush? “I’m going. I’m sorry if I upset you.”

At once she began chanting, and I could hear her stomping her feet as though she were performing a dance. A moment later Ed’s black truck came roaring up the driveway.

It wasn’t even close to five o’clock. What was Ed doing home?

H
e got out of his truck, slammed his door, stuck a cigar in his mouth, and barreled toward me, his thick hands curled into fists at his sides. I froze, not sure whether to face him or run. Gazing at those huge hands, I was leaning in favor of running.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he bellowed.

Holding the photos out for him to see, I took a step backward, forcing myself to say through chattering teeth, “I c-came to see if your w-wife recognized the women in these pictures.”

He slapped the photos out of my hand, and I drew back, fearing I’d be next. “This is the second time you’ve come to my house and, damn it, I told you to see me at work if you had any questions. Now, what part of that didn’t you understand?”

“The thing is, Mr. Mazella, I had to talk to Trina anyway, and since I was right here in the neighborhood, I thought I’d just pop over to see if your wife could help me out.”

“Pop yourself back in yer damn car and get yer ass off my property or I’ll call the cops and have you hauled outta here.”

He would, too, and I surely didn’t want another visit from Kellerman. I swept up the pictures and stuffed them in my purse. “Okay. No need to call the cops. I’m very sorry for bothering your wife.”

Then I fled.

Once I was safely inside the Vette with the doors locked, I thought over Eudora’s frantic reaction when I asked about the wood. Had she freaked out because she knew it was the murder weapon, or because she knew Ed was about to arrive home? Hmm. Maybe I needed to get a piece of that wood. Maybe I could wait until Ed left, then sneak back and . . .

Suddenly, I heard a diesel engine rev and glanced in my rearview mirror just as the big truck came roaring up behind the Vette, yellow emergency lights flashing, headlights blinking on and off. I scrunched my eyes shut and held my breath, waiting for the crash. When I opened my eyes again, his truck completely filled the mirror and he was standing beside my window. He made a circling motion with his hand.

Roll down the window? I shook my head and gave him a scowl. “No way.”

He glanced around as if to make sure no one was watching, then he bent down. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. I just wanna talk to you.”

“Talk through the glass.”

“I just wanna explain somethin’ ”—he glanced around again—“about my wife.”

I pulled out my cell phone, flipped it open, and showed it to him. “If you try anything, I’ve got my finger on the button to call the cops.”

“I ain’t gonna do nothin’ but talk.”

I rolled down the glass two inches. “Go ahead.”

Ed rubbed his balding scalp, as though searching for the right thing to say. “Look here, I shouldn’t have scared you like I did, but you gotta understand something about Eudora. She’s—well—she ain’t right in the head these days. She hears voices and sees ghosts . . .”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you gotta understand that she makes up stories. You can’t believe what she tells you. She’s okay when she takes her nerve pills, see, but she stopped about a month ago because she said they made her feel dizzy. Trouble is, when she don’t take them, she acts—” He made a circling motion with his index finger, pointing at his brain. “So I don’t know what she told you, but you shouldn’t pay no attention to it. It’s crazy talk.”

“She told me Dennis Ryson had an evil spirit that needed to be purged.”

“That’s what I mean. Crazy talk.”

“But why would she say that unless he provoked her?”

“Because she’s off her meds, like I said before.”

I wasn’t buying it. “I asked you this before, Mr. Mazella, but I don’t think you told me the truth. Did Ryson ever threaten your wife or hurt her in any way?”

Ed’s fists clenched at his sides again. “You calling me a liar?”

I checked to make sure my thumb was still on the Send button. “Why won’t you answer my question?”

Waving me off like a bad smell, he turned and started for the truck.

“Mr. Mazella,” I called. “I understand you’re trying to protect your wife, but I’m trying to protect someone I care about, too.”

Ed had his hand on the truck’s door handle. He shifted the cigar to the other side of his mouth, as if he were considering what to do, then he came back. “You want to know about Ryson? Okay. He killed our little dog, that’s what that sumbitch did. He had antifreeze sitting open in his garage and the little mutt got into it.”

“When was this?”

“About a month ago. Eudora hasn’t been the same since. My wife loved that dog—Daisy was her name. Cute little thing, too, a Boston terrier. We had her nine years. When we found her dead on the back stoop, Eudora grieved her like she’d lost a baby. And that pile of trash next door never even said he was sorry.”

“Was that when she stopped her meds?”

“Yup, and then she started hearing the voices, and wearing that mask and bathrobe. We got those wooden masks twenty years ago, as souvenirs. Now she wears them to protect herself from ghosts. I tried to get her to go back to her doctor but she claims he’s working for the devil, or some such nonsense. So I just leave her be. She wants to believe in her spirits? Fine by me. I go to work, I go to the VFW, I have some beers, I bowl, same as always.”

“Maybe she needs to be hospitalized, Mr. Mazella.”

“She was a good wife to me for thirty years. I can’t lock her away with a bunch of loonies. I can’t do that. So you leave her alone and don’t come back here again. Eudora ain’t up to no more questions. It’s too upsettin’ for her.”

Ed stamped back to his truck, put it in gear, and pulled around the Vette, stopping next to my window. “You remember what I said, now. I’m tellin’ you this for your own good. Stay away from her.”

That sounded like a challenge to me.

 

My next stop was the Dunes Inn, a motel half an hour north of New Chapel on Route 20. I’d passed it many times on my way to Michigan but hadn’t really paid attention to it. Now, as I pulled into the crumbling parking lot and looked around, I rechecked the address Eileen had given me.

The motel dated back to the 1950s, when the road was a major thoroughfare to Chicago. It consisted of a string of ten small rooms, with an office on the near end that had an ice machine and a soda dispenser out front. Each room had a dark green door with a brass number on it, and a picture window covered on the inside by a vinyl-backed drape.

Violet actually lived in this dump? Obviously she did, because there, in front of the door marked with a brass
3
, was the white Mustang.

I parked the car, tucked the wrapped bouquet under my arm, put my purse strap over my shoulder, then got out, wrinkling my nose at the odor of mildew and sour beer that greeted me. If Violet had told the truth about acting in a play, then she wouldn’t have left for the theater yet. The New Chapel Opera House didn’t open until one o’clock. (I knew this because a year ago, Grace had starred as Marian the Librarian in
The Music Man
.)

I paused outside the door and heard the drone of a television through the thin wall. Good. She was home. I lifted my hand to knock and suddenly heard a scream.

I rapped on the door. “Violet? Is everything okay?”

I heard another scream, long and agonized, so I tried to open the door, but it was locked. “I’ll get help!” I cried, and dashed to the manager’s office, where an overweight, middle-aged man in a red checked shirt and gray sweat-pants sat behind an old wooden counter with his feet propped on a stool and his eyes glued to a small television.