Ada Unraveled (35 page)

And probably standing in his home, Eddie
Stowall. Alone now. Freed from his restraining medications. Maybe
looking back out at me, unseen, behind the masking glass of a dirty
window.

A trill of shivers ran down my spine ahead
of a note of pain.

Wrapped from tree to tree, and pasted on the
gloomy structure in several places were strips of gay yellow police
tape, as if the police had come by and TPed the place.

The police line had been disturbed. Someone
had entered Ada’s front door.

I looked down at my lap, where my cell phone
rested in my hands. I’d called Matt earlier but his phone was going
straight to voicemail. So I left him a message in the hopes he’d
hear it soon and come rescue me from my mad plan. I put the phone
in my left raincoat pocket.

Then I fingered my silver Rossi 38 while
watching the drizzle make lazy lace across my windshield. My
stomach was churning with anxiety, telling my brain to go home. I
reviewed the reasons not to carry the gun with me on my trip around
the shabby neighborhood.

A gun is for killing. Period. Nothing more,
nothing less. Target practice is just getting good at it.

A gun kills animals for food--which is okay
as long as you eat the animal.

A gun kills people, in defense of self, or
accidentally as with children finding taboo toys. Or in the
commission of a crime.

A gun protects.

A gun destroys.

A gun protects by destroying.

A gun will protect me if I come up against
the son of a gun who tried to ram me to death.

Whoever wrote the bit in the bible about
lions lying down with lambs was probably thinking of a modern day
zoo—which only worked as long as they were both in separate cages.
Preferably with the lamb’s cage located a few blocks away from the
lion’s so she could get some sleep.

I stifled a tension yawn, checked the
safety, and slipped my revolver into my trench coat pocket. It
barely fit, even with a stubby four inch barrel. I opened the door
and began my search for Eddie. I’d found Ada. Now I needed to find
her spawn. Eddie needed to be saved, or put back in a cage.

My umbrella was black. Gerry would be
appalled. My shoes were work shoes intended for nurses and
librarians who have to stand a lot. Also black. My neck brace was
mostly hospital white. And I wore an old, gumshoe-style raincoat
that I’d found at the back of my closet. It was tan and the sleeves
were fraying, but it had large front pockets.

The umbrella was all but useless as the rain
was as much a low-flying cloud as downward moving water. My blond
hair flattened to my head under a watery hairnet. I was frightened.
Unnaturally so. I told myself it was just the departing drugs.

Scanning the street, I wondered if they were
running a contest to see whose landscaping would die first. It was
the kind of street where door-to-door salesmen might come to
harm.

But, I reasoned, the neighbors should be
home on Saturday and witnesses were never good if you were of a
criminal mind. I should be safe. I decided to start with the people
who could best see the front of her house. That is, if they were
looking out after years of looking the away. But the first door I
knocked on, the one directly across from Ada’s, stayed shut and
silent despite a pale light hidden deep within. I knocked a second
time and a third, and then moved on to the next house.

The next house featured two stripped-down,
rusted cars on one side. The lawn was a muddy field, across which a
crooked path of partially submerged cinderblocks more misled than
led visitors to the front door. I carefully picked my way up this
perilous walkway. Climbed two steps to the door.

I had a plan. Ask the neighbors if they’d
seen anyone other than the police enter Ada’s house recently. If
the answer was yes, I would have legal justification on two issues
to enter and search the deceased Ada’s abode.

One reason I could enter was as an agent for
Victoria Stowall, the legal owner of the house. I could enter to
inspect the house for damage.

The second reason had to do with search and
seizure laws, which stated that this activity was within the
purview of private investigation if the act was to prevent a wanted
felon from escaping—assuming the authorities didn’t order me to
wait.

That second reason had to do with Eddie.

Eddie was wanted now—for questioning, at
least, according to Gerry. He was not only a witness in the murders
of three women, but the district attorney would have to review the
circumstances of Luke’s death and determine whether Eddie should
stand trial for shooting an unarmed man in the back, or be
exonerated for trying to protect a woman being attacked.

I stopped short of my goal—the next front
door--suddenly awash with angry feelings. I wondered what had
triggered them and glanced around. But nothing about this house
explained my reaction. Probably more leftover Oxycontin.

It might also be residual guilt over Ruth’s
stroke injuries. Because I hadn’t used the public phone at the
library to continue my attempts to reach folks on the mountain. So
they would have gotten to her sooner. Saved more brain cells.

Guilt that now evolved into a misplaced
righteous fury. I took a deep breath. Found some sort of calm.

I knocked on the unpainted front door a bit
too firmly. A curtain lifted and a woman peered out then withdrew.
I assumed she would open the door, now that she knew it was another
woman waiting. But nothing happened.

I knocked again with more civility.

The rain teased my anger and gloom. I
knocked again. Something told me she was standing just the other
side of the door, so I spoke through it.

“I just want to ask you if you’ve seen Eddie
Stowall.”

Nothing.

“I just want to ask you if you’ve seen
anyone moving about inside of Ada’s home, or entering her home,
other than the police.” Again, nothing.

I knocked again and announced firmly that I
wasn’t going away. I told the woman I wasn’t the police. Some time
elapsed before the door finally opened, with the chain in
place.

“Who are you?” She was a small Hispanic
woman speaking in heavily accented English. Probably thought I was
from INS.

I handed her my card and smiled
encouragingly. She pulled back. I pressed on. “Ada Stowall’s family
has hired me to investigate her death. I’ve been here before, but
now I’m looking for her son Eddie. I believe he’s in danger.”

What made me say that?

She lifted her eyes from my calling card and
stared at me soulfully. “I see some womans,” she said. “Sometime
they come in the day. I no see no Eddie.”

But the womans were the aunts. And why would
they come if Eddie wasn’t inside? Still, I needed confirmation of
my assumptions.

“Have you heard any recent noises over
there? Seen curtains move? Could you say there may be someone
inside right now?”

She shook her head no and pulled back from
the door further. “Lo siento. Yo veo nada,señora,” she muttered and
closed the door, leaving a whiff of savory beans and rice behind. I
realized I was hungry.

The third house was using an overturned
grocery cart and faded orange hazard cones for lawn art. As I
approached—using another cinderblock path--I contemplated what
level of the social rung this neighborhood was teetering off of. I
got an answer on the first knock, but the first thing the guy in
this house wanted to talk about was my medical condition.

“So, what happened to your neck? Boyfriend
get too rough?”

My eyes flashed on his tattooed neck and
arms; body art to match his lawn art.
Maybe he frequented the
same tattoo parlor Luke did.

Maybe he had a tattoo of a grocery cart
hidden under his soiled Stanley Kowalski t-shirt. The style they
call the wife-beater. I reached forward with my left hand holding
out a calling card and simultaneously stepped back. My right hand
was in my pocket. He grinned, showing me his grimy teeth--they
matched the color of his shirt. He glanced at the card.

“So, you got a boyfriend, Private Lady? Huh?
You’re kind a cute.”

At least he could read. I stepped back a
little more, out of reach, and his grin spread even further. His
eyes fell down my torso and landed on the lump in my right pocket.
Mr. Sexy rested his potbellied body against the door sill, not a
position one normally strikes from.

I relaxed my shoulders but didn’t let go of
my gun.

“I’m investigating the death of Ada Stowall,
looking for…”

“What’s to investigate? The punk she lived
with in that freak’s funhouse beat her to death. Took the poor
bastard thirty years, but he finally got the hang of it. Now, me…I
wanted to kill my old lady as bad as he did, I’d of figured out how
a lot sooner.”

His slouch against the doorsill changed
meaning. This slob was through attempting seduction. I kept my face
immobile, serious.

Do not laugh! Definitely not cool to
laugh.

“We’re also looking for information on her
son Eddie. Have you seen him?” He noticed the “we”. His hand rose
from behind him, holding a beer bottle. Halfway through the move my
heart skipped a beat.

He took a swig and added thoughtfully, “Now,
what I hear is he’s a real creep. Nah, I haven’t seen hide nor hair
of the cellar-dude. But the lady next to the Stowall funhouse took
in a boarder a couple of months ago. To give the neighborhood a
little more class. I’m sure he and Eddie are hitting it off real
well. The boarder’s a heart attack. Nice engaging you in
conversation Lady PI, but now we’re done.”

Beergut Man burped, turned and closed the
door firmly. At least he didn’t fart.

I walked steadily--as steadily as his crazy
quilt cement blocks and my rabbitty heart allowed—back toward the
sidewalk.

Adrenaline was playing ping-pong with my
brain. I knew I wouldn’t travel much further. My knees would never
hold up through another scare like that. And my neck was awake and
sending me now-familiar bolts of pain. So when the next house also
greeted my knocks with silence, I crossed to Eddie’s side of the
street and slowly started back.

Two houses later after essentially the same
results--no one saw or heard anything helpful--I knew there was no
point in continuing. I was walking in a war zone under temporary
ceasefire. These people were afraid of their shadows, hiding from
the law and from each other.

So I skipped the last house—the one with the
heart attack boarder--and moved on to Ada’s. It was time to
confront Eddie, son of Luke, or maybe Mark--but grandson of
Victoria one way or the other.

I could avoid my visit to the house of blood
and pain no longer.

It wasn’t easy walking up the Stowall family
sidewalk toward the door. I must have tensed badly on the short
trip because when I lifted my right arm to push the doorbell
another stab of pain raced up my neck into my brain.

But this one also descended back down as an
equal and opposite stab of fear that filled my chest.

I lightly rapped on the door, so lightly I
knew no one could hear me on the other side, and turned to walk
back to my car.

I tried lying to myself, that I needed to
think this move through, but the truth was, I’d just lost my nerve.
Eddie Stowall scared me. This whole neighborhood scared me.

I climbed into the SUV and stared up at a
house that now seemed to be radiating evil directly at me. I pulled
my phone out of my pocket and stared at it, willing it to ring.
If only Matt were here. I would feel so much braver.

Eddie turned the music down on his iPod,
thinking he’d heard a car door slam. Maybe it was Aunt Mary. But he
needed to be sure. He went to the window and pulled the curtain
back. A big black vehicle was parked a ways away, someone was in
it. He couldn’t see who, but it wasn’t his aunt. Her car was small.
He returned to his search for a belt in Luke’s dresser.

Little Aunt Mary had given him the iPod the
day she visited with big Aunt Martha. It was a great gift, though
the music today was strange. That was the day big Aunt Martha went
on and on about
the new quilting witch
. They don’t like her.
They say she’s trouble, even mild Mary.

They took him away that day, made him hide.
But now he was back and no sign of the quilting witch.

He knew what she looked like. He’d seen her
the day she walked through his side yard and stood banging on the
back door. Her and the two pretty younger ones.

He’d asked his aunts if they’d left him the
gun he used to kill Luke. None of them had owned up to it. But big
Martha had looked away a bit too quickly. Come to think of it, she
never said one way or the other if she’d left him the gun.

So, it was probably her.

Dumb cops were so busy digging up the back
yard they let him slip away with the gun hidden under his shirt.
Then he hid it where they’d never think to look—his grandma’s old
snake shed.

No belt in the dresser. He turned to the
closet with the pile of dirty clothes on the floor and began
looking there, maybe on one of the old man’s pair of pants. His
step into the closet produced a creaking sound and the world tilted
slightly. He retreated and pulled the dirty clothes away. The
carpet wasn’t any cleaner. Eddie pressed down on it and could feel
something shift. He reached for the corner of the closet and peeled
the carpet corner out from under the baseboard. Underneath was a
rough pine board subfloor, and one of the boards looked slightly
out of place. He lifted it.

Inside he found a strange looking weapon. It
had some kind of attachment, like a hypodermic needle. And glass
cylinders lay nearby. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what they were.
This was the weapon Luke used to kill his grandpa—the night of
the fires.