Lemon Tart (4 page)

“I was making applesauce.” She looked into the kitchen again,
fidgeting in her chair. “Well, actually, if you don’t mind, I ought to turn off
the canner.” She stood up and hurried into the kitchen. But once there, she saw
the washed jars on the counter and the pot of semi-mashed apples
waiting for her on the counter—reflecting her neglect of the task
she’d spent all morning preparing. She turned toward the detectives. “Is there
any way you could ask me questions while I work on this? I’d hate to have to
reheat the water in the canner. I’ve got another dozen and a half pints to put
up today.”

“Uh, sure,” she heard Detective Cunningham say.

“Thank you,” she said with relief. Detective Madsen, however,
scowled as he followed Detective Cunningham into the kitchen. They both pulled
out chairs at the kitchen table. Sadie picked up her masher, dripping with
partially mashed apples, and began mashing again. It took all her strength to
press through the quarts of soft apples until the masher hit the bottom of the
pan. Then she would pull up with a schlumping
sound and press down again—over and over until the apples were
properly sauced.

Detective Cunningham began by asking about Anne’s background.
While she mashed, Sadie told them everything she knew, which wasn’t much: Anne
had moved from back East, didn’t that mean New York? She had rented the Tillys’
house nine months ago; Trevor’s birthday was September sixth; and Anne would be
twenty-six in January or February—Sadie wasn’t quite
sure.

“Why did she move here?” Detective Madsen asked. She looked up
in time to catch a fleeting look of annoyance on Detective Cunningham’s face,
but it vanished quickly; she wondered what she’d done to upset him. She stopped
mashing for a moment in order to assess the consistency of her sauce. She liked
a smoother applesauce, not chunky, so she kept mashing, hoping it wasn’t her
wanting to work on the applesauce that created the tension in the air. She
didn’t see how it made any difference so long as she answered the
questions.

“I only know that she wanted to change her life and felt
Garrison was a good place to do it.” With Fort Collins an hour to the west and
Denver an hour south of that, Garrison certainly wasn’t any kind of
metropolis, and most people outside Colorado didn’t even know it existed
despite its early history as a major stopover for the Union Pacific Railroad.
These days it was growing out of its agricultural foundations and gaining a
reputation as a quiet respite far enough from Denver to enjoy peace and tranquility,
but close enough to catch a plane when bigger horizons called. She finished
mashing the first pan of apples and moved it to the counter. Then she slid the
second pan from the back burner, took a deep breath, and started all over
again; her shoulders were already burning.

“Can I help you with that?” Detective Cunningham finally asked,
standing as he spoke. Sadie blinked and blew the hair out of her eyes. Was he
serious? She didn’t wait around to allow him to reconsider. Leaving the masher
in the pot, she hurried to the pantry and pulled out another apron. It was dark
brown with white lettering that said “If Mama ain’t happy . . . give
her chocolate!” She handed it to him once he’d slid out of his jacket and with
a smirk, he tied it on and moved to the pan. He was a big man and seemed to
fill the kitchen in just the way a man ought to. Sadie pulled a ladle out of
the drawer and, after putting the canning funnel on the top of the first jar,
started putting the already mashed sauce from the first pan into the jars that
she’d lined up on the counter. Canning went so much faster with two
people.

Detective Madsen rolled his eyes and scribbled some notes in
his little notebook.

“Does Anne work?” Detective Cunningham asked.

“Did she
work,” Detective Madsen corrected.

Sadie snapped her head around in surprise, but Detective Madsen
was looking at Detective Cunningham, not her. She quickly blinked back the
tears brought on by Detective Madsen’s stark reminder of Anne’s death. Then she
looked warily between the two men and wondered what she was missing.

“She worked at Albertson’s,” Sadie replied slowly, still trying
to pin down the undercurrent in the room but knowing for certain that she did
not like Detective Madsen. “She was a cashier—but she had a job
interview last week and was really excited about it. It was for an office
job—a receptionist or something like that.”

“Did she hear back on that job?” Detective Cunningham
asked.

“I don’t think so,” Sadie said with a shake of her head. “I’m
sure she’d have told me if she did. I helped her with Trevor a couple days a
week.”

Detective Madsen frowned at the answer, but hurried to ask the
next question, cutting off Detective Cunningham, who then shut his mouth and
clenched his jaw. His mashing intensified.

“And do you know anyone who might have a grudge against Anne?
Her . . . ex-husband or boyfriend? Someone she was afraid
of?” Detective Madsen asked.

Sadie looked between the two men again as understanding dawned.
I’m not the problem, she
realized—and neither was her applesauce. There was something
going on between the two of them that had started long before this
conversation. She felt herself relax a little, grateful to know she wasn’t the
one to blame for the extra tension in the room.

“No,” Sadie said, shaking her head and filling another jar with
the rich golden sauce. “Trevor’s dad isn’t part of their lives.” She looked up
at Detective Cunningham. “All I know about him is that he pays her child
support—enough so she could rent the Tilly’s house instead of
an apartment. She doesn’t talk about him, but that’s why she came here—to
start fresh. I think he really broke her heart, if you want the truth of it,
and she needed to find a new life.”

“But you don’t know his name?” Detective Cunningham asked
almost before she’d finished speaking. He had a deep voice; her father would
have described it as baritone, with a smoothness that surprised her. She
wondered if he was a singer—her church choir was always short
on baritones. Was Detective Cunningham a church-going man?

“I don’t know anything about him or anyone else in her life
before she came here. She kept her past very private.”

“Was she dating anyone?” Detective Cunningham asked, sending a
sparring look at his partner.

Sadie shook her head. “No, she told me she was waiting for Mr.
Right. She seemed more interested in caring for her son and for her home than
in men. But I have to tell you, I wondered if there wasn’t someone.”

“Who?” Detective Madsen asked, leaning forward as if desperate
for the gossip. She really disliked him.

“I told you, I don’t know. There were just times when she’d
quickly get off the phone, or ask me to watch Trevor without telling me where
she was going. I didn’t press,” she explained. “It was up to her how much she
told me, and if there was someone in her life, which I’m not certain there
was, she’s entitled to her privacy.” Though now Sadie realized there would be
no such entitlement. The police would dig and dig until they learned everything
they could about her. It seemed so unfair, poking and prodding into her
personal affairs.

Detective Madsen’s face was hard as he made some notes and then
began asking her about today’s events, anything Sadie had seen and why she’d
run into Anne’s house after being told not to. Saving the lemon tart didn’t
seem to impress him any more than it had impressed Officer Malloy, but
she pretended that the rescue was her only motivation for going inside.
Detective Cunningham kept mashing, allowing Detective Madsen to take the lead
in the interview.

“What were you doing that kept you at the sink all morning?” Detective Madsen
asked.

“Making applesauce,” Sadie said with a bit of a chuckle as she
waved her hand over the pans on the stove, the jars, and the bowl of apple
skins ready for the compost pile. Wasn’t it obvious? But Detective Madsen
didn’t smile and she cleared her throat. She hated the accusation she felt in
every word of every question he asked. “There is just as much enjoyment to be
had in self-sufficiency as there is in a weekend trip to Denver or
shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. Homemade applesauce is most certainly
worth the effort.” It wasn’t until the end of her explanation that she realized
how defensive she sounded, so she smiled to soften her words. She’d learned
long ago that you could say nearly anything so long as you smiled.

Detective Madsen looked at her as if she were some kind of
loon, and she shifted her weight. “So you were at the sink all—”

“How does this look?” Detective Cunningham broke in, lifting
the masher and stepping to the side of his pan. She moved in his direction and
looked at the golden mixture.

“Very good,” she said appreciatively. “Would you mind filling
these other jars while I put the full bottles in the bath?”

“Bath?” Detective Madsen asked, seemingly annoyed by his own
confusion.

“Water bath,” Detective Cunningham answered, smiling in a very
superior way at his partner. “To process the jars of applesauce.” He turned to
Sadie. “My wife used to make the best applesauce you’ve ever had—she
put ginger in it. Have you ever tried that?”

“Ginger?” Sadie asked slowly, her eyes flicking quickly to his
naked ring finger, which still showed a definite tan line. She filed the
information away for later without stepping out of the moment. “I’ve never
thought of that but I bet it’s absolutely delicious.” She put a finger on her
chin and opened the spice cupboard. “Ground or fresh ginger?”

Detective Madsen cleared his throat again.

“I’m sorry, what was the question?” Sadie asked. She decided to
add the ginger to another batch, not wanting to upset the younger
detective.

“I asked why you were at the sink all morning long.”

“I started washing, peeling, and cutting apples about 6:30. While
the first batch cooked, I worked on preparing the next one—it’s a rather
intensive process.”

“And what exactly did you see?”

“I saw Mr. Henry leave for work at 7:25. The Bailey kids walked
up to the bus stop around 7:40. Then Steve and Mindy Bailey both left around
8:00—in separate cars. Carrie went out around 8:05, probably to the gym;
she’s been trying to lose weight since Jack left her last spring.” She stopped,
hating that she sounded like such a gossip and feeling like she was airing out
the family laundry in front of strangers.

“You remember the exact times?” Detective Cunningham asked,
pausing in his jar-filling and looking at her in surprise.

Sadie shrugged, feeling as if she ought to be embarrassed—but
she wasn’t. “I pay attention,” she said simply as she began twisting the rings
onto the tops of the jars, finger tight, and setting each jar on the rack
suspended above the now bubbling water. “Those things happen every day, well,
except the applesauce—that only happens for a few days in
October.”

“Applesauce,” Detective Madsen muttered with derision,
scribbling in his notebook some more. Detective Cunningham continued filling
jars; though he made a fair amount of mess in the process, she was still
grateful for his help. She knew not all men were as acclimated to a kitchen as
Neil had been and she tried not to hold that fact against them. Detective
Cunningham seemed content to let his partner continue the interview, but
his face still showed his irritation every time he looked at the younger man. Sadie
wondered again what the problem was between them. Weren’t partners supposed to
be friends? Cagney and Lacey were, but maybe it was different for women.

“Home canning is a dying art,” she said simply in response to
Detective Madsen’s mutterings. Carrie’s car drove past her home, quickly hidden
by the black walnut tree, and Sadie furrowed her brow. Detective Madsen caught
the look.

“What?” he said, standing to look out the window over the
sink.

“Oh, Carrie just drove by. She started a new job last week so
I’m a little surprised to see her home.”

“You said she went to the gym.” He watched her face closely.
“Not work.”

“Yes, the job is from 9:30 to 4:00 so she goes to the gym
first, then goes straight to the office. Maybe the job was only a week
long—she works for a temp agency, filling in at different
places.” She would have sworn that Carrie told her it was a
three-week assignment. But then again she didn’t know the specifics
of her sister-in-law’s life the way she once had. When Jack
left, things had changed between them. They were still friends, but it was
awkward and they both seemed to be waiting for Jack to come home and put things
back the way they used to be.

“You didn’t see anything unusual this morning?”
Detective Madsen asked, interrupting Sadie’s thoughts. She looked at
him again and went back to putting the jars into the canner.

“Other than the two police cars in two minutes, no,” she said
with a shake of her head. “Detective Cunningham, would you mind lowering this
rack of bottles into the canner?”

Detective Cunningham nodded, wiping his hands on his apron as
she moved out of his way. He held the rack nice and level as he slowly lowered
it into the pan.

Sadie smiled at his precision. “You’re welcome in my kitchen
anytime,” she complimented him when he finished and put the lid on the huge
pan.

He chuckled silently and she hoped she wasn’t giving him the
wrong idea—she was dating Ron after all—but
neither did she want to appear ungracious about his help.

“You didn’t see anything else out of place?” Madsen asked
again.

Sadie set the digital timer stuck to the fridge and pushed the
start button. “Jack and Carrie’s tree blocks my view, so all I get to look at
are the empty lots across the circle from me and nothing happens over there.”
She attempted a smile at her joke but it went unnoticed by both men.