Pecked to Death (11 page)

“I mean it carried out into the yard. They stood between the two houses and yelled some pretty awful things at each other. I hope they found forgiveness before the end, but I don’t know.”

“They argued in front of other people? About me?” Sadie clarified. Both Abby and Gideon were private people. Neither believed in airing their dirty laundry in front of others.

“It started in Abby’s house, and continued outside when Gideon stormed out. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to hear, and I’m sort of glad I did because it cleared up a lot of things about your adolescence, things you kept hidden from us. I wish you had felt more comfortable confiding in us.”

Sadie didn’t tell her that she hadn’t confided in them because she hadn’t wanted them to take her side any more than they already had. Luke had needed them then; she didn’t want to take them away from him.

“I shouldn’t have told you,” Maddie said. Remorse filled her tone as she took in Sadie’s stunned expression.

“No, I’m glad you did. And if you think of anything else about Abby, anything at all, then I want you to tell me, okay? Promise, Maddie.”

“I promise,” Maddie agreed. She hugged Sadie tightly and kissed her cheek. Sadie had nowhere to go but home. She walked into the kitchen and saw her father still sitting at the table. He glanced pointedly at the clock as if she were an errant teenager who was pushing curfew. Sadie pictured him standing in the yard screaming at Abby, and it was all she could do not to shove him off the stool.

She stormed around the kitchen gathering another tray of cookies, and then she sped off in the opposite direction, intent on finding another neighbor and more gossip.

Sadie crossed the street and headed to the home of Misty and Johnny Robbins. Sadie had always thought it odd that an adult was called Johnny. Was he ever tempted to switch to the more dignified John? Then again, her given name was Sarah. Other than a brief span in fourth grade when she tried to make Luke use her birth name, Sadie had never been tempted to switch monikers.

She knocked on the door, and it was opened by their other neighbor, Penelope Warren, from down the street. The Warrens and Robbins were close in the way that the Sawyers and Coopers were close, more like family than neighbors.

“Hi, Sadie, how are you?” Penelope asked. “It’s so nice to see you and, oh, you brought cookies. Is that your mother’s recipe?”

“Yes,” Sadie said. She handed the plate to Penelope, knowing it was as good as handing them to Misty, the home’s actual owner. “I’m glad I caught you here, Penelope; I was planning on making the rounds to talk to everyone.” She followed Penelope to the kitchen where she found Misty sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee. The two women had raised their children together and were almost interchangeable. One was rarely seen without the other.

“Sadie dropped by for a visit,” Penelope explained unnecessarily to Misty as they entered the kitchen.

“How nice,” Misty said. “And you brought cookies. Is that your Mom’s recipe?”

Sadie nodded and took a seat between the two women. First she asked about their kids. She had babysat for each of them over the years, so she had a vested interest in catching up. They talked for a long time before she was able to transition the topic to Abby.

“We were shocked,” Misty said.

“We thought Abby would live forever,” Penelope agreed.

“One day she was here, the next she was gone, and no one even heard the ambulance,” Misty added.

“No one heard the ambulance,” Sadie repeated.

The women shook their heads. “It must have come in the middle of the night, and if she was already gone then there would be no need to run their lights and sirens, I guess. Still, it was a little surreal until the funeral. Then there was the will.” The women leaned forward and focused more intently on Sadie. “Do you really think she was murdered, Sadie? Is that what this is about?”

“I can’t imagine how that was possible,” Sadie conceded. “But she asked me to look into things, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to get all the facts before I move on. Anything you could tell me would be helpful. How did Abby seem the last few weeks? What was her mental state and physical condition, was she having problems with anyone—things like that.”

Penelope looked around in the way people do to make sure the coast is clear before they impart secret information. “I feel disloyal saying this, but Abby did ask you to look into things, so I guess it’s okay. About a month or so ago, I was at the bank at the same time as Abby. She was clearly agitated while talking to the clerk. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I did hear Abby yell, ‘Then go get the manager.’ Then the manager came and ushered her into his office.”

“You don’t have any idea what it was about?”

Penelope shook her head. “I finished my transaction and left, and I didn’t think anything more about it. You know how Abby hated it when people messed up. She was such a perfectionist. I figured the poor girl probably wrote down her statement balance wrong or something.”

Abby had been a perfectionist, and she did hate it when people messed up. But she would never yell at an employee over something so simple as a disagreement over a bank statement. In fact, Sadie couldn’t imagine any reason Abby would yell at anyone in public. She had a hard-and-fast rule about keeping private things private, and yet this was the second story Sadie had heard about her arguing in public. What had gotten Abby upset enough to break one of her own cardinal rules not once but twice?

“Did she argue with anyone else recently?”

Penelope and Misty gave each other a look.

“Besides my dad,” Sadie added.

They shook their heads. “But it was weird. I’ve never seen either of them act like that. It was like watching both of them have out of body experiences, like they were two other people arguing in the yard.”

“Can you think of anything else, anything at all? Even if you don’t think it’s important.”

“No, but you might want to check with the guys. They’re out back pretending to work on the mower while really gossiping as much as we are,” Misty said.

“Thanks,” Sadie said. She let herself out the back door and went in search of the men. They weren’t hard to find. As Misty had predicted, there were mower parts scattered on a patch of lawn, but the two men seemed to be ignoring their work as they sat on lawn chairs and chewed the fat. They caught sight of Sadie and smiled as she approached.

“Well, well, well, little Sadie Cooper all grown up,” Rex Warren said. He stood and gave her a hug. Sadie resisted the urge to throw him off. He gave her the creeps and always had. He had been one of those dads that teenage girls never wanted to be alone with, and the feeling only grew worse after he and his wife had a brief separation. In fact, Gideon hadn’t allowed her to babysit for them during that time, confirming that her instinct about Rex was spot on.

Johnny stood to give her a hug, and she relaxed. She didn’t get the same lecherous vibe from him. Like their wives, the two men were good friends, often together, and practically interchangeable. They were each successful at different things. Rex was a pharmaceutical salesman, and Johnny was a financial planner. Neither of their wives worked, even now that their kids were out of the house. Johnny retrieved a lawn chair for her, and beckoned her to sit.

“So, Sadie, to what do we owe this pleasure?” Rex asked. The way he scanned her body as he spoke put a whole new spin on the word
pleasure.
Sadie focused on Johnny as she spoke.

“I’m here to shoot the breeze and catch up,” she said, smiling.

“You’re here to talk about Aunt Abby,” Johnny said. He sat back and crossed his arms, returning her smile.

She shrugged and aimed for self-deprecation. “I guess you guys know the assignment she gave me in her will. I want my conscience to be clear again when I leave, so that I can make sure her death was on the up and up.”

“You don’t really believe she was murdered, do you?” Rex asked. “Come on, Sadie, everyone knew Abby was crazy.”

With effort, Sadie held her temper in check. “What makes you say so, Rex?” she asked, her tone as pleasant as if they were discussing the weather and not her beloved mentor.

“She was always eccentric,” Rex said. “But lately she was a mess of boiling temper. She had become paranoid, if you want the truth. She thought everyone was taking advantage of her in the end.”

“What do you mean?” Sadie asked.

“I mean just what I said. A friend who works at the bank told me she accused them of clearing out her account, then there was that fight with your dad, and I even heard her and Doc Jones arguing one day.”

“They bickered a lot as I remember,” Sadie said.

“Bickering is a lot different than what they were saying that day,” Rex said.

“What were they saying?”

“Well, I don’t know that it’s right to tell other people’s business,” Rex said. He sat up and inspected his perfectly manicured fingers. Sadie wanted to throttle him; he was as big a gossip as anyone she had ever known, and he was purposely torturing her to make her grovel. She decided to turn the tables and use a little reverse psychology on him.

“You’re probably right,” she said, smiling sweetly. “It was probably nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing,” he flared.

“What did it sound like?” she batted her guileless baby blues at him, and he blinked at her a couple of times until he regained his train of thought.

“She accused him of not being a friend, of betraying her,” Rex said at last.

“Betraying her, did she say why?”

He shook his head. “But I got the feeling that he had done something to hurt her.”

Sadie glanced at Johnny. “What about you, Johnny? Do you have anything to add? Did you notice anything odd about Aunt Abby’s behavior lately?”

Johnny shifted in his chair and looked down at a mower part near his feet. “I feel disloyal discussing this with you, Sadie.”

“Please,” Sadie pressed. “You know how much I loved Abby. I’m simply trying to puzzle together the last events of her life. Anything you could tell me would be helpful, anything at all.”

He shifted again and took a breath. When he spoke, his tone was reluctant as if he were speaking against his will. “She accused me of swindling her.”

Rex darted his head to look at him. “What? You didn’t tell me that.”

Johnny shrugged. “It didn’t seem right to talk about it when Abby was obviously struggling with some mental health issues.”
 
To Sadie he added, “It’s true that I made some investments on her behalf, and they didn’t go well. But that’s the nature of the market, and the money she gave to me was a small part of her portfolio. I tried to explain as much to her, and even showed her the paper trail of how everything worked, but she was incensed and irrational. The meeting didn’t go well, I’m afraid.”

Sadie was dismayed, and she couldn’t hide it. None of what they told her sounded like the Aunt Abby she knew. Aunt Abby had a temper, but most of the time she spoke with comportment and kindness. They made it sound as if she had gone on a rampage, tearing into everyone she knew and loved.
 
“Anything else?” she asked weakly. She wasn’t sure how much more she could handle.

Rex and Johnny shook their heads. She stood. “If there’s anything, anything at all, will you please let me know?”

“Of course,” Rex said. “Drop over any time to talk. You’re always welcome.”

I’ll just bet I am, creeper,
Sadie thought. Outwardly she smiled, thanked them, and said goodbye. She went back through the house to say a final goodbye to the women.

“Are you going to talk to the Kaplans?” Misty asked.

“Yes,” Sadie answered, although probably not until tomorrow.

The women exchanged a look. The poor Kalplans lived around the corner, out of the central hub of the neighborhood, and had therefore never been a part of the central group of friends. “You might want to take an offering for Madame Zora,” Misty said. Penelope snickered and covered her mouth with her hand.

“What?” Sadie asked. She was tired and ready to go home, and she had always liked the Kaplans. She wasn’t up for going through a mean girls’ routine.

“Shirley Kaplan’s new hobby. I’m surprised Maddie didn’t tell you about it because everyone’s been talking. By chance, she got a job writing horoscopes for the newspaper, and now she fancies herself an astrologist.”

“Shirley Kaplan?” Sadie repeated. She pictured the chunky middle-aged woman who tended to wear her housecoat whenever she mowed the lawn, weeded, or retrieved the mail.

“Madame Zora,” Misty said. “That’s what she’s calling herself now.”

“Okay,” Sadie drawled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you. I’ll see myself out.”

Misty and Penelope waved. They were still laughing over “Madame Zora.” Sadie felt a stab of pity for Shirley Kaplan. She was one of those women who always functioned on the outside and desperately wanted to be let in.
Just like Mom,
Sadie thought. Though, in her mother’s case, it had probably been more a case of keeping to herself and being standoffish than not actually fitting in. Victoria Cooper was always waiting for the next big thing to come along, never happy with what she had—not her house, not her husband, not her friends, and certainly not her daughter. Not until the end when she finally succeeded in making Sadie the person she always wanted to be. At least she had died before realizing what a failure her mini-me turned out to be. Sadie tried and failed to take consolation in that fact. At last she pushed all thoughts aside, crawled into bed, and fell into a fitful, restless sleep.