Pumpkin Roll (10 page)

“I found the ’96 and ’01 stay, but not the ’98,” Sadie said, adding “1998” next to item four on her list of twelve details she’d put at the top of her list for organizational purposes. “The first stay was in Vermont, right?”

“Right,” Pete said. “It looks like she lived there for about five years before that. The next two stays were here in Massachusetts.”

“The last stay was in Belmont. Where was the other one?”

“Not sure.”

“Family members,” Sadie said, moving on to the next topic.

“Mother died in the early nineties in a car accident. Other than that, there’s her father and a younger sister.”

“The sister’s name is Gabrielle,” Sadie said, nodding. That was item eight on her list, and an important discovery. “I think she lives here in Boston. I wonder if she’s the person I talked to yesterday. Maybe she pretended to be Delores, though I don’t know why she would.”

Pete nodded. “I figured that must have been her, too.”

“Her dad’s dead,” Sadie said—item six.

“He is?” Pete asked, reading through his notes.

“Yep, four months ago.”

“How do you know that? I didn’t find it.”

“Okay, I admit it—I asked Shawn for help. He discovered in one of our other cases last month that while it sometimes takes time for official records to be updated, the obituaries are immediate. Anyway, he found the dad’s obituary—it was run in Lowell, north of here. It requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to Eastridge Hospice in thanks for the care he’d received, so that means he knew he was dying. There was only a graveside service, but Delores and Gabrielle were mentioned by name in his obituary—Delores first, which would make her the oldest. Delores’s mother’s obituary stated that she and Timothy Wapple had divorced but remained friends, and there was no mention of any other marriage. I’d guess Dad didn’t remarry either, since no other wife was listed in his obit. He gave generously to the Veterans of Foreign Wars—that wasn’t in the obituary, though, I found that by happenstance when his name came up in an old record of donors for an event back in the early nineties.”

Pete stared at her. “You found all that in less than an hour?”

Sadie shrugged. “Like I said, I had help.”

Pete tapped his phone. “So did I,” he said. “It’s still impressive that you found so much.”

“Finding stuff was the easy part,” Sadie said. “The tricky part was putting the pieces of information together. For instance, Mrs. Wapple receives disability, but she doesn’t have a phone, and her mail is forwarded. Shawn’s going to look into her former address in between his classes today, so we might get some more information from that sector.”

“She’s a registered Democrat,” Pete chimed in. “But she hasn’t voted for several years.”

“Good job,” Sadie said with a smile, not telling him she’d found that too.

Pete had found a complaint filed by one of the neighbors in Jamaica Plain six weeks ago—not long after Delores had moved in; she’d been yelling over the fence. Three complaints had been filed over the years in Lowell too, where Sadie assumed Delores had lived with her father. In high school, Delores had set a swimming record in the freestyle back in the late eighties—her freshman year. Sometime between that accomplishment and the first hospitalization in ’96, things had changed for her dramatically, but there was little information available. She was currently forty-two years old and her birthday was January 6.

“That makes her a Capricorn,” Sadie added as an interesting side note. “They’re usually very goal-oriented but can be aloof and distant before they really come to trust someone.”

Pete smiled at her.

“What?” she said, feeling self-conscious. This was serious business. She didn’t expect or necessarily want a smile. Was he making fun of her for being familiar with the zodiac? That was uncalled for.

“You’re good at this.”

Sadie waved the compliment off, but in her heart she locked it away to enjoy later. “I wish it were more than bits and pieces,” she said. “Before all these privacy acts were put into place, the nursing home I used to volunteer at would let us read up on patients’ histories, so that we knew where the residents had been in their lives. They would often have pages and pages of history, gathered from the patient, their families, and the doctors. I wish we had something like that.”

“There are good reasons those things aren’t part of public record,” Pete said. “Say Mrs. Wapple has some kind of remission, she’d have a very hard time reestablishing herself in this information age if everything about her life was so widely available. It’s too bad you and I both found her hospital stays.”

“I understand all that,” Sadie said. “I’m frustrated because there is a history that could help us figure out what exactly we’re dealing with but we can’t get our hands on it. I hate that.”

“Well, we have found quite a bit,” Pete said. “We know she has a medical history with strong indicators that point us toward mental illness. Yet, based on the swim team record you found, that didn’t hold her back when she was young. She’s not in an institution—which says a lot—but we know from our own observations that she isn’t well. She’s reclusive, but not criminal. Annoying, but has never hurt anyone. She’s also a native of Boston who lived out of state for a little while but came back. Both of her parents are deceased, leaving her in the care of her sister, most likely.”

“When you say it like that, it does seem like a lot of information,” Sadie said. “Did you find out why she’s called Mrs. Wapple? Wapple is her maiden name.”

“I didn’t find any marital history, so I don’t have an answer for that. However, with what we do have, I feel better approaching her about the hat,” Pete said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head. “I don’t think she’s dangerous.”

“She did come in the house,” Sadie said. “That’s disturbing.”

“Yes,” Pete said with a conciliatory nod. “That’s very disturbing.”

They looked at their notes for a minute. “So, is that what we’re going to do? Confront her about the hat?” Sadie ate another Froot Loop.

“Yes, but I think we should call the sister first, now that we know Mrs. Wapple has an unstable history,” Pete said. “She might have some valuable insight, not to mention that Mrs. Wapple might not have the ability to get help on her own. Her father died, and she’s recently moved. Those are two very difficult things for anyone to cope with, let alone someone with a history like hers. I think we’ll need the sister’s involvement to make sure she gets the help she needs.”

“Gabrielle’s not listed in the phone book,” Sadie said. “I looked. In fact I can’t find a Gabrielle Wapple anywhere online. Maybe she’s married.”

Pete smiled. “Well, it’s good to know I have a few tricks you haven’t tapped into yet.” He slid his notebook around so Sadie could see the ten-digit phone number written in the upper section of the paper. He’d circled it three times, showing his pride in the discovery. “She must have married at some point, though she listed herself as single on her tax returns last year. She goes by Gabrielle Marrow.”

“An unlisted number?” Sadie said. “What’s she hiding from?”

Pete shrugged. “Let’s give her a call and find out.” He dialed the first couple of numbers and then looked at Sadie. After a few moments, he held the phone out to her. “Do you want to call?”

Sadie kept her hands in her lap. She did want to talk to this woman and get the information herself. But . . . “I think you should,” she heard herself say. “She lied to me about who she was; she might be defensive.”

Pete nodded and finished dialing the number. He put the phone to his ear.

Sadie waited anxiously, watching Pete’s face. After several seconds passed, he said quietly, “Voice mail.”

Sadie felt herself deflate as disappointment replaced her eagerness. No answers—not yet. Pete left a message saying he wanted to talk to her about her sister. He didn’t refer to himself as a detective, and yet his voice was still strong, warm, and authoritative—not to mention very attractive. Any woman would be a fool not to call back a voice like that.

He hung up and set his phone on the table.

“I hope she’ll call back,” Sadie said. She slumped in her chair, then sat up straight as Pete reached across the table, taking her hands in both of his.

“She will,” he said with confidence. “She’s obviously filling the caretaker role to some extent. She’ll call back.”

Sadie looked into his eyes for several seconds and felt everything melt away as the air between them became warm. “I could get used to this, you know,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

“What? Working a case together?”

“Well, that too,” Sadie said with a smile. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table but letting him keep hold of her hands. “I meant sitting across the table from you and finding it so
fabulously
comfortable.”

“How about making dinner for me every night?”

“Every night?” Sadie asked, lowering her chin. “You won’t eat leftovers?”

“I’d eat
your
leftovers,” Pete conceded. “Would you iron my shirts?”

Sadie smiled sweetly but shook her head. “You iron your shirts; I’ll iron mine.”

“Shoot,” Pete said, pulling his eyebrows together as though reconsidering the entire arrangement. “What about the rest of my laundry?”

“I’d wash every blessed sock with love,” Sadie said, batting her eyelashes. “Would you take my car to the repair shop for me?”

“You bet,” Pete said, leaning in as well so that only a few inches separated them—it was a very small table. “I’d even scrape the frost off the windshield of your car.”

“I don’t get to park in the garage?”

“Um, with my tools and things there’s only room for one car.”

“So you assume all this would take place at your house?” Sadie asked in a crooning voice, leaning forward even more. She could smell the Froot Loops on his breath.

“I have better closet space.”

“Ooooh, you know how to drive right to the heart of the matter, don’t you?”

He moved another inch closer, and she could feel the feather-light brush of his lips against her own when he spoke. “Don’t forget the extra-large laundry room, the double ovens, and the skylight in the master bath.”

Sadie lowered her voice. “You had me at closet space.”

“Ew! They’re kissing!”

Sadie and Pete split apart, laughing at themselves and at the two boys who were making exaggerated throwing up sounds. Luckily, it didn’t take much to distract them. Lunch came and went, then more play time outside, then naps, which really only consisted of quiet play time in the boys’ room. Whenever Sadie entered the kitchen and saw the hat hanging on the back door, she was reminded not only of the hat incident, but of her concern for Mrs. Wapple and the fact that Gabrielle hadn’t called back yet. After cleaning up lunch, Sadie prodded Pete to call Gabrielle a second time. He ended up leaving another message.

“Two messages,” Sadie said, shaking her head and looking at the hat again. “Now what?”

Pete regarded the bag. “Maybe we’re making this harder than it needs to be,” he said, sliding his phone into his pocket. “We can still talk to Gabrielle when she calls, but maybe we should take the hat back and get it over with.”

Sadie lifted her eyebrows, feeling conflicted at the suggestion. It made sense to cut to the chase and see what Mrs. Wapple had to say about the hat being in their house—especially now that they knew she didn’t have any kind of dangerous history—and yet, Sadie had a strong feeling that whatever information they got from Mrs. Wapple would be incomplete. “We
definitely
need to get ahold of the sister.”

Pete nodded. “I agree, and hopefully she’ll call back, but if we return the hat, we might have even more questions to ask when she does call. Besides that, having this hat around is . . . distracting.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Sadie conceded. Regardless of the demands the boys put on their time and attention, the hat was taking center stage. “Why don’t you take it. I’ll keep cleaning up.” She’d already spoken to Mrs. Wapple once; it was only fair to give Pete a chance.

Pete nodded, took the bag, and let himself out the front door. Sadie didn’t clean up, though. Instead she stood at the window and watched him cross the street and approach Mrs. Wapple’s house with long, confident steps. He went to the front porch and Sadie made a face—she should have reminded him that the front door wasn’t well-used. He opened the screen door and knocked, waited, then knocked again before hanging the bag on the handle of the screen door and heading back.

“You’re just going to leave it there?” Sadie asked when he returned.

“We’ll keep an eye on it and see if she picks it up. Bait.”

“Bait?” Sadie repeated, looking at him with confusion. “We’re not trying to catch her.”

“But we do want to observe her.”

“But she doesn’t use the front door,” Sadie said. “Surely you noticed the rusted hinges and spiderwebs.”