Pumpkin Roll (11 page)

Pete shrugged. “She’s missing her hat; I’m sure she’ll come out at some point and see it there. Tonight if not sooner. At least we got it out of here.”

Sadie chose not to argue, even though this hadn’t been what she’d expected when he said he wanted to take the hat back and get more information. When the boys gave up pretending to nap, she and Pete walked with them to pick Kalan up from school, then took the long way home by way of a local park. It was after 4:00 when they returned home, and the afternoon breeze had picked up, making going home a welcome reprieve.

The bag was still on the door handle when they returned. Sadie realized that if they’d really wanted to use the hat as bait they shouldn’t have left. Oops. The bag swung back and forth in the wind. They didn’t talk about it. Instead, Pete called Gabrielle a third time but decided not to leave a message when it went to voice mail again.

Sadie justified her growing concern about Gabrielle’s silence by telling herself that this was Gabrielle’s home number and she was probably at work. Perhaps she could find where that place of work was. Nearly an entire day had passed and Sadie was anxious to determine what they should do next. She also worried that Mrs. Wapple might be in more pain than she’d been in last night. They weren’t treating her pain as though it was urgent, but what if it was?

“I think I should go over and check on her,” Sadie said once the boys were settled into a rousing game of Legos, if you could call Legos a game. With these boys everything was a game or competition of some kind.

Pete looked at her, a questioning expression on his face.

“It’s been a whole day,” she said, glancing out the window at the bag hanging on the front door. “And she was really hurting last night. What if she’s worse?”

“She broke into our house.”

Sadie sighed. “I won’t go inside or anything, and your research proved that she doesn’t have a criminal or dangerous past. I just want to make sure she’s not passed out on the floor or something.” He didn’t seem convinced, so Sadie quickly suggested an alternate plan. “Or we could just bypass her sister and call social services. Heather suggested that this morning, and the idea’s been growing on me. That said, it’s after four o’clock, and I’d be surprised if they’d be able to come right out. My friend Diane called Adult Protective Services on her neighbor, Ruth, because she suspected that the woman’s niece who’d moved in with her wasn’t taking care of her. It took almost a week for them to come see her, and by then Ruth was eating stale bread with Crisco instead of butter because the niece hadn’t gone to the store. True story.”

“I don’t like you going alone,” Pete said. He glanced into the living room, where three little boys were sprawled out on the floor fighting over the blocks.

Sadie cut him off at the pass. “We’re not leaving them here alone. Not even for a few minutes. I’ll have my phone, and I won’t be long, okay?”

Pete sighed, then shrugged. “Okay, but be quick.”

Sadie put her coat back on before giving Pete a quick peck on the cheek and slipping out the front door.

She was triumphant as she crossed the street and cut across the lawn, heading for the gate in the fence. She was doing something, and she felt very good about that. As she reached the curb in front of Mrs. Wapple’s house, something caught her eye and she looked to the right in time to see the front door of the house on the corner shut. For a moment she wondered if it was important, but then shrugged it off, refocusing on her goal—checking on Mrs. Wapple to see if she needed some kind of intervention.

Chapter 9

The wind blew Sadie’s hair in every direction possible; she had to keep a hand beside her face to keep it out of her eyes. Good thing she had no plans to go anywhere tonight and thus didn’t have to be too stressed about the havoc being waged against her coiffure. At the front porch, Sadie stopped and considered proper etiquette. It only made sense to go to the back door since the front door was unused. But the back door was kind of like Mrs. Wapple’s
front
door, except that the fence enclosed it, which made Sadie wonder if it were proper to go back there without cause. Hmmm.

After a few moments, she retrieved the hat hanging on the front door. Pete had wrapped the handle of the bag around the doorknob twice, which explained why the wind hadn’t had its way with it yet. On her way to the gate, Sadie glanced across the street to see Pete standing in the window. She gave him a smile and thumbs-up sign. He nodded but looked rather grim.

At the gate, Sadie ducked her head to turn her face out of the wind, took a breath, and knocked as loud as she could on the wooden fence. “Mrs. Wapple?” She hoped her voice was loud enough to be heard over the sound of the wind through the trees. She could see one of the knotholes Heather had told her about; it was five feet up from the ground, the perfect height to spy through. Sadie was tempted to look through it herself, but didn’t want to be caught doing so. Last night Mrs. Wapple had simply pushed on the gate to open it, so when Sadie didn’t get an answer, she did the same. It swung open easily.

“Hello?” she said as she slowly walked into the backyard. “Mrs. Wapple?”

The gate closed behind her. Being hidden in Mrs. Wapple’s private space made her feel a little reckless, and she took a breath to calm herself down. An oak tree stood in one corner, half of its brown and auburn leaves still on the tree and the other half blowing across the lawn. The upper branches moaned in the high wind.

Opposite the tree was a single-car garage set in the corner of the yard. The tall wooden fence kept the yard very much contained and blocked most of the wind. The grass was dormant, but had been mowed rather recently, and the edges went right up to the tall fence and the house—no flower beds to dig in back here. There was a container garden, however, in one corner of the cobbled patio filled with what was left of some pink chrysanthemums. A sturdy-looking wrought iron table was flanked by two matching chairs on the patio; an empty flowerpot sat in the center. Sadie could envision
Delores
—the woman she’d met yesterday—sipping coffee while she watched the leaves fall. She couldn’t picture Mrs. Wapple doing the same thing, though.

The patio was flanked by a sliding glass door, and Sadie approached it carefully, hoping to see inside the house. Was the inside of the house as well-kept as the backyard, or was it in disarray like the front of the house? It was uncomfortable to see such dichotomy.

Once Sadie reached the door, she knocked and took a few steps back for the sake of her manners. She attempted to smooth her hair, though it was a losing battle; no doubt she looked like an Albert Einstein impersonator about now. It was dark inside the house, as though all the curtains were drawn except for the one by the sliding glass door. Sadie could see into what looked like an enclosed patio or maybe a sunroom of sorts. It had a basic set of white wicker furniture with simple gingham cushions and a terra-cotta tiled floor. There were empty plant pots, piles of newspaper, and a dirty-looking pet carrier within view as well. Mrs. Wapple had lived here only a couple of months, which led Sadie to conclude that either she’d not finished unpacking and organizing her own space, or she’d become very comfortable very fast.

Sadie knocked again and considered what she would do if there were no answer. She’d come over to make sure Mrs. Wapple was okay. If she didn’t get some kind of proof that was the case, she was no better off than she’d been before she’d come.

Suddenly, movement inside caught her attention. She leaned forward and squinted to better see into the dark interior; for the first time she picked up on the ripe smell of garbage not taken to the curb in a timely manner. “Mrs. Wapple?” Sadie said, her face nearly touching the glass as she tried to see past the cluttered room. “It’s Sadie Hoffmiller from—”

Something slammed into the glass right in front of her face. Sadie let out a squeaky scream, jumped backward, and looked at the bottom of the glass to see what it was. A book? Someone had thrown a book at her face?

She looked back up and nearly screamed a second time as she stared into the wide-eyed face of Mrs. Wapple staring her down from the other side of the glass. Sadie’s hand went to her throat, which had gone dry, and she tried to get her heart rate back in check. Mrs. Wapple didn’t move, didn’t even blink, she just stared at Sadie in a way that made Sadie glad the book hadn’t broken through the glass between them.

“I, uh, I . . . I found your hat!” Sadie stammered, then realized how stupid that sounded. She’d found the hat in the hallway of Jared and Heather’s house that morning and thought Mrs. Wapple had put it there somehow. But she held up the bag anyway.

Mrs. Wapple watched it without changing her expression. After a moment, Sadie opened the sack and pulled out the hat.

“My hat!” Mrs. Wapple screamed—really screamed—from the other side of the sliding glass door and smacked her open hand onto the glass, causing it to vibrate. Sadie jumped again and took another step back. “You stole my hat!”

“No, I didn’t steal it,” Sadie said. “It was—”

“Thief! Thief!” Mrs. Wapple raised her hand and punched at the sky.

Sadie ducked as though lightbulbs might start bursting again, but nothing happened other than a significant burst of wind that made the oak tree behind her creak ominously. She looked around and then hurried toward the wrought iron table.

Mrs. Wapple continued to scream, “Thief! Thief!”

Sadie put the hat on the table and set the flower pot on the edge of the brim so it didn’t blow away. Then she balled up the grocery bag and began taking long strides toward the gate, unable to think of anything other than getting out of there. She heard the sliding glass door slide along its track behind her and nearly broke into a run for fear that Mrs. Wapple was coming after her.

“Thief!” she heard, louder this time since the glass was no longer a barrier. Sadie sped up, worried that Mrs. Wapple would follow her home, screaming at her the entire time. Instead, Mrs. Wapple fell silent.

At the gate, Sadie grabbed the handle and looked over her shoulder. Mrs. Wapple’s back was to Sadie as she picked up the hat, almost reverently. She put it on her head and turned to stare at Sadie, lowering her chin and scowling. Sadie had to fight the wind to open the gate, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from Mrs. Wapple.

“Go away from here,” Mrs. Wapple said in relatively normal tones. She turned back to her house and stomped away as Sadie pulled hard on the gate, to which it responded too well, blowing wide open and wrenching her arm in the process.

Sadie didn’t need to be told twice, and she didn’t look back to see if the gate closed after she darted through it. Instead, she practically ran across the street, up the porch steps, opened the door, and then shut it too loudly, causing all three boys to look up at her from their Legos.

“What happened?” Pete said, crossing to her and touching her shoulders. “Is she okay?” He paused. “Are
you
okay?”

“I’m fine,” Sadie said, swallowing hard and running a hand through her hair as though the state of disarray up there was her biggest worry. “And she’s okay. Just . . . freaky.”

“Freaky?” Kalan repeated.

Sadie looked past Pete to see three sets of eyes watching her closely. She forced a smile, though she sensed it was twitching slightly. “I meant . . . creaky. Mrs. Wapple’s fence needs a good ol’ dose of WD-40.”

“What’s double D forty?” Kalan asked, a soft little wrinkle on his forehead.

“Never mind,” Pete said. He gave Sadie a look and said loudly, “Were you, um, going to get dinner started in the
kitchen
?”

Dinner. Cooking. Solace! “I was,” she agreed with a nod.

“I’ll come help you in a minute,” Pete said as he lowered himself to the floor, intent on distracting the boys from Sadie’s unusual entrance.

Sadie went into the kitchen. She put both hands on the table and closed her eyes, breathing deeply several times until she felt more like herself. The wind whistling across the kitchen window did very little to calm her down. Holy moley, that had been scary. After she pulled herself together, she took out the chicken breasts from the fridge and mixed up the marinade before combining the two and returning them to the fridge. She washed her hands and stared out the window as she replayed the scene in Mrs. Wapple’s backyard. Chills broke out across her chest and shoulders as she remembered Mrs. Wapple’s crazy face up against the sliding glass door.