Relative Chaos (26 page)

"What do you think of Wayne McCall?" she asked. "Wouldn't
mind an eyeful of him all day myself."

"Wayne's a good worker."

"And how is Stevie?" Birdie said.

"Steve Featherstone?"

She leaned on the dustpan handle, looking wistful. "Wouldn't
mind seeing the little whippersnapper, but kids don't care about visiting us old folks."

I had trouble envisioning the serious Steve Featherstone as a
whippersnapper. "How do you know him?"

"He went to school with one of my grandsons. Got a picture of
them in here somewhere." She scanned the room and pointed to the mantel. "There. We took the gang on a bird-watching weekend, must
be near thirty years ago."

I rose and felt Howard watching me as I walked over to the mantel. Only one picture featured young boys-five of them, about ten
years old, standing in front of a small wood cabin. The picture was
black-and-white, and I couldn't have picked out Steve Featherstone
on a bet.

Birdie came over to study the picture. "There's my grandson with
the binoculars. That little towhead to his right is Stevie. What a trip!
Tommy broke his arm the first day, Stevie's allergic to peanuts and
got hold of some in a candy bar, and Dean turned up with poison
ivy. I said we should have gone to the medical center on vacation instead of the state park."

I got the feeling Birdie would talk for hours if I didn't home in on
the reason I'd come.

"How do you know my Aunt Millie?" I asked, returning to my chair.

Birdie turned around. "Run into her at the hairdresser's from time
to time. Heard about you finding that man's body at her place. Hell
of a thing."

"Yes, it was," I said.

"Told my neighbor some old dog's gonna drag up those missing
hands any day. Course by then there won't be any prints left to find."

I didn't want to dwell on that gruesome thought. "How did you
first hear about the murder?" I asked.

Birdie hesitated only a second. "My friend Martha called. She
knew from her neighbor whose daughter's son's wife works for the
police."

"Sounds like the phone lines were busy that day."

"Every day." She took the chair across from me. "How did your
little meetings with the police work out?"

"Meetings?"

"Heard you and your son talked to 'em today."

This stopped me for a few seconds. I stared at Birdie, whose innocent expression belied the woman's cunning.

"Sounds like you have a regular hotline," I said, my face growing
warm. "You might know more than I do."

Birdie smiled. "I hear so much, sometimes it's hard to sort things
out."

I hated knowing that people were gossiping about me and my
family, but I needed details.

"What's the word around town?" I said. "Who do you think did
this?"

"Nobody knows," she said, shaking her head. "Might be a serial
killer on the loose for all we know. First this man, then that poor
woman from the lawyer's office."

"Have you heard anything about the police identifying the dead
man?" I asked.

"Nope," Birdie said. "Only a lot of speculating so far."

"What are people saying?"

She leaned forward in her chair, getting into the gossip. "Kind of
hard to figure motive when nobody can tell where the man came
from, much less his name. At first we thought he'd be somebody you
don't give a second thought-like the meter reader or a UPS driver."

"He wasn't wearing a brown uniform," I pointed out. "I wonder if
any employers in the area are missing employees."

"Not that I know," she said, "but that was only one for instance.
There's plenty more. Like he escaped from the prison. Maybe he's a
homeless man. Or a yard man who went into that garage looking for
a rake and suffocated in the mess before he could find his way out"

Her eyes were twinkling with the telling, and I could imagine her
and her phone pals gossiping the days away.

I wasn't amused.

Birdie tipped her head to look at me over the top of her glasses.
"Now don't get all riled up. Millie wouldn't. We tease her all the
time, and she can dish it out too."

"You're right," I said, swallowing my irritation. "I guess the state
of Aunt Millie's garage is not new news you learned because of the
murder."

"Lord, no," Birdie said. "Everybody in town who's ever had a
garage sale knows Millie. She's the cleanup lady. Comes in at the
end and buys things you thought you'd never give away."

Great. There went my theory that few people would know a body could be stashed in Aunt Millie's garage without fear of discovery
anytime soon.

"I'm sure the homeowners association has sent a bundle of those
code violations to Millie," Birdie said.

"For what?"

"Tellin' her to keep a clear path to every door and window. Now
that's a code makes sense."

"She can do whatever she wants to on her own property," I said.
"Or are the rules different for her?"

"But you want her to be safe," Birdie said. "And keeping a clear
path is a fire code rule. My Howard was a firefighter, so I know."

"Sounds like an office building code to me," I said. "They can't
enforce that in private homes."

"You wouldn't believe the rules they come up with in this neighborhood," Birdie said. "One of the things I hope to change in the
next election."

"Who's in charge?" I asked. Maybe someone who could give me
more useful information about the murder investigation than I was
getting out of Birdie.

"That Fletcher character," she said. "You tell Millie we're campaigning to run him out, and we want her on our side. We can win if
we get enough senior citizens involved to outvote the young mothers."

"I've met Barton Fletcher." I said. "Why on earth would a young
mother vote for him?"

"They sign their kids up for everything under the sun-singing,
dancing, ball games, competing up the wazoo. What about normal
family dinners, doing homework, reading a book before bed? Miss
their whole childhood, you ask me."

I understood what she meant but didn't see the connection. "What
does this have to do with Fletcher?"

"He wants to make a mint off these young folks. Bought fifty
acres between here and Rosenberg to build some studio where kids
can film their own movie, record their own album." She shook her
head, disgusted. "I can see him now, like the damn Pied Piper. Attract the kids, and the parents will come and spend all their money.
Lord help anybody who gets in his way."

I wasn't too crazy about Richmond being built up to resemble Houston and Sugar Land, but that wasn't what struck me about Birdie's
speech.

"What if the dead man in Aunt Millie's garage was someone who
got in Fletcher's way?" I said.

Birdie's eyebrows rose. "Now there's a thought"

The doorbell rang, and Birdie jumped up as if I wasn't even there.
"That might be the cookies."

Howard squawked, "Birdie wants a treat."

He could say that again. Now that the woman had cookies on her
mind, I knew I might as well leave.

I drove away from Birdie's house, thinking about the coincidence
of two murders occurring so close together in such a short time span.
Richmond wasn't a crime-free city by any means. We had the usual
burglaries, car thefts, and domestic disputes that occasionally led to
murder. We seldom heard about serial killings, and that wasn't what
we were dealing with now. Yet I was convinced these victims were
somehow connected. The fact that I'd found the mystery man in
Aunt Millie's garage and that we both knew Dawn Hurley linked us
to both crimes.

There had to be other connections.

If only we knew who the dead man was. A chill ran down my
spine at the thought of asking Barton Fletcher whether he knew the
victim.

Maybe I needed to approach this from the opposite directionfind out who wanted Dawn Hurley out of the picture. That might lead
to the mystery man's ID.

Armed with a plan, I headed for Aunt Millie's. She knew Dawn,
and she'd spent time with Dawn's mother. I wanted to check on her
anyway, see if her car trouble was solved. Make sure Janice's visit
wasn't driving her to drink.

As my luck would have it, my cousin was outside when I pulled up
in front of Aunt Millie's house. She was approaching her rented Mercedes, holding a banker's box, dressed down in plain jeans and a
cranberry sweatshirt. She popped the trunk and placed the box inside, then turned as I came up behind her.

"You home alone?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Mother's here. Her car's in the shop. I'm
glad you came by."

The uncharacteristic remark stopped me for a second. "Really?
Why?"

"We don't often get a chance to visit." Her smile seemed forced.

I shrugged. "The price you pay for that New York City powerbroker lifestyle."

The catty remark didn't seem to bother her.

"We do stay busy." She turned to close the trunk, but not before I
caught a glimpse of three other cartons inside.

"What's with the boxes?"

"I'm shipping my things home," Janice said. "Mother shouldn't be
saddled with them. She needs to start thinking about downsizing."

"You pared everything down to three boxes? Good job"

Janice shook her head. "I'm not finished yet, and the police still
have some of my possessions."

"I can ship them for you once they're released," I said, "if you'll
give me your address." I was curious if she would tell me about the
move to New Jersey that Dawn had mentioned.

Janice looked at me quietly, maybe wondering if I'd lost her address or had a reason to suspect there'd been a change. "No need,"
she said. "That detective finally agreed to return the contents, if not
the boxes themselves, in a day or two. I'll need your help, though, to
make sure I've got everything."

"How would I know?"

"You've obviously spent a lot of time here," she said. "Mother
didn't pack up all that junk by herself, and I'm missing some things."

"What's missing?"

Janice made a frustrated tsking noise and said, "Just things. I
don't have a list of every book report I ever wrote."

"And that's what you're shipping home?" I said. "Your old book
reports?"

Janice blew out a breath. "I'm just saying I don't have everything.
I saved quite a lot from high school and college. Eight or nine boxes
total, and they're not all here. I wish someone would 'fess up and
tell me where they are."

I had seen at least that many boxes marked with Janice's name in
the garage, but I wasn't getting the whole story.

"Why don't you tell me exactly what you're after, Janice?" I said.
"You have Elvis Presley's personal autograph stashed away, or
what?"

"No. I didn't even like Elvis." She shook her head as if I was the
most obstinate person she'd ever dealt with, then whirled and walked
toward the house. "Why do I even bother?"

"Maybe I can help if you level with me." I followed her inside. "I
don't see you shipping a bunch of junk home to litter up that gorgeous penthouse you're always bragging about."

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Is it a crime, wanting to
have memories from my childhood close to me?"

"No crime," I said. "Just way out of character."

Janice huffed and stomped up the stairs.

I didn't buy her suddenly treasuring memories from home. To start
with, Millie was the one who had kept and boxed up those things, not
Janice. I stood in the foyer, trying to make sense of my cousin's behavior.

Aunt Millie emerged from her first-floor bedroom, spooking me
because her face was lathered with aqua, sandy-looking goop, only
her eyes and pale lips showing.

"What on earth-?" I said.

"Janice is giving me a facial," Millie said excitedly, "just like the
ones she gets in New York City."

Janice leaned over the upstairs banister. "It's designed especially
for aging and fatigued skin, Poppy. You want one?"

I smiled tightly. "I'll pass."

"Be nice, girls," Millie said. "I've had a rough day." She touched
a cheek gingerly. "How much longer do I keep this on?"

Janice checked her watch. "Another eight minutes. I'll come down
then. Maybe she'll be gone." She disappeared into the guest room.

I looked at Millie. "Sorry. Guess it's too late for us to learn how to
get along."

"It's never too late," Millie said. "C'mon to the kitchen. I baked
some lemon bars."

"I'm stuffed," I said, holding my full stomach.

"Come anyway," Millie whispered. She glanced up the stairs, then
grabbed my arm and hauled me into the kitchen. I wasn't surprised
to see the counters that I had so recently cleared now littered with
baking supplies, dirty dishes, and mail.

"Did you get me a new appointment with the lawyer?" Millie asked.

"I did." I told her the new date and time and walked over to her
wall calendar to make the notation. "What's so urgent?"

"Janice is acting stranger than ever," she said.