Heartstopper (37 page)

“No way you could have walked here,” Sandy said as she pulled the car into the narrow driveway.

“It’s farther than I thought,” Delilah agreed. “I probably would have had to hitchhike back.”

“Which wouldn’t have been a very good idea. You just can’t go climbing into cars with strangers.” Sandy bit her tongue. Who was she to talk about getting into cars with strangers?

“Oh, I pretty much know everybody in this town. Besides”—Delilah looked down at herself—“I don’t think I have anything to worry about. Well, I’ll just run and get the stuff.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“Mr. Lipsman said he’s pretty sure he left it in the front hall.” Delilah hesitated.

“You want me to come with you?”

“Would you mind?” Delilah asked without a second’s pause.

Sandy opened her car door and climbed out. The two women approached the two-story, white clapboard house with the fading black shutters. A large, gray cat sat in front of closed lace curtains in one of the downstairs windows.

“It looks nice,” Delilah said without conviction.

“It looks like the kind of house Mr. Lipsman would live in with his mother.”

“I hear she’s buried out back.”

“What? Who? His mother?”

Delilah nodded. “Apparently she wanted to be buried under her favorite lemon tree in the backyard.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to bury people in your backyard.” Even in Florida, Sandy added under her breath.

“That’s what everybody says anyway.”

Sandy’s eyes drifted around to the side of the house as they neared the front door. Was it possible? she wondered. “I don’t believe it,” she said as Delilah pushed the key into the lock and pulled open the front door. Immediately several cats were at their feet, a fat, black-and-white one brushing against Sandy’s bare calves.

“Oh, careful. Don’t let them out,” Delilah squealed.

Sandy corralled the wayward cats with her feet, wishing she’d worn pants today and not a skirt, returning the cats to the front foyer as Delilah closed the door. Immediately Sandy was overwhelmed by the smell of dank air and Kitty Litter.

“Mr. Lipsman doesn’t like air-conditioning,” Delilah said. “He says that next to smoking, it’s the worst thing for your lungs.”

“As opposed to breathing in cat hair all night.”

“Mr. Lipsman’s a little odd. But he’s nice,” Delilah added quickly.

“He’s odd,” Sandy concurred.

“I don’t see any sheet music. Do you?”

Sandy glanced around the foyer, a few particles of dust swirling like confetti in the small pool of light coming from a portal-shaped side window. All she saw was an orange cat stretched across an old Queen Anne chair, and another tabby scratching at the legs of the antique end table beside it. On the table was a silver-framed photograph of a stern-looking woman in a stiff-collared black dress, her gray hair pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head.

“That must be his mother,” Delilah whispered.

“She looks like a barrel of laughs.”

Delilah giggled. “Where do you think Mr. Lipsman left the sheet music?”

“Why don’t you check the kitchen. I’ll look in the living room,” Sandy suggested, and Delilah left her side.

The cats followed Sandy into the living room, where there were more cats. Besides the one in the window, Sandy counted two on the dark green velvet sofa, and another on the heavy, gold brocade armchair that stood beside it. A baby grand piano filled whatever space was left, the closed top of the piano covered with photographs, most of them of Gordon and his mother, going all the way back to his childhood. Even in the fading light of the late-afternoon sun that filtered through the musty lace of the curtains, Sandy could see how little the man’s face had changed over the years. Even as a small child, he’d looked like a middle-aged man.

His mother was a completely different story. Originally a pretty, if not downright beautiful, young woman, she’d grown coarser with the years, her smile losing its vitality, her eyes losing their spark. In one of the earlier pictures, she posed happily in a chic blue dress, her arm around an equally pretty girl, probably her sister, their teenage smiles barely strong enough to contain their obvious glee, and over here was another picture of the same young women dancing together at a party.

Sandy’s eyes moved from one picture to the next. There were photographs of Gordon and his mother when Gordon was a baby, pictures of Gordon as a toddler, positioned between his mother and his aunt, pictures of Gordon’s mother and her cats. Somewhere along the way the smiles turned somber, then disappeared altogether.

There were other pictures as well. Candid photographs of the students at Torrance High: Ginger Perchak and Tanya McGovern sharing a secret; Victor Drummond staring idly off into space; Greg Watt laughing at something Joey Balfour was saying; Liana Martin leaping joyously across the stage. They’d obviously been taken during last year’s rehearsals for
Fiddler on the Roof
, Sandy realized. Still, they gave her the creeps. “Delilah?” she called out, suddenly eager to get out of there. “Delilah?”

No answer.

Sandy walked quickly from the living room and down the narrow hall, toward the kitchen at the back. Delilah was standing by the kitchen window, staring out at the backyard. “Delilah?” Sandy asked. “Is something wrong?”

Delilah’s voice, when it finally emerged, seemed to be coming from another room. “Which one do you think it is?”

Sandy sidestepped a box of Kitty Litter to reach Delilah’s side. She stared into Gordon Lipsman’s empty backyard. “What are you talking about?”

“I count four lemon trees. I think it’s the bushy one on the end. Which one do you think it is?”

It took Sandy several seconds to understand what Delilah was talking about. “I assure you, Delilah, that Mrs. Lipsman is not buried in the backyard,” she said, although she was sure of no such thing. “Now, let’s just find the sheet music and get out of here.”

“Oh, I found it.” Delilah spun around, holding up the papers. “They were on the counter.”

“Good. Then let’s get out of here. Now.”

They’d been driving for almost ten minutes when Sandy realized they were going in the wrong direction. A recent turn had brought the late day’s sun directly into her eyes, which meant they were heading due west when they should be going east.

“I think we were supposed to turn left back there,” Delilah said at roughly the same moment. “Not right.”

“I thought you said to turn right.”

“No, I said, turn left and then right. I think.”

Sandy quickly turned the car around, headed back toward the last intersection. Ian was always telling her she had no sense of direction, that left to her own devices, she couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag. And the visit to Gordon’s house had spooked her. That picture of Liana
Martin, looking so vibrant and alive. “Okay. I give up,” she said, after driving around for several more minutes and seeing nothing but orange groves. She pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road. There wasn’t another car in sight. “Where the hell are we?”

“I think we should turn left at the next intersection,” Delilah offered.

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“Great.”

“Maybe we should just wait here for another car.”

“Have you seen a car in the last five minutes?” Sandy asked testily. “I thought you knew where we were going.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Crosbie. I messed up.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Sandy apologized quickly, watching Delilah’s lower lip quiver. “This isn’t your fault. I’m the one who’s driving.” She took a deep breath. “So you think I should turn left?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, might as well give it a try.” Sandy turned left, continued down the road, passing one fruit grove after another. Just when she thought it was probably time to consider making another turn, the sudden pressure of Delilah’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“Stop the car,” Delilah whispered.

“Why? Do you know where we are?” Sandy pulled the car to a stop, turned toward Delilah. “What’s the matter?” she asked when she saw the look on the girl’s face. Delilah was staring out the front window, her eyes wide, her skin ashen. “Delilah, what’s the matter?”

“I think I saw something.”

Sandy’s eyes did a quick 360-degree turn. “What did you see?”

“It looked like a hand.”

“What?”

“It looked like a human hand,” Delilah said, her voice a shout. “Oh, God. It looked like a hand.” She turned toward Sandy, her eyes brimming over with tears.

“Okay, calm down. Calm down,” Sandy advised, though her own heart was beating so fast it felt as if it might take flight. “Where do you think you saw it?”

“Back there. About fifty feet.”

Sandy threw the car into reverse and slowly backed it up about fifty feet.

“Keep going,” Delilah urged through tightly gritted teeth. “There!” Her hand shot to her right, her fingers slamming against the car window. She cried out, closing her eyes and burying her face in her lap. “Is it a body?” she asked as Sandy stopped the car and opened her door. “No. Don’t go out there!”

Sandy said nothing as she slowly proceeded around the back of the car, her eyes warily searching the long grass at the side of the road, afraid of what they might find. At first she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Grass, earth, some discarded, half-eaten oranges, flies. Lots of flies. And then, a flash of something shiny reflected by the sun. A wedding ring, she realized, seeing the flesh around the ring and recognizing a human hand.

Sandy’s hand shot to her mouth in an effort not to scream as she stumbled back to the car. “Do you have a cell phone? Please tell me you have a cell phone.”

Delilah quickly handed Sandy her cell. “What is it? What did you find?”

Sandy pressed in 911. “There’s a woman’s body lying by the side of the road,” she informed the emergency operator, as the color drained from Delilah’s cheeks. “No. I have no idea where I am. Somewhere out past Citrus Grove.” She promised to stay on the line until the police arrived. Then she lowered the phone to her lap and gathered an increasingly distraught Delilah into her arms.

“Is it Mrs. Hamilton?”

“I don’t know.” Sandy held the sobbing girl in her arms as they waited for the sheriff to arrive, trying to decide what would be worse—if the body they’d discovered was Fiona Hamilton, or if it wasn’t.

Y
ou want to tell me what you were doing out here?” John Weber asked as police began cordoning off the area. He was trying to get his mind around the fact that the woman he was talking to had her arm around the daughter of the woman her husband had left her for. That was almost as shocking to him as the body the two of them had discovered lying in the tall grass. A body he assumed was Fiona Hamilton, although he wouldn’t be 100 percent sure until her husband made a positive ID. As had been the case with Liana Martin, there wasn’t a whole lot left of the woman’s face. Still, the hair color was the same, and the body appeared to be relatively intact. It shouldn’t be too hard to make a positive identification.

“I’m sorry,” Sandy Crosbie said. “What?”

John leaned into the front seat, his left arm resting on top of the open car door. “I asked what the two of you were doing out this way.”

Sandy sat behind the wheel of her car, her face streaked with tears. She stared blankly at the windshield, Delilah’s head buried against her side, and said, “We were at Gordon Lipsman’s house.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Mr. Lipsman forgot his sheet music at home,” Delilah said, pushing herself into a sitting position, although one
hand still clung to Sandy’s navy skirt. “I offered to go get it. Mrs. Crosbie said it was too far to walk …” Her voice broke as she glanced out the side window, saw the police moving around the body. “What are they doing?”

“Collecting evidence,” John told her, although truthfully, he wasn’t sure there was much to collect.

“Is it Mrs. Hamilton?”

“We don’t know.”

“Oh, God,” Delilah cried, as if understanding the implications of that remark.

“So, Mr. Lipsman asked you to fetch his sheet music, and Mrs. Crosbie offered to give you a lift. Is that correct?”

“She said it was too far to walk,” Delilah repeated.

“You’re quite a long way from the Lipsman house,” John remarked.

“We made a wrong turn,” Delilah said.

“We got lost,” Sandy said at the same time.

Clearly both women were in shock, John concluded, deciding to save any further questions he might have until later. “Okay, I’m going to have Officer Trent drive you both home.” He signaled to one of his deputies. “I’ll bring your car back later.”

“What about Mr. Lipsman’s sheet music?” Delilah asked, panic sweeping through her voice. John saw that the papers in question were crushed in the palm of her right hand.

“It’s okay.” He reached in and extricated the sheet music from Delilah’s clenched fist. “I’ll see that he gets them.”

“Did you know that Gordon Lipsman has a picture of Liana Martin in his house?” Sandy asked as she was being led from her car.

“No, I didn’t,” John answered. What kind of picture? he wondered, deciding to go see for himself later on. “Are you going to be okay, Mrs. Crosbie?”

Sandy nodded, although she looked far from sure.

“All right. Look, I’ll be by later. In the meantime, please
don’t talk to anyone about this. At least until we’ve located Cal Hamilton.” Cal had been released from jail this morning after his boss, old Chester Calhoun, had posted his bail. He’d been ordered not to leave town and to stay away from Kerri Franklin and her family.

“Do you think he did this?”

“I think we have to ID the body before we ask any more questions,” John said. Seconds later, he watched as Deputy Trent tucked the two women into the backseat of his cruiser and drove off. “So, what do we have?” he asked, approaching an officer leaning over the body, his hand covering his nose and mouth.

The young deputy jumped to his feet. “Looks like a gunshot to the head. Same as Liana Martin.”

“Any identifying marks on the body?”

“A small tattoo on her left ankle. Looks like
Property of
… I couldn’t make out the rest.”