Lemon Tart (19 page)

“Jack,” she said with relief. It had been more than a month
since she’d seen him last and she wanted so much for him to give her a
little-brother hug and assure her that everything was fine. He’d been
there to do just that during every other trial of her life, every other loss.
But things were different now. She could feel it. Jack looked past her to the
front door, and then back at her. She sensed he was eager to get inside.

“I heard about Anne,” he said, his voice low. He cleared his
throat and seemed to be uncomfortable. Then she wondered if he knew Anne too.
He’d been to the Boston office many times, though not as often as Ron. Her
stomach sank lower. Had Jack known all along? Had he been hiding this from her
as well? Were all the people she believed to be above reproach liars? Really
good liars? Suddenly a hundred questions flooded her head. Jack continued, “I . . .
uh, came to see how Carrie’s doing with all this.”

Sadie shrugged since she really didn’t know. She held out the
pan of brownies. “I was bringing this over,” she said on impulse, wondering if
she could weasel a few answers from him. “It’s hot so I’ll just take it into
the kitchen.” She had to find the right way of asking him about Anne and Ron.
And she was curious to see him and Carrie together. That he was here for her
was a good sign, Sadie thought. Maybe all was not lost between them. And then
she wondered if Carrie also knew about Anne and Ron. Was Sadie the only person who didn’t know the
truth?

“Oh, um, I’ll just take it in for you,” he said, but when he
grabbed the pan it was too hot and Sadie hurried to get it back from him.

“Just let me bring it in,” she said with irritation. Did
everyone have to be so difficult today?

But Jack had already shoved his hands into his sleeves and
reached them out to take the pan—just as she had when she
removed the lemon tart from Anne’s oven that morning. “You’re sweet to think of
us,” he said, taking the pan from her while she tried to think of another
protest. Preferably one that would work.

He quickly walked past her and kicked the door a few times, as
if knocking with his loafers. Trina opened the door. Her blonde hair was down,
but looked unkempt, and her eyes were red as she ushered him into the
house.

“Thanks, Aunt Sadie,” she said, trying to manage a smile. Then
as fast as she’d opened the door, she shut it again.

Always a dramatic
one, Sadie thought after standing there a moment. She didn’t remember if
Trina had even met Anne, but she reminded herself that sometimes young people
were deeply affected by such tragedies. Slowly descending the steps, she shook
her head at having wasted the pan of brownies. They hadn’t garnered her any
answers at all and now she had nothing to take to the Baileys.

She turned toward home, trying to decide whether to make
another batch or put the apology off until tomorrow, when a police cruiser
drove into the circle. It slowed as it passed Anne’s house, shining a spotlight
across the property. Sadie headed toward home, slow enough to listen to the
car, but not making herself too obvious by looking over her shoulder. Less than
thirty seconds after the car entered the circle, the engine revved up again and
the car drove right back out. It seemed an inadequate inspection to her and she
wondered if all the talk she’d heard about budget cuts affecting the Garrison
police department was something she should pay more attention to. When she
reached the top of her porch steps, she looked back at Anne’s house and
wondered if they were going to keep driving by all night.

“Is Mindy okay?” Breanna asked, still at the computer.

“I ended up giving them to Jack,” Sadie grumbled, shaking her
head at the waste of time and effort.

“Uncle Jack’s home?” Breanna turned in her chair and looked at
Sadie. “That’s good.”

Sadie reflected on the encounter and shrugged—there
simply was no accounting for the way people acted when something like this
happened. Jack finally came home, overwhelmed with concern for his estranged
wife, and Trina acted as if the perpetrator would dive through their front door
if she opened it more than a foot. “Yeah,” Sadie answered. “It’s good. But now
I don’t have anything for Mindy.”

Breanna scrunched up her face as if in deep thought. “Why don’t
you take the leftover fettuccini?” she suggested. “We made plenty and you’d be
right in time for dinner.”

Sadie considered that and looked in the fridge to assess just
how much leftover fettuccini she had. It wasn’t enough for a family of seven,
that was for sure. But maybe she could make some more. It took only a minute to
realize she had enough cream and Parmesan for the Alfredo sauce. And she always
had plenty of pasta on hand since it was an easy meal to whip up, either for
herself or for her and . . . Ron if he happened to stop by after
work. Ron, she thought,
allowing herself a moment to fantasize about the man she had thought he was,
the life she had thought they would have together. Then she shoved those
thoughts away and reprimanded herself sharply. It was masochistic for her
to dwell on what could have been. Instead, she thought about the edible apology
she needed to offer Mindy. If she worked fast it would take only fifteen
minutes to make another batch of noodles and sauce, compared to forty if she
made a new pan of brownies. It wouldn’t be chocolate, but cheese and cream was
the next best thing.

“You’re a genius,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at her
daughter. But Breanna was back to her typing.

It ended up taking twenty-one minutes to cook it all
up, but when she finished, she had a large steaming pot of pasta tossed with
enough Alfredo sauce to clog even the hardiest of arteries. Not exactly baked
goods but a sackcloth-and-ashes offering all the same.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said for the second time in thirty
minutes.

“Have fun,” Breanna said in a distracted voice. Behind the box
containing Breanna’s instant messaging conversation was the home page of
findpeople.com.

If only Sadie could get Anne’s birth date. As she let herself
out she glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall near the phone but tried to
talk herself out of the idea forming in her head.

This time she hardly glanced at Jack and Carrie’s house. When
she reached the Baileys’ house she took a deep breath and rang the
doorbell.

Gina, the fourteen-year-old Bailey, answered the
door. “Hi, Mrs. Hoffmiller,” she said with an uncomfortable smile that assured
Sadie she had been the topic of some less than friendly conversations.

Sadie forced a smile. “Is your mom here?”

Mindy Bailey came around the corner just then, her face drawn
and her eyes narrowed. “Gina, go finish your homework,” she said. Sadie thought
it might be the shortest sentence she had ever heard the other woman
utter.

Gina did as she was told but Sadie doubted very much that she
had gone far enough that she wouldn’t hear the exchange. Sadie swallowed her
pride and dropped the smile in order to look properly penitent.

“I’m so sorry, Mindy,” she said. “I know that’s no excuse, but
I feel just horrible about what happened.”

“My children were left alone, Sadie, alone with a psycho on the
loose! Do you have any idea what it felt like when I realized they’d been
sitting on your porch in broad daylight for fifteen minutes? They may as well
have had bull’s-eyes on their backs! To think that I . . .”
She went on for a full two minutes, with Sadie nodding and apologizing each
time Mindy stopped for breath. Sadie tried really hard to shed a tear or two,
but her annoyance was too great. Yes, she’d let her friend down, but it hadn’t
been on purpose and the kids had been fine. She was sorely tempted to tell
Mindy that Ron had no reason to hurt her children, but she kept that to herself
and looked at the ground so as to avoid Mindy’s eyes.

“I’ve always trusted you, Sadie,” Mindy continued. “I always
thought you were the type of woman that—”

Sadie couldn’t take it anymore. She lifted her chin. “I am that type of woman, Mindy. And
I have always helped you in any way that I can. I am so very sorry for what
happened today and I don’t blame you for being angry—but it
wasn’t on purpose and if I could change things I would.”

“Oh, well, that’s easy to say now, isn’t it? And since they
weren’t your kids I’m sure you had a hundred more important things to do than—”

“Ron was at Anne’s last night,” Sadie cut in. Mindy stopped in
the middle of a word and blinked. “Did you know that?”

“Um, no,” Mindy said and Sadie could see she was drawing the
same conclusion Sadie had.

“Yeah, I didn’t either until he told me. And I’ve spent the
whole day trying to make sense of it. I met him at a restaurant to talk about
things—it didn’t go very well. That’s why I was late.”

“I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

That was certainly a first for Mindy Bailey. Sadie just nodded.
“I am really sorry though,” she said, handing over the pot. “I made some dinner
for your family; I figured you could use it tonight.”

Mindy took the pot and nodded. “Thank you,” she said softly,
surprising Sadie with how fast her mood had changed. Amazing what a little
gossip could get a person sometimes.

“You’re welcome,” Sadie said. She managed a small smile and
turned around. She was at the end of the walk when she heard Mindy call her
name. Mindy met her halfway down the sidewalk, no pot in her hands, and no
shoes on her feet.

“I didn’t see him there last night,” Mindy said in a whisper.
“But,” she paused and took a breath, wrapping her arms around herself. Sadie
steeled herself for what she feared was coming. “A few months ago Gina had the
flu and I was up with her really late. We finally crashed on the couch and
sometime during the night a set of headlights passed in front of the window. It
woke Gina up and I went to get her some water. When I came back into the living
room I decided to shut the blinds, but I noticed a black car parked in front of
Anne’s house.”

“Ron’s Jetta?” Sadie asked.

“I’m not sure,” Mindy said. “But that’s what I thought that
night. I told Steve and asked if he thought I should tell you but he didn’t
think it was a good idea—I mean, I didn’t even know for sure it
was a Jetta, let alone that it belonged to Ron. It’s just that Ron’s is the
only black car that’s in the circle regularly.”

Sadie nodded and looked at her shoes. He’d been there before.
It was further evidence that the affair had been ongoing. The one man
she’d dared consider spending the rest of her life with. How could she be so
stupid?

“Thank you for telling me,” Sadie said, putting a reassuring
hand on Mindy’s arm. Mindy offered an apologetic smile. “It’s important that I
know this.”

“Do you think he killed Anne?” Mindy whispered, leaning in as
if afraid of being overheard.

“I don’t know,” Sadie said. “The Ron I knew and loved never
would have, but I’ve been learning today that there is very little I really
know about him. Thanks again for telling me.”

Mindy nodded and started toward home again. When she was
halfway to her own house, the police cruiser entered the circle again. This
time the car pulled up alongside Sadie.

“Can we help you, ma’am?” the officer asked after rolling down
the passenger window. “This is the second time we’ve seen you out here.”

“I’m Sadie Hoffmiller,” she said, pointing to her house while
watching to see if her name was familiar to the officer. She wondered if the
police were talking about her, if she was really a suspect in anyone but
Detective Madsen’s mind. He didn’t react with anything other than an intense
stare. “I live on the corner and I’ve been taking things to my neighbors.” As
an afterthought she added, “To make sure everyone’s all right.”

“We’d appreciate it if you would return home,” he said, smiling
to belay any offense in what he’d said. “We’ve got this circle under
surveillance and would certainly hate to have anything happen to you.”

“Sure thing,” she said with a nod, just now realizing the risk
she was taking being outside at all. It was full dark and Ron was still out
there somewhere. The officer thanked her and continued on his inspection as she
continued toward her house. But when he left the cul-de-sac,
Sadie stopped underneath the black walnut tree. With everything that had
happened that day, with all she’d learned, it just didn’t sit well with
her to go home, lock her door, and twiddle her thumbs.

After a few moments of thought, she casually crossed the
street. When she reached the other side, she stopped and looked around again.
There were no unfamiliar cars parked anywhere in the circle and a quick look
over her shoulder showed her there were no cars in the field either. The Bailey
and Henry houses were both lit up but their blinds were drawn as if that would
offer them some protection from the unknown attacker they all feared. Jack and
Carrie’s house was mostly blocked by the blasted tree, but she didn’t think
anyone could see her.

The area behind where she stood was filled with weeds and wild
trees, all dead and skeletal with the onset of winter. She scanned the area
carefully, then as casually as possible, she walked to a particularly thick
tangle of branches and ducked beneath its cover. Her knees, already feeling
picked on for her under-the-bed adventure, groaned as she
squatted there—waiting, watching the cul-de-sac.
She tried not to think about spiders and mice, but each time the leaves rustled
she bit her lip a little harder.

Jack’s truck left a few minutes into her stakeout. But by her
watch it was almost exactly ten minutes before the police cruiser entered the
cul-de-sac again. It drove slowly, and when it had followed the
loop around to Anne’s house, it stopped and shone its spotlight into the
windows and along the front of the house. After less than a minute, the
spotlight went off and the car left the cul-de-sac as smoothly
as it had entered. Sadie waited only long enough for the taillights to disappear
before she hurried out of her hiding place, looked around to be sure all the
blinds in the neighborhood were still pulled tight, and then hurried up the
front steps of Anne’s house.