Lemon Tart (28 page)

The girl nodded, her nod as slow as the words she’d just
spoken. She didn’t offer Sadie any other information as she pulled the roast
over the scanner a second time. This time the cash register beeped and she put
the roast in a plastic sack.

“Did she get along with anyone else here?” Sadie asked, wishing
she’d grabbed more items so as to extend the conversation. She grabbed a pack
of gum from the rack behind the conveyor and put it down. “Or were you her only
friend?”

The word “friend” made the young girl smile, which relieved
Sadie even more.

“She was my friend,” the girl said. She looked up and met
Sadie’s eyes. Underneath the scarring and softness of her expression, she was a
beautiful girl, with wide green eyes and high cheekbones. Sadie hoped she had
wonderful parents who cared for and loved her dearly. She picked up the pack of
gum and swiped it across the scanner. This one beeped on the first try.

“I know,” Sadie said, imagining Anne waiting for this girl to
finish her shift and ushering her to her car. Good for Anne. Sadie searched for
something else to say. “She got along with the customers?” Melba had already
said as much, but Sadie wanted it from another source.

“Customers like Anne,” the girl continued. Her eyebrows
furrowed. “’Cept the one in the pink shoes.”

“Oh,” Sadie asked, trying not to sound too interested. “What
happened with the one in the pink shoes?”

“Well,” the girl said. She stared at the conveyor, concentrating
hard. “Anne was givin’ me a ride home, and a lady stopped her car in front of
us. Anne stopped fast and I hit my hand.” She lifted her hand as if to show an
injury Sadie couldn’t see, though she frowned sympathetically. “And the lady
jumped out and yelled mean things.” She shook her head as if still upset about
it.

“How horrible,” Sadie said. “Then what happened?”

“Anne yelled too.” The girl looked up and met Sadie’s eyes. She
leaned toward Sadie and lowered her voice. “She said bad words.”

Sadie made a face. “That’s not good.”

The girl shook her head slowly and straightened. “Then she took
me home.”

That’s it?
Sadie thought. “Um, what did this woman say, the one who stopped her car in
front of you?”

“She said Anne was a home breaker.”

“A home breaker?” Sadie asked, searching her mind for a
definition of the term. “Oh, you mean a home wrecker.”

“Right,” the girl said, smiling as if embarrassed. “Home
wrecker. And she said Anne had to go away forever.” The girl’s eyes went wide
to illustrate the seriousness of such a demand.

“Forever?” Sadie said, keeping the tension up though her
thoughts were moving a million miles an hour now. If Jack was the father of
Anne’s baby, only one person would be accusing Anne of being a home wrecker.
“That’s a long time,” she said, swallowing and forcing herself not to cover her
ears as yet one more person she loved came into focus.

“And then Anne said the bad words I was telling you about. I
can’t say them.”

“Oh, no,” Sadie assured her. “I wouldn’t want you to. Um, what
did this lady look like?”

“Pink shoes,” the girl said bluntly. “With light hair.” She
looked triumphant, as if that explained everything.

“What did her car look like?” Sadie asked, trying to imagine
Carrie wearing pink shoes, but finding herself not wanting to think on it too
hard even though she couldn’t get Carrie’s newly blonde hair out of her mind.
The denial she’d been wresting with in regards to both Ron and Jack was back
full force. These things don’t
happen in real life! she lamented. Not
to me.

“White,” the girl said. “With black tires and a fish on the
back.” Carrie’s car to a T. Sadie swallowed as the clerk continued. She seemed
to have warmed up to Sadie. “I have a fish, too, you know. She’s a molly fish
and I named her Polly. Get it?”

“Polly the Molly,” Sadie said, though she wasn’t sure how much
longer she could pretend her whole world wasn’t spinning out of control.
“That’s very cute.”

The girl smiled broadly and nodded.

“Was Anne upset when she got back in the car?”

The girl furrowed her brow and then shook her head. “No, she
said the lady was crazy but I was scared of that lady.”

“I bet you were,” Sadie said, reaching over to pat the girl’s
arm sympathetically.

Someone standing behind Sadie cleared her throat. Sadie turned
to look. “Oh, sorry,” she said to the little old lady who’d already loaded all
her groceries on the conveyor. She turned back to the clerk. “Thank you for
talking to me,” she said with a smile. “Say hi to Polly for me.”

She was a few feet away when she remembered something else. She
stepped back, earning an unhappy look from the customer in line.

“When did this happen?” Sadie asked. “The mean lady and the bad
words.”

“Um,” the girl said, her eyes drifting to the ceiling. “Monday.”

“Monday?” Sadie asked bleakly. “You’re sure?”

The girl nodded. “I never work on Sunday and I came back on
Monday. Anne was s’posed to pick me up on Tuesday after lunch.” Her face fell
and a confused expression took residence behind her eyes. “But she didn’t call
and she didn’t pick me up. Mama said she’s in heaven now. I bet she’s a pretty
angel.”

Sadie tried to swallow the lump in her throat and give the girl
a final smile. “I’ll bet she is too.”

Chapter 29

“Hi, Sadie.” Sadie
smiled brightly at Mr. Henry who stood just inside his doorway. He regarded her
with complete boredom. She could hear a television coming from the darkness
behind him and tried not to shiver in the wind that was still blowing. The
junipers he had planted around the doorstep helped shield her from the worst of
the wind, but it was still very cold. It didn’t surprise her that he didn’t
invite her in. That’s why she’d grabbed her heavy winter coat on her way out
the door.

He was the only neighbor she hadn’t talked to and she wanted to
make sure she’d left no stone unturned before she allowed her suspicions to
blossom into a full-grown garden. Already the shoots of such newly
planted seeds were pushing up through the ground, making themselves difficult
to ignore. When she’d seen his car in the driveway and realized he wasn’t
working today she knew she couldn’t resist.

“Hi, Frank,” she said. Using his first name felt strange on her
lips, but she was pretending they were bosom friends who told each other
everything, and she’d never call a bosom friend “Mr. Henry.” She held out the
plate in her hands. It was still warm and she was hesitant to let it go. “I
made you carrot cookies,” she said, smiling widely. The first thing she’d done
when she got home was start the cookies. While they baked she took a
shower and did her hair—finally—and she’d even put
some makeup on and enjoyed feeling like herself again.

He stared at them with longing, then looked up at her with
narrowed eyes. “I don’t eat sugar anymore, Sadie. Doctor says I have
prediabetic symptoms.”

“Oh,” Sadie said, her voice showing far more disappointment
than was warranted. She’d just spent forty minutes baking these cookies. For
nothing? “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

He shrugged and began closing the door.

“I could make some soup,” she said quickly, not wanting to lose
the opportunity. “I make a fabulous beef-and-barley—no
sugar and limited starches. I could bring some over later, it takes about two
hours to simmer so—”

“What do you want, Sadie?”

Hmmm, so she wasn’t fooling him. “I . . . just wanted
to be a good neighbor.”

He rolled his eyes. He actually rolled
his eyes at her attempts of service! “You want something,” he summed up. “What?”

Sadie straightened up and looked aghast at him as a gust of
wind blew against her back, causing her hair to blow forward. She wrestled with
the now tousled strands, trying to get them back in place. “I am just trying to—”

“Sadie Wright Hoffmiller,” Mr. Henry said. “I’ve got your
number, okay? I’ve known you for, what, eight years? And in all that time you
only show up with food when you either need to borrow something or want to find
out who was visiting me for the weekend.” He stopped and smiled just enough to
offend her even more as she raced for an explanation. “Your Christianity
is lovely, and the fact that you’re a terrible busybody doesn’t bother me in
the least, but I’ve got a show I’m in the middle of and my TiVo ain’t workin’,
so just get on with it.”

Oh, fine,
Sadie decided, finally lowering the plate and her facade. “Did you see anything
yesterday morning or the night before?”

“Nope. Same old stuff as always, ’cept Carrie.”

“Carrie?” Sadie asked as she tried to pull everything she’d
heard about Carrie over the last two days to the forefront of her mind. It was
weird that the topic she was hoping for more information on was the very thing
he would bring up. Could it be fate?

“Yeah, she was loading a suitcase in the car when I left for
work—I went in at five to get ready for an audit.”

Suitcase. Someone else had said something about . . .
that’s right, Mindy had talked about Carrie taking a trip. Sadie had forgotten
all about that. “At five in the morning?”

“That’s what I thought. Funny thing about it,” Mr. Henry said,
his eyes dancing as he leaned forward slightly. She’d never seen him so
animated and found it a little disgusting that he’d take so much delight in the
ugliness of all this. And Mr. Henry had never liked Carrie. Not since the time
at the block party that he mentioned he was against war and she called him an
anarchist. People don’t generally like to be called anarchists and Mr. Henry
was no exception. He’d stood up from the table in Sadie’s backyard and walked
away without a word. That was five years ago, and he hadn’t come to a block
party since.

“The car left last night but she didn’t, darn my luck. I was
gettin’ all excited about her holiday.”

Sadie turned to look at Carrie’s house. Her car wasn’t there.
She tried to remember if it had been there last night. All she could remember
was Jack’s truck—but it wasn’t there either.

“When did the car leave? Who took it?”

Mr. Henry shrugged. “I saw your girl’s car on the street. The
next time I looked out the window both cars were gone. At first I thought
Carrie was gone too—I was about ready to celebrate—but
then I saw her out talking to Jack for a little while.”

Sadie stared at the porch. “Did you tell all this to the
police?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I didn’t pay it much mind till the car was gone
and the dragon lady wasn’t. The police haven’t been around for me to tell them
anything today and I don’t think it matters to them if Carrie goes out of town
or not.” Mr. Henry began shutting the door again. “Ain’t my business, Sadie. If
you ask me, it ain’t yours either.”

“Trevor is Jack’s son,” she said quickly, needing the upper
hand and knowing that kind of information would give it to her. Mr. Henry
startled and his eyebrows jumped up. He pushed the door open a little
wider.

“What?” he asked slowly.

She summed up the whole sordid situation in about half a dozen
sentences. Mr. Henry looked appropriately shocked and just a teeny bit
impressed. She’d have slapped him but she knew full well that wouldn’t help her
get any more information. “He didn’t kill Anne,” Sadie said sharply. “I know he
didn’t.”

“Then who did?” Mr. Henry asked, watching her carefully as if
afraid she might spontaneously combust with all the stress and pressure.

Sadie turned away from him without giving a direct answer,
shrugging her shoulders slightly. “If you remember anything else will you let
me know?”

“Sure,” Mr. Henry said as she headed down his front walk, the
cookies still in hand.

Suitcase.

In the trunk.

“Frank,” she said, turning to face him and knowing he’d be
there because she hadn’t heard the door close. He was watching her. “What color
was the suitcase?”

“Black, I think,” he said. “And heavy. If it had been anyone
else I’d have stopped to help. As it was I enjoyed watching her struggle.”

What a gentleman. “And did you happen to notice if she was
wearing pink shoes?”

“Pink?” Frank said. “Only good witches wear pink, Sadie, and
Carrie ain’t never been a good witch.”

Sadie nodded and turned away, closing her eyes for a moment as
she caught her breath. She was worn out from all the suspecting she’d been
doing. She crossed the cul-de-sac, the north wind destroying all
the hard work on her hair strand by strand, but she wasn’t paying it much mind.
She peeled back the plastic from the plate long enough to grab a cookie and
shove the whole thing in her mouth. The orange-glaze frosting filled
her mouth as her cheeks puffed out while she chewed.

A suitcase.

A heavy suitcase.

A heavy black suitcase.

Anne’s missing
filing cabinet?

She should have asked Mr. Henry if he’d had his glasses on when
he saw Carrie, but it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that in the darkness of early
morning a two-drawer filing cabinet could look an awful lot like a
big heavy suitcase. Without the car here, presumably with the suitcase or
filing cabinet in the trunk, there wasn’t much she could do on that front. But
she felt an increased urgency to get some answers. She felt so close, both
physically and metaphorically. So much had happened right under her nose. It
felt as if the only way to validate that she wasn’t a complete idiot for not
realizing just how much had been happening was to find out exactly what those
happenings were.