No Place Like Home (19 page)

A
t four o'clock on Friday afternoon, Charley Hatch pulled his van into the dirt driveway behind his barn, then unhitched the trailer he'd used to haul his riding mower and other landscaping equipment. Some nights he didn't bother to do that but tonight he was going out again, meeting some pals for dinner at a bar where they would watch the Yankee game. He was looking forward to it.

It had been a long day. The sprinkler system at one of the places he serviced had broken down and the grass was parched. Not that the sprinkler failure was his fault, but the owner was due home from vacation soon and would be furious if the grounds weren't up to snuff. It was one of Charley's easier jobs, and he didn't want to lose it, so he had spent extra time getting the sprinkler guy out to fix the system, then hung around until he was sure the grass was getting properly soaked.

Still upset by his phone conversation with Ted
Cartwright the previous night, he'd used the time while he was waiting for the sprinkler guy to carefully examine the clothes he had worn on Monday night when he was on Old Mill Lane. He was wearing the same jeans as he had then, and found three drops of red paint on the right knee and traces of it in the back of the van. The jeans were old but very comfortable, and he didn't want to dump them. He'd have to see if he could get the paint off with turpentine.

He had to be especially careful since the Grove woman had been shot while she was trying to clean up the paint he'd spilled putting the cans away Monday night.

Still in a foul mood, Charley finished putting away the trailer and went into the house, heading straight to the refrigerator. He pulled out a beer, flipped off the top, and began to drink. A glance out the front window made him withdraw the bottle from his lips. A squad car was turning into his driveway. The cops. He knew they would be coming to ask questions eventually, because he took care of the place on Holland Road where the real estate agent had been murdered.

Charley glanced down. The three drops of red paint on the right knee on his jeans suddenly looked as if they were billboard size. He rushed into his bedroom, pulled off his sneakers, and was dismayed to see that the sole of his left one was smeared with red paint. He grabbed a pair of corduroy pants from the floor of his closet, put them
on, shoved his feet into well-worn loafers, and was able to answer the door after the second ring.

Sergeant Clyde Earley was standing there. “Mind if I come in, Charley?” he asked. “Just want to ask you a few questions.”

“Sure, sure, come on in, Sergeant.” Charley stood aside and watched as Earley's eyes swept the room. “Sit down. I just got home. Opened a beer for myself first thing. It's hot out there. Funny how the other day you could feel the cool in the air, but then all of a sudden, bang, it's back to summer. How about a beer?”

“Thanks, but I'm on duty, Charley.” Earley selected a straight chair, one of two at the butcherblock table at which Charley ate his meals.

Charley sat on the edge of the worn club chair that had been part of the decor of the living room in the house he had shared with his wife before their divorce.

“Terrible thing, what happened on Holland Road yesterday,” Earley began.

“I should say so. It gives you the creeps, doesn't it?” Charley took a sip of his beer, then was sorry he had. Earley's face was flushed. He had removed his uniform hat and his sandy hair was damp. Bet he'd love a slug of this brew, Charley thought. He probably doesn't like me sitting in front of him and drinking it. Casually, he put the bottle on the floor.

“You just get home from work, Charley?”

“That's right.”

“Any reason you changed into corduroy pants
and leather shoes? You didn't work in them, did you?”

“Trouble with a sprinkler system. My jeans and sneakers were soaked. I'd just taken them off and was heading for the shower when I saw your car, so I pulled these on.”

“I see. Well, I'm sorry to keep you from your shower, but I just need to get a few facts. You do the landscaping for 10 Holland Road, right?”

“Yeah. I started when the Carrolls bought the place eight, nine years ago. When Mr. Carroll got transferred, they asked me to keep up the place until it's sold.”

“What do you mean by ‘keeping up the place,' Charley?”

“The grounds, you know—mow the lawn, trim the bushes, sweep the porch and the walk.”

“Have you got a key to the house?”

“Yes. I go in every couple of days to dry mop and make sure everything is shipshape. Sometimes the realtors bring people in when it's raining, and they track in mud. I check it out, you know what I mean?”

“When was the last time you were in the house?”

“Monday. I always go in after the weekend. That's when the house gets the most traffic.”

“What did you do at the house this past Monday?”

“Same as usual. I made it my first stop because I figured that if any broker was coming in, it should look nice.”

“Did you know there was red paint in the storage room?”

“Sure I did. There were a lot of paint cans there, not just red, but all different colors. I guess when the house was painted, the decorator ordered a lot more colors than they needed.”

“Then you didn't know that the red paint from that storage room was stolen and used to vandalize the house on Old Mill Lane?”

“I read about Little Lizzie's Place being messed up, but I didn't know that the paint came from the Holland Road house. Who would do such a thing, Sarge?”

“I was hoping you'd have some suggestions, Charley.”

Charley shrugged. “You better talk to all those real estate agents who keep marching in and out of that house. Maybe one of them had a grudge against Georgette Grove or against the people who were moving into Lizzie's Place.”

“That's an interesting theory, Charley. A couple more questions, and then I'll let you head for that shower. The key to the storage room where that paint was kept is missing. Did you know that?”

“I know it was there last week. I didn't notice that it wasn't there on Monday.”

Earley smiled. “I didn't say it was missing on Monday. I don't know that it was.”

“Well that was the last time I was there,” Charley said defensively. “That's what I meant.”

“Last question, Charley. Is there any chance
that anyone, a real estate agent, maybe, might have been careless and left a door unlocked after they were done showing the house?”

“Sure, it can happen, and it
has
happened. I've found the door from the kitchen to the backyard unlocked. Same thing with the sliding glass doors to the patio from the rec room. Some of these agents are so all-fired to make a sale that they get careless. They make a big thing of locking the front door and closing the lockbox, but in the meantime the Pope's army could be marching in by another entrance.”

“Are you certain you always lock the doors after you've been in the house, Charley?”

“Listen, Sergeant, I make my living taking care of people's homes and property. You think any one of them would give me a second chance if I messed up that way? I'll answer that for you. Not one of them would. They'd climb over my dead body if I didn't do everything just right.”

Clyde Earley got up to go. “Looks like somebody climbed over Georgette Grove's dead body, Charley. Let me know if you think of anything that will help. The way I look at it, maybe the same person who did that job on Little Lizzie's Place got scared because Ms. Grove was on to him, so he just had to kill her. That's the real shame. The most time somebody would get for vandalizing the Old Mill Lane place would be a year or so, and if that person didn't have a record, it probably would be probation and some community service. But if that
vandal killed Grove to keep her quiet, then he could get the death penalty. Well, I'll see you, Charley.” Earley stood, then let himself out.

Charley held his breath until the squad car drove away, then pulled out his cell phone and, in a panic, began to dial. Instead of a ring, a computerized voice announced that the number he was calling was out of service.

A
t five o'clock, Thomas Madison entered the Grove Real Estate office. At the motel in which he had stayed overnight he had changed from the dark blue suit he wore when he had been interviewed on Channel 12 into slacks and a light sweater, which made him look younger than his fifty-two years. His lean frame was not the only genetic heritage he shared with his late cousin. Like Georgette, he was very clear about what he wanted.

Henry and Robin were just about to lock up when he arrived. “I'm glad I caught you,” Madison said. “I originally thought I'd stay for the weekend, but there really isn't any point, so I'll go home and come back Sunday night. We'll all be here for the service—I mean by that, my wife, my sisters, and their husbands.”

“We'll be open tomorrow,” Henry told him. “As fate would have it, we seem to be about to close several sales. Have you been to Georgette's house yet?”

“No. The police haven't finished going through it. I don't know what they're looking for.”

“I would imagine any personal correspondence that might give them a lead to her killer,” Robin said. “They went through her desk here as well.”

“It's a lousy business,” Madison said. “I mean, they asked me if I wanted to see the body. In all honesty, I didn't want to, but it seemed wrong to say so. I did go to the morgue. I tell you I almost got sick. That bullet hit her right between the eyes.”

He noticed that Robin winced. “I'm sorry,” he said. “It's just . . . ” He shrugged, a gesture that conveyed his dismay at the circumstances. “I've really got to get home,” he said. “I'm the coach of my kid's soccer team, and we have a game tomorrow.” For a moment a smile played on his lips. “We have the best team in our division in all of Philadelphia, if I do say so myself.”

Henry smiled politely. He had absolutely no interest in whether Georgette's cousin had the best or the worst soccer team in Philadelphia, or in the United States for that matter. What he
did
care about was immediately nailing down business details with Georgette's heir. “Tom,” he said, “from what I understand, you and your two sisters will share in Georgette's estate.”

“That's right. I dropped in on Orin Haskell, her lawyer, this morning. He's right down the block here, as you know. He has a copy of the will. He's submitting it for probate, but that's the way it
reads.” Madison shrugged again. “My sisters are already arguing about who gets what. Georgette had some nice family pieces that go way back. Our great-grandmothers were sisters.”

He looked at Henry. “I know that you own twenty percent of both this place and some property on Route 24. I'll tell you this—we have absolutely
no
interest in continuing the business. My suggestion is that we get three appraisals, then you buy us out, or if you're not interested in keeping the business going, we close the office and sell everything, including Georgette's house, which, of course, was completely in her name.”

“You do know that Georgette intended to deed the property on Route 24 to the state,” Robin said, ignoring Henry's angry glance.

“I know all about that. But fortunately she never got around to it, or maybe she couldn't because you didn't go along with it, Henry. Frankly we'd all like to kiss your feet for not letting her play Lady Bountiful to the state of New Jersey. I've got three kids, my sisters each have two, and whatever we get from the sale of Georgette's real estate will go a long way toward paying to educate them.”

“I'll start getting appraisals immediately,” Henry promised.

“The sooner, the better. I'll be on my way.” Madison turned to leave, then stopped. “The family will be having lunch after the church service. We'd like to have you join us. I mean, you two were Georgette's other family.”

Henry waited until the door closed behind Madison. “
Are
we her other family?” he asked dryly.

“I was very fond of Georgette,” Robin said quietly. “As were you at one time, or so I gather,” she added.

“Were you so fond of her that you don't mind the fact that when she stayed late Wednesday night she went through your desk?” Henry asked.

“I wasn't going to say anything about it. You mean she went through your desk as well?”

“She not only went through it, she removed a file that belonged to me. Did she take anything from yours?”

“Not that I've noticed. There's nothing in my desk that would be of any interest to her, unless she preferred my hair spray or perfume to hers.”

“You're
sure
of that, Robin?”

They were still standing in the reception room. Henry was not a tall man, and Robin's three-inch heels put her at eye level with him. For a long moment they looked directly at each other. “Want to play
I've Got a Secret
?” he asked.