Rest in Pieces (10 page)

I pulled another box down. It was filled with little paper seed packets. Another one held an assortment of light bulbs.

Okay, I could accept someone’s need to hoard incandescent light bulbs as they were no longer being manufactured, but I didn’t get the patches or seeds. Or the wall plates or light bulbs or buttons or any of the other strange collections.

I pushed the boxes back into place, flipped off the light, and went to the bathroom. Nothing interesting in there. Just the normal girly bathroom stuff—flat iron, hair gel, toothbrush, toothpaste, face cleanser. I opened the medicine cabinet. Just aspirin, rubbing alcohol, Band–Aids, and fingernail polish. No heroin, no prescription medications. And that, in this house full of oddities, I did find odd. Everyone had a bottle of some prescription they hadn’t finished and so tucked the bottle away in case they needed it later.

I closed the cabinet, wondering. Where does a person who lives alone in the woods leave her heroin? Out on the counter?

I walked back down the stairs and into the only room that I hadn’t checked. The powder room under the stairs. And there was nothing there except a toilet and a sink.

I’d found no sign of drug use at all. And except for the organized envelopes and plastic bins filled with assorted crap, there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Surely, if Molly had been a big heroin user, I’d have found something. She lived alone, out in the middle of nowhere, so why hide her drugs?

There was only one more place to check—the detached garage.

I hustled out the back door, closed but didn’t lock it, and headed for the garage.

It matched the white clapboard of the house. I checked the door—locked. I walked around to the front and tried to pull up the heavy garage bay door, but it was locked too. I went around to the back. There was a window, but as I looked closer, saw that it had been blacked out.

I grabbed the lip at the bottom and pushed up. It opened about a foot and then stuck. I pushed, shoved, rattled, and even rocked it back and forth. Nothing. It was wedged in place.

Undaunted by a little half–open window, I stuck my head through the opening and inch–wormed my chest and then stomach, hips and legs through, awkwardly landing on the floor in a belly flopping–spat. I’d expected concrete, but instead I felt the edges and groves of tile.

Who tiled their garage? It was dark—the only light was from the opening I’d just inched through. Next time I broke into someone’s house, I was bringing a flashlight.

I rocked back on my heels, out of the square foot of light, and flailed my arms in front of me trying to find the wall. I rolled to my knees and then stood, still waving my arms around in the blackness, trying to find something solid. I backed up and ran into the wall. Hand–over–hand, I worked my way around the perimeter of the garage until I found a light switch. I flipped the switch and found the most interesting garage I’d ever seen.

It was a startling white—everything white—the floor, walls, ceiling and the furniture. The only window—the one I’d come through— had blackout paint all over the panes. But the most interesting thing was the sophisticated chemistry setup taking up three whole tables. Any high school chemistry teacher would have drooled over the bottles and beakers and Bunsen burners intertwined with tubes and clamps holding an array of glass and metal containers.

Had Molly been watching
Breaking Bad
and started cooking her own crystal meth?

This room seemed too clean to be a meth kitchen—not that I’d ever seen one. But if the first couple of seasons of
Breaking Bad
had taught me anything, weren’t they crappy old singlewide trailers with the windows blacked out and scorch marks everywhere? At least the window was blacked out.

This was more of a clean room—stark white and meticulously maintained. Looking around, the only thing I saw besides the chemistry set were gallon–sized plastic bags full of what looked like beans. I picked up one of the bags. Sure enough, it was filled with dried, brown–ish beans—kind of like brown spotted lima beans.

I put down the bag and examined the chemistry set. The beakers were clean, but well used. Some of the lettering had worn off and there were scorch marks on the bottom, but the insides were clean. The hose running to and from the beakers appeared to be clean. I couldn’t find any white powder or powder of any kind. Wasn’t crystal meth a powder? I really needed to research my illegal drugs so I could identify them. Maybe there was a YouTube video.

I spun around taking it all in. There had to be fifty bags of beans.

Maybe she hoarded lima beans? If so, what was the lab equipment for? Did she dissect the beans? Maybe she was trying to chemically alter the beans in some way? Molly had loved science. Maybe she was trying to create a new lima bean species?

Obviously, she’d loved her some lima beans.

I shook my head. I had nothing. Of all the things that I might have suspected would be in Molly’s garage, a lima bean lab wasn’t one of them. I turned to the side door and smiled.

Hanging on a nail pounded into the doorframe was a set of keys. God bless you, Molly. I snatched them up and shoved them in my pocket. Surely, they would come in handy.

I flipped the light off, walked through the door, tried the keys until I found the one that locked it, and then threw the keys in my leather bag. I walked back around to the window I’d squeezed myself through, and rocked the wedged pane back and forth until it closed.

I walked to the back door and locked it.

What did a plastic greenhouse, lima beans, electrical wall plates, envelopes from all over, refrigerator magnets, and a chemistry set all have to do with each other? Were they even related?

None of it made sense. And Molly certainly wasn’t the person I’d thought she was. Instead of offering answers, her strange house only provoked questions.

Chapter 7

“Lima beans?” Monica nailed me with her baby brown eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“Me either.” Haley said as she leaned back in my kitchen chair.

They’d all come over for dinner—Haley brought takeout from Don Julio’s, thank God—and now the kids where playing in the living room while we discussed the case.

I glanced at Max, who was huddled against Landon as they played a game on Monica’s iPad. The twins were building a fort out of sofa cushions and blankets.

“Lima beans and hoarding. That’s all you found?” Monica looked like she was processing the information.

“Yep. There weren’t any drugs, or drug paraphernalia, or anything suspicious—except for the lab and the hoarding.” I didn’t really think any of it was suspicious, weird yes, but suspicious?

“In the lab, did you see any chemicals or packages of cold medicine? Pseudoephedrine is used to make meth, I think. At least that’s what the pharmacist told me when I asked why I had to show my driver’s license to buy cold medicine.” Haley sipped her wine. “I asked Daniel about it and he said that making meth is pretty easy. It’s just basic chemistry.”

Monica laughed. “I can see it now. The famous cosmetic surgeon Dr. Daniel Hansen making meth in his garage.” She grinned. “In case you need some extra money.”

“Gotta have a back up plan.” Haley winked.

“I do believe that was a sarcastic remark.” Monica put her hand over her heart. “I’m so proud.”

“It won’t happen again.” Haley bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing. “I wouldn’t want you to get a big head.”

“I feel like poor, white trash Eliza Doolittle, before Henry Higgins got hold of her. Instead of teaching you how to speak properly, I’m showing you my lower class ways.” Monica shrugged. “You know, only without all that singing.”

Haley punched her playfully in the upper arm. “You’re such a bitch.”

Monica’s mouth dropped open and she fanned herself. “Now she’s cussing.” She wiped an imaginary tear from her cheek. “I feel like my little girl is finally growing up.”

I rolled my eyes at both of them. If eye rolling actually burned calories, I’d be a size zero. Maybe I should do more of it, just in case.

“Can we get back to the case?” I stood and went to the last set of kitchen cabinets that were now secured with a small padlock. I pulled the key out of my pocket, shoved it inside the lock, and twisted it open. I took the lock off and set it on the counter. I pulled back the double cabinet doors. “What do you think?”

I’d velcroed a dark green poster board up with the murder scene picture and I’d stapled the two envelopes I’d taken to it. “This is our murder board. I got the idea after watching
Castle
.”

Haley turned around and glanced at the kids. “Are you sure you should have this out here?”

“I keep it under lock and key. Besides, anyone who knows me knows that my kitchen cabinets are empty. I used to keep the extra sheets here, but I moved them to the actual linen closet to make room. And then I kept those extra toothbrushes you get at the dentist along with those tiny tubes of toothpaste they give you in here. But after today, I decided after I’m never going to hoard anything again, so I donated them to the Salvation Army.”

“I don’t think saving two sets of teeth cleaning supplies a year qualifies as hoarding, but okay. Cool.” Monica eyed the poster board. “I think we need to add the facts we have now.” She pulled out her iPhone. “Here’s what I have: head removed cleanly from body—”

“Wait.” I ripped the poster board down—the Velcro came unstuck with a loud “crrrrrrrrkkkkk.”

I brought it to the kitchen table and laid it down. I went to the silverware drawer and pulled out a black Sharpie. I wrote “facts” in the upper left hand corner. Under that I wrote, “head removed cleanly from body” and “missing body,” and then I listed everything from the lima bean lab through the boxes of weird collections to the mysterious envelopes addressed to famous women,

“Did you find anything else at the house?” Monica propped her chin on her hand.

“No. Besides the sophisticated chemistry set, and tons more boxes that I didn’t have time to look into, there were just the bags of lima beans.” I hunched my shoulders. “I’ve never seen anyone who appreciated lima beans more than Molly.”

Personally, I thought there were way too many lima beans in the world, so creating a new variety seemed like the dumbest thing in the world. I also thought there were too many beets and green peas in the world, but no doubt someone somewhere was trying to create a new variety of those, too. Some people had way too much free time.

“Did you get a sample of the lima beans?” Monica’s gaze rolled up to meet mine.

They were lima beans. Why would I want to touch them unnecessarily? “Ahhh, no. I didn’t think of that.”

She shrugged. “Probably doesn’t matter anyway.”

“From the picture, I can tell that she died in the kitchen. I got down on my hands and knees and looked but didn’t find anything.” I shook my head. “It was clean…like super clean. Not a speck of dust even in the corners or on the baseboards.”

Haley’s brows bounced off of her hairline. “You’d know. You’re the queen of clean.”

“Thanks…I think.” Remembering the photo I’d taken, I pulled out my phone. “And there’s this.” I pulled up the picture. “I’d forgotten about it. There was this tree she had in a pop–up greenhouse thing. It was clear plastic like a tent, but, well…clear plastic.”

I handed my phone to Haley.

She used her fingers to zoom in. “So this was the only thing in the back yard?”

She handed the phone to Monica. “Nothing else?”

“Nope, just that tree and that plastic greenhouse. There was a heater in there and everything.”

“That is strange.” Haley glanced at the picture again. “That actually
is
a greenhouse. It’s called the Flower House Conservatory. My next door neighbor, Mr. Earl, got one to protect his prized ornamental cabbage collection, but the neighbor on the other side of him, Mrs. Magee, called the city and complained that it was tacky, so they made him take it down. That was the beginning of what our street calls, Tacky–Gate. Mr. Earl and Mrs. Magee have been at each other’s throats since.”

“Freaking Lakeside, they probably have an ordinance against tacky.” Monica sat back. “I still can’t believe they have an ordinance against cutting your own trees.”

“Well, yeah, that’s for oak wilt, and there’s good reason for that particular rule, but otherwise, yes, it’s stupid. Retirees have lots of time on their hands.” Haley continued to stare at the picture. “I wonder what kind of tree that is? I can’t really tell from this picture.”

I’d intended to take a picture of the tree, but I’d gotten more greenhouse than anything. Freaking camera app, me and that little focus box didn’t get along.

“I might go back out there and take a cutting.” Haley’s gaze met mine. “I could take it to the Natural Gardener and they can tell me what it is, or I could just ask Humberto.”

Humberto was Haley’s gardener. She was constantly asking him to change this or that, and he always nodded and smiled and then did the same thing he always did. His English wasn’t so good, but his wife made the best chicken tamales in the world. So Haley had learned to live without change, because you could only get the tamales by staying on Humberto’s good side. I of course, had been erased off the tamale list years ago. David had asked for the recipe, which had immediately made him and everyone one he knew persona non–tamale. Occasionally Haley snuck me a few, but only when Humberto wasn’t around. Texas tamale politics is very complicated.

“Anything else?” Monica watched me waiting for another revelation.

“Nope. That’s everything. Molly was a hoarder and obsessed with lima beans. Other than that, her house was immaculate.”

We stared at the poster board.

“I got nothing.” Monica chewed on her bottom lip as she shook her head. “I can’t think of a single way any of this is useful.”

Haley drummed her perfectly manicured fingernails on the tabletop. “Me either. What do hoarding, lima beans, one tree, and a head with no body all have in common?”

She looked at me and then at Monica.

“No idea.” Monica shook her head some more. “How about we take a look at those medical records.”