The Big Chili (18 page)

Sure, why not? Maybe he was just going to live here temporarily until he and Tammy moved into the big, gorgeous place they'd purchased. But then why wasn't he staying at Tammy's?

“Lilah?”

“Hmm?”

“I said Apollo really likes you!”

I smiled, massaging Apollo's beautiful neck scruff. “I like him, too. But my dog is getting jealous, so I'd better stop.”

I stood up, still admiring Apollo's beauty. Mike Sullivan came back out of his house and walked toward us. “Hey, Apollo,” he said. “And who are you?” he added brightly, looking at Shelby.

“I'm from the Animal Protection Club at Pine Haven High School,” Shelby said. “We walk animals as a service to the community. If you have a pet you want walked, you can contact Miss Grandy through the high school number.”

“No, thanks,” Mike said with a smile. “We just have a hamster. But it's nice to see Apollo back in town.” He squatted down and did what I had just done; Apollo looked regal and took it as his due.

“I should get going,” Shelby said. “I have a mile-long circuit I like to make with him, and I'm seeing a movie later with Jake.”

“Have a nice time,” I said. Mike and I watched her walk down the sidewalk, and then Mike produced an envelope for me.

“Here you go,” he said. “Thanks, as usual.”

“Sure.” I tucked it into the travel purse that I had slung crosswise over my shoulder. My mother had made it on her sewing machine—a brown-and-orange autumnal bag with a little zip top. “Hey, Mike—can I ask you a question?”

“Sure. What's up?”

“I was talking to some ladies at the church—and to Pet Grandy—and they both suggested that Alice Dixon had been seen with some other man while she was married to Hank. Did you ever see her with someone?”

Mike had three reactions to this, all of them surprising. He turned quite red in the face, and his perpetual smile disappeared. Then he turned abruptly and went to retrieve his
rake. When he came back, his face had returned to its normal joviality, but by then I had figured it out.

“It was you?”

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Because you basically just said as much with your body language.”

We stared at each other for a moment; a big burst of wind came along and sent my braid flying into my face. I pushed it back and looked into Mike's eyes, which were guilty.

He sighed. “We weren't having an affair, so don't jump to that conclusion.”

“Okay.”

“The fact is—sometimes we just wanted to gripe about our spouses. So we had dinner a couple of times. It was no big deal—just neighbors having dinner.” His face turned red again. Mike was a terrible liar.

I shoved my hands in my pockets; it seemed to have grown a couple of degrees colder outside. “I get why you were attracted to her. She was pretty and stylish.”

“Like I said, it didn't go further than dinner.”

But that didn't mean that Mike hadn't wanted it to. “I understand.”

“And I would appreciate if you didn't say anything to my wife.”

“Of course not. Why would I do that?”

“Well, why did you want to know at all?” Mike asked, his smile disappearing again.

I pulled some more hair out of my eyes; the wind was persistent. “I've recently been threatened—possibly by the person who did these poisonings.”

“Oh God. I didn't know. I'm sorry, Lilah.”

“It's okay—it's just that I thought there might be some connection between this mystery man and whoever killed Alice.”

Mike held up a hand. “Whoa. First of all, I don't know if I'm even the guy your friends are talking about. I admit I had dinner with her, but only a couple of times.”

“I get that.”

“But Alice was just kind of a sounding board. Someone to talk to. To be honest with you, it was nice to get out and just be away from home—and yes, with someone other than my wife. No, don't look at me that way—I mean that Maura is the only person I ever get to socialize with. I don't really have guy friends I'm still in touch with, or women friends, either. And neither did Alice. We talked about that when we were out. How we were both essentially in these little islands of our marriages, and we had no other connection to the outside world. It's like we had lost touch with a part of ourselves.”

“Huh.” Mike, too, had to brush some hair out of his eyes. I realized then that Mike was a good-looking man. Acorn-brown hair, ruddy, slightly freckled skin, straight white teeth, and a perpetually smiling face—a lot of women would find that charming.

“But I had nothing to do with Alice's death. I was shocked and saddened, just like everyone else.” He met my gaze with an earnest expression.

I thanked him for the money and the information and went back to my car, where Mick seemed to be pouting on the passenger seat. He might just have been cold; he was scrunching up into the upholstery.

“Sorry, bud—that took longer than I thought. Let me get
the heat on for you.” I turned on the motor and the heat, and Mick seemed to thaw by degrees.

I petted his head. “I'm guessing you were a little jealous about the Apollo thing.”

Mick nodded.

“He's a handsome dog, but he's no Mick Drake. That's you, by the way. I don't think I've ever given you a last name. It sounds kind of weird: Mick Drake.” I smiled at him and he seemed to smile back. I even got a glimpse of some doggie teeth.

I pulled back into traffic and realized that I'd reached another dead end. Mike Sullivan did not have the look of a murderer, despite his guilt at having been caught out. Then again, he had been very serious about the fact that he didn't want me to tell his wife. What if Alice Dixon had decided she wanted to tell Maura about the dates she'd had with Mike? How far might Mike Sullivan have gone to protect the little “island” that was his marriage?

When I got home I ran up to my room and dialed Jenny's house. “Hello?” she said brightly.

“Jen,” I said.

“Well, hello, stranger! I feel like we haven't talked in ages!”

“I know. Let's go out next week. This week I'm booked.”

“Me, too,” she admitted. “How boring our lives are now.”

“Hey, listen. I wonder if I could have your sister Mariette's number. I have a question for Henry.”

“For Henry?”

“Yeah. I saw him on Halloween, and he gave us some information about the person who might have vandalized my house. I have some . . . follow-up questions, I guess.”

She laughed. “You sound like a cop. Maybe that's your real calling.”

“Hardly. I'm far too cowardly.”

“No, you're not. Why are you so down on yourself lately?” I said nothing, so she sighed and said, “Okay, here's Mariette and Jim's number.”

I wrote it down, then said, “Thanks, Jenny. We'll go out next week, for sure. Let's not let our workaholism talk us out of it.”

“No way. See you, Li.”

I hung up, then dialed Henry's parents' number. “Hello?” It was Jim, Henry's dad.

“Hi, Jim. It's Lilah Drake, Jenny's friend?”

“Oh yes—Lilah. You came to our Christmas party last year with that amazing Crock-Pot dish. Did you ever give Mariette that recipe?”

“I did. Hasn't she made it?”

“I don't think so,” he said, sounding indignant. I laughed.

“Hey, this sounds weird, but I have a question for your son.”

“For Henry-bear?”

I heard some giggling in the background, so I guessed that this name pleased Henry for some reason.

“Yeah—I saw him at Halloween and he told me something that might actually help the police with something they're investigating. I just wanted to ask him a couple more questions.”

“This sounds intriguing!” Jim boomed in my ear. “Let me lift up this little bear so he can sit on the counter and talk to you.” More giggling. “Henry, do you know someone named Zila?”

Henry laughed harder. “It's Lilah!” he yelled.

Male bonding sure was loud. I waited while they goofed around some more, and finally Henry was on the line.

“Hey, Hen. It's Lilah.”

“I know,” Henry said, impatient.

“Remember on Halloween, when you said that one person smelled like markers?”

“Yeah. He was dressed up as a holy person that lives alone in a castle.”

“And why do you say ‘he'? Are you sure it was a man?”

“Yeah. He was big and tall. At least the parts that I could see. And he walked like a man. And it's men who commit crimes, not ladies.”

“No? What about Poison Ivy and Catwoman and Harley Quinn?”

Henry groaned. “Those are just Batman enemies. It's not like in real life.”

“No, huh? Anything else you can think of about that monk guy?”

“Nope. Just that he was walking fast.”

Yes, of course he was. And he managed to get away right under our noses.

“Thanks for your help, Henry. Are you and your dad making lunch?”

“Yeah. We're making sandwiches. My mom is doing her homework, which is boring.”

“But it will make her smarter. She wants to keep up with you, because you're so smart now, at six years old—imagine how smart you'll be when you're twenty!”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed.

“Well, go make your sandwiches, and I'll talk to you soon, Sir Henry.”

“Say hi to your dog,” Henry piped, and then his father swooped him away and called a good-bye to me before hanging up the phone.

A man, Henry had said. So could it have been Mike Sullivan, who might have been on the verge of an affair with Alice? Or perhaps Hank Dixon, her estranged husband, who might have had more of a motive than anyone knew?

Or perhaps it wasn't linked to Alice's marriage at all. As ever, Alice's murder was a true mystery, and any clear reason why someone would be so cruel, and take such a risk, was beyond me.

I
had gained a little confidence from my solo delivery (even though I knew my police officer had followed me from a distance), and I was starting to feel that my father had been right, and that the graffiti on my house had been a weird Halloween prank, probably perpetrated by a stranger. My late grandmother had always said that one could adapt to anything if given enough time. At the time she had been talking about old age, to which she felt she had adapted well (although she'd advised me not to get old myself). Now, though, I applied her idea to my night of fear, and the fact that the more time and distance I put between me and the event in question, the less real it seemed. The offending message had long since been cleaned away, and my pretty house awaited Mick's and my return.

I talked about this with my parents that evening, and my
mother agreed—in a way. “Why don't we say that we'll move you back in one week? That way Dad and I get to spend some more time with you, but you'll have a set date to go back to your cozy home.”

We both knew that this was just my mom putting off the inevitable, which was her specialty. She had talked me into a year of commuting to college so that she didn't have to watch me go off to school. She had convinced Cam that he would save money
after
college if he lived at home for a year. In both cases she had been attempting to stave off our unavoidable departures—but in her defense, when the time came, she didn't go back on her word. She'd cheerfully accompanied us both to our new residences, providing plentiful linens and extra furniture.

So I went along with my mother's plan: one more week, and then I would return home.

*   *   *

I
HAD NO
deliveries the next day, so my evening was free. My mother asked if I'd go with her to the church, which hosted a homeless shelter evening once a month (taking turns with other churches in the area). My mother, while not a constant volunteer, did commit to the hosting-the-homeless setup evenings because she believed in the goodness of it, and she was a firm proponent of the “there but for the Grace of God” mentality.

My father felt the same, and sometimes accompanied her, but this evening he had committed to going out for coffee with his friend Sam, a long-lost college buddy who had recently moved to Pine Haven. Since his arrival, my father suddenly had a new best friend. As I watched my dad dig out
his old Indiana sweatshirt and pull it over his head, I remembered Mike Sullivan's longing for someone to talk to outside of his marriage.

“Dad,” I said, as he ran a brush through his thinning hair. “Do you ever feel that your marriage is a little island, and you've lost all connection to the outside world?”

My father cocked his head slightly. “Why do you ask that?”

“Just something someone said the other day.”

He shook his head and brushed some Mick hair off of his jeans. “I married your mother so that I
would
be on a little island with her. That's what you want when you love someone. It's a happy island, and I have no need for the mainland. And that's all the metaphor I choose to indulge in this evening.”

I laughed and hugged him. He kissed my mother, grabbed his keys, and went out for his evening of nostalgia.

“He's a good guy,” I said to my mom.

“He's okay,” she joked.

Then she and I bundled into her car and traveled to the church. “That police car is following us again,” she said. “I wonder how long they're going to do that. It's got to be costing a lot of overtime money. I can't imagine the Pine Haven PD will want to fund it much longer, can you?”

I hadn't really thought much of the salaries of the people involved, but this made sense. Like all of America, Pine Haven had been forced to tighten its municipal budget belt, which had been discussed ad nauseam in the local papers. I felt a burst of gratitude to Parker. He was making this happen, and there were probably people who opposed him. “I wonder if I should tell Parker to let it go,” I said. “This can't be making him any friends over there.”

“Maybe just a few more days,” my mother said, and I laughed.

*   *   *

M
Y MOTHER GOT
busy in the kitchen when we got there; Pet Grandy and Father Schmidt were handing bedrolls to volunteers and asking them to set up sleep stations. I stood in a line of about ten people who had showed up to help and waited for my pile of freshly laundered linens. I realized, as I watched Pet rush back and forth between a big wheeled laundry hamper and the counter where Father Schmidt was holding court, that I was among the people who took it for granted that things just got done: clothing got laundered, food got made, people who needed feeding were fed. But all of that only happened because of people like Pet, and Father Schmidt, and my mother.

“Hello, Lilah,” Father Schmidt said. “You look nice this evening.”

I was wearing jeans and a purple sweater with some rather grungy gym shoes, but I took the compliment. “Thanks, Father. What do you need me to do?”

He picked up a bundle and studied it. Then he made a wry face at Pet, who had just bustled up to us. “Perpetua, we have a problem,” he said. “That sounded like I'm from NASA. Houston, we have a problem!” They both laughed at his lame joke. Father Schmidt loved to laugh, but none of his jokes were ever funny, including the ones he insisted on telling in his sermons. I had often wondered if the parishioners who forced out laughter at those times weren't, in fact, sinning.

“What's wrong with it?” Pet asked. She took the bundle, studied it, and then laughed again. “Okay—you got me!” Then
she turned to me, taking pity on my blank expression and my inability to get the joke. “All of these should have a sleeping bag, a washrag and towel, a Baggie full of necessities like toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, all that.”

“Okay.”

“Look at this one!” Pet said. “It's just a sleeping bag and an empty Baggie!” She and Father Schmidt laughed again. This moment was apparently priceless for them.

I was struck, as I looked at their laughing faces, by how comfortable they were together. Even though Alice had been cruel to suggest that Pet had romantic designs on Father Schmidt, it was clear that their friendship was almost like a happy, platonic marriage. Even the way Father Schmidt had said her name sounded like a doting husband speaking to his wife. It was sweet, the way they interacted with each other.

Pet went to fix the faulty bundle, and Father Schmidt found me a new one that was not quite so hilarious in its oddity. I took it from him. “Now just find a cot and set up the station. When you come back you can grab another,” he said.

I paused. “Pet sure does a lot around here,” I said.

Father Schmidt beamed at me. “St. Bartholomew Parish would crumble to the ground if it ever lost Perpetua Grandy,” he said proudly. “And I probably would, as well. I'm another old ruin that she somehow keeps in shape.” He grinned at me, and I grinned back.

I took my bundle to the line of cots in the north side of the hall. The room looked different from the way it had looked on bingo night. The chairs and tables were gone; now the space would function, in essence, as a hotel, and the parishioners who bustled around were attempting to make it comfortable and pleasing for those who would come here, trying
to make the best of a difficult situation. I found the first free cot and spread out the sleeping bag, unzipping it and folding back the top coverlet. At the foot of the bag I laid out the towel, washrag, and Baggie full of necessities. Angelica Grandy came past and handed me a pillow, which I centered neatly at the top of the sleeping bag. Harmonia followed her with a bag of cards and chocolate kisses; I took one of each and read the card. “God Loves You. From St. Bartholomew Parish Members.”

I centered this on the pillow, along with the kiss. This was a class-A shelter—it provided chocolate on pillows. I liked that.

I set up two more beds, and by then the rest of them were completed. I felt that I hadn't done much at all, so I found my mother in the kitchen, where they were making sloppy joes for the evening meal. “Need help?” I asked.

“You can start pouring drinks and setting them on the counter there,” she said. “Fill half the cups with milk and half with the Coke. If they want coffee, that's self-serve.” I found the little disposable cups and started filling them with the required beverages. If I were tired and hungry, I decided, I would find this place most hospitable.

While I was filling the cups, Father Schmidt began admitting people for the evening. What surprised me most about the people who needed shelter was how little any of them looked like stereotypical homeless people. They looked, for the most part, like people you would see every day at shopping malls or restaurants. They were men and women, and they were all particularly polite as they filed in to the tables that the volunteers had set for dinner. Some of them came over to claim a beverage; they knew the drill from previous
stays at St. Bart's. “Thank you very much, young lady,” said an elderly gentleman who wore a white dress shirt with a bow tie.

“You're quite welcome. I hope you enjoy your dinner.”

He winked at me and made his way back to a table, where he seemed to know a couple of other people. They talked quietly while they ate the fruit cups that had been set on their plates.

Perpetua appeared in the corner with a little trolley full of cleaning supplies. So she'd been here for setup, and she was on cleanup detail, too. I wondered what Pet got out of all this volunteering. Did it bring her joy? Did she feel it was necessary to ensure her a place in heaven? Did she just enjoy being around her friend Father Schmidt?

Harmonia approached me with her bag of chocolate kisses. It looked small in her big Grandy hands. “I have some extra, Lilah. Would you like one?”

“Sure.” I took a kiss and unwrapped it. “It's nice of you guys to do this. I feel guilty, looking at the Grandy family.”

Harmonia shrugged. “It's what we do. We just grew up doing all these things, and we kept doing them. We like it.” She smiled at her sister Angelica, who was blushing while one of the diners flirted with her. “It's nice to have everything back the way it was.”

I nodded. “It's been pretty crazy around here, hasn't it?”

My mother approached. “Okay—the dishwashing crew is here, so I guess I'm off duty.”

“Thanks for coming out to help,” Harmonia said. Angelica, having extricated herself from the amorous diner, came to join her. Both women wore cross medallions on delicate silver chains.

“Those are pretty,” I said.

Harmonia lifted her necklace. “Pet gave them to us last Christmas.”

Perpetua Grandy, I marveled as we walked out. Seemingly, she was everything to everyone, and this church hall was her kingdom.

I wondered, as I followed my mother into the cold, dark parking lot, if a proverbial queen like Pet could really kill to protect her throne.

But where had that thought come from? This was Pet, of the velour sweat suits and the secret chili. She was a lot of things, but a murderer wasn't one of them.