She felt dazed. She looked at her own hands and some distant part of her mind wondered how soon they would be as old and careworn as Mrs. Trumble’s. All the lotion in the world couldn’t really stop the years. Deep down, all women knew that, but they kept trying anyway.
Sarah felt a touch. “Are you all right, Sarah?”
She looked up. “Yes,” she said, standing. “I’ve got to go now.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Trumble. She stood as well. “I’ll see you out. You must come by more often.”
“I will,” Sarah said, almost running for the door.
When she reached it, she flung it open and marveled at the brightly colored world outside. Before she could step out, however, a hand closed on her shoulder. It had a surprising strength in it and it stopped her dead. She sensed the warmth of a man’s breath on her neck.
“Remember, this line has been compromised,” Abner’s voice hissed in her ear. She had never heard him speak before. Perhaps he only knew how to whisper.
The hand released her. She stumbled out onto the porch. She looked back to see eyes glinting in the dark interior of the house. The eyes retreated and the door quietly shut.
She shivered. Pulling her keys out of her purse, she headed for her car.
Ray walked up to the back door, took a breath and aimed the 9mm pistol at chest-level. He checked the safety one last time. It was still ready to fire. He tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. He opened it and stepped inside.
The back porch was a screened-in affair. Laundry baskets decorated the tiled floor and two white Kenmore machines sat quietly by their feeding pipes. A door led deeper into the house, into the kitchen. It was ajar. Ray looked through the crack.
The kitchen was full of rich oak cabinets. A white tile countertop bordered two of the walls. Embedded in the tiles were a sink and a gas stove. The stove had a steaming teapot shaped like a white swan on the front burner. An island topped with matching tile sat in the middle of the kitchen. A hundred pots, pans and implements hung from a rack suspended over the island.
Ray watched the teapot. He decided to wait to see who came when it started to whistle.
The wait seemed incredibly long. Gas stoves burned hotter? Ray began to doubt that piece of ancient wisdom. His whole body ran with sweat, despite the cool waft of air conditioning that came out of the kitchen. His wet palms gripped then regripped the pistol. Now he knew the true foresight of its makers. If it hadn’t been for the textured handgrip, he might have dropped it.
The swan-shaped teapot began to warble, then whistle, then finally scream with abandon. It fired a two- foot plume of vapor that licked the oak cabinets like a dragon’s breath. Still, no one came.
Ray’s breathing became erratic. He began to doubt the wisdom of his plan. Had Ingles spotted him? Was he outside, starting up his car even now? Was his only chance at finding Justin fleeing the scene even while he stood motionless, staring at a fucking teapot?
He turned to peer through the screens out toward the driveway. He saw no sign of a car or Ingles. He turned back to the kitchen, and his breathing stopped altogether.
Ingles was there, pulling two mugs from the cabinets. He popped in two Lemon-Lift teabags and poured hot water over them. Ray paused, looking at the two mugs. Who else was in the house?
Screwing up his courage, he told himself it didn’t matter, even though he knew it did. He pushed open the door and aimed the pistol at Ingles’ back.
#
Vasquez followed the sheriff’s deputy into Brenda’s house. Johansen followed her like a silent shadow.
The place was a wreck. The cabinets had been pulled from the walls in the kitchen. The living room cushions had been torn apart. Everything in the bedrooms had been overturned, slashed open and gutted. Books, smashed lamps and piles of clothing were everywhere. A spilled collection of rare CDs lay in a broken pile near the stereo. A pair of suntan queen-size pantyhose lay across them.
“Anything obviously missing?” asked Vasquez.
“Not a burglary,” replied the young deputy. He was a short man with broad shoulders and a tight crew cut. He sported a yellow scarf and black shades. Vasquez tried not to smile at his get-up.
“Not necessarily just vandalism, either,” he told them. “Seems to me that they were searching for something. See how the pictures on the walls aren’t slashed? Only the big cushions were opened up.”
Vasquez followed his pointed finger and his reasoning. He may look like a webolos boy scout with that scarf on, but he seemed to know his business. “Any prints yet?” she asked.
“No, must’ve been wearing gloves.”
“Where did they break in?” asked Johansen over her shoulder.
The deputy led them to the garage. “Pried open the doorway here.”
“Where did Vance get a crowbar?” asked Johansen as he took notes.
“More importantly, where did he get the time to do all this? This would take too long to do. Every piece of furniture has been smashed and gone through. Every box in the garage has been emptied. Besides, why did he do it?” she asked.
The deputy shook his head. He had no more answers. He headed back into the kitchen where the fingerprint crew was dusting and taping the countertop and some water glasses.
“Maybe she had something on him,” suggested Johansen.
“Possibly,” she said. “Hypothetically, then, he could have done this last night, then Brenda came home and surprised him.”
“Right, so then he takes her to the lab, they fight and she gets shot?”
“Hmm. We’re not seeing the whole thing yet,” she said. She stood in the garage, looking around in a circle. It was then that saw a light flash outside the window. It was a red light.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Johansen squinted through the dirty window, but the light had stopped blinking. “What?”
“There was a flashing red light out there, in that tree,” she said. Quickly stumbling and sliding her way through the destroyed house, she reached the front door. She headed outside and examined the trees in the front atrium. In one of them, a liquid amber, she found a box of black plastic.
“Is that it?” asked Johansen over her shoulder. He startled her a bit. He always managed to move more lightly on his feet than she did, even though he was twice her size. Sometimes, it was disconcerting.
She reached for the box.
“Don’t,” said Johansen, “it might be a bomb.”
Just then, it flashed again. Both of them backed away. Out on the street, they heard the deputy calling in on his car radio to the dispatcher. The red light stopped flashing while he waited for the response. It came crackling across the radio, and when he responded: “Ten-four,” it flashed again.
“It’s no bomb,” said Vasquez, reaching for it.
Johansen frowned down at her and the device. She glanced back and up at him. There he was, hovering over her protectively again, she smiled to herself as she peered at the little box in her hand. It was about the size of a pager.
“It’s too small to be a bomb,” she said. “Besides, I think it’s just here to detect police radio transmissions. To detect us.”
She flipped it over and could clearly see the batteries and the circuitry. “See this? Someone has built this thing with parts of a radio receiver and a pager.”
“Vance?”
“Maybe, I don’t know,” she said. “But it seems unlike Vance. This whole thing does. Maybe we should be looking for a third party.”
“Like who?”
“Well, where have we seen a mess like this before?” she asked. “Who is the type to make gizmos?”
“That Nog guy?” suggested Johansen, wrinkling his nose as if catching wind of something bad.
Vasquez turned back to the gizmo. “A third party. Someone who could have made that bashing-shooting mystery at the lab make sense.”
“Let’s hit the neighborhood kids and see what they know.”
