than when I’d seen her the day before, and the odor emanating from the house was foul. Maybe she was embarrassed to have me come in, and that was why she’d been reluctant to see who was on her front stoop.
“Do you have anything to tell me?” she asked. Her expressionless gaze skimmed the street. “Why is Vic’s car parked in front of your house? Is he over visiting you? Will he be back to see us? I feel so bad about not letting him in the other morning…and he’s been so helpful and kind. Is he coming over here?”
“Uh, no,” I stammered. I was not going to tell Sally the reason for Vic’s sudden trek down to the sheriff’s department, as that would upset her even more. “He’s with Tom. He’ll be back soon.” When she didn’t say anything, I went on: “Could you let me in? I need to put this casserole in your refrigerator…and ask you a few questions.”
“The police have asked us enough questions to last us a lifetime,” she said, but she pulled the door open and I followed her to the kitchen.
The cause of the odor was immediately apparent, as the smell was much stronger by the sink. No one had taken out the trash.
The trash! I’d forgotten all about the mess in the back of Julian’s Rover. I checked my watch: just after five. I knew Aspen Meadow Imports, where the Rover had been towed, closed soon. I would just have to get it the next day. No wait, that was Sunday. By the time I got it Monday, Julian’s vehicle would be permanently infused with the smell of garbage.
Well: to the task at hand. I didn’t ask for Sally’s permission to remove the trash; I just did it. It had probably been Dusty’s job. I toted the bulging plastic bag out to the garbage container, thankful that no bears had been reported in our neighborhood. When I came back inside, Colin’s disconsolate crying filled the house. I guessed that he’d just awakened from his nap. But this was only a guess, because Sally remained glued to the couch.
“Let me go get him,” I offered. And so I washed my hands and went to fetch the little guy, since Sally still wasn’t moving. Colin, his face mottled from weeping, needed a change. It had been well over a decade since I’d changed a diaper, and when I started I realized Colin needed a bath. Poor kid.
“All right, buster, let’s go,” I said to him in as commanding a tone as I could muster.
Fifteen minutes later, I brought Colin, bathed, changed, and clothed in clean garments, into the small living room. Sally had not stirred. After I put Colin down, I came and sat beside her.
“You know, Sally, maybe we should get a counselor to come here to the house. I can call one, if you’d like. You need help.”
“What I need,” she said in a monotone, “is to find out what happened to my daughter.”
“Okay, okay,” I said as I pulled my cell from my pocket. “But may I get somebody here to help you?”
“Do whatever you want.”
I walked into the kitchen and put in a call to Furman County Social Services, steeling myself for the usual bureaucratic runaround. To my astonishment, I was only transferred once, and the office said they would send a grief counselor up that evening. I also put in a call to St. Luke’s. Thank goodness some foresighted soul had thought to put in confidential voice mail for Father Pete. He’d just been over here the previous day, but hopefully he could manage another visit. I added that if he was aware of anyone in the Episcopal Church Women who knew the Routts, and would be willing to stop in once a day to do some cleaning and cooking, that would be great.
“Have you eaten today, Sally?” I asked when I came back out to the living room. No to that, too. Which probably meant that Colin was hungry, as well. Where was Sally’s father? Perhaps he napped in the afternoon. But a happy cry from Colin and a rush of hurried baby steps indicated that John Routt had made his appearance from the other side of the small house. For that I was thankful.
Ten minutes later I had heated up slices of ham left by a parishioner, a pan of macaroni and cheese—the ultimate comfort food—and placed these next to small dishes of chilled applesauce. It was the kind of not-quite- balanced meal we used to get in the school cafeteria when I was a kid, but I figured it would do. For Sally and her father, I set up the metal TV tables that had been part of the sparse furnishing the parish had done for the house. Colin slipped easily into his yellow chair-within-a-table, even called out gleefully when he saw the applesauce. I cut his ham and macaroni into bite-size pieces and served them. To my great surprise and satisfaction, they all, even Sally, ate hungrily.
I didn’t want to make them uncomfortable while they were enjoying their food, so I washed the two pots I’d dirtied, then cleaned out the refrigerator. I took out two of the church’s offerings as well as my casserole-cum- directions, and put all three into the Routts’ small freezer. By the time they were finished eating, I had the counters cleaned and the little dishwasher—but at least they had one, and built in, too—almost loaded. I put in their dishes and silverware, and figured it was time to talk.
With Colin settled in on the far side of the living room to watch
“I haven’t found out much,” I warned them. “Just rumors at this point, that kind of thing.”
“Was there anything in the computer?” Sally asked.
“Sort of,” I said. “I know Julian called you to ask about this, and you said you hadn’t heard of it, but are you sure that Dusty didn’t have a friend-who-was-a-boy with the first or last name beginning with
“Positive,” Sally said. “She had been going out with Vic Zaruski, but that had ended, I’m pretty sure.”
“Was he nice to her?” I asked. “I mean, did she ever complain that he was not nice to her?”
Sally shrugged. “She didn’t say one way or the other. Why?”
Before I could talk about the face slap, John Routt piped up: “I believe there was more affection on his side than there was on hers.”
“Did she tell you that?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “But when you’re blind you pick up a lot of nuances and attitudes from speech.”
I steeled myself for my next question. “Okay, there’s an attorney with whom Dusty was friends. They worked out together. Did she ever mention doing exercises or weights with someone, someone whom she might have cared for romantically?”
“She never mentioned anyone,” said Sally. “Who is this person?”
The less said about any specific attorney, the better, I figured. I didn’t want Sally going on an ill-conceived vigilante mission. “Just a guy,” I said, my tone light. “This next part is important. Did Dusty talk to you about working for Charlie Baker?”
“Oh yes, Charlie Baker,” Sally said. “She really did like him. He died, but I guess it wasn’t wholly unexpected.”
“No,” I said. “Anyway, she mentions a gift from Charlie. Then another time, just a couple of days before she was killed, one of Charlie Baker’s neighbors saw her carrying something out of his house, in a tube. A long tube, the kind someone might use to store paintings. Do you know anything about this?”
Sally shook her head, clearly frustrated that there was so much about her child she hadn’t known. But wait. The last entry in Dusty’s journal had said: “Now I can compare them.” I’d thought she meant boyfriends, but maybe she meant something else. I ran this by Sally.
“Compare what?” Sally asked, hooking her straggly hair behind her ear. “The only thing Dusty cared about was
“All right,” I said wearily. “I guess I’ll have to go down to Mile-High Paralegal Institute to see if she had a locker—”
“Wait,” said John Routt. “She might have left them with me.”
“Dad?” asked Sally Routt, clearly astonished.
“Let’s go into my room.” He stood and began tap-tapping his way down a short hall.
I remembered this room: it had been designed as a porch with a separate entrance. And it could have been used as a porch, if it hadn’t been assigned to Sally’s father, who’d come here after his wife died. The windows were the jalousie type, now tightly shut against the chill. The futon with its striped pillows was still there, as were the mismatched chairs and the small table with the saxophone on top. On summer evenings, John would open the windows and play the saxophone, and we lucky neighborhood folks could imagine we were outside a New York jazz club. In one corner was a space heater, its orange wires glowing brightly. I didn’t see anything that could fit into a
