The Back Door of Midnight, Page 2

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t know.”

  Apparently, it was one of those things she chose not to remember.

  She dropped down in a chair, her sandaled feet spread wide apart and loose dress gaping between her knees. “I’m exhausted. Stupid deputy. It’s indecent to keep a man half skin and half ashes.”

  I sat down with her at the kitchen table.

  “Fix yourself something to drink,” she said. “I don’t have Mr. Pepper.”

  “You mean Dr Pepper?”

  “For the love of God!” she exploded. “People expect everything from a psychic! ‘Doctor,’ ‘mister,’ I was close enough. I didn’t call it ‘Mrs. Salt,’ did I?”

  “No. No, you didn’t. Water is perfect,” I said, though in fact I had been longing for a Dr Pepper and found it creepy that she knew.

  I rose and filled a glass from the tap, then walked over to the freezer for ice cubes. Opening the door, I jumped back. A large, speckled fish—scales, fins, head, and tail—tumbled out, landing at my feet. I stared down at it, then up at the compartment, which was filled with fish.

  “Put it back, put it back!” Aunt Iris cried.

  I quickly stuffed the fish in with the others and decided I could do without the ice cubes.

  “So Uncle Will is—was—still fishing a lot,” I observed.

  “I can’t stand the way they look at you. So accusingly!”

  “The fish, you mean, their glassy eyes?”

  “The fire was Wednesday night.”

  The sudden disclosure caught me by surprise. The same night as my dream, I thought, my sweaty skin feeling cold. I sat down at the table again.

  “Where did it happen?”

  “Near Tilby’s Dream—the old farm. The car’s been rusting there for years,” she added. “Sheriff said it took some work to pry open the trunk.”

  “Uncle Will was inside the trunk?”

  She nodded. “Poor William, he hated Buicks. He always insisted on Chevrolets.”

  “Did someone . . . put him there—did someone kill Uncle Will?” I asked.

  “I said he hated Buicks. You don’t think he climbed in willingly, do you?”

  “No,” I said slowly, “not even if he liked the car.”

  Obviously, Aunt Iris was not the most reliable source of information. I had to talk to the police—the sheriff, she had said. Then what? If my great-aunt was losing it mentally, what was I supposed to do? Mom would know; but she would come rushing home from a vacation she needed badly. I could handle this—at least for a little while, I could.

  “How long are you going to stay?” Aunt Iris asked.

  “I’m not sure. I have college orientation—”

  “Your clothes are in Papa’s room, in the mahogany bureau.”

  “Oh!” I visualized myself in a kindergartner’s clothes. “I don’t think I’ll fit them anymore.”

  “Well, don’t expect me to buy you any. We’re going to need every penny for the child.”

  “What child?”

  “She’ll be here soon enough.”

  I gazed at my great-aunt, mystified. Then I realized I must have slipped back into being Joanna. My mother was attending college when I was born. The child who was coming was probably myself, and she had been speaking of my mother’s clothes in the mahogany bureau.

  When Uncle Will had written that Aunt Iris was doing poorly, he wasn’t kidding. Was she senile or just plain crazy?

  Her eyes met mine. “You would be crazy too, if you saw and heard the things I do.”

  I took a long sip of water. Had she just read my thoughts? No. She had heard herself talking and, knowing that she didn’t make sense, had offered an explanation.

  When I glanced up, her eyes were darting around the room, as if insects were popping out of the kitchen walls and she was trying to count them. Her eyes finally lit on me.

  “I’m Anna,” I said, just in case.

  “Then I suppose you’ve brought luggage.”

  “It’s in my car at the top of the driveway,” I replied, although, at the moment, I was thinking about finding a motel.

  She stood up. “You may as well fetch it and start unpacking. William knows you’re here.”

  Perhaps he can knock twice to say hello, I thought. Aunt Iris was one person I wouldn’t want to join in a séance.

  She gave me a sideways look. “Unless you’re afraid of me. You were as a child.”

  “I’m not now. I’ll get my things.”

  After placing my glass in the sink, I retraced my steps through the dining room to the center hall and front door. When I had exited and looked back at the house, I realized I could have left directly from the kitchen. It was the first room in the long, low section of the house, and Aunt Iris was watching me from behind its screen door.

  I trudged up the gradual incline to my car, feeling her eyes in my back even when the curtain of trees was between us. I drove slowly toward the house, trying to avoid ruts and cats. Easing past Aunt Iris’s car, Uncle Will’s truck, and the horse trailer, I parked at the far edge of the driveway, snug against some shrubs so I wouldn’t be in my aunt’s way. I pulled out my suitcase and started toward the house.

  There was a sudden roar of an engine, and I leaped back, flattening myself against the pickup truck. Aunt Iris’s gold Chevrolet lurched backward, then stopped. I stood on my toes, sandwiched between the sedan and the truck. If I leaned half an inch forward, I’d touch her car. I heard the front wheels wrench around on the shells and dirt, watched its big metal nose turn, and stared after the car as it sped off through the trees. She was a maniac.

  I wondered if there was someone besides my uncle looking out for Aunt Iris. I had a bad feeling there wasn’t and that she didn’t want there to be. The first thing I’d do was charge up my cell phone. I dropped my bag at the bottom of the stairway, then headed into the kitchen, figuring it would have the best outlet. When I saw the stove, I gasped. A burner was on, the gas turned up all the way, with blue flames shooting into the air, looking hungry for something to burn. I ran to the stove and twisted one of its knobs. A window curtain hung just inches from the flames—if a breeze had stirred, it would have caught fire immediately.

  Why did she do this? I thought angrily. Stay cool, I told myself. There was a teapot on the burner behind the one that had been lit. It was possible that Iris thought she had lit that burner, then decided to leave suddenly and forgot about it—just like it was possible that she never saw me when she backed up the car. Of course, it didn’t much matter: Whether by neglect or plan, she was dangerous. I had a credit card and could stay at a cheap highway motel. Still, I hated being cowed by an old lady, my own great-aunt, especially after the challenge she had issued. I’d stay tonight; whether or not I’d sleep was another question.

  three

  WITH THAT DECIDED, I opened the refrigerator to see if there was something more than glassy-eyed fish to eat. One look told me that food shopping was a priority. The date on the egg carton indicated that they were laid in March. The lids on the mayo and mustard were off, the mustard’s yellow separating from the vinegary part. There was a flounder lying on top of an open butter dish and the tail of another sticking out of the meat drawer. I peeked in the crisper. A package of slimy deli meat sat on a pile of mail. After a moment of debate, I removed the mail.

  All of it was addressed to Uncle Will’s post office box. Some of it looked like bills—electric, telephone, Visa; the postmarks were from the previous week. I realized that if Aunt Iris kept mail in the fridge as long as she kept other things, she’d need someone to help her with her bills. Did she and Uncle Will have a lawyer or someone else who could do this?

  Flipping through the envelopes, I came upon one that was missing a postage stamp and marked RETURN TO SENDER. It was addressed in my uncle’s bold handwriting to the Maryland State Police. Adding postage and sending it on would have been the right thing to do, but curiosity got the better of me. I opened it.

>   Uncle Will was requesting a transcript of all the information the police had collected on the unsolved murder of Joanna O’Neill. He had attached to his letter a copy of a newspaper article, with the date circled.

  YOUNG MOTHER KILLED IN ROBBERY, the headline blared. I took a deep breath and read.

  Last Monday evening, twenty-two-year-old Joanna O’Neill, niece of William and Iris, was found murdered in their home. The crime occurred in the living room of the O’Neill homestead, “old Doc O’s house,” as it is commonly called, next to the bridge over Oyster Creek. When William O’Neill and young Anna, Joanna’s three-year-old daughter, returned from shopping, William noticed that the entrance hall of the home was in disarray. After putting the toddler back in his truck, he found the bloody body of Joanna. Rooms on both floors had been ransacked.

  According to the coroner, the victim died from blunt force trauma to the head. A pair of silver candleholders and a large amount of cash were taken from the house. No weapon for the murder was found. There was no evidence of forced entry.

  Iris O’Neill, William’s sister, was visiting a sick friend at the time.

  According to Sheriff McManus, Shore residents “aren’t in the habit of locking doors, and someone thought he could just walk in and help himself to whatever he wanted.”

  Joanna O’Neill, who was attending Chase College, hoped to embark on a career in health care. She was known in Wisteria as a psychic and had a loyal clientele for whom she read cards. A Mass of Christian Burial was offered for her last Thursday at St. Mary’s Church on Scarborough Road.

  My mother read cards? She was psychic like Aunt Iris? Why hadn’t Uncle Will told me? Maybe he didn’t like the idea.

  I slipped the letter and article back in the envelope, feeling strange. I knew I had loved my birth mother—I had seen pictures of us together. But the face I thought of with sadness was Uncle Will’s, when he saw the ransacked house, when he put me back in his truck, when he searched and found Joanna dead. The loss I felt from his death was beginning to seep through my initial state of shock, tightening my throat, making me blink back tears.

  A loud knock at the front door jolted me out of these thoughts.

  “Hello? Anyone home? Hello!”

  I wiped my cheeks and blew my nose. Leaving bills and ads on the kitchen table, I carried Uncle Will’s letter into the hall, stuffed it in my suitcase, then opened the front door.

  “So you found your way.” It was the guy from next door, without his hot costar. He held out his hand, a large hand with a silver wristband to show off the tan. “I’m Zack.”

  “I’m Anna.”

  Standing face-to-face with him—or rather, face-to-chest; he was about a foot taller than me—I found myself wanting to back up. His eyes were intense and didn’t miss a freckle.

  After a moment he said, “I see Iris isn’t home. Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “No, I haven’t a clue. She rushed out of here.”

  He nodded, then glanced toward the vehicles parked at one end of the house. “My stepmother sent me over. She would like something done about the goats on the back lawn.”

  “The goats?”

  “You didn’t notice them,” he said. “Unfortunately, Marcy did, and she went ballistic. They don’t go well with her . . . garden soiree.”

  “Aunt Iris raises goats?”

  “No. They’re clients.”

  For a moment I was puzzled. “Oh, I see. She grooms goats.”

  “No, she’s their therapist, their psychologist.”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “I think the goats take it seriously,” he replied, then smiled. “Here’s the problem: Marcy wants the goats gone, like, immediately. Perhaps you could talk to their owner—”

  I began to shake my head.

  “Or the goats, whichever works best,” he said, his eyes bright, as if laughing. “Iris usually goes along with what Marcy wants, and while I don’t care and Dad doesn’t care, Marcy’s throwing a major fit.”

  “Well, if she doesn’t want goats ruining her view, maybe she should get a house in town.”

  “I’m not arguing that point. In the meantime, the party’s about to start, and the goats are out back, and my stepmother is about to lose it.” He smiled at me, a flirty smile. “Tell you what: If you get rid of them, I’ll fix your car.”

  “You know how to replace mufflers?” I asked, surprised.

  “I know how to drive to Midas.”

  “I thought so. Tell your stepmother I’ll ask the owner to take his goats and come back later. But I can’t promise he’ll listen to me,” I added, then closed the front door and headed down the hall to the back entrance. I couldn’t believe I was playing receptionist to a pet shrink.

  The creek side of the house was just as I remembered it, sunny, with two big trees and a stretch of tall grass between the house and the water. A swath about ten feet wide was mowed around the house and ran in a path down to the dock. Two goats were grazing, watched over by a man who sat with his back against a willow.

  As I approached the man, one of the goats raised its head and gazed at me with interest. The other kept its head down but didn’t eat. The owner, whose round, pleasant face made me think of a worn catcher’s mitt, nodded at me, then, realizing I wanted to speak to him, rose quickly to his feet.

  “Afternoon, miss,” he said with a soft drawl, a Shore accent like my uncle’s.

  “Hi. Listen. I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to take your goats somewhere else. My aunt Iris isn’t home and—”

  “She’ll be back,” he said with certainty. “We had an appointment.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure you did, but, you know, she doesn’t remember things as well as she used to.”

  “Happens to all of us,” he said, smiling in that tolerant way an adult smiles at a child who doesn’t understand. “But kind of you to let me know,” he added, tapping the top of his head as if there were a hat he might tip to me. He sat down again, ready to wait.

  “What I’m saying is that I have no idea when she’ll be home.”

  “It’s Sunday,” he replied. “I’m not much in a hurry.”

  I doubted he was ever in a hurry. “Unfortunately, the lady next door is having a party, and she doesn’t like goats.”

  “Oh, they’ll stay on this side of the hedge.”

  “I wonder if you could make another appointment?”

  He considered the suggestion, then considered me. “You’re an O’Neill. You got the red hair.”

  I bit back the word “chestnut.” “Yes, I’m Iris’s great-niece.”

  “They say all the O’Neill women are either psychic or crazy. You don’t look crazy.” Before I could thank him for that acute observation, he went on. “Maybe you can help me out—do a reading.”

  He saw the disbelief on my face and added quickly, “Oh, not for me! For Maria. Maria. She’s having a bad time.”

  I followed his eyes to a black-and-white goat, the one that was gazing forlornly at the ground but not eating.

  “She’s not looking good,” I admitted.

  “You could ask her the problem,” he said hopefully. “You could ask her what she would like me to do. I just can’t figure out what’s botherin’ her. Her appetite’s off. She’s getting nasty with the other goats, even her sister, Daisy, here.”

  “Did you take her to a vet?”

  He nodded. “Can’t find anything wrong with her, just her usual dental problems—always had them. I give her special food.”

  “Well, I’m sorry she’s unhappy, but—”

  “Maybe you could just get down with her for a minute,” he said.

  “Get down?”

  “Like Iris does. Get down on her level, close your eyes, and listen to her mind.”

  “But I know nothing about goats. Until now I’ve only seen them at petting zoos.”

  “They’re not much different than us,” he replied. “They just can’t speak English. But I understand. I’ll wait. S
ooner or later, Iris will remember.”

  I glanced toward the property next door.

  A stocky, white-haired woman stood at a tall gate in the hedge, watching us. She was dressed in black and white, the outfit of a household employee. I wondered if Zack’s stepmother had sent her out to see what progress was being made. Well, it wasn’t my problem.

  But I did feel sorry for Maria and walked over to see if she would let me pet her. When I leaned down to her, she lifted her head slightly. Whew! Talk about bad breath!

  “I think you should brush after meals,” I said, and moved around to the side of her, where the smell wasn’t as strong.

  She rolled an eye toward me.

  “Not feeling so good, huh?”

  She made a soft bleating sound.

  “Feeling kind of cranky? And everybody else, instead of being nice to you, gets mad at you because they expect you to be your happy self all the time, like you’re just there for them and haven’t got any problems of your own?”

  Another bleat.

  “Iris usually kneels and lays her head against Maria’s,” the man called to me.

  Grateful that my friends in Baltimore couldn’t see me, I knelt, but I was not going to put my head against a goat’s. So what is it? I asked, silently, of course—I’m not crazy.

  If I were a goat, why would I be making myself miserable, staying apart from the others? Maybe they were dissing her. Dental problems gave you bad breath, breath that might be foul even to a sister goat. I studied her skinny little chin.

  Are they giving you a hard time about the way you smell? Those mean old goats! And I bet some people haven’t been so nice either.

  She blinked, and had I believed in psychic connections, I would have thought she had just said yes.

  Do you like to be petted? I’m not going to hurt you. I reached up, lightly touched her back, then stroked her. She turned to look at me full in the face, and I stopped breathing. Whew!

  Guess it has been a while since anyone has wanted to pet you face-to-face. Maybe that’s part of the problem—you’re feeling unloved, taken for granted. How about if I tell your owner that?