In A Heartbeat (18 page)

The next morning, Oreo ran to the back door the moment Angela stepped into the kitchen. “You want out, girl?” Angela opened the back door to let the dog into the fenced back yard. “Not too long, it’s still pretty muddy out there.”

Oreo immediately dashed outside, sniffing the ground in erratic circles as if pursuing some trophy animal. Angie watched from the warmth of the kitchen, waiting for the dog to drop into her morning squat, but Oreo continued investigating the yard.
That’s odd
, she thought. Normally Oreo was quick to finish and come in for breakfast.

Angela grabbed a sweater from the coat stand by the door then stepped out on the stoop and down the two steps to the small patio behind the house. Brown and yellow leaves liberated by Sunday’s storm clung to her slippers as she crossed the concrete. She stopped at the perimeter.

“Come here, girl.” She slapped her side. The dog ignored her. Angie removed one dew-damp leaf from her heel when she saw a clearly defined footprint in the dirt of her mother’s perennial garden. A large man’s footprint, judging from the size. Goosebumps rose up on her arms. Was Oreo barking at an intruder last night? From the direction of the footprint, he may have even tried the back door. Her spine shivered.

Oreo trotted up next to her. Angie reached to pet her head.

“Good girl,” she praised with newfound respect. Maybe Stephen wasn’t so far off after all. Together, she and Oreo walked the yard, searching for new clues. She didn’t find any more footprints, nor did she find any evidence that the intruder tried to enter the house. “Probably scared him off with the lights,” she told the dog. Still, she checked the locks on all the windows and doors, then checked them again.

“HEY ANGIE, WHAT’S up? You look like you’re a zillion miles away,” Max said, leaning over her cubicle. “Planning how to decorate that new office?”

She offered a weak smile. The constant reference to her not-a-sure-thing promotion was becoming more of a nuisance than a compliment. “I think I might have had a visitor last night.”

“You don’t know?” Max moved around to sit on the radiator that created the third wall of her cubicle.

Angie described the previous night’s proceedings.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“What can I do? Other than one footprint, there’s no evidence anyone was there. It’s not like they caused any damage or anything.”

“How do you know? Maybe they went down the street and broke into someone else’s home. Maybe that footprint is the best evidence of another break-in.”

She hadn’t thought of that. “I guess I should call the police.” And call Mrs. Kravitz when she got home to make sure she was okay. She didn’t want to worry the poor thing about a possible break-in, but it wouldn’t hurt to check in on her.

“Doesn’t it seem strange, though?”

“What do you mean?” Angie asked.

“First, someone slashes your tires. Then someone tries to break into your house.”

“We don’t know that,” she quickly protested. “There was no evidence of a break in.”

“Still, doesn’t it seem strange that the two things happened within a week of each other?”

“Do you think they’re related?” Frankly, she hadn’t thought about a connection between the two incidents. She shook her head. “Why would someone intentionally want to harm me?”

“Only you can answer that,” Max said. “Maybe you should move back in with your brother until your mother comes home, just in case.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scolded. “It’s just coincidence and I doubt I’m anyone’s target.”

Still, her spine tingled. She remembered Elizabeth’s contorted face when she threatened bodily harm if she “messed” with Hank. But Elizabeth was in New York, wasn’t she? Tom Wilson warned her something bad might happen, but she assumed that was an empty threat. She wasn’t doing anything to harm Tom Wilson that she could see, so why would he want to harm her? No, the two incidents were not related. “You’re probably right about the police, though,” she said. “I’ll call just in case.”

About an hour later, she called the police station. They hadn’t received any reports of break-ins in her neighborhood. As a precaution, they promised to pay particular attention to her street on their nightly rounds. Relieved, she thanked them before hanging up the phone. It was probably just a prank.

Pushing intruder concerns to the back of her mind, she focused on the task at hand. The jury was still out on her marketing ability. She needed to impress Falstaff tomorrow with her efficiency and effectiveness and that required concentration. She organized her papers and bent to work.

Dusk had settled in before Angie drove home from work. Pink and purple streaked the western sky, while crimson and bright yellow trees added a false brilliance to the fading light. A sudden gust of wind showered her car and the small town streets in a golden leaf shower. Angie turned onto her street.

Three plump, uncarved pumpkins graced a corner of Mrs. Kravitz’s porch. Halloween was still a good two weeks away, too early for the transformation from benign vegetable to a fanciful candle-lit decoration. Last year Mrs. Kravitz carved a portrait of Elvis in one of her pumpkins. “From a kit,” she’d said with a wink. At seventy-five, she was still pretty spry. A burglar might be surprised if he targeted her house.

“Stop it,” Angie scolded herself as she turned into the driveway of her own unadorned house. After collecting the mail from the front porch box, she dodged Oreo’s voracious greeting as she entered the house. As expected, the answering machine beeped with irritating urgency. Angie walked to the kitchen, thumbing through the various envelopes. Oreo whimpered by the back door, waiting impatiently.

“Come on,” she said, opening the back door. “Let’s take another look at that footprint.”

Oreo made a beeline for the back fence. Tail wagging frantically, she sniffed then pawed something on the ground. Crap. She must have found a dead animal.

“Leave it,” she yelled, walking to the garden shed for a shovel and bag. Too bad her brother wasn’t making an unannounced visit. Scooping up dead birds right before dinner pretty much ruined her appetite.

“What in the world…” That was no bird.

Oreo growled as she approached. A thick, raw porterhouse steak lay in the grass by the back fence. Using the shovel as a buffer between her and her threatening dog, Angie picked up the butchered meat between two fingers and carried it at arm’s length back to her kitchen. Oreo danced beneath the prize, trying to grab it from her fingers, but she held it out of reach.

Although the surface of the meat had hardened, the interior was still moist as evidenced by the many cuts into the steak. Using a knife to probe the cuts, she discovered a rather large cache of buried pills. Poison, she suspected, or an overdose of sleeping pills. Someone tried to poison Oreo and she had a sneaking suspicion who it could be. Furious, she threw the tainted meat into a lidded trash can, then marched to her neighbor’s front door.

“I need to talk to you, Walter,” she yelled, banging on the front door. “Open up.”

He opened the door slowly, as if oblivious to her frantic pounding. “Is there something wrong?” the sun-adverse, neat-as-a-pin zombie asked. “Can I help you?”

Her contorted angry face reflected in his glasses. “Look you…you…dog killer. I know you don’t like my dog, but that doesn’t give you the right—”

“Dog killer?” The man blanched to an even pastier gray. “I’ve never killed a dog. I would never kill a dog. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You put a raw steak full of poison pills in my back yard,” she shouted through the screen door. “I should call the police and I would have if Oreo—”

“Someone tried to kill your dog?” He opened the screen door so she could enter. “Who’d do something so cruel? Would you like me to call your brother?”

His concern caught her off guard. “My brother? No… You didn’t put the steak there?”

“Me? Oh no. I’d never kill a living thing. I see too much of death at work.” He led the way into his neatly appointed kitchen. She followed, her boiling anger easing to a simmer. “Besides, I don’t dislike your dog. She isn’t fond of me, but I thought that was because of the chemicals.” He removed two coffee mugs from a perfectly aligned row in the cabinet. “Coffee?”

The diminishing spike of adrenaline left her confused. “Chemicals? What chemicals?”

“Formaldehyde mostly. I work in a funeral home preparing the corpses. That’s how I met your brother.” He smiled. “Not as a corpse, of course.” He chuckled, at least she thought that strangled hiccup might be a chuckle.

“Sorry, a little funeral home humor.” He pushed his glasses back higher onto his nose. “We contract limousines sometimes with Stephen.” He held up a jar. “Is instant okay? I rarely need to fix it for more than one so I tend to drink instant.”

She shook her head. “Water would be fine.”

He pulled a large plastic water jug from the refrigerator. “Tell me what happened to Oreo. Is she okay?”

“Someone tried to poison her with tainted meat. I found it in time before any harm could be done.” She studied him carefully. Although he still had that surreal coordinated-catalog look, he was less intimidating than she remembered. “Where exactly do you work?”

“Robbins Funeral Home over on Walnut.”

“Oh.” She knew the place, not that she had driven for any funerals, but she knew Stephen did a steady business with them. Angie took a seat at the kitchen table.

“You didn’t happen to see someone suspicious throwing something into my back yard, did you?” Look who she was asking about suspicious.

“No. Not really,” he said after some thought. “But I just arrived home shortly before you.”

“You know what time I came home?”

“I saw your car from my front window.” He drank the water in his glass in one long swig. “I’m sorry I can’t help you with your mystery.”

“By any chance, did you hear or see anyone prowling around my house last night?” Angie sipped from her glass, watching Walter over the rim.

“You had a prowler last night?”

“I think so.”

“Did you call your brother? I’m sure he’d want to know about this.”

“No.” she said a little too quickly. “And I’d appreciate you not calling him either. I’d like to handle this on my own.”

“I don’t understand.” Walter clasped his hands in front of him on the table, almost as if he were praying. “Why do you want to handle this alone? I think I’ve handled just about everything alone and it’s not enjoyable.”

The lenses of his glasses magnified his watery, hazel eyes. Guilt from all the mean thoughts and words she had ever expressed about him congealed in her throat. He was lonely. Why hadn’t she seen that earlier?

“Walter,” she said impulsively. “Do you know how to dance?”

His eyes widened, his ears reddened, and his Adam’s apple bobbed noticeably. “I’m… It’s been a long… I’m really not sure,” he finally managed, averting his glance. “Why do you ask?”

“I need to learn and I hoped maybe you could teach me.”

He bounced his clenched hands lightly on the table. “Do you think it’s wise in your condition?”

Now it was her turn to be embarrassed. How much did he know and what exactly did her idiot-brother tell him?

“Dancing can’t be good for your leg,” he said. “Does it hurt much?”

“Oh.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “It aches a bit when I’ve been standing on it too long. At night especially.” She stretched her leg out and studied it as if this were the first time she had considered such a question. “The plastic cast is more awkward than uncomfortable. Perhaps if that prowler comes back, I could use it to bash him one.”

“I have a better idea.” Walter left the kitchen, then returned with a heavy wooden baseball bat. “Maybe you should keep this for a while.”

A gentle warmth bloomed in her chest. She suspected this was his own means of protection. Sharing it demonstrated his friendship. “Thank you, Walter. I’ll feel much safer with this in the house.” She stood. “I need to get back, though. Oreo’s waiting for me.”

He walked her to the door. “I’ll keep my eyes open for any strangers.”

“Thank you, Walter.” She took his hand and warmed it briefly in hers. “Thank you very much.”

That evening she lay in bed listening to every crack and creak in the house. She checked the locks on every door and window at least twice, and left the outside lights on as a deterrent to would-be burglars. Walter did the same, she noted. Oreo curled up at the foot of the bed. Walter’s baseball bat lay within reach on the side. She tried to take the edge off her fears by lighting a candle, but the autumn fragrance didn’t soften her mood.

Walter was right. It certainly wasn’t enjoyable facing her fears alone. She wished there was someone she could talk to, confide in. She refused to tell Stephen or her mother about the prowler. No need to worry them, or invite them to orchestrate her safety. She couldn’t tell Max about her relationship with Hank and how that had evoked a threat from Elizabeth. About the only one she could talk to, the only one she wanted to talk to, was Hank. But he was out of town probably visiting Elizabeth at this very moment. She couldn’t deny the jealousy that twisted like a knife in her side.

And why not? She had never felt so protected as she did in his arms that day in the woods. She could almost feel those arms around her now, pulling her close, pressing her against his chest. The room warmed with the memory and she relaxed within its power. She thought of his eyes and how a simple glance, a raise of the eyebrow, a flash of his dimple sent every nerve ending in her body in a sizzling furor. He listened to her as if he cared what she had to say, not to solve her problems for her. He listened and—

Her phone rang.

“Angela? It’s Hank.”

“Hank?” Her breath caught. She rose up on her elbow. How did he know she was just thinking of him?

“Falstaff hasn’t tapped your phone lines, has he?”

“What?”

“Because if he has, I know you won’t talk to me.”

She heard the laughter in his voice and relaxed for the first time that evening. She fell back on her pillows. “Why are you calling me?”