Pumpkin Roll (9 page)

“I’m going to check on the other boys,” Pete said as he turned toward the hallway.

“Good idea,” Sadie said, watching him disappear and knowing he’d take the opportunity to have a look around the interior of the house as well.

Chance was ready to put a fresh batch of pancake batter on the griddle. Sadie gave him another squeeze, as much to borrow some of his naïve optimism as anything else, and helped him check to see if the pancakes were ready to turn—which they weren’t. She took a deep breath to calm herself and wondered how a day that started like this would play out.

Pete returned to the kitchen with a sleepy-looking Fig and Kalan in tow; they’d obviously slept through the morning’s excitement. When Sadie handed him a plate of pancakes, he whispered that nothing in the house seemed to be disturbed, which didn’t surprise Sadie at all. Jared and Heather didn’t own many valuables, and whatever intent had led to the hat being left in the hallway did not feel connected to theft—other than the theft of security. Sadie thought it might have been easier to have had something tangible taken.

Pete and Sadie acted as normal as possible throughout the rest of breakfast so as not to alert the boys—especially Kalan, who had shown the most interest in Mrs. Wapple from the start. Thankfully, Chance said nothing about the hat, going on and on about how wonderful peanut butter was on the “whole weed” pancakes instead. The other boys agreed; breakfast was a hit.

Pete drove Kalan to school while Sadie bathed the littler boys. After he got back, they cleaned up breakfast, made themselves presentable, and were just giving in to watching
Cars
—for the third time since they’d arrived—when the phone rang.

“Hey, Jared,” Pete said when he answered the cordless phone, making eye contact with Sadie before heading down the hall where he could better hear his son on the other end of the line.

After a few minutes, he returned to the living room and held out the phone to Sadie. “Heather wants to talk to you and the boys.”

Sadie paused the movie and ushered Chance toward the phone first. He stopped whining about the movie being interrupted when he realized it was his mom on the phone. Within seconds, Fig was trying to get the phone away from his older brother and calling “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” while Chance turned by degrees, always keeping his back to his little brother.

“I think we ought to keep everything to ourselves for now,” Pete whispered to Sadie while Chance said good-bye and handed the phone to Fig, who ran into the kitchen as though someone might take the phone from him. Sadie nodded her agreement, though she had hoped Heather might have been able to fill in some blanks about Mrs. Wapple. It would be more difficult to get the information without telling her exactly why she needed it, but she agreed with Pete that it wasn’t worth the parental panic that would most certainly take place if they revealed what had happened.

When Fig finally said good-bye, Sadie put the phone to her ear and signaled Pete to start the movie.

“Hi there,” she said, going into the kitchen and sitting at the table. “How are things going for the two of you?”

“I should be asking you that question,” Heather said. “How are my boys treating you? Are they behaving okay?”

Sadie was glad to have struck such an easy friendship with Pete’s daughter-in-law from the very first phone call, and she caught Heather up on the antics of her three sons since they’d last spoken yesterday morning. Heather mentioned that they’d found a nice complex closer to the hospital—and the urban area around it—than they’d originally planned. It had a playground and a swimming pool that the young parents hoped would make up for the fact that they wouldn’t have their own yard—something they had considered essential when looking for a place in Boston that had eventually led them to the Jamaica Plain rental. Heather also commented on the weather, though it was hard for Sadie to believe the temperatures were in the eighties in Texas when she was wearing her warmest, thickest, fuzziest socks.

“I bet you won’t miss another New England winter,” Sadie said.

“Not one bit,” Heather said with emphasis. “I grew up in Arizona, and if you ask me, snow shovels are medieval torture devices.”

They both laughed and talked a little more about when Jared would actually start his residency and how the family would facilitate the cross-country move. During a brief lull in the conversation, Sadie asked about Mrs. Wapple as casually as possible.

“Why? What’s the Witch of Browden Street done now?”

“The Witch of Browden Street?” Sadie repeated.

“Well, that’s what the neighbors called her, and it kinda stuck—she’s
that
weird—and Salem’s only half an hour away, you know.” She laughed. “So you must have seen her. What did she do?”

“Oh, nothing really,” Sadie said, perhaps too quickly. “I’m just wondering what you know about her.”

“Not much,” Heather said. “She’s only lived there a few months and mostly keeps to herself, but now and then she comes out and hollers at people or starts chanting and stuff. Someone told me that she steals other people’s mail, but Jared and I have a PO Box.”

“Have you ever talked to her?”

“No,” Heather said. “I don’t think anyone talks to her. There are a few knotholes in her fence that she looks out of. Sometimes she yells at people when they pass by her house. Creepy. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I talked to her last night.”

“You did!” Heather said with a laugh. “What happened? What did you talk about?”

Sadie kept the details scarce, focusing only on the Mrs. Wapple that the boys seemed to know and the woman in pain she’d given potatoes to. She hadn’t figured out how the woman she’d given the cookies to factored in, so she left her out of it.

“Wow,” Heather said, her voice soft and humble. “I’ve never seen her act like she’s hurt or anything.”

“Does anyone else live with her?”

“No, she’s alone.”

“Does she have a caretaker of any kind? Family? Church connection?” Maybe the woman she’d given the cookies to was a family member—a sister perhaps.

“Not that I know of,” Heather said. “I suppose someone could enter through the alley—I wouldn’t see them if they did—but I’ve never seen anyone visit other than some Mormon missionaries who got an earful over the fence a few weeks after she moved in. She’s
not
interested in religion, in case you were wondering.”

Sadie struggled with how to move to the next subject and finally used Kalan to introduce it. “Kalan said she cast a spell on someone’s dog and it got hit by a car.”

“Oh,” Heather said, sounding embarrassed. “I didn’t know he’d heard Jared and me talking about that.”

“What happened to the dog?”

Heather was quiet for a few seconds. “Mr. Forsberk’s dog pooped in her yard, and she came out from behind the fence, screaming. He started yelling back and she told him his dog would die within a week and did this weird waving thing in the air with her hand—the boys and I saw the whole thing. The dog was hit by a car two days later right in front of her house. I didn’t make a big deal about it to the boys, but Kalan did ask a lot of questions.”

“And you think she has . . . supernatural powers that caused the accident?”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Heather said as though apologizing. “I grew up close to the reservation and there was always a lot of talk about spirits and hexes and black magic, or bad medicine. I’ve never had the luxury of not believing in another realm, and Mrs. Wapple is exactly the kind of person who would invite that type of energy. The fact is, she said the dog would die and it did.”

“Hmmm,” Sadie said, vastly uncomfortable with Heather’s thoughts on the subject. “Well, that’s certainly something to think about. I haven’t seen the angry side of her, or the . . . uh, witchy side, but I am worried about her.”

“Well, maybe it’s worth calling social services or something. I’m the last one to say she doesn’t need help—witch or not.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Sadie said, nodding to herself while the boys laughed at something in the other room. “Thanks for the information. I’m glad you’ve had a good trip. Like I said, the boys are doing great, so don’t worry about them a bit.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” Heather said. “I miss my little men, but it’s the first time Jared and I have gone anywhere just the two of us since he started medical school, and we’re enjoying that an awful lot.”

She thanked Sadie for helping out; Sadie humbly refused the thanks, insisting it was her pleasure—which it certainly was. Heather promised to call tomorrow after Kalan got home from school, and a few minutes later, they said good-bye. Sadie hung up, her eyes finding the bag with the hat hanging on the back door.

Pete’s hand on her shoulder startled her. “Somebody’s jumpy,” he said, passing her on his way to the cupboard by the phone. It held the local phone book, pens and pencils, and a few different pads of paper. Pete grabbed one of the notebooks and flipped through it until he came to a blank page.

“What are you doing?” Sadie asked, noting that he seemed lighter . . . no, he seemed determined. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and smiled at her.

“Making a few calls,” he said as though she would be satisfied with such a paltry explanation.

“About Mrs. Wapple?”

Pete shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to know a little more about what we’re dealing with. A guy I used to work with in Colorado Springs was from the Rhode Island PD originally. He might know someone who could do a little research for me—off the record, of course. I mentioned to Jared about putting in some eyebolts, but he said he has to clear it with his landlord and he thinks I’m being cop-dad.” He shrugged off the comment. “Anyway, I hope he’ll get back to us on that soon. It would sure make me feel better.”

Sadie nodded and relaxed, relieved that Pete was doing something real, something solid, something logical. Why couldn’t she do the same thing? She thought about her cute little laptop in her room. She didn’t have Pete’s connections, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have some tricks of her own. The house was run-down and the furniture was used, but Jared had excellent Internet service and a wireless router that Sadie very much appreciated.

“I’ll race ya,” she said, glancing at the clock. “The movie has an hour to go and then the boys will need lunch. Let’s meet back here in forty-five minutes and compare notes.”

Pete smiled, a genuine smile this time. They were on the case, together. This was Pete’s comfort zone and Sadie was now a part of that. She liked that very much.

He started toggling through his phone and gave her a wink. “You’re on.”

Chapter 8

Okay,” Sadie said, popping a Froot Loop in her mouth as she and Pete reconvened at command central—i.e., the kitchen table—fifty minutes later. There wasn’t a more dignified snack food available so she’d had to make do with dry cereal. She needed fuel of some kind to keep her brain working; the pancakes were beginning to wear off. She settled in on her side of the table with her laptop open in front of her. Pete sat opposite her and had filled up two pages of the notebook, which had her worried. It wasn’t a competition, but she really wanted to win. “What have you got?” she asked, officially beginning the meeting of minds.

“Well,” Pete said, turning back to his first page. “I’m still waiting for one more call to come back verifying a few details, but she doesn’t have a criminal record.”

“That’s good news,” Sadie said, relieved. She hadn’t bothered looking for criminal information since she figured Pete had that market cornered.

“Yeah,” Pete said. “But she had her driver’s license—Vermont issued—revoked back in ’97. Her doctor said the medication she was taking impaired her ability to operate a car.”

“Which means at some point she was able to
have
a driver’s license, and she had residency in Vermont,” Sadie said.

Pete nodded and wrote something in the margin. “I couldn’t find details about her medication, but I found reference to some hospital stays. One in ’96, one in ’98, and another one in ’01. They were all three to five days long—I’m guessing it was a psych ward.” He grabbed a handful of Froot Loops and put them all in his mouth.