Flowering Judas(6)

Darvelle went back up the driveway and then through the breezeway and into the house by the side door. She could have parked the car in the garage, but she didn’t want to.

She got into the kitchen and put her purse down on the counter next to the microwave. She stood still for a moment and listened for any sounds she shouldn’t hear in the house, but the house was as quiet as the community bulletin board was blank. She got her cell phone out of her purse and headed for the living room.

The living room had track lighting. Kyle had put it in for her the week after she moved in. That was the first week the telephone poles had been covered with flyers, and the first week she’d found the crazy old woman trying to get in through a window in the back.

Darvelle sat down on the couch. Her hair was a mass of red running down her back. Her nails were long curves of violet with sparkles in them. The nails matched her suit. She punched, and then held down the number 2 on her phone and waited until it started ringing.

Kyle picked up right away. “Holborn,” he said first—but Darvelle wasn’t worried about that. He was just trying to appear professional in front of the people he worked with.

“Don’t worry about it,” Darvelle said. “I just got home. Everything seems to be fine. She didn’t come back and put more flyers up while I was gone.”

“Come back? Was she there before?”

“Well, she must have been,” Darvelle said. “When I left to go show the Petrovski house, the street was full of flyers again. What does she think she’s doing? I didn’t own this house when Chester disappeared. He never got near this neighborhood, as far as I can tell.”

“She thinks you killed him,” Kyle said.

“I know she thinks I killed him,” Darvelle said, ‘but it stands to reason that if I had killed him, I’d have left his body in the place I was living in then. I wouldn’t have carted it halfway across the city to put it in the flower beds here. Not that I have any flower beds. I hate flower beds. In the winter they look like crap. And in the summer they bring bees and you’re trying to show the house and the clients are running around freaking out.”

“Did you check the whole house?”

“No,” Darvelle said. “Nobody’s here now, though, I can tell.”

“You should check the whole house.”

“You mean maybe she came back and threw stage blood all over my bedspread again? I don’t think she’s going to do that. We’ve got a restraining order. And besides, she’s getting what she wants. They’re doing that TV show about the case. Whatever that is. God, I hate true crime shows. They’re so boring.”

“You’re not worried about it? Those people coming here to look into it?”

“No,” Darvelle said. “I’ve told you and told you, Kyle. Chester disappeared. He just disappeared. He was supposed to pick me up and drive me to school and he never showed up. And that’s all there was to it. No matter what his mother thinks.”

“You don’t have to have evidence to—to suggest things, if you know what I mean. Those shows suggest things.”

“And what are they going to suggest?” Darvelle asked. “That I killed him, why, exactly? Has anybody ever been able to come up with a motive? He was my boyfriend, yes, okay, but he wasn’t my husband. I didn’t have a life insurance policy out on him. And I wasn’t worried about losing him. In fact—”

“In fact, you were already going out with me.”

“Exactly. So I don’t see the point here. I just wish that old bat would give it a rest. It’s been twelve years.”

“I’ve got something here,” Kyle said. “We’ve got some kind of call.”

“Really?” Darvelle said. “Crime in Mattatuck? Is it a homicide?”

“I don’t think so,” Kyle said. “I’ve got to go. I’ll tell you about it later if there’s anything to tell.”

“It’ll probably be another one of those convenience store robberies,” Darvelle said. “I mean, how stupid can you possibly get, anyway? They go running into these places and they have to know there are security cameras. They have to know it. The World’s Dumbest Criminals. That’s a show I like. Except I don’t like Tonya Harding, and they always have her on doing commentary.”

“It’s something out at the college,” Kyle said. “I have to go, really. If you find something in the rest of the house, call here and get somebody to come out. I don’t like the way that woman behaves. I don’t think she’s safe.”