Two dogs were a handful. Two dogs and two cats wasn’t a job for one person. Dinah helped get the cat cases situated on the floor in the back. The small black mutt and the medium-size strawberry blond terrier mix got the backseat and Dinah’s job was to make sure they didn’t drift into the front and jump in my lap while I was driving.
Ryder was sitting on the curb when I pulled into my driveway. He got up and followed my car, pulling out his camera as we unloaded.
“Wow, dogs and cats,” he said, stopping his filming long enough to ruffle Cosmo’s black fur. “My brother’s allergic so we could never have any pets.” Ryder looked at Dinah and his eyes kind of bugged out.
“You,” he said, pointing. “You’re that teacher at Beasley. The one they call the ...” He stopped himself and Dinah chuckled.
“I know they call me the terror.” She gave Ryder the once-over. “Do you go to Beasley?”
Ryder held up his hand. “I’ve already taken English 101, with Mr. Fenster.” He started telling Dinah about his YouTube uploads and his plans for being a video journalist/ documentary filmmaker. I watched with interest. Dinah might be known as the terror when dealing with students who slept in class or didn’t do their assignments, but she had a way with kids. She listened to him and his plans and nodded at the end. “Too bad you’ve already taken English 101; I would have liked having you in my class.”
“Really? Wow,” Ryder said, standing a little taller. Then he turned toward me and gestured toward the house next door. “She came home. I tried to ask her some questions, but she blew me off like the cops. Told me not to be a pest. But you have to be a pest if you’re going to get the story. Only thing I found out is she still hasn’t heard from her husband.”
Ryder gave us a good-bye nod, and the gangly figure sauntered back down the driveway.
“Nice kid,” Dinah said. We got the dogs in the yard and took the cat carriers inside and opened them up. The cats popped out and promptly went to check out their food bowl.
When I went to call the dogs in, I kept glancing in the direction of the Perkins’ house. The wall of greenery blocked the view. “You want to go over there, don’t you?” Dinah said. When I nodded, she grabbed my arm. “I’ll come with.”
The Christmas decorations were still as they’d been in the morning. I nodded my head toward the box of icicle lights and Dinah replied, “Looks like somebody didn’t get a chance to finish.”
Emily Perkins opened the door and had a hopeful expression on her face until she saw it was us, and her face fell. Then she caught herself. “I didn’t mean to make it look like I wasn’t glad to see you.” She had the potential to be very pretty, with her wavy dark hair, symmetrical features and angular face. All it would take was a little eyebrow shaping, maybe a stylish haircut and a little makeup and something more flattering than loose-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt.
“I wanted to make sure you were all right.” I vaguely waved toward the street to imply all the activity of the morning. “What happened?” I said, touching her arm in a supportive gesture. I felt funny about coming out and asking her directly about Bradley’s disappearance. Her brown eyes filled with water and she quickly blinked back her tears and glanced inside.
“Where are my manners? Come in,” she said, stepping away to clear the entrance for us. We followed her into the living room and I expected her to start talking about Bradley, but instead she told us to sit and offered us tea. Nothing in the room gave a hint that anything was wrong. There was a serene quality to the sofa and chairs covered in fabric the color of unbleached muslin. I liked the paver tile floor with the Indian throw rugs. A large window looked out on the nicely landscaped backyard.
“It’s some special soothing tea I picked up today. Nicholas recommended it.” We declined, but she went to the kitchen to pick up her cup. Dinah and I immediately looked at each other. Nicholas Hartman was the proprietor of a lifestyle store that was next to the bookstore. It had everything from unusual clothes and decorator items for the house to spices, teas and coffees. If there was one thing everything had in common, it was each item was stylish and unusual. I knew what Dinah was thinking. What was Emily doing shopping when her husband was missing? I sat down on the couch but realized I’d sat on something. It turned out to be a cloth doll that no doubt belonged to one of Emily’s girls. I went to set it on the bleached-wood table, but Dinah surprised me by picking it up. Generally she wasn’t that much of a toy person. She commented on how, with the skirt and head wrap, it looked like it came from some island.
“More like an imitation island,” I said, pointing to a tag on the doll’s foot that said Island Encounter in Las Vegas. I was going to ask Dinah why she was suddenly so interested in dolls, but Emily came back in the room.
She slipped into a low easy chair, sniffed the tea and then took a sip. “The tea is called When the Going Gets Tough. Nicholas said it’s some kind of cure-all. I hope he’s right. I certainly need something to help me.” Dinah and I nodded with understanding expressions but said nothing.
She turned to me. “I don’t know if the officers told you, but Bradley has gone missing.” She sat back and held on to the teacup, taking small sips.
“They might have mentioned something about it,” I said.
“He went to the office yesterday like always. When he didn’t show up at dinnertime, I called his cell phone and got his voice mail. I tried the office and just got voice mail there, too, since it was after hours. I kept thinking he’d show up, but he didn’t. When he wasn’t home by this morning, I called the police. I was much more worried before they came.” She explained that one of the officers actually knew Bradley. “His daughter is on the girls’ soccer team that Bradley coaches. He asked me a bunch of questions. Mostly he wanted to know if we’d been fighting.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t call it fighting exactly. You know what a nice guy Bradley is. Well, all of a sudden he seemed upset about everything. He fussed that the girls were making too much noise, he didn’t like what I’d made for dinner. I can understand him being upset that his watch wasn’t ready. It’s the only thing he has left from his father. I forgot to take it in to be serviced until a couple of days ago. But to be upset about the afghan his sister gave us.” Her gaze stopped on me. “That’s the one I lent you. You said you wanted to figure out how it was made.” She waited until I nodded with recognition before continuing. “When he made a fuss about me lending it out, that’s when I knew he was upset about something else. If he cared so much about it, why keep it shoved away in a drawer? He probably only noticed it was missing because he was pulling out Christmas decorations.”
The phone ringing cut into our conversation. She got up to answer it and came back a moment later, looking upset.
“Bad news?” I prodded.
“It’s hard to keep covering for Bradley. You and the police are the only people who know the truth. The story I’ve given everyone else is that he had a last-minute business trip.”
I got her back to talking about what the police officer had told her. “He said Bradley probably just went somewhere to cool off. He seemed sure that Brad would come back in a day or so. Of course, in the middle of it all the gas meter reader mentioned the smell at your house.” She looked at me intently. “There wasn’t really a body at your place, was there?”
I told her the real identity of the corpses and she rocked her head in sympathy. “And you ended up with your front door broken again. What a shame.”
Suddenly we all looked at our watches. I had to get to work, Emily had to pick up her daughters from school, and Dinah had to get home.