The Solace of Bay Leaves

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“So what do we know?” I stuck out my thumb. “Maddie was shot last week in the building she was about to tear down. After years and a fight with the neighbors.”
“Who knew she would be there besides her builder?” Laurel asked. “And presumably, her secretary. I mean, she owns the place, but she’s not tearing down the walls herself, is she?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her, but no, probably not. So that’s the first question: Who knew Maddie would be in the old grocery?”
“Second question: Did she take a burglar by surprise? Who would break in to a building about to be renovated? To steal the old refrigerator? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Don’t thieves break in to old buildings to steal copper wiring or plumbing? But the police would know if anything like that had been taken.”
“And they wouldn’t break in in broad daylight, with a gun,” Laurel said. “The same gun that killed my husband.”
I sighed. “Maybe everybody’s wrong about the gun. Maybe Pat’s killer tossed it, or sold it, and it’s coincidence that it was used in another crime in the same neighborhood.”
Laurel gave me a sidelong glance that dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Was it? Detective Tracy says he doesn’t believe in coincidence, but when odd things happen involving the same person or place, check it out. My mother, with her woo-woo ways, says the Universe has reasons beyond human understanding, and uses coincidence to direct our attention to signs we might otherwise ignore. They were saying the same thing. Not that either would ever admit it.
Why would a halfway intelligent killer use the same gun twice? Didn’t everybody know forensics examiners could match bullets? It wasn’t easy; they had to get lucky and find bullets that were intact enough for the marks from the gun barrel to be compared. But it wasn’t just NCIS TV magic.
“Okay, so let’s talk about Maddie. We don’t know why Rita— Officer Clark”—it was going to take me a while to change my mental image of her—“was in the ICU. Yes, Maddie’s a crime victim in a coma, but they don’t have the manpower to guard every crime victim. Her presence might not have anything to do with Maddie.”
“She could have been checking on another patient,” Laurel said. “When she heard the guard shout, she responded. Or she stopped in after her shift to visit her grandmother, and swung by to get an update on Maddie. That’s a reasonable request of a young officer.”
“She’s not that young,” I said, aware that I sounded like a petulant teenager instead of a grown woman. I couldn’t help it; that’s how Rita made me feel. Kimberly. “Tell me about Pat’s role in the protests against the grocery project.”
“He went to the public meetings, and the Neighbors United board met at our house a couple of times. That could have been earlier, though. I’m not sure. He didn’t get as involved with the grocery project as he did on the wetlands issue. It was soccer season—he still coached little kids, plus following Gabe’s team, and work was crazy busy.”
“He tangle with Maddie?”
“No. You know, I remember her being at the first big public informational meeting, but I didn’t think she was part of the grocery project.”
“Why was she there then? As a neighbor?”
“I guess. I never knew. It was years ago, right before he was killed, and a lot’s happened since then. Some builder-guy did the talking—I don’t remember his name—and Deanna. We did feel a little uncomfortable around her, but no big deal. We were never close.”
“Deanna, you mean? The woman we met in the coffee shop, who lived next door to you?” The stone steps were cold and damp.
“Right. The original plan was to tear the building down and build condos. She would get all the listings. But the group contended that the project was out of character with the neighborhood, and they thought eventually some of the other buildings would get torn down, too. Like dominoes. I haven’t kept up, but at some point, the whole project was redesigned, with a gourmet market on the ground floor and a few midprice rentals upstairs. That’s when I started hearing that Maddie was involved.”
“No condo sales and no commissions,” I said, musing. As Nate had noted this morning, people can get antsy about protecting their income stream. Maddie had plenty of other irons in the fire, I was sure. But what about Deanna? The builder-guy who’d done the talking in the early phases? Who else had lost a bundle to the change in plans?
Laurel peered over the stone balustrade. “No sign of Mr. FBI. Though I feel better, knowing they’re keeping an eye on us.”
FBI agents are trained to blend in, to not be noticed. He had the right clothes. But we had noticed him. Maybe he wanted us to know he was there, like Greer yesterday in the Market. She hadn’t been trying to hide from me.
Was their presence meant to be reassuring, or a warning?
I like to think I’m a pretty decent observer, and that I can watch out for myself just fine, thank you. But this was a tangled web, and I was getting a very unsettled feeling.
LAUREL dropped me off near my building. I put a hand on her arm. “If you see anyone you feel hinky about, promise you’ll call the police. Don’t try to tough this out on your own.”
Her throat tightened. “You know, I’ve never had a friend who would do what you did for me today.”
“Meet for breakfast, drink coffee, and go for a drive in the rain?”
A smile tugged at one corner of her full lips. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. And I appreciate you not telling me what an idiot I was for freaking out over Lovely Rita.” “We’ll let that be our little