Shelter in Place
And dedicated at least an hour every evening to Patricia Hobart.
On his day off in mid-April, he ferried to Portland. He hadn’t persuaded Simone to join him. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned meeting his parents, he realized.
He drove off the ferry, stopped to buy flowers, ended up choosing a madly blue hydrangea bush instead. Rethought, bought three.
His parents weren’t his only visit on this spring Sunday.
He had brunch with his family, played with the kids, bullshitted with his brother, teased his sister, more or less helped his father plant the well-received hydrangea.
And took away an enormous care package of leftovers.
At his next stop he found Leticia Johnson sitting on her front porch potting up pansies. She brushed off her garden gloves when he pulled up.
He thought it amazing she looked exactly the same as she had the night he’d met her.
He glanced across the street, thought the same couldn’t be said.
The landlord had indeed sold the lot. The new owners had razed what was left of the house, built a nice little place—currently a soft blue with white trim. They’d added a porch, a concrete walkway, a short, blacktop driveway, some foundation plants.
Next door, Rob’s and Chloe’s fixer-upper had long since been fixed up into a pretty two-story in a sage green with the addition of a garage on the far side and a bonus room topping it.
He knew they’d added another kid, too.
He pulled the hydrangea out of the car, walked toward Leticia’s welcoming smile.
“Aren’t you a fine sight on a sunny day.”
“Not as fine as you.” He bent down to kiss her cheek. “I hope you like hydrangeas.”
“I surely do.”
“Then pick your spot, and tell me where I can find a shovel.”
She wanted it right in front, where she could see it when she sat on her porch. While he dug, she went in the house, came back out with a plastic container.
“Coffee grounds, some orange peels I haven’t taken out to the compost yet. You bury these with the roots, boy. They’ll help keep the blooms blue.”
“You’d like my father. I just delivered one there, and he said just the same. What do you know about lupines?”
They talked gardening, though most of it was like a foreign language to him.
After, he sat on the porch with her, drinking iced tea, eating cookies.
“You look healthy and happy. Island life agrees with you.”
He hadn’t forgotten she’d come to see him at the hospital—twice. “It really does. I hope you’ll come over sometime, let me show you around. We can sit on my porch.”
“What you need is a pretty young woman sitting there with you.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, praise be.”
“How are the neighbors doing?”
She looked across the street as he did. “Chloe and Rob and their two girls are doing fine. Sweet family. We’ve got new ones right across now, in that poor woman’s place.”
“Oh?”
“The family who built the house there—and it’s a nice house, too—they just outgrew it. Young couple in there now, expecting their first next fall. Nice as nice can be. I took them over an apple pie to say welcome, and didn’t they ask me right in, show me around? And the night before trash day every week, he and Rob, they take turns coming over here to take my bins down to the curb.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“You’re still thinking about what was.”
“She’s still out there.”
With a shake of her head, Leticia rubbed the cross she wore around her neck. “A person who’d kill her own mama, kill her grandparents, that’s not a person at all. It’s something else that doesn’t even have a name.”
“I have a lot of names for her. I know you didn’t talk to her much, but you saw her, Ms. Leticia. Coming and going. I’m looking for patterns, and breaks in them.”
“Like we’ve talked about, she’d drive up with groceries, stay awhile. Mother’s Day, Christmas, she’d bring something. Never looked happy about it.”
“Did she ever change her look—like her hair, her style?”
“Not to speak of. But now, I did see her once in one of those outfits the girls exercise in. Like for the gym or running around. Wasn’t her usual morning, and she looked downright annoyed. I have to say she had a better figure than I’d have guessed.”
“She ran most mornings. We’ve verified that. Interesting.”
“Now that I think on it, I’m putting that at a time her mama took sick.”
“Could be Marcia Hobart called Patricia, nagged her into coming by before, and Patricia didn’t bother to change from her morning run.”
“Now you’re putting me in mind of something else.” Leticia tapped a finger on her knee. “She didn’t look any different that day, or act it all that much, but maybe it’s a break in the pattern, like you say.”
She rocked, eyes closed, trying to bring it back.
“Wintertime—I can’t say just when. But the young ones were building me a snowman right out here, and thinking of the ages, I’m guessing five or six years ago this was. My grandson—the police, you know—was shoveling off my steps, my walk, and he was wearing the scarf I made him and gave him for Christmas, so it was after that. I was out here supervising—brought the young ones a carrot for the snowman’s nose—and she drove up.”
She opened her eyes again, nodding as she looked at Reed. “I could tell she was annoyed right off when she got out because the walk over there hadn’t been done. I called out to her, asked if she wanted one of my kids to do some shoveling, as the girl who did for her was down sick with the flu.”
Leticia rocked awhile, nodding again. “I’m remembering now. I walked over while I talked, seems to me, and she ducked her head as she usually did. I just took the bull by the balls, told my grandson to go on over there, shovel off that walk for the lady, told the oldest of the young ones to go get those groceries.”
“How’d she handle it?”
“She was kind of stuck, wasn’t she? She needed the help, and help was already moving in. I said how it looked like she’d gotten some sun—as it did, I recall. She said she’d taken a little vacation. My boy’s shoveling her walk, the young one’s carting the two bags of groceries up to the little porch, so she’s stuck, and plainly irritated. She said she hated coming back to winter, wished she could spend all her winters in Florida.”
“She said ‘Florida’ specifically?”
“She did. They had sun and palm trees and swimming pools in Florida, and here we had snow and ice and cold. I suppose that’s the most she said to me in our whole acquaintance, so I said it was nice she got a holiday, and where in Florida did she go? She just mumbled about having to get inside to her mother, and went off. Now, she did stop and offer to pay my grandson, still shoveling, but he wouldn’t take any money. He’s raised better.”
“She killed a woman in Tampa, February of 2011.”
“Well, my sweet Lord. Her vacation tan hadn’t yet faded, so this couldn’t have been long after. She’d gotten a tan while taking a life and stood over there bitching about the snow. Do you think she went to Florida again after she shot you?”