Tami Hoag - Dark Horse

Someone had to do something. These people Erin Seabright had known and worked for were far too dismissive when it came to the subject of her, and far too cavalier when it came to the subject of death.

The address Molly had given me as Erin's was a three-car garage some entrepreneurial sort had converted into rental property. Geographically, it was only a few miles from the Seabright home in Binks Forest. In every other respect it was in another world.

Rural Loxahatchee, where the side roads are dirt and the ditches never drain; where no one had ever met a building code they wouldn't ignore. A strange mix of run-down places, new middle-class homes, and small horse properties. A place where people nailed signs to tree trunks along the road advertising everything from "Make $$$ in Your Own Home" to "Puppies for Sale" to "Dirt Cheap Stump Grinding."

The property where Erin had lived was overgrown with tall pines and scrubby, stunted palm trees. The main house was a pseudo-Spanish ranch style, circa mid-seventies. The white stucco had gone gray with mildew. The yard consisted of dirty sand fill and anemic, sun-starved grass. An older maroon Honda sat off to one side on the driveway, filthy and dotted with hardened gobs of pine sap. It looked like it hadn't gone anywhere in a long while.

I went to the front door and rang the bell, hoping no one would be at home in the middle of the day. I would have been much happier letting myself into the garage-cum-guest house. I'd had enough human interaction to last me the day. I swatted a mosquito on my forearm and waited, then rang the bell a second time.

A voice like a rusty hinge called out: "I'm around the back!"

Small brown geckos darted out of my path and into the overgrown landscaping as I walked around the side of the garage. Around the back of the house was the obligatory pool. The screened cage that had been erected to keep bugs out of the patio area was shredded in sections as if by a giant paw. The door was flung wide on broken hinges.

The woman who stood in the doorway was long past the age and shape anyone would care to see her in a two-piece swimming suit, but that was what she was wearing. Flab and sagging skin hung on her bent frame like a collection of half-deflated leather balloons.

"What can I do for you, honey?" she asked. A New York transplant in giant Jackie-O sunglasses. She must have been pushing seventy, and appeared to have spent sixty-eight of those years sunbathing. Her skin was as brown and mottled as the skin of the lizards that lived in her yard. She was smoking a cigarette and had two hugely fat ginger cats on leashes. I was momentarily stunned to silence by the sight of her.

"I'm looking for my niece," I said at last. "Erin Seabright. She lives here, right?"

She nodded, dropped her cigarette butt, and ground it out with the toe of her aqua neoprene scuba diver's boot. "Erin. The pretty one. Haven't seen her for a couple of days, darling."

"No? Neither has her family. We're getting kind of worried."

The woman pursed her lips and waved my concern away. "Bah! She's probably off with the boyfriend."

"Boyfriend? We didn't know she had a boyfriend."

"What a surprise," she said sarcastically. "A teenage girl who doesn't tell her family anything. I thought they were on the outs, though. I heard them fighting out in the yard one night."

"When was that?"

"Last week. I don't know. Thursday or Friday maybe." She shrugged. "I'm retired. What do I know from days? One's the same as the next. I know I came out to walk my babies the next morning and someone had run a key down the side of Erin's car and ruined the paint. I have a gate to keep the riffraff out, if my lazy son would come and fix it. He could care if I'm raped and killed. He thinks he inherits."

She chuckled and looked down at the ginger cats, sharing a joke telepathically. One of the cats lay on its back in the dirt with its hind legs stretched out. The other pounced at her foot, ears flat.

"Bah! Cecil! Don't bite Mommy's toe!" she scolded. "I got an infection the last time. I thought I would die of it!"

She swatted at the cat and the cat swatted back, then scuttled to the end of its leash and growled. It had to weigh twenty-five pounds.

"Could I possibly take a look in her apartment?" I asked politely. "Maybe I can get an idea where she's gone. Her mother's worried sick."

She shrugged. "Sure. Why not? You're a relative."

The kind of landlady we all want. Fourth Amendment? What Fourth Amendment?

She tied the cat leashes to the handle of the broken screen door and dug in the fanny pack slung around her waist, coming out with a set of keys, a cigarette, and a hot pink Bic lighter. She fired up as we went around to the front of the garage, where two doors flanked windows that had been set into the plywood wall where the original garage doors had once been.

"When I did the guest house I had them put in two apartments," the woman confided. "One bath. You can get more rent that way. Semiprivate. Seven-fifty a month per."

Seven hundred and fifty dollars a month to live in a garage and share a bathroom with a stranger.

"I'm Eva by the way," she said, sliding her sunglasses on top of her head. "Eva Rosen."

"Ellen Stuart."

"You don't look like family," Eva said, squinting at me as we went into the apartment.

"By marriage."

The apartment was a single room with dingy vinyl flooring and an assortment of hideous thrift store furniture. An efficiency kitchen setup was tucked into one corner: a small sink full of dirty dishes crawling with ants, two burners, a microwave, and a mini-fridge. The bed was at the back, unmade.

There was no other sign anyone lived there. There were no clothes, no shoes, no personal effects of any kind.

"It looks like she's moved out," I said. "You didn't see her packing stuff in her car?"

Eva turned around in the middle of the room, mouth agape, cigarette stuck to her lower lip and bobbing precariously. "No! No one said anything to me about moving out. And left me dirty dishes, no less! You give people a nice place and this is how they treat you!"

"Have you seen anyone else coming in and out in the past few days?"

"No. Just that other one. The chubby one."

"Jill Morone?"

"She's a mean one. Those beady little eyes. I'd never leave my babies with that one."

"She lives in the other half?"

"Someone is going to have to answer to me," Eva muttered. "They rented for the season. They have to pay."

"Who pays the rent?"

"The checks are from Jade Farms. That nice girl, Paris, always brings the check herself. She's so nice. I can't believe she would let this happen."

Puffing angrily on the cigarette, she went to the sink and turned the water on. The pipes kicked and spat. When the water finally ran, it looked brown. "People can't just move out in the middle of the night and think they don't have to pay. My no-good son is good for one thing: he's a bail bondsman. He knows people."

I followed as Eva opened a door and went through the shared bath to Jill Morone's side of the garage. The floor was piled with wet towels, the walls of the shower stall orange and black with rust and mildew.

"This one's still here," Eva muttered. "The little pig. Look at this mess."

The place looked like it had been tossed, but I suspected that was simply the girl's mode of housekeeping. Clothes and magazines were strewn everywhere. An ashtray heaped with butts sat on the coffee table. I spotted the issue of Sidelines with my photo in it lying on the floor, and surreptitiously toed it under the sofa.

"I wouldn't let dogs live like this," Eva Rosen muttered, freely pawing through Jill Morone's things. "Where does she get all this? Clothes from Bloomingdale's. The tags still on. I bet she steals. She's the type."