Элизабет Чандлер: The Back Door of Midnight

All of it was addressed to Uncle Will’s post office box.

Some of it looked like bills — electric, telephone, Visa; the postmarks were from the previous week. I realized that if Aunt Iris kept mail in the fridge as long as she kept other things, she’d need someone to help her with her bills. Did she and Uncle Will have a lawyer or someone else who could do this?

Flipping through the envelopes, I came upon one that was missing a postage stamp and marked RETURN TO SENDER. It was addressed in my uncle’s bold handwriting to the Maryland State Police. Adding postage and sending it on would have been the right thing to do, but curiosity got the better of me. I opened it.

Uncle Will was requesting a transcript of all the information the police had collected on the unsolved murder of Joanna O’Neill. He had attached to his letter a copy of a newspaper article, with the date circled.

YOUNG MOTHER KILLED IN ROBBERY, the headline blared. I took a deep breath and read.

Last Monday evening, twentytwo-year-old Joanna O’Neill, niece of William and Iris, was found murdered in their home. The crime occurred in the living room of the O’Neill homestead, “old Doc O’s house,” as it is commonly called, next to the bridge over Oyster Creek. When William O’Neill and young Anna, Joanna’s three-year-old daughter, returned from shopping, William noticed that the entrance hall of the home was in disarray. After putting the toddler back in his truck, he found the bloody body of Joanna. Rooms on both floors had been ransacked. According to the coroner, the victim died from blunt force trauma to the head. A pair of silver candleholders and a large amount of cash were taken from the house. No weapon for the murder was found. There was no evidence of forced entry. Iris O’Neill, William’s sister, was visiting a sick friend at the time. According to Sheriff McManus, Shore residents “aren’t in the habit of locking doors, and someone thought he could just walk in and help himself to whatever he wanted.” Joanna O’Neill, who was attending Chase College, hoped to embark on a career in health care. She was known in Wisteria as a psychic and had a loyal clientele for whom she read cards. A Mass of Christian Burial was offered for her last Thursday at St. Mary’s Church on Scarborough Road.

My mother read cards? She was psychic like Aunt Iris?

Why hadn’t Uncle Will told me? Maybe he didn’t like the idea.

I slipped the letter and article back in the envelope, feeling strange. I knew I had loved my birth mother — I had seen pictures of us together. But the face I thought of with sadness was Uncle Will’s, when he saw the ransacked house, when he put me back in his truck, when he searched and found Joanna dead. The loss I felt from his death was beginning to seep through my initial state of shock, tightening my throat, making me blink back tears.

A loud knock at the front door jolted me out of these thoughts.

“Hello? Anyone home? Hello!”

I wiped my cheeks and blew my nose. Leaving bills and ads on the kitchen table, I carried Uncle Will’s letter into the hall, stuffed it in my suitcase, then opened the front door.

“So you found your way.” It was the guy from next door, without his hot costar. He held out his hand, a large hand with a silver wristband to show off the tan. “I’m Zack.”

“I’m Anna.”

Standing face-to-face with him — or rather, face-to-chest; he was about a foot taller than me — I found myself wanting to back up. His eyes were intense and didn’t miss a freckle.

After a moment he said, “I see Iris isn’t home. Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“No, I haven’t a clue. She rushed out of here.”

He nodded, then glanced toward the vehicles parked at one end of the house. “My stepmother sent me over. She would like something done about the goats on the back lawn.”

“The goats?”

“You didn’t notice them,” he said. “Unfortunately, Marcy did, and she went ballistic. They don’t go well with her. . garden soiree.”

“Aunt Iris raises goats?”

“No. They’re clients.”

For a moment I was puzzled. “Oh, I see. She grooms goats.”

“No, she’s their therapist, their psychologist.”

“You’re kidding me!”

“I think the goats take it seriously,” he replied, then smiled. “Here’s the problem: Marcy wants the goats gone, like, immediately. Perhaps you could talk to their owner—” I began to shake my head.

“Or the goats, whichever works best,” he said, his eyes bright, as if laughing. “Iris usually goes along with what Marcy wants, and while I don’t care and Dad doesn’t care, Marcy’s throwing a major fit.”

“Well, if she doesn’t want goats ruining her view, maybe she should get a house in town.”

“I’m not arguing that point. In the meantime, the party’s about to start, and the goats are out back, and my stepmother is about to lose it.” He smiled at me, a flirty smile. “Tell you what: If you get rid of them, I’ll fix your car.”

“You know how to replace mufflers?” I asked, surprised.

“I know how to drive to Midas.”

“I thought so. Tell your stepmother I’ll ask the owner to take his goats and come back later. But I can’t promise he’ll listen to me,” I added, then closed the front door and headed down the hall to the back entrance. I couldn’t believe I was playing receptionist to a pet shrink.

The creek side of the house was just as I remembered it, sunny, with two big trees and a stretch of tall grass between the house and the water. A swath about ten feet wide was mowed around the house and ran in a path down to the dock. Two goats were grazing, watched over by a man who sat with his back against a willow.

As I approached the man, one of the goats raised its head and gazed at me with interest. The other kept its head down but didn’t eat. The owner, whose round, pleasant face made me think of a worn catcher’s mitt, nodded at me, then, realizing I wanted to speak to him, rose quickly to his feet.

“Afternoon, miss,” he said with a soft drawl, a Shore accent like my uncle’s.

“Hi. Listen. I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to take your goats somewhere else. My aunt Iris isn’t home and—”

“She’ll be back,” he said with certainty. “We had an appointment.”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure you did, but, you know, she doesn’t remember things as well as she used to.”

“Happens to all of us,” he said, smiling in that tolerant way an adult smiles at a child who doesn’t understand. “But kind of you to let me know,” he added, tapping the top of his head as if there were a hat he might tip to me. He sat down again, ready to wait.

“What I’m saying is that I have no idea when she’ll be home.”

“It’s Sunday,” he replied. “I’m not much in a hurry.”

I doubted he was ever in a hurry. “Unfortunately, the lady next door is having a party, and she doesn’t like goats.”

“Oh, they’ll stay on this side of the hedge.”

“I wonder if you could make another appointment?”

He considered the suggestion, then considered me.

“You’re an O’Neill. You got the red hair.”

I bit back the word “chestnut.” “Yes, I’m Iris’s great-niece.”

“They say all the O’Neill women are either psychic or crazy. You don’t look crazy.” Before I could thank him for that acute observation, he went on. “Maybe you can help me out — do a reading.”

He saw the disbelief on my face and added quickly, “Oh, not for me! For Maria. Maria. She’s having a bad time.”

I followed his eyes to a black-and-white goat, the one that was gazing forlornly at the ground but not eating.

“She’s not looking good,” I admitted.