Chapter Thirty-seven
Jane pulled her car out of the lot that was so plainly visible through Acme Security’s front windows and drove down New Street into the Whole Foods parking lot. Half the parked cars had drivers inside them fiddling with their phones. Jane fit right in.
Taking her cue from Agnes, Jane was convinced Justin Vreeland wasn’t ill. But what was he doing? She had started off wanting to talk to him about the empty houses in her neighborhood. Now curiosity drove her on.
It didn’t take Jane long to find his home address on the Internet. He lived in Tewksbury, almost an hour away. Even though Jane was feeling the effects of her sleepless night, she was determined to go. Jane had time, something Megan was possibly running out of.
Justin lived in a hilly area of long winding two-lane roads. Jane turned off the road and steered along the steep dirt track that served as a driveway to the Vreeland house. The house was a weird hybrid—part A-frame, part log cabin with a newish wood frame addition. It looked thrown together and homemade. Bikes and other toy vehicles were lined up neatly at the top of the drive. The house was so far off the road there was little chance anything left outside would be stolen.
Jane stopped Old Reliable a ways from the house. The clouds had burned off without producing the promised rain, and the sky was bright blue, the sun blazing and relentless. Jane stood, hands on her hips, suddenly reluctant to go on. Why was she doing this? But then the twitch of a blind on a big picture window told her she’d been spotted. It would be infinitely weirder to turn around and drive back down the long driveway than to climb the rickety wooden stairs, knock on the door, and state her business. Justin was a security tech, so it seemed likely the occupants of the house had seen her coming from the time she turned off the main road, though she hadn’t spotted the cameras that must be in the trees that lined the driveway.
Jane climbed the stairs, treading carefully on the weather-beaten wood.
“May I help you?” The woman who answered the door was in her middle thirties, but already showing signs of age, a slight stoop in her posture and a sag to her cheeks and chin. Her hair was a dull, sandy color, tied in a low ponytail.
“Mrs. Vreeland?” Jane ventured.
“Yes.”
“I’m Jane Darrowfield. I met your husband at one of the houses that Acme services.”
The woman squinted into the sun. “If this is about home security, you really need to go to the Acme office. Justin doesn’t do any business from here.”
There was a whoop behind her, followed by a high-pitched squeal. Both women waited silently to see if the squeal turned to laughter or tears. Instead there was a crash and a scream of surprise.
Jane took a chance. “May I come in?” She stated her name again, offering her hand this time.
The woman glanced back into the house, clearly torn. She would have preferred to stay on the doorstep, but that risked mayhem inside. “I’m Crystal,” she said, taking the offered hand. “Come on in.”
Crystal. The name was appropriate to her age but not her face. Did parents know when they gave their children these shiny names that they would grow into careworn adults?
There were three children that Jane could see, a girl and a boy dressed like they weren’t long home from elementary school and a little one wearing only a T-shirt and pull-up training pants. The house was hot and stuffy. Crystal shooed the children out of the kitchen to watch TV, an offer that was met with eyes opened in surprise. Clearly not the usual afternoon directive.
The house was neat, much neater than Jane expected given three active children in residence. Her mind flashed to the Pilchner house, where toys were everywhere. Crystal cleared the leavings from an after-school snack—apples spread with peanut butter—from the kitchen table and gestured Jane toward a chair. “Please sit. How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Justin. I called Acme, and they told me he was home sick.”
“They shouldn’t have sent you here.”
Of course they hadn’t. “I’m taking care of a neighbor’s house and it has a system Justin installed and maintained, so that’s why the Acme office couldn’t answer my questions.”
“Hmmpf.” Crystal had seated herself at the head of the table, catty-corner from Jane. “They rely on him way too much. It isn’t fair.”
“Is he here? I understood he was sick.”
Crystal colored slightly. “No. He’s out. He’s off.” She gestured, flinging out an arm, as if he might be orbiting the earth.
“So not sick, then?”
“Maybe not physically.” Crystal made a face. “But sick of them and that place.” She settled in her chair. The sounds of cartoon characters running amuck came from the living room. “It’s so unfair. Not only does he work for them eight hours every day, he also does installations for businesses on the weekends. And they feel they can get him out of bed any hour of the night if an alarm goes off somewhere or there’s a problem with someone’s system. Usually they call and he races to the house and the cops are already there with the EMTs and it turns out a raccoon tripped an alarm or some other thing.”
“I can see that it’s a demanding job.”
“And that’s not even the worst of it. When Justin’s home, supposedly on his time off, he has to keep checking and monitoring the system. He spends his day in that truck and then his evenings in his little study in the basement staring at his computer. It’s not right.”
“My goodness, doesn’t anyone else work at Acme?”
Crystal grimaced. “I know. Right? That’s what I say. Justin says all the techs work that way, but I don’t believe him. Agnes, the owner, calls him ‘Justin the Guardian.’ ”
“So where is he?” Jane asked.
“Fishing. Every once in a while he takes a mental health day and goes off.”
“And you cover for him?”
“He deserves it. No one can work twenty-four-seven for months on end like Agnes expects.”
“Does Justin have a boat, perhaps on a lake nearby?”
“No, no. He’s fly-fishing on a stream in the woods. It totally relaxes him.”
Really? It was fall, in the midst of a long drought. The water would be trickling, not rushing, and the stocks fished out. Jane doubted very much Justin could be fly-fishing. But if his main objective was to get away from the demands of home and work, then maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he stood in the woods with a pole and that did the trick. “Does he have a place he goes?”
“Maine,” Crystal said. “It makes me nervous that he goes out of cell range, in case something happens with the kids, but it’s the only way he can get any peace.”
Jane stood. “When do you expect him? My questions about my neighbor’s security system are urgent.” She opened her pocketbook and handed Crystal a card. Not the fancy cards Harry had made for her that she gave to clients, the ones that said PROFESSIONAL BUSYBODY. This one was a plain white card with her name, cell phone number, and e-mail address. These cards were for sources, such as Crystal.
Crystal took the card, but she hesitated before she did. “Why can’t your neighbor give you the information you need?”
That was the question. “She’s disappeared,” Jane answered.
“You mean that woman! It’s been on the news all the time. Justin told me he worked on the system at her house. He was over there recently because some old lady—” Crystal stopped, embarrassed.
“That was me,” Jane admitted. “That’s how we met. That’s why I thought he might be willing to answer my questions.”
“Shouldn’t the police be asking the questions?”
“This isn’t about the search for Megan. This is more about the house. That’s why it’s me doing the asking. Have the police talked to Justin?”
Crystal’s already pale skin turned paler. “No. Why would they?”
“No reason.” Jane tried to sound casual. “I thought they might have questions about the security system.”
“They haven’t talked to Justin. He would have told me. Maybe they got all the information they needed from Agnes.”
“Maybe they did.”
The youngest child came into the kitchen, clutching a worn blanket that might at some time have been white. “Kyle won’t play with me.”
“You can help me make dinner,” Crystal said. “You can stir things in the big bowl.”
The little boy smiled, accepting the alternative.
“I’ll see myself out,” Jane said.
“Bye! Sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Crystal called after her.