We watched Lemon’s cruiser stop outside a house on Redduck Avenue. The house sat behind a tangle of wild vines that had almost consumed the low brick fence at the front of the yard. Sneak was on her phone, tapping the screen as she zoomed out on our location on GPS.
‘Is it Redduck?’ Sneak wondered aloud. ‘Or Red Duck?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’re, like, two blocks from the police station,’ she noted.
‘He’s not calling it in, whatever he’s doing,’ I said. We waited in silence. ‘What do you think? Dropping in on family? Maybe he thought he’d swing by and see what Grandma wanted.’
‘Maybe this is his place,’ Sneak mused. ‘We’re not going to see anything from here. Do a drive-by.’
I took the car around the block, slowing and looking carefully at the house with the vines as we went by. Number 17. The long driveway was packed full of items: buckets and gas canisters, chairs and folded tables, wooden boxes stacked high, rusted bicycles leaning against them, a tarp haplessly flopped over some of it, trying to protect the jumble of objects from the sun. I saw boarded-up windows at the front of the house, others taped with newspaper. Sneak unbuckled her seatbelt and turned in her seat to get the longest view she could as we went by.
‘Grandma’s a bit of a pack rat,’ Sneak said.
‘Weird,’ I agreed. We returned to the spot a block down from the house where we had pulled in to watch Officer Lemon disappear. The car ticked as it cooled after I turned off the engine.
‘I’m going in,’ I said.
‘You can’t,’ Sneak scoffed. ‘He’ll recognise you.’
‘I’m not going to waltz up and knock on the door,’ I said. ‘I’ll just see what I can see and get out of there.’
‘Let me go.’ She opened her door. ‘He doesn’t know me.’
‘He’s on the lookout for a fa—’ I swallowed. ‘A woman fitting the description witnesses gave him of the person who stole his phone. Blonde curls.’
‘What are you going to do if you get caught?’
‘I’ll handle it,’ I said.
Walking with a deliberately casual air is more difficult than it seems. I kicked my sneaker twice on uneven edges of the sidewalk on the way to the house. A truck parked on the road diagonally opposite read Ramirez Commercial Plumbing. A logo of a smiling plumber brandishing a wrench high above his head like a sword was painted on the side. I turned sharply down the driveway, watching the blocked-out windows for any sign of Lemon, and ducked behind the pile of trash at the side of the house. The backyard was packed with old, rusted cars that had probably once been vintage specials patiently awaiting restoration. A tortoiseshell cat was dozing on the bonnet of one, the grass so high inside the car body that I could see it through the windscreen. The cat lifted its head at the sight of me. It was a large beast with a boxy skull, its face slashed through with scars.
I went to the nearest window and peered through a small rip in the newspaper covering the glass, but all I could see in the darkened room was a bookshelf crammed with sun-yellowed volumes. The next window was blocked completely, but the room after that was revealed through a crack between two wooden panels. I saw rolls of carpet or rugs numbering in the dozens stacked from floor to ceiling.
‘Hey!’
A gasp escaped my throat before I could silence it. A wide-shouldered Latino man was standing in the driveway, wiping grease from his hands onto a filthy towel.
‘Oh, hi.’ I smiled.
‘Can I help you?’
‘No, I’m fine. I’m sorry. I was just looking for my cat.’ I jerked my thumb at the cat on the bonnet of the car at the end of the driveway. ‘I’ll get out of your way.’
I walked towards the cat. It lifted its head again and gave a low, evil moan that made my scalp prickle with fear. I visualised it launching at my face, latching on to my skull with claws like razor wire. The day had already seen me suffer a minor car accident. I stopped, turned around and kept my head down as I walked back up the driveway.
‘You know what? He’s fine. He’ll come home when he’s hungry.’ I flashed a warm smile at the man with the towel. I pointed at some wildflowers growing between the old, rotting wooden chairs stacked against the wall. ‘Nice place you got here. Eccentric. Cute flowers.’
‘It’s not my place,’ the man said. ‘I’m the plumber. It’s a hoarder house in there.’
I stopped in my tracks. ‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. Place is crazy. Stuff stacked up to the ceiling.’ The plumber wouldn’t meet my eyes. ‘I’ve just come to clear out the toilet. You see that a lot with places like this. The water goes and they just keep using the toilet anyways.’
‘Oh, jeez.’
‘Guy’s got a lot of dolls in there, too,’ he said. ‘And they’re all naked.’
We stood awkwardly, staring at our feet.
‘I’ll be gone in a couple of days,’ he said.
‘Well.’ I started backing away. ‘I hope you . . . uh. Get it all cleared up.’
‘I will.’
I walked quickly to the street, turned a sharp left and broke into a jog when I was safely out of sight. Sneak listened to my story as I pulled out the car, turned and drove the way we’d come so I wouldn’t have to pass by the house again.
‘Who’s the hoarder?’ Sneak asked. ‘Officer Lemon?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘That’s not what’s weird to me. It’s the plumber. I was walking out and he seemed almost determined to explain why he was there. Made sure I knew he’d be gone soon.’
‘I’ve been reading the rest of the messages,’ Sneak said. She had Lemon’s phone in her hand. ‘I can’t tell if they’re lovers or not. There’s a lot of strange talk from him in the beginning.’
‘Strange talk?’
‘Yeah, like . . .’ She scrolled the phone. ‘This is going to change everything. A new life. Far away. I’m so glad you chose me.’
‘Sounds kind of romantic.’
‘Maybe.’ Sneak shrugged. ‘But that’s the thing, right? If it’s You chose me like You chose me to be your partner or your lover, why aren’t there any messages before that time? I mean, the You chose me message is only the third message they ever share. So they met and a week later started talking like that?’
‘She chose him for something else,’ I said. ‘The criminal enterprise, whatever it is.’
‘So why’d she choose him, of all people?’ Sneak asked.
‘Because he’s a cop?’
‘Why not some other cop?’ Sneak said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Later he says Trust is everything. And she says It’s the most important thing we have.’
Sneak and I drove in silence.
‘There’s one from Dayly to Lemon that says Are we on track?’ Sneak read. ‘He answers with A week left, maybe less.’
‘When was that one sent?’ I asked.
‘A week ago tomorrow,’ Sneak said. ‘After that, the messages are all repeated.’
‘What do you mean, repeated?’
‘It just says Where are you? over and over again,’ she said.