“Keep organizing.” I pointed to the boxes to Tammie’s right.
“Yes, ma’am.” After a moment, she said, “Tell me more about your plans to investigate.”
I told her that I’d called a number of the suspects. She questioned whether that was safe. I reminded her that I was a trained private investigator. She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press.
“How’s Mia?” I asked, changing the subject.
“She’s good. She has a little girl, Giselle, and her business is thriving.”
“Mia’s an architect, isn’t she?” I remembered reading something about her in the news the last year I’d worked at BARC.
“Not merely an architect,” Tammie said, beaming. “She’s a full-fledged builder now, eager to design homes like the one we walked through today. Dream Big Associates. That’s the name of her company.”
“She didn’t want to use her surname, you know, for branding?”
“She’s going through a divorce. Besides, Smith was too generic.” Tammie fanned the air. “You watch. She’ll become one of the most famous designers in the Bay Area soon. It may be a man’s world, but she will thrive in it.” Her cheeks flushed and her eyes gleamed with pride. “Her father had wanted her to become a computer programmer. He’d said that was a job with a future. How she’d hated that route.” Tammie rolled her eyes. “When Mia found her true path, it was like someone switched on a light inside her. Your grandmother knew she had talent.”
I remembered Mia coming to the house a lot. Not only to hang out with Rosie but also to spend time with my grandmother so she could learn to draw. In high school, she’d stopped coming around. I wasn’t sure why. She’d found a new crowd of friends, I’d presumed.
“Tell me about Giselle,” I said. “Are you a proud grandma?”
“She’s four years old and quite shy, but you should see her color.” Tammie mimed furiously drawing. “She’s as passionate as her mother. I’m sure I sent you a picture of her.”
I was sure she hadn’t. I hadn’t given Tammie my new contact information when I’d left the Bay Area, hence, the reason she’d had to follow my exploits online.
“Long blonde curls. Pert little nose. Too skinny, if I do say.”
Who was calling the kettle black?
“Mia used a surrogate to have her. A gestational surrogate. She couldn’t carry to term, so—”
My cell phone trilled. I recognized the wind chimes tone. “Mine,” I announced.
By having moved so many boxes, we’d created a blockade to where we’d left our purses. I cut through the mess, rummaged in my tote for the phone, and answered on the third ring. I didn’t recognize the telephone number. “Hello.”
“Miss Adams?” Viraj Patel said, his intonation distinctive.
“Yes, sir?”
Tammie said, “Who is it?”
I whispered, “My parents’ neighbor.”
Into the phone, I said, “Go on, Mr. Patel. I’m listening. Are you at the police station?”
“No. I am headed there—”
Reception cut out and returned.
“But first,” he went on, “I wanted to tell you that I had a thought about one of the other suspects, so I was doing some research about a—”
The reception cut out again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did you say debt or threat?”
“Being a suspect myself, I kept current with everything the police were doing,” Patel went on.
Okay, that threw me for a loop. Had he hacked into the police records? Or had his friend, Hoek, done so? Wasn’t that a punishable offense?
“Are you free to talk?” Patel asked.
“Not really. I’m with my mother’s business partner. We’re cleaning out the family’s storage unit.”
He cleared his throat. “I am interrupting. I will contact you later. Goodbye.”
“Wait. Sir—”
He ended the call as abruptly as he had last night. Odd man. Did I trust him?
“That was brief,” Tammie said. “He wanted to discuss a debt?”
I frowned. “Or a threat. The reception was spotty.”
“Your mother never liked him.” Tammie rubbed a knot out of her neck. “He was always carping about others. Denigrating their religions and such. What a despicable man. How did he get your number?”
“I reached out to him.” I told her about our chat last night and how Patel revealed that he’d lied about his alibi, although, according to him, he had a verifiable alternative one.
“He said his fiancée will corroborate his story, and you believed him?” Tammie sniffed.
“You know, I was thinking about him before I went to sleep last night.” I noted the number on another carton. “I wanted to ask him something, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. When he said the word debt, that triggered something, but again, I’m not sure what.”
“Maybe he owes you a debt of gratitude for not contacting the police that very instant.”
I smirked. “Thank you. For being snarky. I needed that.”
“That’s my forte.” Sassily, she polished her fingernails on her jacket. “I’d advise you to keep your distance. Want some water?” she asked. “I saw a vending machine near the office.”
“Love some.”
Minutes after she left, I found a box marked Master Bedroom. As I opened the box, I felt as apprehensive as I had when I’d sorted through the hope chest. What would I find? Would the items spark memories? Would I relive the day my parents died? The detective’s phone call. The hours of crying. The sleepless night. Slowly, I pawed through the box, recalling all the items my mother had kept on her bureau: tiny silver boxes, her hairbrush and hand mirror. I was surprised not to find the silver frame that had held my parents’ wedding photo—the photo Evers had duplicated for his notes—or the cherrywood puzzle box my grandmother had made for my mother. Had Rosie absconded with the items on one of her forays? How I had loved the box and the unique way it opened. Grandma Patrice had laughed at my futile attempts. I pushed the memory aside and continued to search.
When I stumbled upon box seventy, marked Dining Room Hutch, I let loose with a whoop. I cut through the tape, unfolded the flaps, and pushed them down so they’d stay open. One by one, I removed the packing paper–wrapped items and set them on the cement floor until the box was empty. Then I sat cross-legged staring at them.
Tammie returned. “Did you find box seventy?”
“Yes.”
“What’s in it?”
“Not sure yet.”
Tammie removed the top on my water bottle and handed it to me. I took a long swig and set the bottle beside me. Here goes nothing. I opened the first item. Rosie’s diving medals. Three of them, all blue. They were from the second year that she’d been on the team. Months later, she’d started to go downhill. Hanging out with a whole new crowd. Stealing out at night. Getting hooked on drugs. Unwilling to think about her decline, I placed the medals to my left and pressed on.
The next item, which was large and bulky, was my mother’s Woman of the Year trophy. Her name was etched into a crystal circle that was fixed on a crystal base. Beneath her name: For your endless perseverance in social work and service, and the year—sixteen years ago. I smiled, realizing that she had been, despite her efforts, very much like her mother. A giver.
“I remember going to that luncheon,” Tammie said. “Your mother wore that green silk dress, remember? With the cowl collar. She’d looked stunning.”
Dad and I had attended the event. Mom had blushed at receiving such high praise. I set the trophy aside and opened more packages: my father’s first earned dollar bill, sealed in Plexiglas; the document from the first case he lost, preserved into an alkaline-free album; two boxes Grandma Patrice had made, each holding a tiny gold coin, one for Rosie and one for me, given to us on Christmas—Rosie was six, I was four. Each box was emblazoned with our names. The coins were worth a pittance, our grandmother had said, but she gave them to us to remind us that every cent we earned should make us proud of our achievements. I remembered Rosie hurling the box across the room. She’d wanted our grandmother to make her a doll. My father sent her to her room, and the next day stowed both of the boxes in the hutch to remind us to mind our manners.
A year before their deaths, my mother had wanted to clear out the hutch and display her fine china in it, but my father wouldn’t hear of it. The hutch, he’d said, displayed the best and worst in each of us. We needed to be reminded of what we could be and what we shouldn’t become.
Rosie had hated the hutch.
“Anything unusual?” Tammie asked. “Anything missing?”
“Not that I can tell.”
For another hour, we rummaged through boxes, with me declaring this item a keeper or this item for the trash or Goodwill. I didn’t need my parents’ bed or my father’s cumbersome desk. In addition to the painting Grandma Patrice had done of Rosie and me, I set a few artistic pieces that my mother had painted or sculpted to one side. I’d find space in the cabin for them.
Back aching, I stood and stretched and ran my fingers along my neck to ease out the kinks.
“Something wrong?” Tammie asked.
“I don’t see a couple pieces of my grandmother’s art.”
“Like what?”
“She’d painted a few small portraits on wood blocks, and she’d made other boxes.”
Tammie shook her head. “You know, Miss Thaller was in charge of selling off the small, valuable items you had set to one side, things you said you’d never need or wear, like your mother’s jewelry.” Ulyssa Thaller was the executor for my parents’ estate. “Is it possible you mistakenly put those in that pile? You were—”
“Distracted,” I said.
“If that’s what happened . . .”
“C’est la vie.” A saying came to me. I couldn’t remember who’d said or written it: You can’t lose what you never had, you can’t keep what isn’t yours, and you can’t hold on to something that doesn’t want to stay.
Tammie rose to her feet and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Miss Thaller will have a full accounting.”
“I’ll call her later and set an appointment.”
“By the way, any income from the sale of those items would have gone into the trust.”
“Yes, I know.” I peeked at my watch. Four o’clock. I brushed dust off my jeans. “I’ve kept you long enough.”
“Let’s finish,” she said.
“No.” We were half done. “It’s okay. I’ll go through the rest of this in the next few days. You were a saint. I needed a kick-start. Thank you.”
Tammie drew me into a hug. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. I’ve missed seeing you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” I murmured into her shoulder.