LEXI BLUM

Lexi shivered and wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck. It was chilly on the bench in the small green center of Azalea Court, and the air smelled of rain. Clouds blew across the sky, hiding the sun. In better weather and nicer circumstances, the three benches would have made a nice place to hang out, if the people who lived on the Court had been more neighborly.

She had been fourteen when Iris proposed making this small park. Her mother’s idea seemed as worthless and stupid as everything else that adults—especially her parents—suggested. Other people on the Court loved the idea though, and they chipped in for the benches and planted cheerful spring flowers—daffodils and tulips and iris. Nothing was blooming now though, not in mid-November. Not when her Iris-mama was missing. The plants wouldn’t dare.

Lexi didn’t have a plan, sitting there. She figured at some point pretty soon she’d have to go back to her father’s house.

How had it already, in just a few hours, become her father’s house?

She was deep in thought when the detectives joined her in the circle.

“I’m Detective Sandra McPhee,” the woman said, offering her hand. “This is Detective Ralph Walsh. You are Alexandra Blum, right?”

“Lexi,” she corrected. “Yes.”

“We’d like to ask you some questions. Shall we go into your father’s house?”

Damn. The detective also called it her father’s house. Did that mean she suspected something awful had happened to Iris?

Lexi shook her head. “I’d rather not. Can we talk out here?”

The two detectives sat, McPhee directly across from her, and Walsh to the side with his notebook. Lexi wondered if this was a good cop-bad cop thing, or what. Too much TV, she decided, and besides, she hadn’t done anything so why would they need a bad cop?

After getting Lexi’s full name and address, McPhee asked if there were any other family members.

“Nope,” Lexi said. “Just me. No siblings. No children. No relatives. My mother has some cousins in Maine, but my father apparently doesn’t like them, or vice versa. I’ve never met them.”

“Does anyone else live with you in your house?”

Lexi never knew how to respond when people asked that question. It was an oblique way of wanting to know who she sleeps with, and that was none of their business. In this case, the detectives probably needed to know who all the players were, especially if they suspected something ugly, but the question still pissed her off. Besides, there wasn’t a simple answer. There was no category for people like her, who aren’t particularly interested in intimacy with men or women. When people persisted in their questions, she told them that her sexual fantasies involved aliens. That shut them up good, but it was probably not a good answer to give a police detective trying to find your missing mother.

“I live in a communal house,” Lexi told her. “Three other women. We also work together.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“We have a landscape design company, focusing on sustainable methods and native plants that encourage pollinators.” She handed the detective a business card, although it seemed so irrelevant, so unrelated to this crisis. She was proud of the company she had built. She tried not to let it matter that her father had never respected her work, even when she got the graduate degree. When he wasn’t around, her mother was delighted that Lexi loved to dig and plant as much as she did.

The detective put down her notebook and leaned slightly forward. “When was the last time you saw, or spoke with, your mother?”

Lexi flushed. Why didn’t she come more often to see her mother? When her father canceled their Friday night dinner last week, she should have insisted. If only she hadn’t been so self-involved.

“I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks,” Lexi admitted. “My father discouraged me from coming over. He said her dementia was getting bad. I can’t believe I listened to him and stayed away.” She felt her throat swell and ache. “I spoke with her a week ago, and she didn’t seem to remember what Thanksgiving is.” She buried her face in her scarf, and the detective was quiet, giving her a few moments to compose herself.

When she looked up, ready to continue, McPhee’s face had softened. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This has got to be so difficult for you.”

“What are you doing to find her?” Lexi asked. “It’s awfully quiet around here.”

McPhee nodded. “I know, but we’re working. We’ve put out a Silver Alert, which is what we do for a missing elder. And a BOLO.”

“What does that mean?”

“Be On the Look Out. The alert goes out across the Commonwealth so if, by some chance, your mother isn’t still in the vicinity, other law enforcement departments will know we’re looking for her. The canine unit is searching for her now, in the Hospital Hill neighborhood.”

“Why there? Mom rarely walked over there. Too much cement, she said, and not enough trees.”

The two detectives exchanged glances, and the guy walked out of hearing range and spoke into his phone.

“That’s interesting,” McPhee said. “Your father told us that she liked walking in the neighborhood, so that’s where we started looking. Why do you think he said that?”

Uh oh. Was her father clueless about where Mom walked, or was he trying to sabotage the search? That didn’t make sense. He must know that other people would tell the detectives the truth. Her confusion must have shown on her face, because McPhee looked at her intently and repeated her question. “Why do you think he would say that?”

Lexi shrugged, unsure why she needed to protect him, but unwilling to lie.

“Okay,” McPhee said. “Tell me about your parents’ relationship. Do you think they’re happy together? Do they fight? Are you aware of either one of them being abusive toward the other?”

“No. No violence ever, that I’m aware of. They rarely argued, at least in front of me. But . . .” she hesitated.

“But what?”

“Dad was the important one in our family. He was the one with an influential position, the one who made every major family decision I can remember.” When she thought about her parents, her father was in bold font to her mother’s italic, in bright primary colors to her mother’s muted pastels.

The detective hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure about her next question. “Tell me about your father’s childhood in Europe. Do you have a sense of how that affected him?”

Lexi was surprised that the detective knew about it, might think it was relevant. “What does that have to do with my mother being missing?” She heard the defensiveness in her voice and so did the detective. Lexi could tell by the way the cop leaned back slightly. The truth was, Lexi knew almost nothing about her father’s early history. He refused to talk about it.

“Probably nothing,” McPhee admitted. “We’re just trying to understand your parents. If we know what makes them tick, we have a better chance of finding your mother. Do you think your mother was happy?”

“As far as I know,” Lexi said. “Until recently, and then I’m not so sure.”

“What happened to change things?”

“I don’t know. But starting about a month ago, she seemed different. Troubled. That’s when Dad diagnosed her dementia. It didn’t make sense to me. My housemate’s dad has Alzheimer’s. She’s read everything about it and goes on and on about how the disease progresses. It doesn’t usually happen like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“First of all, the change in my mother started too abruptly. One day she was herself and the next time I saw her she seemed confused, withdrawn. That’s when my father started saying it wasn’t a good time when I called or wanted to come over. I wish I had ignored him and come anyway. That’s what I should have done.”

The two detectives exchanged those glances again, and Lexi’s eyes brimmed. She turned to McPhee. “What do you think happened to her? Did someone hurt her?”

“Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt her?” McPhee asked.

“No. But I haven’t lived at home since I was a kid, and I don’t know the new neighbors. Some of the newer people seem strange.”

Lexi was thinking about the couple in Number Six, especially the odd woman who always wore a hoodie. But who was she to judge? People consider her an unnatural and strange woman—sixty years old, never married, and not interested in romance.

“This doesn’t look good, does it?” Lexi said. Something bad must have happened, and her father might be involved, somehow. “This is so unlike my mother. She never wanted to be trouble to anyone.”

Lexi covered her face with both hands and added, “I can’t believe I’m already talking about her in the past tense.”