In the eighteen months and three weeks Simone spent in Florence, Patricia Hobart killed three people.
Killing Hilda Barclay, who’d cradled her dying husband of forty-seven years in her arms during the attack, meant traveling to Tampa, where Hilda had moved to be closer to her daughter. But Patricia considered the time and expense worth it.
She thoroughly resented the press Hilda generated, especially after Hilda created a scholarship for underprivileged youths in her husband’s name.
Underprivileged, my ass, Patricia thought. Freeloaders and assholes coddled by whiny liberal do-gooders.
Plus her target gave her ten days away from the nasty Maine winter—and her will-they-ever-just-die grandparents.
She did her research, of course, before she kissed her annoyingly long-lived grandparents goodbye, and headed off on what everyone agreed was a well-deserved vacation.
Maybe they’d both die in their sleep before she got back, and the equally detestable cat her grandmother spoiled like a baby would eat their eyeballs.
A girl had to have her dreams.
She loved Florida, and that surprised her. She loved the sun and the palm trees, the blue of the sky and the water. As she studied the view from her hotel suite—why not splurge?—and took pictures to send home, she imagined living there.
She might consider it, if it wasn’t for all the old people.
And Jews.
She’d consider it anyway.
In any case, she found it ridiculously simple to stalk Hilda and case the two-bedroom bungalow she lived in—on the same block as her daughter’s family.
Within three days, she concluded she had Hilda’s daily routine down pat. The old bat lived a simple life. She liked to garden, had several bird feeders she kept stocked, and rode a three-wheeled bike around the neighborhood like some wrinkled toddler.
On the fourth day, with ideas of tragic gardening or biking accidents in the hopper, Patricia cruised by as Hilda filled a bird feeder built to replicate a restaurant—complete with flower-boxed windows and a sign proclaiming FOOD FOR FEATHERS.
She pulled over, patted her short black wig, adjusted her amber-lensed sunglasses, then got out of the car.
“Excuse me? Ma’am?”
Hilda, spry and wiry in her floppy-brimmed hat, turned. “Can I help you?”
“I hope this isn’t too odd, but can you tell me where you got that adorable birdhouse? My mother would just love it.”
“Oh.” With a laugh, Hilda gestured Patricia closer. “Is she a bird lover?”
“Big-time. Gosh, it’s even cuter up close. Is it one of a kind?”
“It’s local work, but the shop that carries them has others like it. The Bird House.”
She proceeded to give Patricia detailed directions, which Patricia dutifully tapped into her phone. “This is great.”
“I think I saw you drive by yesterday.”
Patricia’s smile froze for a bare instant. “You probably did. My parents are just getting settled into a house a few blocks away. I’m running errands for them. They just couldn’t take the winters in Saint Paul anymore.”
“I hear that. I escaped the winters in Maine.”
“Then you’d know,” Patricia said with a laugh. “If I can find something like this, it would be a great housewarming gift for Mom.”
“My favorite is in the back, so I can see it from the kitchen window. It’s an English cottage.”
“You’re kidding me!” Inspired, Patricia lifted her hands. “My mother was raised in an English cottage in the Lake District. She moved to the States as a young teenager. An English cottage bird feeder—she’d just love that.”
“They can nest in it, too. Come on back, I’ll show you.”
“Oh, you’re so kind. If it’s not too much trouble?”
“Happy to.” As they walked, Hilda waved to a man who came out of the house next door. “Hi there, Pete.”
“Morning, Hilda. I’m heading out on a grocery run. You need anything?”
“I’m good, thanks. Your parents will love it here,” she added as they rounded the side of the house.
“I hope so. I’m going to miss them like crazy, but I hope so.”
Can’t kill her now, Patricia thought. Car’s out front, stupid neighbor. “Oh, what a beautiful lanai. I bet you can swim year-round.”
“And do,” Hilda confirmed. “Every morning before breakfast.”
Patricia smiled. “That’s why you’re in such wonderful shape.”
She oohed and aahed over the ridiculous bird feeder, complimented the garden, the lanai plants and pots, and thanked the soon-to-be dead woman profusely.
She didn’t follow the directions to the Bird House, but hit a Walmart for a toaster and an extension cord.
Promptly at seven-fifteen the next morning, Hilda walked out of the house, onto the lanai, shed a blue terry-cloth robe, and slipped into the pool in her simple chocolate-brown tank suit.
While she did her smooth, easy laps, Patricia stepped onto the lanai through its unlocked screen door, plugged the extension cord into the wall socket on the back of the house, and tossed the toaster into the pool.
She watched Hilda’s body flop as the water flashed. Watched it float, facedown, as she unplugged the cord, used the pool net to scoop out the toaster.
They’d figure it out—probably—but why give them any help? She stuck the murder weapons into her backpack and, dressed in her running capris, a tank, and a ball cap, jogged three blocks to her rental car.
She tossed the toaster in a Dumpster behind a restaurant, dumped the extension cord a couple miles away in the parking lot of a strip mall.
That done, she stuffed her auburn wig back in her pack, went back to her hotel to enjoy a hearty room-service breakfast of a spinach omelette, turkey bacon, berries, and fresh orange juice.
She wondered who’d find Hilda floating. Her daughter? One of the grandkids? Good neighbor Pete?
Maybe she’d keep an eye on the local papers.
But for the moment, she decided—without irony—to spend the rest of the day by the hotel pool.
* * *
Her grandparents failed to accommodate her by dying in their sleep. She settled for indulging herself with dreams of various methods of killing them. Actually killing them had to wait, but her father obliged her by getting hammered before getting behind the wheel of his Ford pickup.
He took a mother of two and her teenage son with him when he crossed the center line and plowed into their compact, but those were the breaks to Patricia’s mind.
Now she could cross another off her list.
She’d crossed Frederick Mosebly off the list on a balmy summer night—pre-Hilda—with an explosive device she’d stuck under the driver’s seat of his unlocked car.
That check mark especially pleased her as Mosebly had some minor local success with a self-published book he’d written about the DownEast Mall. And more, it was the first time she’d built a bomb.
She thought she had a knack for it.
She checked off her third for the year—had to spread them out awhile longer—by bumping into him in a crowded bar and jabbing him with a syringe of botulinum toxin. It seemed poetic as Dr. David Wu—who’d been having predinner drinks with his wife and another couple at the upscale restaurant and had been credited with having saved lives on that fateful night—was a cosmetic surgeon.
Patricia figured since he made a living (a rich one) injecting people with Botox, he could die being injected with the same basic substance.
She disposed of the syringe on the way home, and slipped quietly into the house.
For a moment, a sweet, sweet moment, she thought her prayers had been answered.
Her grandmother lay on the floor of the foyer. Moaning, so … still breathing, but that could be remedied.
On another moan, her grandmother turned her head. “Patti, Patti. (God, she hated that nickname.) Thank God. I—I fell. I hit my head. I think, oh, oh, I think I broke my hip.”
Could be finished, Patricia thought. She just had to put a hand over the old bitch’s mouth, pinch her nose closed, and—
“Agnes! I can’t find the remote! Where did you…”
Her grandfather shuffled out of the first-floor master suite, brow furrowed in annoyance over his bifocals.
He saw his wife, let out a cry, and Patricia acted fast.
“Oh my God, Gram!” She lunged forward, dropped to her knees, gripped her grandmother’s hand.
“I fell. I fell.”
“It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.” She yanked her phone out of her purse, hit nine-one-one. “I need an ambulance!” She rattled off the address, careful to put a good shake into her voice. “My grandmother fell. Hurry, please hurry. Grandpa, get Gram a blanket. She’s shivering. Get the throw off the sofa. I think she’s in shock. Hold on, Gram. I’m right here.”
So the night wouldn’t be a lucky twofer, Patricia thought as she gently, so gently, stroked her grandmother’s cheek. But a broken hip (hopefully!) and an eighty-three-year-old woman had lots of potential.
Patricia hid her bitter disappointment when Agnes recovered. And she earned the admiration of the medical staff, the aides, and the neighbors with every performance of devoted caregiving.
She used the time to persuade her grandparents to not only give her power of attorney—the lawyers agreed—but to put her name on every account—checking, investments, the main residence, and the vacation home/investment property they owned on Cape May.
As she’d inherit her grandmother’s jewelry anyway, she took some pieces now and again and converted them into cash on drives to Augusta or Bangor—and once on a weekend holiday (at the urging of the doctors)—to Bar Harbor.
She converted some of the cash into good fake identification, and used that to open a small bank account—and to rent a safe-deposit box in a bank in Rochester, New Hampshire.
Between the jewelry, the regular skimming, the sale of the vacation home her grandparents were too stupid to know they signed off on, she had more than three million dollars in the box, along with four fake IDs, including passports and credit cards.
She kept a cool hundred thousand in cash with other essentials in a run-for-the-hills bag in the top of her closet, and had started a second bag.
As neither of her grandparents used the steps any longer, she had the entire second floor to herself. She installed police locks on her master suite, and the guest suite she used as a workshop.
If the weekly housekeeper found it odd the second floor was off-limits, she said nothing. She was paid well, and it meant less work.
As the next anniversary of the DownEast Mall approached, Patricia made plans. Lots of plans.
And crossed a couple more off the list.
* * *
Seleena McMullen rode the approach to July 22 on her blog and on her talk show. It gave her a chance to hype the updated edition of her book.
She didn’t quibble over the fact that the tragedy had made her career. As a matter of routine, every time a lunatic shot up a public place, she served as a talking head on cable TV.
She did the circuit every couple of years and raked in decent speaking fees. She’d copped a gig as executive producer on a well-received documentary about the shooting and, when things were really cooking, snagged a small guest shot on Law & Order: SVU.
It ebbed and flowed, she could admit that; every anniversary she pumped it up, and she’d be front and center.
She had staff, an agent, a hot boyfriend—after a brief marriage and a messy divorce. Still, the divorce and the hot boyfriend had bumped up the ratings and clicks.
They’d go through the roof with the lineup she had for the anniversary week.
She had the cop who’d taken out Hobart. Admittedly, Seleena had to pressure the mayor to pressure the cop’s captain to pressure the cop, but she had her. She couldn’t get the once teenage hero, now the cop’s partner, and that stuck in her throat.
Portland PD had given her a choice, one or the other, not both. She’d gone with the female cop, the first on scene, and let the other go.
She had a woman who’d been in the theater and nearly died—and lived with facial scarring and brain trauma. She’d booked the geek who’d saved a store full of people by barricading them in a back room, some other victims, an EMT, one of the ER doctors from that night.
But the shining jewel? The sister of the shooter, the baby sister of the ringleader.
She had Patricia Jane Hobart.
Even with that, and that was huge as Hobart’s sister had never, to date, given a formal interview, Seleena stalked around her office fuming.
She wanted the damn hat trick. The cop, Hobart’s sister, and Simone Knox—the nine-one-one caller who’d first alerted the police so McVee took Hobart out.
The bitch wouldn’t even take her calls. Had actually had some asshole lawyer send her a cease and desist when she’d tracked Simone down at an art gallery in New York.
A public event, Seleena thought now. And she’d had a perfect—First fucking Amendment right—to stick a mic in her face.
She didn’t appreciate being kicked out of the gallery for doing her job.
She’d written a blistering editorial on the treatment she’d received, and on the bitch herself. And would have printed it, too, if her ex—before he found out about the boyfriend and became her ex—hadn’t convinced her it would make her look like the bitch.
She hated knowing he’d had that right.
Well, she could play that nine-one-one call, and would. She could toss Simone Knox’s name around and maybe insinuate that, as a somewhat celebrated artist, Miss Knox no longer wanted an association with the tragedy of DownEast Mall.
“Work on that,” she murmured. “Work on how to say it. Throwing shade at her, but keeping the high road, the sympathy road.”
She wrenched open her door, shouted: “Marlie! Where the hell is my macchiato?”
“Luca should be back with it any minute.”
“For Christ’s sake. Find out where Simone Knox is, and where she’s going to be next week.”
“Oh, Ms. McMullen, the lawyer—”
Seleena whirled around, making the mousy Marlie jump back a step. “Did I ask you what the fuck? Just find out. I want to know where she is when I interview Patricia Hobart and the cop who killed her brother. And I want then and now pictures of her. Move your ass, Marlie.”
Seleena slapped the door closed.
“We’ll see who wins this round,” she muttered.
* * *
Simone won. She spent the weeks surrounding the anniversary traveling in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada. She did sketches, took photos of the desert, the canyons, the people, imagined translating those colors, textures, shapes, those faces and forms, into art with clay.
She basked in the solitude, reveled in exploring a land as different to her eye from the east coast of Maine as Mars was from Venus. With no one to answer to but her own whims, she stopped when and where she liked, stayed as long as it suited her.
When she finally headed east, she detoured north through Wyoming, into Montana, where she bought more sketchbooks, and gave in to an impulse for cowboy boots.
By the time she crossed the Maine border, the calendar had flipped to August, and despite the constant use of sunblock and a hat, she was tanned, her hair sunstreaked.
And her mood high and happy.
She wanted to get to work, to sort through the hundreds of sketches and photos, the ideas and visions. She wanted to feel clay under her hands.
She considered texting CiCi, then decided to surprise her instead. After a stop for a bottle of champagne—hell, make it two—she planned to drive straight to the ferry.
But a twinge of guilt had her changing directions. She’d just stop off at her parents’ house. A quick courtesy call.
Maybe her relationship with her parents, and her sister, remained strained, but she couldn’t claim to be blameless. Since the day she’d walked out of her childhood home to pursue her own dreams, she mostly kept out of their way.
It saved arguing.
But avoidance meant traditions like Christmases, birthdays, weddings, funerals became stilted demilitarized zones—or battlefields.
Why not make an effort? she told herself. Stop by on a pretty Saturday afternoon, touch base, maybe have a drink, admire the garden, pull out a few anecdotes from her travels.
How sad and pitiful was it that she needed to outline an agenda to visit her own parents?
So she wouldn’t. She would handle it just as she had her travels. She’d play it by ear.
Somebody’s having a big summer party, she thought, noting the cars parked along the street. When she saw a line of them in her parents’ long U of a driveway, more jockeyed into the service area, she realized she’d been about to crash a party.
Not the best time for a drop-in, she decided, but hesitated just long enough for one of the valets to block her quick exit. As she waited for the road to clear, to make her escape, Natalie and a couple of women in equally elegant garden-party dresses crossed the lush green of the front lawn.
Appalled that her first instinct was to duck down, she forced a smile on her face when Natalie spotted her.
Her sister didn’t smile, but tipped her glamour-girl sunglasses down to peer over them. And that, for Simone, was that.
Deliberately, she pushed open the car door and climbed out in her traveling outfit of Army-green cargo shorts, red cowboy boots, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and a novelty tank that read: RED, WINE AND BLUE.
“Hey, Nat.”
Natalie said something to her companions that had one of the women patting her arm before they wandered off—not without long, backward glances that clearly transmitted disapproval.
Natalie crossed to the sidewalk.
She looks like Mom, Simone thought, a perfect example of the polished female.
“Simone. We weren’t expecting you.”
“Obviously. I just got back. I thought I’d stop in to say hi.”
“It’s not the best time.”
Simone didn’t miss the tone—one used for an acquaintance you had to tolerate occasionally.
“Also obviously. You can tell them I’m back, and I’ll be at CiCi’s. I’ll give them a call.”
“That would be novel.”
“Last I checked, phones work two ways. Anyway, you look great.”
“Thanks. I’ll let Mom and Dad know you—”
“Natalie!”
The man who crossed the lawn in the palest of pale gray loafers to match his crisp linen slacks boasted the charm of dimples in a Hollywood handsome face. His elegance—the white shirt topped with a navy blazer, the sun-dashed gold of wavy hair—matched Natalie’s perfectly.
Though she knew him a little, it took Simone a minute to come up with his name. Harry (Harrison) Brookefield, one of the young guns in her father’s law firm.
And, according to CiCi, Natalie’s parentally approved boyfriend.
“There you are. I was just— Simone?” Dimples flashing, he held out a hand to shake hers. “I didn’t know you were here. This is great. How long have you been back?”
“About five minutes.”
“Then I bet you could use a drink.” He’d slipped an arm around Natalie’s waist as he spoke—and, to Simone’s mind, hadn’t yet clued in on her stiffness. Then he reached out again for Simone’s hand.
“Oh, thanks, but I’m not dressed for a party. I’m just going to go—”
“Don’t be silly.” Harry took a good grip on her hand. “Keys in the car?”
“Yes, but—”
“Great.” He signaled to the valet. “Family vehicle.”
“Really, Harry, Simone’s got to be tired after the drive.”
“All the more reason she needs that drink.” Like a carpenter’s plane wrapped in velvet, he smoothed right over the rough bark. “Now you’ve got your whole family here to celebrate, sweets.”
The man had a grip and a will like iron, Simone thought, but the main reason she allowed him to pull her along—however petty—was Natalie’s blatant discomfort.
“What are we celebrating?”
“You didn’t tell her? Good Lord, Natalie.” Harry looked at Simone, added a wink. “She said yes.”
Simone felt her brain empty out for three solid seconds. “You’re engaged. To be married?”
“Which makes me the luckiest man in the world.”
She heard music now, and voices, as they started up the walk that would wind through the side garden to the backyard.
“Congratulations.”
How had it happened? she wondered. How had it happened that the sister who’d once slipped into her bed to whisper secrets hadn’t shared such vital, life-changing news? Such happy news that rated a party with elegant dresses and white tablecloths decked with white flowers, with uniformed servers carrying trays of drinks and pretty finger foods.
“This is wonderful. Exciting.”
You’re still so young, and so … pampered, Simone thought. Are you sure? Would you tell me?
Harry stopped a server, took three flutes of champagne. “To the wonderful and exciting,” he said after he passed them around.
“Absolutely. So have you set a date?”
“October—a year from this October,” Natalie said.
“I couldn’t talk her into the spring. I’ll wait. If you’ll excuse me a minute, I want to find my mother. She’d love to meet you, Simone. She’s especially admired the statue of Natalie, holding the scales of justice, you made her when she graduated law school. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re engaged. God, Nat, engaged! He’s gorgeous, and he seems like a terrific guy. I—”
“If you’d bothered to get to know him over the last two years, you’d know he is terrific.”
“I’m happy for you,” Simone said carefully. “He’s obviously crazy about you, and I’m happy for you. If I’d known about the party, I’d’ve come home sooner, and I’d have dressed appropriately. I’m going to leave, slip out before I embarrass you.”
“Simone!” CiCi’s cheerful shout cut through the music and conversations.
“Too late,” Natalie stated as their grandmother rushed across the patio, gypsy skirts flying.
“There’s my traveling girl!” She caught Simone in a fierce hug. “Look at you, all toned and tanned. Isn’t this a kick in the ass?” She caught Natalie into the hug. “Our baby girl’s hooked herself a fiancé. And he is yum-mee.”
She let out one of her big, beautiful laughs, squeezed them both. “Let’s drink ourselves a shit ton of champagne.”
“Mother.”
“Uh-oh.” Snickering, CiCi drew back. “Busted.” She shifted, hooked arms around her granddaughters’ waists, and grinned at her daughter. “Look who’s here, Tule.”
“So I see. Simone.” Lovely in silk shantung the color of crushed rose petals, Tulip leaned in to kiss Simone’s cheek. “We didn’t know you were back.”
“I just got back.”
“That explains it.” With her company smile seamless, her eyes sparking annoyance, Tulip turned to Natalie. “Sweetheart, why don’t you take your sister upstairs so she can freshen up? I’m sure you have something you can lend her to wear.”
“Don’t be such a buzzkill, Tulip.”
Tulip simply turned those sparking eyes on her mother. “This is Natalie’s day. I won’t have it spoiled.”
“I won’t spoil it. I won’t stay.” Simone handed her flute to Natalie. “Tell Harry I wasn’t feeling well.”
“I’ll come with you,” CiCi began.
“No. It’s Natalie’s day, and you should be here. I’ll see you later.”
“That was a dick move, Tulip,” CiCi said when Simone walked away. “And from the look on your face, Nat? Apple, tree. I’m ashamed of both of you.”
Simone had to hunt down the valet who’d parked her car, then wait while he retrieved her keys.
While she waited, her father strode briskly down the walkway.
Oh well, she thought, what was one more elbow in the gut?
Instead, he put his arms around her, drew her close. “Welcome home.”
The snipes and jabs hadn’t filled her throat with tears, but his gesture did.
“Thanks.”
“I only just heard you’d gotten back, then that you’d left. You need to come back out, honey. It’s a big day for Natalie.”
“That’s why I’m leaving. She doesn’t want me here.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“She made it clear. My unexpected arrival, in attire inappropriate for the occasion, embarrassed your wife and daughter.”
“You could have come home a bit earlier, worn the appropriate.”
“I would have if I’d known.”
“Natalie contacted you two weeks ago,” he began, then saw her face. Sighed. “I see. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, she indicated she had, otherwise, I’d have contacted you myself. Come back with me. I’ll have a word with her.”
“No, don’t, please. She doesn’t want me here, and I don’t want to be here.”
Sorrow clouded Ward’s eyes. “It hurts me to hear you say that.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to come by, see you and Mom, to try to … turn some of it around. Some of it. I had a good summer. Productive, satisfying, illuminating. I wanted to tell you about it. And maybe you’d see I did the right thing, for me. Maybe you’d see that.”
“I have seen it,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen I was wrong. I clung to wanting to be right, and lost you. And losing you, it was easier to blame you than myself. Now my younger daughter’s going to be married. She’ll be a wife, and not just my little girl. It struck me that, with you, I wanted to be right more than I wanted you to be happy. It shames me to look that square in the face, but I have. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Daddy.” She went into his arms, wept a little. “It’s my fault, too. It was easier to pull back, to stay away.”
“Let’s agree. I accept I’m not always right, and you don’t pull away from me.”
She nodded, rested her cheek on his chest. “It’s a good homecoming after all.”
“Come on back to the party. Be my date.”
“I can’t. Honestly, Nat bugs the crap out of me, but I don’t want to spoil her party. Maybe you could come out to the island sometime, and I’ll tell you about the trip, and show you some things I’m working on.”
“All right.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“So am I.”
Glad to be back, she thought, especially when she stood at the rail of the ferry and watched the island come closer.