The Heirloom Murders - Kathleen Ernst [81]
“The cops seem to think so. And Sonia does too. She showed up too. It was quite the scene.”
The air in Dellyn’s garden suddenly seemed lighter, sweeter. Chloe smiled.
“But … I don’t think Alex would do something like that.”
Chloe’s smile disappeared. “Really? What did he say about being in your back yard late at night?”
“He says he was trying to protect me. I know.” Dellyn rolled her eyes. “Evidently Sonia told him about what happened to you. Next thing she knows he arrives at her house, says he’s going to stay until the cops figure out what’s going on. Last night he kept saying he was just ‘patrolling.’ Making sure I was safe.”
“That sounds a little creepy. Especially if you didn’t even know he was around. Sort of stalker-like.”
“Yeah. But the thing is … Alex never scared me. Maybe that’s because I knew him so well as a child, but … he was more like an annoying puppy dog than a stalker.”
Chloe tasted the melon, and momentarily lost track of everything else. “Oh my God, this is good. Sweet, but almost a little spicy, too.”
“It’s called Hearts of Gold. Introduced in 1890.” Dellyn ran her thumb over the netted rind absently. “Alex has been in trouble with the law before, though. I think that’s why your cop friend was so hard on him last night. And evidently this was the last straw for Sonia. She’d been letting him stay at the house, but she’d told him to stay out of my yard.”
“Maybe he is the guy who hit me.” Chloe desperately wanted to think that her attacker had been identified and arrested. “If he’s a trouble-maker …”
Dellyn picked up her spoon, then put it back down. “Alex isn’t real bright, but he’s not evil. I saw a couple of teachers give Alex a really hard time when I think he’d done his best. Once on the playground, when some kids were bothering a kid with Down Syndrome, Alex exploded. Then he got in trouble for starting a fight. He’s got this protective instinct buried inside somewhere.”
Chloe chewed on the inside of her lip. She didn’t know Alex Padopolous, and wasn’t quite so ready to conclude he hadn’t been in Dellyn’s yard for all the wrong reasons. “Where is Alex now?”
“I have no idea. Officer McKenna wanted me to press charges for trespassing, but I just couldn’t do it.”
So. Whether Alex or someone else, whoever had picked up a hand-carved cultivator and tried to bring it down on her skull was still out there. Maybe it was whoever had killed Harriet, too. Chloe shuddered, and furtively glanced over both shoulders. She still felt vulnerable, and her instincts said Dellyn was vulnerable, too.
She needed to talk with Roelke.
“I’ll try to find out if the cops have learned anything more about Alex,” Chloe promised. “And whether they’ve turned up anything about Harriet’s killer.”
Dellyn shut her eyes briefly. “I’d appreciate that. I hope they don’t have reason to pin that on Alex too. I just can’t imagine …”
“Then let’s not,” Chloe said firmly. Time to change the subject. “It looks like your brother-in-law is in pretty rough shape.”
“This Thursday is his and Bonnie’s wedding anniversary.”
“Oh geez.”
Dellyn wiped away a tear, then shook her head as if to clear it. “Sorry. I just found out that Simon paid the property taxes on this place last year.”
Chloe blinked. “Um … wow.”
“I knew my parents were living pretty close to the edge. I didn’t know they were that close.”
“So … what does that mean for you?”
“Simon knows I’m broke. He offered to pay the taxes again this year.”
That made Chloe uneasy. Definitely uneasy.
“Simon also said that if I want to sell the place, he’d buy it. He said the market’s iffy right now because of the recession, so it would be easiest if he bought the property now, sat on it, and then sold it himself at a fair market price when things pick up.”
An image of Simon Sabatola pawing through musty cardboard cartons, searching desperately for the Eagle Diamond, drifted through Chloe’s mind. She opened her mouth, closed it again.
“What?” Dellyn asked.