Cleanup on Aisle Six by Daniel Stallings

Author:Daniel Stallings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Linden Publishing
Published: 2019-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Clean Plate

413 Helen Street.

Altogether, a good impression. A cozy bungalow painted the exact shade of a key lime pie with tufts of ornamental white trim to mimic the meringue. The garden was a well-loved jubilee of color, a stark contrast to the fiercely maintained rings of nondescript white at the Lindstrom house. Sandstone pavers serpentined through the trimmed lawn in a path leading to the sky-blue front door. Somewhere in the distant trees, songbirds trilled. So might a cottage in a fairy tale would have looked.

This was the home of Miranda Raglietti.

Detective Hughes knocked on the door, his buckeye-brown eyes taking in the vibrant red-and-yellow welcome mat cheerfully inviting visitors to COME ON IN! He doubted if that request would ever truly be welcome.

A boy, probably no older than four or five, pulled open the door. He regarded the two men standing at the doorstep with a mature, rather calculating expression. “Are you my new daddies? Mom is always bringing home new daddies.”

Detective Hughes and Adam exchanged a look.

Detective Hughes crouched so he would be on the same level as the boy. “We’re the police,” he said, his tone friendly. “Is your mom around?”

The boy’s eyes lit up like twin Jumbotrons. “The police! Cool! Can I see your badge?”

Detective Hughes indulged him. The boy bellowed over his shoulder. “HEY, MOM! THE POLICE ARE HERE!” He turned back to the detective, his face eager. “Do you guys have the car with the big lights on it?”

A woman’s voice, sharp and cutting, shouted back at him. “For God’s sake, Trevor! How many times do I have to tell you not to shout? Do you even listen to me?”

Trevor howled even louder. “THE POLICE ARE HERE!”

The woman, grumbling, emerged from the small hallway balancing a tiny laundry basket on her hip and a glass of what smelled like scotch. She was a young mother, mid- to late-twenties. She wore a floppy tank top that laughed at the idea of covering her body and shorts hiked to her upper thigh. Her bottle-blonde hair, yanked into a high ponytail, needed a root touch-up. She faltered when she saw the two policemen at her doorstep, one of whom was holding up his badge for inspection.

“What do you want?” she asked, suspicion and fear making a potent cocktail in her cognac-colored eyes.

“Miranda Raglietti?” At her nod, he continued. “Detective Hughes and Officer Schafer-Schmidt, ma’am. We’d like to talk to you about Oscar Lindstrom.”

A double shot of fear to those eyes. Miranda shooed her son into his bedroom to play with his Legos, despite his protests that he wanted to see “the police car with the big lights.” Once Trevor was safely ensconced, she invited her guests into her small but pleasant living room. They declined her offer of a cocktail.

She flopped on the flower-print armchair and sucked down her scotch. “What do you want to know about Oscar?”

The two men sat on the sofa slipcovered in robin’s egg blue. “You’ve heard about his death, I take it?” Detective Hughes asked.

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