Fear Nothing (Detective D.D. Warren #7) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,81
door for a deliveryman?” Phil asked again.
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“Does she have a home security system?” D.D. spoke up.
“Yeah, the house is alarmed.”
“Cameras?”
“No. Just wired the doors and windows.”
“Name of the company?”
Sgarzi supplied it; Phil wrote it down.
“Did your mother mention noticing anyone new in the neighborhood? A stranger she’d spotted lurking around? New tenant on the block?”
“No.”
“Feeling as if she was being watched?” Phil asked.
“My mom didn’t leave the house and kept the blinds down. How the hell could anyone watch her?”
Fair enough, D.D. thought. “What about a visiting nurse, some other kind of health professional?” she spoke up.
“Yeah. Twice a week, Nurse Eliot. My mom needed more help, course, but that’s all we could afford.”
“Nurse Eliot? Male, female?”
“Older woman. Nice enough. My mom liked her.”
“And it was always the same nurse?”
“Most of the time. But if Nurse Eliot couldn’t make it, they’d send someone else. But they always called and notified us ahead of time. Besides, Nurse Eliot worked Tuesdays and Fridays, so no one was due to show up until tomorrow. Did the neighbors see anything?” Sgarzi jumped ahead. “I mean, the guy would’ve had to stand on the front porch, in full view of the street. . . .”
“We’re canvassing now,” Phil assured him, voice still soft.
“Which means you got nothing!” Sgarzi accused. “One of your plainclothes had anything good, you’d have heard it by now. Son of a bitch!”
He whirled back around, returned to staring at the fireplace.
“You said you brought food back for your mom,” D.D. said. “What about lunch?”
“She does one of those nutritional drinks for lunch. Ensure, something like that.”
D.D. eyed the reporter’s back. “What about midafternoon snack? Because there are two plates and glasses in the sink.”
“What?”
Sgarzi turned around again, eyes wide. Before they could stop him, he barreled past them, into the kitchen.
The reporter’s arm froze right where he was already reaching into the stainless steel sink for the first glass.
“Evidence,” D.D. chimed in more directly.
Sgarzi returned his arm to his side. “She had a guest,” he said, and his voice sounded funny, almost confused.
“What do you mean?”
“Ma hasn’t eaten much in weeks. Side effects of the drugs, pain, who knows. I bring her dinner, she has a little breakfast, then one of those drinks for lunch. But two plates, two glasses. And these are her good plates. She brought them out for special occasions. You know, like a guest.”
“Charlie,” D.D. said quietly, “is it possible your mom knew who came to her door this afternoon? That’s why she let the person in?”
“I don’t know,” Sgarzi said, and his voice sounded dazed, far from his certainty of before.
“If she had a guest, what would she offer?” Phil asked.
“Fig Newtons. Tea and cookies, you know?” Sgarzi opened a cupboard, pulled out a yellow cellophane package. It appeared to have been freshly opened, with two cookies missing.
“Son of a bitch,” Charlie said again.
“We’re going to need a list of your mother’s friends and acquaintances,” Phil began.
“No, you don’t. My mother was dying of cancer. The people who knew her didn’t come here looking for cookies; they brought her food. This was a stranger guest, you know? The kind of person you’re still getting to know, putting your best foot forward, that kind of thing.” Sgarzi frowned down at the yellow package, as if the cookies could tell him something. “A friend of a friend would do it,” he murmured. “Someone who claimed to know me, or an old acquaintance returning to the neighborhood. Someone who knew Donnie,” he concluded abruptly. “Someone claiming to know something about Donnie.” He glanced at them. “She’d open her door for that person. Invite him in. Offer him refreshments on her nicest plates. She’d make an effort for someone who once knew Donnie. I’m telling you, Shana Day killed my mom. And you’re fucking idiots for not having stopped her sooner.”
D.D. didn’t bother with a reply. Lack of evidence to support his theory, due process, investigative 101—these were not topics that interested Charlie Sgarzi. What he really wanted was the one thing they’d never be able to give him—his mother back.
Phil got the man to return to the front parlor, while putting a crime scene tech to work fingerprinting the items in the sink, as well as everything else in the kitchen. Phil had just gotten Sgarzi started making a list of his mother’s friends and neighbors when Alex appeared.