“That’s right. She telegraphed the move when she stepped back.” The sensei let go of Bobbi’s ankle. She turned toward him and they bowed to each other.
“So this is what I want to teach you,” the sensei said to the group. “I want you to be able to maintain your balance, to have an effective strike, but not advertise it. Stay off your back heel; be up on the balls of your feet. Balance is key; what we strive for here is that every movement flows into the next. Now, Senpai Bobbi is a good sport – I asked her to demonstrate this with me. But let’s watch what happens when she doesn’t telegraph her move.”
Bobbi faced the sensei again. He was a fifty-year-old family man named Doug, but in class he was a master of Okinawan karate, a man she respected. She bounced a couple times, feeling good. Her knees were springy, and she got into her low stance.
They began to circle each other. One foot was always the fulcrum. To the uninitiated, Bobbi thought, it would resemble some ritual dance. The mat was big and wide, the students watching on their knees, hands on their upper thighs.
The sensei struck, this time with his left, a low blow she deflected with a down-block. She let the momentum carry her, dipped right as she raised her left leg and snapped it forward, her knee like a hinge. The sensei raised his own knee in defense and reached for purchase, but this time only his fingertips grazed her skin. He struck again, quickly, and they sparred in a rapid exchange of blows and blocks, the fabric of their gis snapping with the sharp movements, the mat sticky but yielding beneath her bare feet.
The sensei moved in for the kill and caught her wrist, tried to bend her arm back. She slipped the hold and dropped to the ground, swept her leg. He was able to jump out of the way and pounced on her before she could regain her feet. His fist hung suspended in the air above her nose. Her heart pounded.
He got up quickly and held his hand to her. Bobbi couldn’t resist: she drew her legs back and then flipped up onto her feet.
Afterward she placed her right fist in her open left palm, turned it over, and gave him a deep bow. The sensei bowed back, and she saw the beads of sweat shining on his brow.
She was getting good.
* * *
Mike pulled over on River Street, parked behind the Subaru sitting in front of the pea-green house. Darlene Bilger, a thirty-five-year-old woman dressed in a skirt and blouse that looked like an ex-hippie’s best guess at corporate casual, was standing on the broken sidewalk out front. He offered his hand. “Thanks for meeting with me.”
“Of course.” She was chewing gum. “Anything you think will help.”
“Did you know Harriet Fogarty?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t. But I’ve heard she did a lot of good in the community. And this is a real, real tragedy.” Darlene keyed into the door, which opened with a squeak.
The empty house had a strange odor, a kind of maple syrup smell, mingling with other musty scents. The front room had been stripped of its carpeting, the floorboards exposed dusty and dark.
Darlene led him in, apologetic. “This is what you call a real ‘fixer-upper’… There was a family who lived here for years, then the kids all moved away, the woman’s husband died, and she was here alone, right up until the end. Used to get Meals on Wheels, didn’t leave the house for weeks at a time.” She sniffed and grimaced. “We can’t seem to chase that smell out of the house.”
Mike walked through a doorway in the center of the living room. He passed a bathroom on the right. On the left, stairs went up to the next floor. The back of the house was a kitchen and dining area with plenty of windows to let in the light, dust swirling in the door draft. The view overlooked the woods between the house and the DSS building. He stopped and had a long look.
“I did some research online,” Darlene said, “and there are all sorts of possible causes for it. Bed bugs, that’s one. Bees in the walls – that’s my favorite.”
“How long has this been vacant?”
“Um, a year, just coming up.”
The land sloped down and away from the back of the house, toward the woods. Mike left the window, refocused on the room, but there wasn’t much to look at. Hardwood flooring had been scratched up from years of use. The linoleum floor on the kitchen side of the room was faded and cracked. Nothing along the baseboard – not a cigarette butt or a snack wrapper. Aside from dust, the place was barren.
A good spot to hang out, though. To wait for caseworkers to leave their office for the day.
“Can I see the upstairs?”
“Of course.”
Maybe the gum she chewed was to mask the scent of a two-martini lunch, but Darlene seemed perfectly on her game. She took him down a short corridor between rooms. The stair treads groaned as they ascended to the next floor. Straight ahead was a second bathroom right over the downstairs one, and to the left a master bedroom with fake wood-paneled walls and shag carpeting.
He approached the back windows again. From the higher elevation, he could see over the treetops. A better view: the edge of the DSS parking lot was visible, and the access road.
“Have you had any break-ins?”
“No. Not that I know of… You think someone was in here?” She was either excited or worried, maybe both.
“I really don’t know.”
“Why would they come in here?”
Mike stood next to one of the windows, insects buzzing against the glass. He imagined the killer standing, perhaps looking down like he was, watching as the DSS workers left the building at five o’clock, two days ago. After taking hundreds of pictures and getting all their samples, the police had impounded the car and effectively returned the parking lot to the public. But no one was parking in Harriet Fogarty’s space – he could see the blackout tent from here. Two nights ago, the killer could have been right in this spot, watching.
A third of the parking spaces were earmarked for DSS staff, though unassigned to specific employees. About six staff spots were visible from the top floor of the house. It was still undetermined whether the murderer had targeted Harriet Fogarty or been waiting for any generic social worker to be late, like a stray member of the herd, but Mike was leaning toward Harriet as the target, with Pritchard compelling as a scorned brother upset over inherited property, maybe money.
But then there was the idea of angry parent who’d lost custody of a child, out for revenge.
Or even someone on staff – a jealous co-worker, like Rifkin? Or the kind of odd one who seemed nervous – Lennox Palmer?
Someone else, maybe, not yet on the radar?
Mike stepped away from the window and walked past Darlene. The upstairs was split into three bedrooms, the floors uneven. He ducked his head in each then backed out and looked above him. The pull-string for an attic door dangled in the air. “May I?”
“There’s not much up there, it’s just a crawl space…”
He pulled the door and unfurled the stairs. He gave the bottom step a test, putting a little weight on it, then started up.
The heat, which had been significant on the first floor, stifling on the second, was positively choking in the attic. It had to be over 100 degrees as he poked his head up into the space. There was maybe four feet between the floor and the peak of the roof. No flooring, just the exposed joists, pink puffy insulation smooshed in between. Mike hauled himself up, breaking a sweat.
“Please be careful…” Darlene’s voice was muffled.
He crawled on his hands and knees toward the octagonal window on the woods-side of the attic. The sweat really started to pour, dripping into the insulation. He went joist by joist until he reached the small window, dressed in spider-webs and dead flies. At least ten more parking spaces were visible from here. That meant fifteen, sixteen employees; almost all the spots marked for DSS workers. From this position, the killer could have easily known that Harriet Fogarty had been the last employee of the day.
Or, if he’d mixed up the cars, assumed it was Bobbi Noelle.
* * *