The Sinners' Garden Read online

  “Almost three hundred dollars.”

  Heather took the baby, Becky took her frightened children by the hands, and they all headed back to the house.

  Once inside, she put the baby in the playpen, and the mother had the other two children sit at the kitchen table. Heather and the woman walked down the hallway, each a little spooked, as if the man might come back in the house. When they passed the back door, Heather chastised herself for letting the jerk escape.

  Why did I bring them in the house? What if he does return?

  They went in the bedroom, flicked the light on, and noticed the woman’s purse on the bed. Becky pounced on it. The zipper on the top was closed, which on the surface appeared to be good news. Nothing else in the room seemed too far out of order. Was it a burglary at all? Maybe he was a previous renter, coming back for a stash. Or maybe he was just some freak, wanting to catch a peek at some innocent woman and children. Some sign-of-the-cross-giving weirdo.

  Becky’s eyes lit up when she looked inside. “The money is still here.”

  “Good,” Heather said. “Let’s go double-check the family room and kitchen and see if anything else is missing.”

  The woman led the way, but then bent down. “What is this?” she asked. She straightened, with her back turned to Heather.

  “What is it?” Heather asked, coming around.

  Becky’s hands started to shake.

  “What is it?” Heather repeated, squinting and taking a step closer.

  It was a brown paper lunch bag. There was a tear on the side of it, exposing about an inch of what looked like cash.

  “This has to be a couple thousand dollars,” the woman said. There was hope in her eyes and her voice sounded different.

  “Did you know that guy?” Heather asked, remembering the silhouette dropping something in the hallway. Again she thought about her idea of him coming back to find a stash . . .

  “No,” Becky said. “Had I known . . .”

  She didn’t have to finish her sentence for Heather to know what she was thinking. If anyone in Benning Township needed a couple thousand, this girl was the one. “I take it this isn’t your money?” Heather asked.

  “I wish it was.”

  “I admire your honesty,” Heather said.

  They walked into the family room, and Heather stopped next to the playpen and ran her hand across the top of the baby’s head. He was holding an empty bottle and Heather smiled. “Looks like somebody needs a refill on his bottle.”

  “Okay,” Becky said from the kitchen.

  Heather heard a gasp.

  “What is going on?” the woman said.

  Heather looked at her. Becky was standing in front of the refrigerator, holding the door open, staring. Tears were welling in her eyes.

  Heather rushed to her side. “What’s wrong?”

  “Are they real?” Becky asked.

  “What?” Heather asked.

  The woman pointed to the middle shelf. Leaning up against a gallon of milk was a stack of gift cards with a thick rubber band wrapped around it. The card that faced her was a dark green with the words Food Village centered neatly in fluorescent yellow.

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?” Becky asked.

  Heather grabbed a handkerchief out of her pocket and took the cards out of the refrigerator. She removed the rubber band and carefully fanned through them. A matching bright yellow $100 marker was at the top-right corner of each card.

  “There must be fifty cards here,” Heather said, holding one up under the kitchen light. “And they look pretty real to me.”

  “Who put them there?” Becky asked.

  “I’m guessing the same guy,” Heather said.

  “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  Heather glanced around the house. It was a mess, but a mess made by kids, not an intruder. “Anything seem to be missing?”

  “I don’t think so,” Becky said. She smiled and shook her head. “Can I go take another look in the bedroom?”

  “Go ahead,” Heather said. “Just try not to touch anything besides the purse. We pretty much compromised any prints that might’ve been on it. Let’s not screw up anything else.” She closed the refrigerator door and then followed Becky, feeling the weight of the gift cards in her hand. Who was that guy? Who went around dumping cash and stashing Food Village gift cards in fridges? It made no sense . . .

  “Thank you,” the oldest boy said as she passed.

  “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

  Heather walked back down the hallway and into the bedroom.

  “Nothing’s missing,” Becky said. “In fact, it seems like all he did was break in here to leave things.”

  “You sure you don’t know anyone who would do this? Someone who might want to help you, but not be identified for some reason?”

  “I hardly know anybody in this town,” Becky said. “And I don’t know anybody, anywhere, with this kind of money.”

  Heather stepped back into the hallway and looked at the door the intruder left through.

  “I really don’t know what’s going on,” Becky said.

  “Me either,” Heather said.

  “But why would he do it this way?” Becky asked. “Come in here in the middle of the night. Freak us out and all. Why wouldn’t he just give these things to me?”

  “I don’t know,” Heather said, thinking about the way the intruder just stared at her and how he made the sign of the cross in the darkness between them.

  And then she couldn’t stop the creepy little thought that rolled over and over in the back of her mind.

  He knows me.

  TWO

  Heather pulled her truck in the driveway and could see Judi Kemp cleaning the grill beside the freshly painted little red barn. Judi turned around as the truck rolled past the garage, and Heather rolled the window down and sighed. It had to be close to a hundred again, another freakishly hot day, with unbearable humidity.

  Heather had been looking forward to going to the Kemps’ to help Judi celebrate her son, Andy’s, fourteenth birthday with a little barbecue, and then maybe have a glass of wine or two, to uncoil from a strange night and another long week.

  “Where’s Andy?” Heather called.

  “Right there.” Judi pointed at the white five-bedroom home that sat all by itself on the very end of what the locals called “Ripley’s Field,” a three-hundred-acre patch of trees and corn rows that spread across the northeast corner of Benning Township. The old farmhouse had been in Judi’s family for the better part of a century, and its waterfront view from the rear deck was arguably the best, not just in Benning, but the whole county, with the only things separating the house from Canada being a few tiny islands and the thinnest part of Lake Erie.

  Andy was on his minibike—a dinged-up old Honda 70—and was crossing the top of the gravel driveway. He was wearing a pair of jean shorts, a motorcycle helmet, and a light blue T-shirt soaked with sweat.

  “Wow,” Heather said. “Who got Andy the new helmet?”

  “Rip,” Judi said. She ran a hand along the side of her neck and dropped the wire brush on the top rack of the grill. She was long and lanky, like her son, and when Judi came out from under the shade, she looked thinner, and something about the sunlight made her dishwater-blond hair look the color of dry straw. “Rip said the old helmet wasn’t worthy of the new dirt bike. Wait until you see it. It’s unbelievable.”

  It was Andy’s official graduation from a little kid’s minibike to a real motorcycle—an old Kawasaki dirt bike that Rip had been souping up in private.

  “Where is it?” Heather asked.

  “In the garage,” Judi said. “Andy has no idea.”

  Heather stuck her neck out the window for another look at Andy as he cut across the lawn before circling behind her truck. The new helmet looked like something from a movie set. It came down past the middle of his throat and was made of shiny black plastic. The visor that covered the small hole in the center of the helmet was equa
lly dark, giving one of the shyest kids in town a tough-guy look.

  “Where in the world did Rip get that?”

  “He ordered it online,” Judi said. “Cost him two weeks’ pay.”

  Andy pulled the minibike up next to the truck and Heather continued to admire his new lid. “Aren’t you burning up under there?” she asked.

  Andy lifted the helmet off, and his shoulder-length brown hair was matted to his cheeks and neck, doing an extra fine job of what it was grown out to do—cover the scar on his face.

  “Hey, Heather,” he said quietly, pulling his earbuds out and pressing the power button on his iPod. Heather couldn’t remember the last time he’d put more than two sentences together at once unless he and his mother were going at it.

  “Glad to be out of school?” Heather asked.

  Andy shrugged off her silly question. Summer vacation was only two days old. He put his helmet back on and pulled the visor down.

  “How can you breathe with that thing on?” Heather asked.

  “No big deal,” he said, muffled by the helmet.

  “Honey, it’s too hot for that,” Judi said. “Take it off and go wash your face.”

  “Whatever,” Andy said, shaking his head. Even with the helmet on, his whole stance spoke of his routine indifference. It was the same stance that, for years now, had been eating away at whatever was left of Judi. And it made it tough for Heather to stay quiet.

  “Don’t whatever me,” Judi said. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and it made her appear softer, younger, helpless in a way. “You can put it back on later when Uncle Rip gives you your gift.”

  Andy flipped the visor up and stared at her. His eyes seemed like a pair of lifeless, neon-blue marbles. “Whatever.”

  Judi bit her lip and tried to take control. “Go clean up. And feed Milo. Make sure he’s got water too.”

  Andy revved the small engine of the minibike and Heather noticed the beat-up copy of The Catcher in the Rye tucked in the back pocket of his jeans.

  “There’s some light reading,” Heather quipped, pointing at the book. “Don’t you think that’s a little depressing?”

  “Nope,” Andy said.

  Of course it isn’t, Heather thought. Asking Andy if the book was depressing was no different than asking a clown if he was uncomfortable at the circus.

  “How many books a week are you reading now?” Heather asked.

  Andy shrugged and then turned the throttle, spitting little pieces of stone from under the minibike’s back tire as he rode toward the house. Surprisingly, he appeared to be doing what his mother asked him. Maybe he was hungry, Heather mused.

  “Probably four or five books a week,” Judi answered for him. “He gets them all from the library. Every time I go to clean his room, there are different ones stacked on his nightstand.”

  Heather could see Milo sitting in the shade of the barn’s doorway. Milo was a six-year-old beagle that refused to eat dog food and wore a red collar that was meant for a dog twice his size. He was also a runner, and if a deer, car, bike, or anything else came down Judi’s road, Milo was going to chase it away. One of those pursuits involved a milk truck a few summers back and cost Milo his back right leg.

  “How is Milo dealing with this heat?” Heather asked.

  “He doesn’t mind it,” Judi said. “He still thinks he’s a puppy and swims in the lake at least twice a day.”

  “I wish I could too,” Heather said. “By the way, where have you been? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”

  “Sorry,” Judi said. “Cell’s in the house and I’ve been out here all day.”

  “Oh. Well, I just stopped by to tell you I’m gonna be a little late,” Heather said.

  “No hurry,” Judi said. “Rip won’t be here until around six, anyhow.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?” Judi asked, arching a brow and casting her a sly look. “Are you trying to get back with my little brother after all these years?”

  Heather rolled her eyes and did her best to imitate Andy. “Whatever.”

  Judi smiled and it actually seemed real. “What time you gonna be here?”

  “I need to do some paperwork on a break-in that happened in the middle of the night. You know Becky from church? The one who’s a little rough around the edges?”

  “Oh no,” Judi said. “Her? They have to be the only people in town poorer than I am.”

  “Poorer than you?” Heather said, grinning and then biting her lip. Judi didn’t make much as a secretary at Parsons Elementary School, but she did manage to keep her part of Ripley’s Field in the divorce. She and Rip had inherited the property from their parents, who’d both died of cancer at a young age. Bloodlines it was called. Judi had even bought Rip out of his half of the land before he went to prison, making Ripley’s Field, just like the house, all hers. Still, Heather knew what her friend meant whenever she talked about times being tough and guessed if an artist wanted to paint a picture of someone who was land rich and cash poor, Judi would make one heck of a model.

  “What’d they take from her?” Judi asked.

  “That’s the weird thing,” Heather said. “He actually left around $5,000 in Food Village gift cards.”

  “What?” Judi said. “Who does that?”

  “I don’t know,” Heather said. “I had to take the cards with me, and the station is checking them out today to make sure they’re not stolen or missing. If not, Becky gets them back.”

  “I don’t get it,” Judi said, shaking her head as if she was trying to puzzle it out. “Someone broke in and left something?”

  “I don’t get it either. What’s even weirder is how long he stuck around the house. He could have been in and out of there in a minute, but he was still there when I showed up. Like he wanted me to see him. There are so many other ways he could have given the cards to that woman. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Five thousand bucks worth of gift cards,” Judi said. “Wow. That’s a lotta dough.”

  “You’re telling me,” Heather said, glancing at her watch. “I gotta run. I’ll see you later tonight.”

  “Okay. Feel free to bring some of those gift cards over for me.”

  Heather smiled and made a big U-turn in the driveway, thinking about the brown paper bag the intruder dropped. And how she had chosen to leave it with that Becky girl.

  Not a penny of the $3,500 dollars in cash that was in the bag would make it into her police report.

  Just the gift cards.

  THREE

  God must be in prison.

  Thirty-five-year-old Gerald “Rip” Ripley laughed out loud. He wasn’t sure how many times he’d heard some variation of that while serving three years in the big house for selling weed. He’d also heard it a few times since he’d gotten out of prison, close to a year ago. As much as it seemed to bother him, he did his best to shake it off, mostly because there was a lot of truth in the statement.

  But hearing it from Andy was different, particularly on the boy’s birthday, and it was important that his nephew understood what people meant by it.

  “God’s everywhere,” Rip said, taking his hand off Andy’s shoulder as they walked across Judi’s backyard and past the barn toward the garage. “But you already know that.”

  Actually, Rip wasn’t sure if Andy knew it at all. His gut told him that Andy had pretty much tossed God under the same umbrella as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, and it was number one on Rip’s bucket list to try to change that.

  “Where did you hear that God was in prison?” Rip asked.

  “Mr. Hart,” Andy answered quietly. “He’s such a tool.”

  God must be in prison, because that’s where so many people seem to meet Him.

  Rip smiled, offering silent props to whoever coined the line. It was both clever and harmless, and despite the temporary urge to part Hart’s forehead with his fist the next time he saw him, he didn’t want Andy to make something bigger of it than it really was.

  “D
on’t lose any sleep over what Mr. Hart has to say,” Rip said, running his hand through the V of his thinning blond hair. “He’s just poking a little fun at me because he knows that prison is where your Uncle Rip finally slowed down and found God.”

  Andy’s eyes flashed, and there was something about those blue eyes that seemed to look right through Rip. It was as if Andy sensed he didn’t care much for Kevin Hart. Rip had known Hart for a little over thirty years now, since they were in kindergarten, and now that he worked for him, letting anybody know that he also thought Hart was a “tool” wasn’t his best move.

  “We’ll see how long it lasts, Ripley. I don’t really think anybody’s buying into your newfound faith or born-again spiel.”

  Rip had never argued with Hart about it. Sure, a lot of guys in prison talked about God. He also knew that most of those guys returned to their old ways the second they were released. But Rip had been set free while in prison, and he knew he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone except the Guy upstairs, the real Boss. He also knew that he still had a lot of things to work on himself, so he decided to let his actions speak for him instead of his mouth.

  “Check it out,” Rip said, pointing out to the lake. A pair of jet skis were about fifty yards offshore, heading south at what had to be fifty miles per hour. Andy loved fast things and the noises they made, and Rip grinned, knowing in just a few minutes, Andy would be experiencing both in a new way.

  “Those are cool,” Andy said quietly. “Someday I want to try one.”

  “I think there is something else you may want to try first, bro.”

  “Like what?” Andy said. “And by the way, nobody calls anybody bro anymore.”

  “Not true,” Rip said. “I do.”

  Rip put his arm around Andy and kissed his nephew on the top of his head. Andy’s shoulders hunched in embarrassment before he looked around to make sure nobody had seen.

  “What the heck, Uncle Rip?” Andy said. “You better not ever do that in public.”

  “Why?” Rip said. “You’re my only nephew and I love ya.”

  “Seriously,” Andy pressed. “Not cool.”