Leda sat down beside her in a show of solidarity, and Grady took the chair opposite them. Richard sat down, too, and Grady pulled out his ever-present notebook.
“Mrs. Beckmeyer, I’m sure you’ve already given a statement—maybe several times over—but can you tell me what happened? There was a break-in, I understand.”
She nodded firmly, then clutched the side of her head as if she wished she hadn’t. “Richard was at the grocery store, and I was home alone. Out back, in the yard,” she specified. “It’s a nice enough day—and dry enough, too—so I was tidying the garden, getting ready to close it all down for the season. There’s not much to pick, not anymore. Mostly just the squash.”
Richard nodded, a tired look in his eyes. “There’s been a lot of squash.”
“I’ll plant less next year. This year, I was trying something new,” Sheila said—mostly to Leda, since Leda was sitting so close and listening so quietly. “But I was out back, tending the garden, and I heard the sound of glass breaking. It was somewhere in the house. At first I thought it might be the neighbor’s cat again.”
Her husband said, “Princess Pookie?”
“Well, why not? He’s gotten inside our house three times in the last month. He likes your office, that’s what it is. He likes to sleep on your chair.”
Leda asked, “Princess Pookie is a boy?”
Sheila grinned. “As we all learned, when he knocked up Mr. Wiggles last year. Now they’re both fixed, but our neighbor lets dear Pookie come and go… so he comes. And he goes. Anyway, he’s never broken anything before—he just sneaks in through the nearest open window and makes himself at home. I don’t mean to complain. I’ve become quite fond of him, honestly.”
Grady waved his pen in a little motion that said he’d like to get back on track. “So you thought it was a cat, and it wasn’t a cat.”
“Correct,” Sheila said confidently. “I knew Richard wasn’t home, and I didn’t expect him back. You have no idea how long he can dicker around in a Whole Foods, and he’d only just left the house. So my first thought was the cat. I didn’t want him to cut his little feet or anything, so I put down my gardening and headed inside.”
“With the spade. You forgot to put down your spade,” Richard reminded her.
“That’s right,” she added. “I was holding my spade. I came in through the back door, over there.” She gestured. “And I saw a person dart across the hallway, toward my office.”
Grady got ready to write. “A person. Can you be more specific?”
“I only saw them for an instant, and from the back. I think it was a white person, wearing dark clothes. Either a hat, or dark hair. But I wouldn’t even swear that it was a man, or a woman. It was someone a little bigger than me, I think? Let’s say it was a young man, for the sake of argument.”
“And right-handed,” Leda guessed.
Sheila said, “I’m sorry, come again?”
“The bruising… it’s all on the left side of your face and head. Isn’t it?”
“Oh, I see why you’d think that, yes.”
Grady noted, “Unless they hit her from behind.”
“He came at me from the side,” she clarified. “He was hiding around the door when I poked my head in. All I saw was a flash of something dark—his arm, I think? I don’t know—and then I saw stars.” Her voice went thoughtful as she reached for any lingering extra detail that she’d missed so far. “I swung at him, out of pure reflex, just before I fell. I hit him with the spade, on the shoulder or neck. I don’t know if I hurt him or not. I didn’t see any blood.”
Grady was looking down the hall. He could see it over his shoulder. “Your office, that’s the second door on the left, correct?”
“Yes, and Richard’s is the one across the hall, on the other side.”
Grady’s head bobbed as he scrawled in his book. “Then what?”
“Then I was on the floor for a few seconds, maybe? The person stepped over me at some point. I was dazed, but not entirely out of it—and I was afraid to move or open my eyes. I just heard shoes very close to my head. I don’t know how much time passed exactly, but after a bit, I smelled smoke. I stayed there for a few seconds, wondering if I was right—wondering if I was having a stroke. You’re supposed to smell burnt toast, isn’t that right?”
The detective shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“After I smelled smoke, I heard fire. That faint crackling noise, very nearby. That got me up and moving, I tell you what. I got to my feet, and I started walking.”
Leda craned her neck. Down the corridor’s walls, she saw dirt-smeared handprints. Sheila had struggled to hold herself upright. A flash threatened to ping in Leda’s head, but it was too distant, too faint. It wouldn’t tell her anything.
“The fire was in Richard’s office, and the fire extinguisher was in the kitchen—so I closed the office door thinking… thinking that would contain it? I’m not sure. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But I went to the kitchen, got the extinguisher, and opened the door again. The flames were all over his desk, his filing cabinets. I think someone threw lighter fluid all over them, that’s what it seemed like.”
A passing uniformed officer paused on her way through the living room and said, “You can still smell it in there. The intruder definitely used an accelerant. They just didn’t do a very good job of it.” Then she walked away.
Grady pointed his pen at her. “Good to know. I’ll follow up, once the report is finished. Please, continue, Mrs. Beckmeyer.”
“Well, I emptied the fire extinguisher, and it helped—but didn’t finish the fire off. Finally, I came to my senses and grabbed my phone to call nine-one-one. I was still on the phone with the dispatcher when the fire truck appeared. Apparently a neighbor saw the smoke and called before I did. I’m very grateful. They were so prompt. They absolutely saved the house.”
And maybe her, too, Leda thought. The sirens chased him off before he could do her any further harm. That’s what the flash was saying. A fire burning in the office. A woman lying on the floor, half in the hallway. Mostly unconscious but moaning softly. A figure ransacking the rest of the house, hunting for something. Abruptly, Leda asked, “Do you think the burglar stuck around, or did he take off right away?”
“I honestly couldn’t say. I opened the door for the firefighters, so they didn’t have to smash their way inside. I staggered out onto the porch and… you know what? Now that I think about it,” Sheila said, squeezing Leda’s hand. “I was sitting on the porch swing, stunned and trying to stay out of the way—and I heard something moving through the shrubbery over there.” She pointed past the front door and off to the right. “At the time I thought it sounded too big to be the cat. I think it was the intruder, sneaking away from the scene. You should tell somebody,” she said to Grady. “I didn’t think of it until just now—when she said something. Yes, there was still someone outside, right up until the truck came…” Her voice trailed away, and she gazed toward the porch and past it.