She Wore Mourning by P.D. Workman (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

He fell into step with her. It didn’t look like she was the type to hang around waiting. She led him to the bedroom.

“Here.”

It was a combination of their styles. Mostly Spencer’s minimalist, fussily tidy look. There were elements of Isabella as well. Her paintings were on the walls. A row of frivolous throw pillows across the head of the bed. The closet was clearly divided into his and hers.

Spencer’s shirts and suits marched in neat rows across the rod, all carefully ordered, facing the same direction, looking crisp and starched. Isabella’s side of the closet was a chaos like her studio. There was no apparent order to the clothing, skirts and pants mixed in with shirts and jackets and sweaters. Fancy dresses with sequins squashed in with hoodies with silly sayings. Hangers were hooked haphazardly from the front and the back. The shoes were in a jumble, not in pairs. Scarves and belts and jewelry hung on a handmade pegboard in no apparent order.

Zachary looked around. The room had big windows, like Spencer’s office, and had a good view of the back yard. It was a broad expanse of unbroken white snow. No one building snowmen or forts.

“You were watching from…?” Zachary made a wide motion to indicate the room.

“Right here,” Isabella positioned herself in front of the window, a couple of feet away.

“Tell me about that. You were standing there watching him? Putting laundry away?” He felt his face flush as it occurred to him that Spencer probably did the laundry and put it away. His own, anyway. “Reading a book, maybe?”

“No, painting.”

He tried to envision the set-up. It didn’t fit his idea of a good place for painting. The room was carpeted. There were no painting materials out. Maybe she didn’t paint there anymore because of what had happened.

“Your easel would have been here…?” Zachary blocked out the area in front of the window with his hands. “That might have obscured your view.”

“No, here.” Isabella swiveled to indicate the area behind her. “To make the most of the natural light coming in through the window. If I had been facing into it while painting, I would have been dazzled.”

“Right here. So, the light was behind you.”

“Angled a little, so my shadow wouldn’t fall on the canvas. Yes. Like that.”

“Your back was to the window?”

“No.” Isabella looked at the imaginary easel and then at the window, frowning. “Well, yes, some of the time. I would look out at him and watch him, and then paint. Then look again.”

“You were checking on him occasionally. Not strictly supervising him. He was five and in his own yard. Perfectly safe.”

She nodded, her face relaxing. She had been expecting him to criticize her for not watching Declan the whole time. Was that what Spencer had said? What about her mother? It had been in the news, so there were probably all kinds of people, friends and strangers, who had opinions about what had happened and her parenting skills or lack of them.

“Yes, he was perfectly safe,” she agreed. “You can see. It’s fenced. Gated. He couldn’t get out on his own.”

“Then how did he get out that day?”

“We found the back gate open,” Isabella said, staring across the yard at it. “I don’t know who opened it. Deck couldn’t have opened it on his own. A neighbor? A stranger? Spencer when he took out the garbage?” Isabella shook her head. “It couldn’t have been Spencer. He’s so careful about everything. He would never have left it unlatched.”

“But it isn’t locked in any way. Anyone walking by could have unlatched it.”

She nodded. “It never occurred to me to put a lock on it. Do people lock their gates? It doesn’t seem… it doesn’t seem like something people living in houses like this would do, does it? I can understand someone who lives in a rough neighborhood. Or someone who lives in a mansion with a swimming pool. But our little house?” She shook her head, eyes shiny with tears. “I don’t think people here lock their gates.”

“I don’t know.” Zachary shook his head. “I don’t know what your neighbors do or don’t do. I’m just trying to get a good picture of what happened that day.”

Isabella sat on the end of the bed and sighed. “He loved to play outside. He’d play for hours. Take his toys out with him. Ask if he could sleep outside at night. Neither Spencer nor I are into camping; I bet he would have loved it if we were.”

“How long was he outside? What was he playing with that day?”

“He was outside for a couple of hours. I don’t know what he was playing. He was an only child. A bit lonely. He made games up to entertain himself.”

“Are you and Spencer both only children? Or did you have siblings?”

“Spencer has a couple of brothers. I… don’t have anyone. Just Mom. I know how lonely it can be, not having any brothers or sisters. I was alone a lot too.”

For a moment, Zachary was awash with memories. He too had been alone. Being taken away from his brothers and sisters had been such a shock for him. It was one thing growing up as an only child, not knowing any difference, but Zachary knew the difference. He had been part of a family, and then he didn’t have anyone. He was old enough that much of the time he wasn’t with a foster family. It would be a group home or residential care. Surrounded by other kids, but all by himself.

He had been lonely for so long. Did that loneliness stretch out as far ahead of him as it did behind? He couldn’t face that.

Zachary shook off the memories and faced the problem at hand.

“Tell me about… when you realized Declan wasn’t in the yard anymore.”

Isabella put her face in her hands. Zachary waited for her to brace up and tell him the story. She probably wanted to. People avoided asking about tragedy, asking about exactly what