Here She Lies by Katia Lief Read Free Book Online

many things my parents’ deaths had taught me, one was that severing the artery of love was ultimately survivable.
    Once Julie and I had lugged in all my stuff, we stood together in the silvery darkness of my quiet room and watched Lexy sleep.
    “She’s beautiful,” Julie whispered.
    And I reminded her: “She’s ours, Jules.” I one-arm-hugged her against me as we stood there staring at my beloved daughter.
    After a while she went upstairs and I went to bed,sure I wouldn’t sleep — but within minutes, I did. I slept a solid six hours, until the ringing phone interrupted a dream I lost as soon as I opened my eyes. Through the diaphanous yellow curtains I saw the gentle hues of early dawn. The phone rang again and, afraid it would wake Lexy, I picked up my extension. I heard Julie’s scratchy morning voice talking to a woman; we must have answered the phone simultaneously.
    “Slow down, Carla. What van?” Carla, I remembered from last night, was one of Julie’s nearest neighbors. She was at least in her seventies and obviously a very early riser.
    “A white van, parked down the street from your house. I saw it twice yesterday, oh, about two hours apart.”
    “I didn’t notice it. I was in my house all day, in my office, working.”
    “It was a white van, just sitting there, with a man inside. It gave me the willies — when I got home I wrote down what I recalled of the license plate. It’s crazy, I know, but I didn’t think of it until just now. I was making my tea and, well, that’s how it goes at my age sometimes. I remembered.”
    “Did you call the detective?”
    “Yes, I did. He thanked me. I just can’t believe it, Julie. Right here, on this street, a murder.”

Chapter 3
    Seated in our circle of canvas folding chairs in Julie’s backyard, beneath a bruised morning sky that promised rain, Detective Gabe Lazare put down his tall blue glass of iced tea so it sat lopsided on an uneven piece of slate. I’d noticed he didn’t skip pleasantries before getting down to business and I was grateful for the gentle transition from a harsh awakening. Julie and I had been up for hours, battening down the hatches, after Carla’s call about the mysterious lurking van. I’d learned how the windows locked (we agreed to keep ourselves sealed up tight every night), where flashlights and candles were stowed in case of a power outage (deliberate or otherwise), and Julie was just explaining how the alarm system worked when Detective Lazare called and asked to come over. Asking was his polite method of telling us he was on his way.
    “Delicious iced tea.” Lazare nodded in Julie’s direction.
    “You can thank my sister. She’s the chef, not me.”
    “Tea isn’t cooking,” I said, “but I’m glad you like it.”
    The baby monitor was in my lap and I jumped at every fizz of sound. I kept expecting Lexy to wake up; her morning nap had gone nearly two hours now. Instead what I heard was sounds of Bobby, finally awake, his footsteps echoing down the hall, presumably to the bathroom. He had been released sometime in the night and was deeply asleep in the Pinecone Room when we woke up at dawn to the ringing phone.
    “Your neighbor’s partial license plate turned out to be pretty useful.” Lazare leaned over to reach into his leather briefcase for a piece of paper, which he handed to Julie first. When she in turn gave it to me, I saw that it was a grainy fax of a photograph — a mug shot — of a fiftyish man with a buzz cut and skin weathered beyond his years. He was squinting as if he normally wore glasses. “His name’s Thomas Soiffer. Owner of a white van, Massachusetts plates, resides outside Springfield. E-Z Pass had him driving west on I-90 across Massachusetts yesterday morning.”
    “And?” Julie.
    “Why was he here?” Me.
    “What we know about Mr. Soiffer is mostly on paper. He’s a plumber by trade, but he has a criminal record. Not what you’d call the finest of citizens. Did some time for