Free A Trouble of Fools by Linda Barnes Page A

and sneakers.”
    “Okay. And I want to talk to you.”
    “You’re talking to me.”
    “Not on the phone. When I see you.”
    “Anything special?”
    Her voice sounded troubled, but all she said was, “It’s about volleyball.”
    “Can it wait till Saturday?”
    “Sure,” she said, but she didn’t sound right.
    “Any tests tomorrow?”
    “Just a quiz. In Spanish.”
    “Better you than me,” I said.
    “Es verdad,” she agreed with a giggle.
    “Adios, amiga.” I hung up. There was this guy waiting to use the phone. I hadn’t even noticed him.
    It used to be easier to find places to take Paolina. Puppet Showplace in Brookline was great, but now she’s kind of old for that. They get so sophisticated so young, it kills me. And one of the Big Sister rules is not to spend much money. The kids come from poor families, and we’re not supposed to come on like fairy godmothers. Just friends.
    On the way back to Margaret’s, I decided I’d drive Paolina to this wild-animal farm in New Hampshire. The trees up north would be in full fall color, and she really likes animals. She’s got two scraggly cats already, and if Marta would okay the deal, I’d give her Red Emma in a flash.
    Paolina calls Red Emma Esmeralda, because she’s green.
    She’s trying to teach her a few choice Spanish phrases, and says the bird’s accent is better than mine.
    What with having three names, the bird probably can’t learn anything because she’s in the middle of an identity crisis.
    I
    cruised Margaret’s block to see if any cops still lurked there. No blue-and-whites out front, no anonymous vans, no suspicious unmarked sedans with elaborately casual guys reading newspapers in the front seats. The door didn’t have a police seal on it, but I could tell the lab boys had come and gone by the gritty residue on the brass pineapple door knocker. They must have gotten a great set of my prints.
    Since I had the front door key in my pocket, it didn’t take me long to get inside. I’d snitched it from Margaret’s handbag during the ambulance ride. As an honorary granddaughter, I figured the least I could do was bring her robe and slippers to the hospital.
    And as a private investigator, I could do what I’d intended to do that morning. Search Eugene’s room.
     
    I’ll
    tell myself I have a mind above housework, but one glance at Margaret’s living room and I was sorely tempted to race to the kitchen for a broom, a mop, a bucket, Handy Andy, Spic and Span, anything. The memory of what the kitchen really offered—more chaos—held me back. That and the fear that maybe, God forbid, I was developing a latent housekeeping streak.
    If the crime lab team had bothered to step into the living room, they hadn’t righted the furniture, restuffed any cushions, vacuumed the rug, or dusted the mantle. They might have swiped a few bits of smashed china, but there was plenty still scattered on the scratched floorboards. From the foyer, the shards looked like exotic flower petals.
    Paolina painted a watercolor once, for art class, of three soggy crumpled yellow Kleenexes, next to a pile of orange peels. I keep that picture in my bedroom, framed. I like it.
    Her teacher didn’t. Her teacher asked her why she was painting garbage.
    Paolina told me it hadn’t been garbage from far away. In the picture, the Kleenex and the orange peels, floating gently in a gutter, are magical water lilies.
    It was the same with Margaret’s broken plates and vases.
    Far away, flowers. Close up, garbage.
    I tried to piece together two chunks of purple glaze, and dropped them back on the floor in disgust. Maybe I could bribe Roz to clean. Nobody should have to come home from the hospital to a house that looked like the target of a wrecking ball. And Margaret Devens, I reassured myself, would come home.
    The cops had left a trail of muddy footprints on the stair carpeting. I followed them.
    Four bedrooms and a tiled bath opened off the narrow hallway. I glanced in