CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS
On Friday afternoon, a woman named Ruth Calder knocked on Daniel’s door with a clipboard tucked under one arm.
She introduced herself as the resident of the green-shuttered house at the end of the lane.
Daniel recognized her from neighborhood meetings but had never spoken to her at length.
Ruth said she had heard about the concealed cages and had a question about an unfamiliar delivery van.
“I don’t want to spread gossip,” she said.
“I want to know whether what I saw matters.”
Daniel invited her to sit on the patio, which still had a temporary covering over the damaged window.
Ruth explained that she walked her dog before sunrise and often passed Carol’s house.
Three times during the previous month,
she had seen a white van parked in the alley with its lights off.
Two men carried narrow covered containers from Carol’s garage to the van.
Ruth had assumed they were moving gardening supplies until she heard a sharp squawk from one of the containers.
“I asked whether they were transporting chickens,” she said.
“One man told me they were empty display cages.”
“Did you recognize him?” Daniel asked.
“No, but I’d recognize his voice.”
Daniel asked whether the dates were written down.
Ruth tapped her clipboard.
She had recorded the encounters because her dog had become frightened of the vehicle and refused to pass it afterward.
She had also mentioned the van to her husband on each occasion.
Daniel explained that Elise was the proper person to contact and asked whether Ruth wanted the phone number.
Ruth accepted it immediately.
“I nearly told Carol to keep the van out of the alley,” she said.
“I didn’t want a pointless argument with her.”
Daniel glanced toward Carol’s garage.
“She was very good at making ordinary questions feel like pointless arguments.”
Ruth gave him a rueful smile.
“That much I know.”
After Ruth left, Daniel stood by the patio gate and remembered the van passing slowly on the day the chair shattered his window.
He had been looking at the driver, not the cargo space.
He wondered whether Lewis had already arranged a transfer and whether Carol had known the driver.
Those questions belonged to the investigation, but they refused to leave his thoughts.
He called Priya to confirm that Ruth had been directed to Elise.
Priya thanked him and reminded him not to approach vehicles he suspected might be linked to the case.
Daniel promised he wouldn’t.
That evening he walked to the recreation hall to clear his head.
The summer youth basketball practice had just finished, and families were gathering around a water fountain.
He passed the bulletin board where Haven Wing flyers had once been pinned.
Somebody had replaced them with a notice about a bird-watching walk led by the local nature society.
The notice described a morning outing where participants would observe wild birds without handling or feeding them.
Daniel read it twice.
He had spent days thinking about birds as objects people had hidden, bought, sold, and photographed.
The idea of watching them from a distance, without claiming them, felt strangely refreshing.
He took a photograph of the notice and sent it to Jasmine.
She replied that Ava would love to join.
Daniel decided he might go too.
