He jumped up and began walking back and forth. “Maybe they couldn’t find it. Maybe something scared them off—it took our guys two days to dig through all that sh… all that stuff in there.”
I grinned at his near slip of the tongue. “Is Conroy fixing on this one nephew as a major suspect?”
“Pretty much. Neither of them appeared upset about dear old Aunt Florence. But the younger one needs the inheritance more.”
“What’s next?”
“They’ll get a warrant, search their cars, homes, and so forth. They’ve got to find the murder weapon. Meantime, the older one is making arrangements for a memorial service.”
“Find out about the service for me?”
“Sure.”
His goodnight kiss was passionate, way too passionate for the moment. We were on our way to change.
****
The memorial service was two mornings later in the chapel of Fairmount Methodist Church. Mike went with me to the service, and so did the girls because Maggie insisted she wanted to go so that Mrs. Dodson would know that Gus was okay. Em had no choice, but she was philosophical.
Which means she said, “Mrs. Dodson won’t know whatever you try to tell her, Maggie.”
Maggie, my sentimentalist, with tears in her eyes, just shook her head.
Buck Conroy was there, I’m sure on the theory that the killer might show up at the funeral, but I’m also sure in this case he was disappointed, unless he was still fixated on the nephews. I expected, oh, I don’t know—suave raconteurs, but neither one was impressive. The one I assumed was the older was quiet, polite to people who spoke to him, but sort of part of the wallpaper. The younger one was uncomfortable, and the playboy image in my mind was replaced by a man with too many miles on his face for his age, a suit that was rumpled, and hair that needed a good stylist. He looked like he did need that money to support his lifestyle, but if he got it, he’d go through it in a year. During the service, he twisted and turned in his seat, as though impatient to be out of there.
There was nobody who looked homeless, but then what could you expect? And Claire didn’t attend, though who would expect her to? There went two of Conroy’s suspects.
The mourners were few—Ralph Hoskins, whom I’d called to be sure he knew about the service, was there and took my hand in both of his, saying again how awful this was in our neighborhood. I introduced him to Mike, and Mike tried to be pleasant, but I knew he didn’t like this so-called vigilante. Other than that, there were a few people from the neighborhood and some older ladies I presumed were from the church.
The service was brief, two hymns, the 23
rd
Psalm, a brief eulogy by the minister extolling Mrs. Dodson’s good works, and two long prayers. And that was it.
Maybe sacrilege, but we took the girls for ice cream afterwards. While they spooned their soft-serve, Mike whispered to me. “Kelly, something’s bothering me. Didn’t you tell me that Hoskins fellow didn’t even like Florence Dodson? Then why is he so blasted anxious to blame the police and jump in himself?”
I should have told Mike about the lunch, but I didn’t. “Maybe he just needs a life, and this is his chance to get out and socialize with the neighbors. He lives alone, and I think he works at home.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Don’t remember,” I said, fingers crossed behind my back. “I just heard it somewhere. Anyway, I think he’s sincere.”
Mike just snorted.
****
Mike went off to get the sleep he’d missed that morning, and the girls had to go to the office with me—I had paperwork that couldn’t be ignored, Claire wasn’t at the house, and I wasn’t ready to let them stay alone. So it was the office.
Keisha greeted the girls with hugs, and they asked what kind of candy she stashed in her desk, while I frowned at all three of them. Then she turned to me, “What you think about the service this morning?”
“It was blessedly short.”
“Yeah,” she said, “but I did like that organ music.”
“You weren’t there!”
She looked straight at me. “Yes I was. And I saw you, all of you, with Mike. I stood in the back and came back to the office the minute it was over—who knows what hot deal might have gotten away while the phones were unanswered.” She laughed at me.
“Keisha, you didn’t even know Mrs. Dodson.”
She gave me a long look. “No, but I knew about her through you, and I figured there wouldn’t be many mourners. I wanted to swell the crowd a little. That’s what you do…you support people, even when they’re dead.”
I remembered her words about calling my mother. They were the same, “That’s what you do.” Keisha had a finely tuned sense of right and wrong, or everyday morality, and I thought maybe I should hire her as a teacher for the girls.
What I wanted to do that afternoon was review Anthony’s estimate for remodeling that cottage. The figures were higher than I expected, and balanced against the cost of the property, it would be a good-sized investment. Maybe I could talk the owners down on the price—they didn’t seem to have an agent, and I’d been dealing directly with them.
Then there was the problem of what to do with it. If Mom came down here, would she expect me to give her the house? Rent it? Did she have the wherewithal to buy it? Her house in Oak Lawn would more than cover the cost, but would she do that? I thought about hiring another agent—or inventing one.
And if she didn’t want it or didn’t move down? I bet I could sell it at a pretty nice profit. I called the owners and told them I wanted to talk. I filed the paperwork in the folder I’d created for the house, asked the girls if they wanted Slurpees, and gathered my stuff together. The phone rang. Keisha answered and pointed in my direction.
It was Mrs. Glenn, the older woman who was so nervous about a possible serial killer in the neighborhood. “Ms. O’Connell,” she said, “I know you’ve been so helpful to me, but I just can’t stop being afraid. I . . . I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe I should talk to you about selling my house, though, you know, Mr. Glenn bought it for us….” Her voice trailed off.
She didn’t want to sell her house, and I knew it. “Mrs. Glenn, could I come visit with you right now and see if I could make you feel better?”
“Oh, my dear, that would be lovely. I’ll put the teakettle on.”
The idea of hot tea on a hot afternoon almost made me gag, but I smiled and said, “I’ll be right there, but I’ll have my daughters with me.”
“Do they drink tea?”
“No, they’ll be fine.” I smothered a giggle. To the girls, tea came iced. There was no other way. They were born-and-bred Texans.
Those same girls were giving me dagger looks. “You promised Slurpees. We can’t go visit whoever that was.”
“Slurpees after the visit.”
Keisha hid her face in her computer keyboard, trying to stifle her laughter, and I sent a swift kick in her direction as we walked out. It didn’t connect, of course, but she got the idea.
“Where are we going?” Maggie asked.
“To visit an old lady who’s scared after what happened to Mrs. Dodson. I want to reassure her.”
“What’s that mean?” Em asked.
“Make her feel better, not be afraid.”
“Oh,” she said, “me too. But wouldn’t Mike do a better job?”
“Mike’s on duty by now,” I said. “Come on, you two, this won’t take long.” I had no idea how long a short visit could seem.
As we drove the short distance, I noticed a man pushing a grocery cart piled high with all kinds of things, none of which made much sense. His clothes were dirty, his hair long, and his expression sullen. I thought about the missing and mysterious homeless man.
Mrs. Glenn opened the door just as I rang. I suspected she watched out the window all day long. She had an old-fashioned bell chime like I did, and I heard it echo through the tiny house. She ushered us into a nice-sized living room with old-fashioned furniture—what my Irish grandmother would have called a Chesterfield, done in a brown plaid now worn and faded. The carpet was sort of rosy beige, spotted and showing traffic patterns. Brown drapes on the window, with shades pulled tight over each window, made the room claustrophobic.
The heat hit me immediately. It must have been 100 in that house, and the lone floor fan whirring away in the living room did little to cut the temperature. “Mrs. Glenn, are you well? It’s awfully hot in here.”
“Yes, dear, I know it is. But I’m afraid to open the windows, of course, and I don’t run the swamp cooler during the day, just at night. So expensive, you know.”
I looked at the girls and saw tiny rivers of sweat on their foreheads, to say nothing of their dark looks. “Girls? You want to go outside and sit on the front porch?”
As they headed toward the door, Mrs. Glenn said, “Oh, dear, do you think that’s safe?”
I could have lost patience, because I’d never before met such a timid, scared woman, but I managed to hold on to my good sense. I’d been scared in my life but never like this. When I’d been scared there’d been good cause, like Jo Ellen North holding a gun on me.
“Go on, girls,” I whispered and then, remembering the man I’d seen, I added, “If anyone comes up to talk to you on the porch come right in.” Aloud I said, “They’ll be fine, Mrs. Glenn. And we can’t stay long. I just wanted to reassure you. There has been no evidence of a serial killer.”
“Well, I thought I heard someone in the nandina bushes outside my window last night.”
Probably a cat.
We talked on, but I could tell nothing I said reassured her, and I was miserably hot sipping at the pale tea she served. Finally I asked if I could send the neighborhood officer to see her, and she said that might help. I excused myself as quickly and gracefully as I could, grabbed the girls, and headed for 7-Eleven, with the car’s air conditioner blasting away. I even had a Slurpee myself, though I usually despise the overly-sweet things. Anything to get cool.
The girls were still giving me resentful looks at supper, but I ignored them.
When Mike let himself in that night, I jumped him verbally. He was no more in the door than I blasted him.
“Mike, you’ve got to do something about these serial killer rumors. Do you know how old ladies in this neighborhood are living?”
He jumped, literally. But he was abnormally quiet. “Nice to see you too, Kelly. Now tell me why it’s all my personal responsibility.”
Was there an edge of anger about him? I covered my confusion with belligerence—graceful apology is not my long suit. Arms crossed against my chest, I glared at him from the couch and described my visit to Mrs. Glenn.
“She could die of heat stroke,” he said.
“I could have too,” I replied bitterly. “I told you this was serious.”
Mike protested that he couldn’t get every little old lady in Fairmount to open her windows and run her air conditioner, but maybe he could help Mrs. Glenn. One of the major electric companies had a discount plan for the elderly with deferred payments during the summer. “I’ll look into it and see what I can find out—maybe we can get her a window unit instead of that useless swamp cooler. Then I’ll go see her. Give me the address again.” He went to the kitchen for a beer, and when he came back, he said, “but, Kelly, we had reports of a prowler in that block of Fairmount last night.”
Maybe Mrs. Glenn was been right about the rustle in her bushes. An awful thought. So I told Mike about the man I’d seen pushing the grocery cart.
“Homeless, of course,” he said. “But we can’t accuse every homeless man. A whole lot of them roam this neighborhood. Don’t tell Conroy I said this, but there are more homeless people in the neighborhood than gang members.” He pulled me toward him for a kiss and begged, “Can we please talk about something else?”
****
Megan Jackson—Jim Guthrie was, after all, her stepfather—arrived the next day for a weekend with her mom. I never did hear a word about Liz Guthrie, and I wouldn’t ask. Megan was bright, outgoing, and the spitting image of her mom—blonde, tall, thin, and perfectly groomed. Only Megan didn’t have that air of calm control that so puzzled me about Claire; instead she was enthusiastic about everything and always laughing. “I am so grateful to you for letting my mom stay with you. It makes a big difference for her to have a friend right now,” she said.
“I wouldn’t do anything else,” I said, hiding my increasing doubts about having Claire as part of my household. Megan was young and naïve and wouldn’t see any of the complexities that I did. We were lingering at the table after breakfast, while Claire went out to “tidy the apartment,” with Em in tow, and Maggie went to walk Gus around the block. “I haven’t heard your mom mention hearing from any other friends,” I said.
