As soon as I got home I called George. He answered on the second ring but with an irritable tone to his voice that took me back.
“What is the matter with you? You told me to call you.”
“Aw, sorry, Sally. I’m going through all this mail.”
I remembered George had a bad habit of allowing his mail to pile up until the weekend.
“So what’s the problem?”
“Do you know how much of a pain it is to have a name with two first names? I get mail addressed not only to George Thomas, but to Thomas George, and now there’s something here addressed to George Thomason. How much of my mail are these guys getting?”
I laughed, and felt the despondency I had not even been aware of begin to lift. “Sorry, George. I did not realize you had this complication in your life. Do you still want to break away for a bite to eat?”
It was almost possible to see his face light up over the phone.
“Yes, Ma’am. I have been saving my appetite. How did things go for you over there?”
“Alright, I guess. As well as could be expected. I’ll tell you about it.”
This time George wanted to pick me up. He didn’t come alone.
“What is this?” I climbed into the passenger seat to be immediately set upon by warm breath and panting enthusiastic enough to put any obscene phone caller to shame.
“Don’t you remember Muffy?”
“Muffy! You have got to be kidding.” I beat back the furry canine that was not at all offended by my protests. “Robin’s dog?” George’s son had bought a small pile of fluff and taken it with him when he moved out. In the semi darkness, this was a cross between a golden retriever and a shepherd.
“That’s the one.” George gave the friendly passenger a more serious cuff and she settled back in the extended cab. “The trouble is, the dog grew to twice the size Robin thought she would. His landlord doesn’t like it so Robin brought her over yesterday and begged me to keep her until he finds a new place to live.”
“Oh? And how long do you think that will be?” I was pretty knowledgeable on how your children could take advantage of you in such matters.
“I gave him a month, tops.” George put the truck in reverse and backed out of my drive with the diesel engine in top form, a soft roar.
I had another thought as I buckled up. “How does your cat like this arrangement?”
“Don’t know. She hasn’t come out from under the bed since yesterday. I brought the dog along so she could come out and eat.”
We agreed to go to the family restaurant on the highway where I had eaten breakfast the morning before. By the time we arrived it was after seven and I was hungry myself. I also had a mind full of thoughts and questions. It was easy to express them all to George; he was an eager listener. The whole saga of Amelia Marsh seemed to interest him immensely. I thought it might be because it was such a change from the routines of his usual life. Whatever his reasons he didn’t want to wait until after dinner this time to hear my story. Between mouthfuls of food and sips of ice water and decaf, I related the events of the funeral and the settling of affairs at Mrs. Marsh’s house. He listened with nods, grunts, and raised eyebrows, never missing a munch or swallow of his own.
“Does anything strike you as odd about all of this?” I asked him finally, nodding to the server as she came to offer a refill on the coffee.
George held out his own cup for a refill. “It’s pretty odd for an elderly lady to get whacked on the head by someone who doesn’t seem to have wanted anything but her appointment book,” he said helpfully as the server walked away.
“You noticed that, too?”
He waved his fork at me, mockingly menacing in response to my sarcasm before taking a last bite of his noodles. “I was right, you know,” he added smugly after swallowing, “Someone was after something. It just seems blasted odd nobody can find anything more important missing.”
“Actually, I agree with you,” I said. “But that’s just part of what bothers me. You know, George, this lady has eighty years of living and memories, with no one to claim them. Yet her house basically looks as though she cleaned it out years ago. With the exception of some books, pictures, and a few old pieces of furniture, and well, okay, we’ll add a set of china and glassware to that list, plus the boot hooks and hatpins. But still, even I have accumulated more than that. When she came to Hanley she must have left a huge amount of stuff behind.”
“You sorted through everything and gave a lot away to your kids and Michael’s niece when you sold the house,” George reminded me helpfully.
“Exactly!” Now I waved my fork at him. “And that is just how that house looked, only more so.”
“Is that so odd? You said she moved out here from the east just a few years back. Maybe she didn’t want to move too much.”
“Maybe,” I allowed, “but it is still very unusual for an elderly lady to have so few treasures from the past at arms length. And there’s another thing.”
“What?” George leaned back in his chair contently. He never made lasagna for himself at home. It had been good.
“What did her husband do? It is like this guy was always middle aged or elderly, and always retired. Mrs. Marsh never said what he had done for a living. I just realized that today when I got to look in every room and never saw any pictures of them together when they were young.”
My dinner partner contemplated this for a moment and I waited, finishing the last bites of my own dinner, a fairly good chicken cordon bleu.
“Okay, I’ll play the devil’s advocate here. You told me before the husband died ten years ago, at eighty, right? Well, he had been retired for a long time so the life they had together before that has been history for maybe, thirty years. The lady might have been the type who didn’t live in the past, so to speak.” He added after a few seconds, “Any chance they weren’t married until they were middle aged?”
“Somehow I don’t think so,” I said slowly. “Don’t ask me why, but I do think they were together for many years. Wait! She did say they met during the war, in England, but he was an American. So there were no photographs taken back then?”
“Maybe they’re in the albums?”
“Yes. I’ll get back with Miss Carey in a few days and see. By then I hope I’ve had a chance to go through some of those books.”
George changed gears. “It doesn’t sound like the police still have much to go on, and from what I’m hearing they’ve been thorough.”
“If they have any leads they’re not telling,” I agreed, “but Detective David White is pretty closed mouthed. To tell you the truth, I am pretty impressed with him. He seems quite professional for a detective in a small potatoes place like this.”
“And what, may I ask, do you have to compare with?” George asked rather snidely, I thought.
“Only an impression of professionalism when I see it,” I shot back, “plus years of reading fiction and non-fiction mysteries.” Before George could give me a suitable reply I added honestly, “But he does unsettle me sometimes. I’m not sure what he’s up to, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on.”
George sipped his beverage and contemplated the things he had been told.
“What he asked you about the place next door was interesting,” George offered after a while. “I wonder what his angle was there.”
“I wonder about a lot of things,” I countered. “I wonder, to go back to what you said, why someone would have enough time to kill her, to clean their weapon, and to look around enough to notice their name in an appointment book, yet they didn’t take any money out of her purse or search for other valuables. I also still wonder why anyone would benefit from her death. She didn’t leave a large sum of money to any one person, and I just can’t see the minister killing her for what she left the church!”
“Pretty crazy,” George agreed. “By the way, did you find out how well off she was?”
“Not really. My impression is she was comfortably set, but not wealthy.”
The waitress returned to offer dessert and we both declined. She wished us a good evening, left the check, and politely told us to wave if we wanted more coffee.
“So that’s why you’re interested in her past,” George continued, “because no one in the present benefits by her death, as far as you can tell, and her past is rather murky, shall we say.”
“I guess that’s it,” I admitted. “Look, I know there must be reasons for Mrs. Marsh’s lifestyle decisions and they’re probably logical ones. We may never know what happened, much as I hate to admit that. But the lady intrigues me as much now as she did when alive. However this comes out, I want to find out more about her, where she came from, what her life was like before she came here.”
I gave my companion a conspiring smile. “You are a great sounding board, George. I’d like to keep you in on this. But you won’t tell any of this to anyone else, will you?”
“Certainly not,” he tried to act offended, then gave it up. “I don’t see the harm in you and your old girlfriend there, what was her name, Miss Casey, looking through the books and pictures to see what you can find out. But keep me posted. A male mind can put a different slant on things. Besides,” and his face brightened with the inspiration, “you may find my expertise on the computer helpful.”
“You may be right. You know very well I only use the computer for e-mails and balancing my checkbook. If you are willing to do a name search, you are on.” George might be able to help us find June Fisk’s daughter, if we could discover her last name. I wasn’t offended by his comment on the male perspective, either.
We each paid our own bill. Back in the pickup I effectively kept Muffy from smothering me before George dropped me off at home. I stayed up late, as I had to work the following night, and as was my habit, intended to sleep in. It was no good for me going back to bed for a nap, so this was how I survived the night shift.
It was after one when I finally lay in bed. It had been a few months since I had reached out for Michael in the night. But tonight, I missed him terribly. Sleeping fitfully at first, I woke up calling his name. My pillow was wet, so I knew I had been crying.
My crusade was put on hold for a few days. Monday afternoon there were domestic duties to finish and a few errands to run. Exercise, shower, and it was time for work. I stopped at the store for fruit and munchies to get me through the night.
The night was wild, all twelve hours of it. I grabbed my snacks and hydration on the run, stopping only twice for a potty break. A new young graduate, barely out of orientation, missed the signs of her laboring patient going into transition and called the doctor too late to make the delivery. She and I delivered the baby together, with the assist of the patient’s nervous husband. The baby was fine, a vigorous boy, but the doctor was more than mildly irritated and the young nurse in tears before he finished grilling her. I did what I could to smooth things over, and moved on to take up the care of a sixteen-year-old girl just moved out of triage.
Her labor was not so easy. For hours she made steady but slow progress as I tried to keep her as comfortable as possible with intravenous pain meds, breathing techniques, and a long warm shower. Normally she would have been allowed an epidural for anesthetic as her labor intensified, but she was a heavy girl with mild scoliosis, and the anesthetist refused to take the risk of giving her one. Her mother and boyfriend grew more nervous, slipping out frequently on feeble excuses but in reality to go downstairs and smoke to ease their own stress. For the last three hours of labor I ended up at her bedside continually to keep her focused and in control. The delivery went through the shift change and I didn’t have the heart to leave her until it was over. By the time the paper work was finished it was an hour later than usual when I pulled out of the hospital parking lot. Exhausted, I sank into bed about nine a.m.
Since I forgot to shut my bedroom door, I heard the phone when it rang. Groaning I turned over to look at the clock; it was almost two in the afternoon. Time to get up if I wasn’t going to be awake all night, and there was no need of that. I was not back on duty again until Friday. It was too much to move fast enough to answer before the answering machine, so I lay back to listen if the caller left a message.
He did. It was Detective White, telling me my statement at the police department was ready for my signature, and would I return his call to let him know when I could come down to the station. After a shower, hair wash, and afternoon breakfast at the Griddle, I called back and arranged with the dispatcher to come in the next morning at ten.
I didn’t get to the books taken from Amelia Marsh’s house that afternoon or evening, nor did I see Anne Carey. My time was peacefully filled with exercise, letters, a library run, and changing my closet in the master bedroom from summer to winter wardrobe.
Not until Wednesday did the mystery of Amelia Marsh come close again. The good detective was not in when I arrived to sign the statement. I was settled in the same chair in his office I had occupied a few days earlier, and the female officer who had been at the murder scene handed me the typed pages, with a hand written letter on the top from David White. His scrawl was quite legible. He apologized for not being there, asked me to read everything carefully, and only sign if it was completely as correct as I remembered. If there were any problems, discrepancies, could I come back at noon to see him personally? The officer, whose nametag said “Newman” sat down quietly in her superior officer’s chair, obviously not going anywhere while I read.
I read it through twice and could find no fault with it. Everything was written as I had related.
“Is it alright to use my own pen?” I asked politely, fishing one out of my purse.
“As long as it’s black ink,” she allowed.
After signing I was escorted back through the visitor’s entrance with polite finality and the assurance of being notified if there was anything else.
“That should be the end of it,” I said out loud as I started my car, but not believing it really was.
It was another nice day weather wise so I took an hour hike before getting back into my garden. While trimming my rose bush I could hear activity on the other side of the fence. I stood up and looked over to see Mrs. Marsh’s furniture being loaded into a large truck. Three men in navy coveralls were absorbed in their task, they didn’t see me. Barry did, and waved slightly. I waved back and returned to my task. I wondered if Miss Carey was at home and had noticed. Tonight, I thought, I will start looking through the books.
Barry startled me when he called my name. I looked up to find his face peering over the top of the fence that divided Mrs. Marsh’s patio from mine.
“Little complication here,” he informed me. “We forgot all about that storage space in the garage. I just went up there and found all her Christmas decorations.”
“Anything else?” I asked, straightening up. How stupid. How could we have all forgotten about the small attic above the garage? I had one just like it.
“Naw. I feel like a dope. Last year she asked me to help her get the stuff down, and I didn’t even think about it. I don’t know who she had helping her put it back after Christmas but it wasn’t me. She told me that was all she kept up there because it was hard to get at, and I don’t see anything else now.”
“Well, I guess if I were you I’d call her lawyers just to make sure, but I think you can load those things up for the auction with everything else. They can sort it out with the auctioneers.”
Barry agreed that was a sound idea. He had the number in the office.
I crouched down on my heels again, resisting the thought I would like to see those decorations. I had no right to them, and there could be nothing up there to aid the murder investigation. Could there? Surely the police hadn’t been up there.
Sweat and soil required another shower, and I was drying off when my archenemy, the telephone, rang again. Some premonition had prompted me to bring the cordless into the bathroom, so I surrendered and answered promptly.
It was Everett and he was mildly reproachful because he and Judy had not been filled in on Sunday’s activities.
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely, “time has gotten away from me somehow.”
“We have been sitting on the edge of our chairs,” he rubbed it in a little more.
“The suspense may be far more than the actual events,” I warned him dryly. “Can you hang on for twenty more minutes while I get dressed?”
“Do we have a choice?”
“No. I’ll call you back.”
“Sounds simple to me,” Everett announced when I finished my narrative. It was not clear how he and Judy had arranged who would talk to me and pass on all the information to the other. Maybe they tossed a coin, but my son stayed on the other end of the line to absorb what I said and in turn repeated it to Judy. She was keeping an eye on Joel who was taking a bath. From time to time I could hear him making loud sound effects that were supposed to be “sharks.”
“Oh, really? Please continue.”
“Not that I can identify who killed her,” Ev admitted, backing down a bit,” but what I mean is, she not only knew who was coming to see her, but it had been arranged ahead of time. It sounds like the killer called, made an appointment, and after the deed is done he takes the one piece of evidence that will incriminate him. Excuse me, or her.”
“But how could this person know that Mrs. Marsh had not told someone she was having this visitor?” I queried.
“But she didn’t!” my son said triumphantly, “and for whatever reason she didn’t, the killer knew she wouldn’t.”
There was a pregnant pause while I absorbed his reasoning. “Okay,” I said slowly, “we have a murderer who knows Mrs. Marsh well enough, and has an interesting enough reason for seeing her, to be quite sure she won’t tell anyone about it. This person also has to know her well enough to know she will have this prearranged appointment written down.”
“Well, maybe finding the appointment book may have been just a fluke,” Ev theorized. “You said she always kept it in plain sight while at home.”
I had to admit this line of reasoning made sense. It brought me no closer to who the visitor had been, but lent more credence to my suspicions this person was from her past. And at this point, something else dawned on me. There was no way to prove this either, but somehow I knew.
“Everett, my boy,” I told him, “when Mrs. Marsh wanted to see me, I think she wanted my advice. I think she either wanted to ask me if she should see this person, or if I would be there when she did. And you know what that means? Our appointment was for two in the afternoon. The caller came earlier than he was supposed to.”
“But she let him in anyway,” Everett said somberly. “I hope you are right about this person not being a current one in your neighbor’s life, because I don’t like to think that someone is still close by somewhere.”
“Not a pleasant thought,” I agreed, “but it isn’t likely. There have been no other murders of elderly people living alone anywhere in the county or middle-aged ones, either, in the past several months, other than two that were clear-cut family related crimes. Unless this is the beginning of some pattern or scam, there is no precedence here, just as we’ve suspected all along.” My friendly neighborhood detective had filled me in on these particulars on Sunday afternoon.
“You be careful, anyway,” my son said firmly. He paused, and I heard Judy address him, but could not hear what she said. “There’s one other thing we were worried about,” he went on after she finished, “ah, was it okay you going over there? I mean, having to go through her effects.” He paused again, apparently looking for words to say what he was driving at. “It hasn’t been all that long since you had to do this before.”
“Oh,” I felt dense. Now it was clear what he was trying to say. “You mean, did it bring back painful memories from your Dad’s death. No honey, not really.” George had asked me the same thing before we had parted company on Sunday night. It was touching they all thought of it. “This is so different for me. Just as sad in its own way, of course, but I didn’t live with Mrs. Marsh for twenty-seven years.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Spend the evening looking at some of the books stacked in the garage. There are three boxes of them.”