Working nights I have no trouble sleeping during the day. At ten o’clock the phone ringing woke me. I let the answering machine pick it up but rolled out of bed.
In spite of the exhaustion seeping in, sleep eluded me when I got home from dining with George. My second wind had kicked in, so to speak, or maybe my third or fourth. Instead of going to bed I paid some bills, wrote e-mails to an old friend now living in Alaska and to my daughter (not mentioning the murder to either one of them), then worked out on my fast track for half an hour. A warm bath after that relaxed me enough to finally get some solid sleep. Before dozing off I’ll admit I did shed a tear or two for Amelia Marsh and whispered a prayer hoping she was at peace. But if I dreamt of murdered old ladies it did not come back to my mind in the morning.
For a while it looked as though the tragedy would soon become just a memory. The phone message was from my son, Everett, telling me my makeup case had been found in their bathroom closet. Had I missed it? Should they send it? I smiled. Joel had been “helping,” and put my makeup case away just like he did his mom’s. I wondered what had happened to it.
The sun was shining and the thermostat on the patio said it would be another mild September day. Good. I wanted a long walk and needed to work up the ground next to the patio for planting bulbs.
The mail person had already come by so I would have the mail to read over my breakfast, along with my Dorothy Sayers novel. It really is often the small things that bring a lot of pleasure.
The phone rang again. Now I was brushing my teeth. It was probably a credit card company offering me a ridiculous introductory interest rate. My present credit card suited me just fine.
But the cheerful female voice on the line introduced herself as a staff member on the Daily Sentinel and said she wanted to talk to me about the “unfortunate death of my neighbor, Mrs. Amelia Marsh.” Would I please return her call?
Ten minutes later as I was deciding what to wear, the answering machine recorded message number three, Detective White from the police department. I was to return his call as soon as possible. Sometimes I did not get three phone calls in an entire day, and now I realized I liked it that way.
The phone was ringing again as I headed out the door. Before facing all of these people coffee and breakfast was a must. Mail tucked under my arm, handbag dangling from my shoulder, I fled down the street to walk the half a mile to The Griddle. The sun was warm, the breeze cool, and it was a treat to be outdoors. I turned right from my front doorstep and I did not even glance to the left. Whatever was going on at poor Mrs. Marsh’s place this morning was not going to ruin my mood.
Although living alone suits me now, I usually like having my breakfast, whenever that is, out. The Griddle is one of my favorites, just a country style diner with good coffee, a homey atmosphere, and predictable people. I could curl up in a booth by myself and hear the buzz of the conversation and the laughing of the regular customers in the background as I read and ate. The thought of the aroma of the fresh cinnamon rolls and coffee drew me down the street at a good pace.
I paid for a newspaper out of the machine that stood near the front door. Marla saw me coming and with a grin followed me to a booth with a glass of water and steaming mug of the brew in her hands.
“Woman, you are too good to me,” I told her sincerely as she set them down on the table, along with the menu she had tucked under her arm.
“That’s a fact,” she agreed amiably, “but we try to treat our regulars right.” She produced an order pad out of one of her many apron pockets. “Need a minute to decide?”
I did, so she wandered off for a moment. I am not so stuck in a rut as to order the same thing every time, although probably Marla could have narrowed down my order to within four choices. I decided on an order of rye toast, a poached egg, and half an order of crispy bacon. As Marla walked away I opened the newspaper.
Having a crime of magnitude was bound to make the front page and it had. There was a photo of the front of Mrs. Marsh’s condo unit. By the time the photographer had arrived, a hearse was parked in front and yellow tape blocked off the entire property. Miss Carey’s name was mentioned, as was Barry’s, but I was known only as “a neighbor.” Obviously that omission had already been taken care of, as the message on my answering machine indicated.
I moved on to read some other articles and was up to the comics when Marla returned with my food.
“Is that something or what?” She waved her hand at the front page dangling out of my left hand, my bacon flying precariously close to the edge of the plate. “A little old lady killed just down the street from here!”
I agreed, not insincerely, it was terrible. Marla obviously did not know I was “the neighbor,” and I was not about to enlighten her. But a grizzly old gentleman at the counter known as Pete chimed in.
“You live in one of those places over there, don’t you? I’ve seen you walking back and forth.”
He looked at me expectantly from behind his wire rims and bushy gray mustache. Marla had set my plate safely down but instead of pouring a refill on my coffee held the pot in midair and looked at me with her mouth partly open and her brown eyes wide.
“Sally! You do?”
No way out of this. “Yes, I do.”
Several more pairs of eyes looked my way with interest. I sighed. At least the lunch crowd had not started coming in yet. I am not usually shy, but this had me squirming. I wasn’t ready to talk about it again. I managed to say a few things to satisfy the basic curiosity. “The paper has it pretty right. There will be more in tomorrow’s edition. I don’t know much more, really. Yes, I knew her slightly. A nice lady. No, I’m not afraid. The police are patrolling all the time.”
The conversation between Pete and a few more late morning regulars stayed on the subject, and I caught a bit of reminiscing about a suspicious death of several years earlier. Marla had to move on with her coffee pot. Gratefully off the hook I buried myself in my mail and my toast, making a mental note to eat somewhere else tomorrow morning. Pete and Marla might not forgive me for not telling them I was the neighbor next door, one of the two people who had found the body. Better give this a few days to cool off.
Back at home there was no more putting off all the blinking lights on the answering machine. The only one I wanted to return was the one from my son, but first I called the number the police department left for call back. The detective was out but he left word with his subordinate. Would I come by the station sometime during the afternoon? It did not seem prudent to say no, I would much rather be digging in my back yard thank you very much, so I agreed to two o’clock, remembering my two p.m. appointment of the day before and hoping this one would be less eventful.
I caught Everett at home. He was on his lunch break. My older child gave up a college scholarship to spend a year in South America and then decided the unsophisticated life for was him. He never went back for formal education but spent two years in technical carpentry training. At twenty-seven he seemed content to have married young and become a father. The small ranch style house they called home was in a constant state of remodeling, as Ev worked on it in the evenings or on weekends. When his construction jobs called him too far away from home Judy packed up Joel and stayed with her grandmother, which meant the garden was tended on an irregular basis and the dog never got to the vet in a timely manner. The lapsed appointments for spaying the dog resulted in three liters of puppies. Such lack of order was often amusing from where I sat but would have driven me insane if I lived too close. It seemed to agree with the three of them overall.
“Hey, Mom,” Ev greeted me in his familiar way.
We chatted amiably. I assured him I could buy another bottle of makeup to use until we saw each other again; for three days I had used a lighter color, found some other eye shadow stashed in the back of a drawer, and no one had looked at me oddly.
“I thought so,” he said, “but you never know with you women. Judy thought you might need to have this stuff. We would be glad to send it.”
“Judy would be the one who could not do without her make up case,” I countered dryly. “I can find this kind of Cover Girl anywhere.”
It was said without malice and he knew it. I loved my daughter-in-law. Anyone who could live with Everett had my respect, at the very least.
“Where is Judy, by the way?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Her English class ended at noon and she went to pick up the big guy after that. I fixed myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
Everett liked Judy to fix him lunch. Better to change the subject.
“There has been a bit of excitement around here since I got back.” I told him about the events of the past day. My reluctance to talk about the tragedy at the restaurant melted away.
“For real?” Ev is often a master of understatement.
“I did not make this up.” Of course he knew I hadn’t. “I have to go down to the police station in a little while.”
“You can handle it, Mom,” he said loyally, “you always did have a cool head,” and then added in contradiction, “are you okay?”
“Perfectly,” I replied crisply. No need to spoil his image. The truth was, sometimes I was feeling all right and at other times the whole thing had me queasy. “I called George last night and got the shock out of my system. He even bought my supper.”
“That’s good. I’m glad he lives close by, Mom. I like ole’ George.” A pause. “Have you told Nellie about this?”
“Your sister would have a cow if she heard you call her that,” I reminded him unnecessarily. I could almost see his grin across the phone wires. You would think when your two kids grew up they would stop trying to antagonize each other. “No, I haven’t. Not yet.”
“She’ll have a fit,” Everett remarked helpfully.
“A good reason not to tell her for awhile. I’m sure she won’t hear it in Boston and don’t you tell her, all right?”
“Not a problem. I doubt we’ll talk to her, anyway. Janelle makes her phone calls to us regular as clock work, about the first of every month, Christmas, Joel’s birthday, and Mother’s day. We never call her because she’s never home.”
“I noticed that,” I agreed. “Funny how you were always the one on the go as a kid and your sister was the one I could never get out of the house. Now the shoe is on the other foot.”
“I’ve got to get back to work, Mom. You’ll be back up here in a month or so, right?”
“Unless you come to see me.”
“You never know. We might. I’ll have Joel give you a call in a few days.”
I decided to ignore the message from the newspaper. They would find a way to get back to me if they wanted to badly enough. Two more messages had been added to the machine in my absence, one from the hospital and the other from Barbara Teal, a friend. Neither had said what they wanted but it was a sure thing what the hospital had in mind. By the time I returned all these calls, I thought, it would be time to leave for my appointment at the police department.
“No,” I said firmly to the staffing coordinator, “I have put in an extra day this pay period already.”
“But Sally,” she wailed, “I’ve tried everybody else, and since you work part time …”
“I try to work part time,” I corrected her. “If I’m not careful I put in more hours than the full timers. Try the hospital pool.” I hung up firmly, determined not to feel guilty.
Barbara was not in so I left a message for her to try and call me again in the evening. Barbara ran a gift shop that she managed quite well on her own in the spring and fall, but that was a bit too much for her to handle alone during the summer when our town did a certain amount of tourist trade. Barb’s store, downtown and directly across the street from a popular historical hotel and restaurant, often drew a respectable clientele. Her daughters helped her out a few hours a week and so did I. That was ending now, but I suspected she wanted a hand downsizing her inventory.
The gift shop was a nice change for me. It had been a revelation to realize I did not want to pursue a career in nursing administration after Everett and Janelle left the nest. Even before their father’s death my focus had changed. I loved clinical obstetrics and still enjoyed my job, but I did not want to eat and breathe nursing twenty-four hours a day, quite the contrary. After becoming a widow my financial status left me able to cut my working hours at the hospital and spend my “spare” time pursuing non-medical interests, such as an adorable grandchild, flowerbeds, and “The Kozy Korner.”
An hour left before meeting the police detective, whose name I could not recall. Some color, I thought. Time to take up in the kitchen where I had left off yesterday.
It was only a ten-minute drive to the police station. Once again I avoided looking in the direction of Mrs. Marsh’s driveway. I had never been inside the law enforcement facility. The motor vehicle department next door was the closest I had ever gotten. The walk-in area was small and sparse but clean. Our town didn’t have bars in front of the reception area. A uniformed officer sat behind a desk. He was young and heavy set, with a serious but not unfriendly demeanor. When I introduced myself he asked me to take a chair and picked up the telephone. There were four chairs and a small couch to choose from; I sat in the most comfortable looking chair and glanced around. The potted plant looked amazingly healthy but the leaves were dusty. There was an assortment of fairly current magazines on an old coffee table.
“Mrs. Nimitz? Follow me, please.”
The beefy young man unlocked a door to his left and led the way. We stopped at the second door through the passage. The brief look I got down the corridor made it obvious most of the action went on in the back of the building. I caught a glimpse of a female dispatcher hard at work in front of a maze of computers and technical equipment, and a man in handcuffs being led through a door on the side of the building. The front entrance was for voluntary visitors. Beyond the dispatcher and several more desks the hall continued beyond iron bars.
My escort opened the door and the man behind the desk stood up as I entered. He greeted me politely, extending his hand.
“Sit down, Mrs. Nimitz. I’m David White. We met yesterday at your neighbor’s house.”
He nodded to his subordinate who withdrew, leaving the door open behind him. In the background I could hear the hum of the activities out in the main office of the station. David White’s name badge clearly identified him as Detective White. How could I remember Reverend Southby’s name and not remember his? He was clean cut and lean, about thirty-five or so, his uniform immaculate. He surprised me now by smiling broadly.
“We’ve met before although I couldn’t place you yesterday. You were with my wife when our last baby was born.”
I smiled back. “Was I?”
“Almost 3 years ago. It was a girl. You were great. My wife, Debbie, still remembers you.”
I desperately searched my memory archives of labors and deliveries.
He let me off the hook. “Hard to believe it’s been so long. You must have seen a hundred more babies born since then.”
“Yes, but I think I do remember! Your wife is blond, you have two older boys, and your hair was longer then.” I did not add I recalled Debbie being a colossal baby herself while in labor, and the boys little monsters who trashed the labor room until their grandmother finally took them home.
“You got it.” The smile faded as he changed the subject. “I hope your memory is as sharp about your neighbor, Mrs. Nimitz. We need all the assistance you can give us.”
“You can call me Sally, Detective White. It said Sally on my name tag, remember?” Neither of us mentioned his nametag did not say David, and in any case the situation did not seem appropriate for me to address him by his first name, even if I had done so while his wife was pushing.
“Sally, then.” He proceeded to run through the papers in front of him, refreshing both of our memories about the information I gave at the scene of the crime. I clarified a few details, which he jotted down. “This is all informal here,” he told me, “but I will bring someone else in to witness what you have to say if you are more comfortable with that. In a couple of days everything you’ve told us will be put into a formal statement and you will be asked to come back and sign it.”
I expressed my understanding and said no witness was necessary. He leaned back in his chair and looked at me speculatively.
“You say Mrs. Marsh did not give you any indication as to why she wanted to see you. Do you have any guesses?”
“I don’t. And believe me I’ve thought about it. There’s no way of knowing if what she wanted had anything to do with what happened to her. I can say my impression was she had something serious to discuss. My impression was not that she was fearful, but maybe a little anxious, if that’s worth anything. I wondered at the time why she picked me at all. She had closer friends.”
“Most of her friends were very elderly,” the detective suggested. “Maybe that’s why she asked you. Did you know anything about her personal life or her past?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “She was a charming lady but she did not encourage or initiate conversation about her personal background. She spoke about her husband sometimes and would refer to their life together out east. Once she was telling a story about her girlhood in England and mentioned a sister. I have no idea if that sister is alive anymore.”
“We are pulling out of the apartment today and allowing her power of attorney to start settling her affairs. So far we haven’t come across evidence of living relatives. And to be honest with you, Mrs., er, Sally, we have no suspects.”
I decided to be candid with the inspector. After all, what did I have to lose? I told him about my perplexity at the neatness of the apartment, wondering what could have been a motive other than robbery.
“Very perceptive of you.” He grinned. It could have been patronizing but I decided it was not. The grin disappeared. “There are still plenty of things to consider and we still have interviews to conduct. Anything else you remember, anything at all, please call me.”
He got up from his chair and I from mine. The interview was over for now. As he opened the door for me I said to him quietly, “I really hope you solve this.”
He nodded grimly.