The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. I keep a pair of walking shoes and a water bottle in my car so I drove right from the detective’s office to a quiet country road at the edge of town and took an hour for a power walk. The sky was clouding up for possible rain later but it was a beautiful sweater weather afternoon. The smell of fall was in the air and I inhaled it deeply as I puffed along. There are few things I enjoy more than a good hike on a nice day. One doesn’t see the detail out of doors from a car window or even on a bicycle like you do when you walk. The leaves were just beginning to turn and there was a touch of gold to the grass, plus an abundance of tiger lilies and black-eyed susans popping up in the ditches and marshes alongside of the pavement. An occasional vehicle drove by and some bovines eyed me as they munched behind a wire fence. Otherwise I had the landscape to myself and enjoyed it, definitely a bit of hermit in Sally Nimitz.
On the way home I stopped for a chocolate frozen yogurt, found a picnic table, and read a magazine article while eating it. My vehicle is my home away from home; there are always reading materials on the passenger seat.
As foretold by the police officer the former residence of Amelia Marsh stood silent and free of yellow tape and squad cars by sundown that night. I spent a quiet evening at home, working in my flower bed until dark, checking my e-mail, and eating a late supper in front of an old movie classic rented from the library. Barbara did not return my phone call, but George called briefly to make sure I was okay, and I assured him that was so. He had put in one of his dawn until dusk shifts doing whatever an indispensable long term employee of the phone company does and he was exhausted. I told him I appreciated his consideration, and urged him to go ahead with his shower and early to bed without worrying about me. I didn’t mention my interview with Detective White. That could wait.
A small town settles down early so I was amazed that when the phone rang again at nine o’clock it was not one of my immediate family or the night shift on the obstetrical floor with a last minute staffing crisis.
“Mrs. Nimitz? This is Shawna Simmons from the Morning Sentinel. I hope I’m not calling too late? I apologize for the hour, but you are an elusive lady to get up with!”
“I’ve been at home since before five,” I pointed out to her.
“Have you? Wouldn’t you know! I rang your doorbell about four, and tried to call you last right after lunch.” Miss Simmons cheerful voice reminded me of the young woman who had tried to get me to change long distance carriers two weeks previously. She had almost succeeded. “Obviously my timing is completely off! Do you have a few minutes to talk to me now?”
I really did, and there was no point in being rude or putting this interview off any longer.
“Go ahead, Miss Simmons.”
“Oh, call me Shawna, please. I understand you found your neighbor’s body, Sally? Is it all right if I call you Sally? That must have been horrible for you!”
“The manager of the buildings, Mr. Ainsworth, was with me at the time and no, it was not pleasant.”
Shawna had gotten a description of the body from wherever reporters get these things, and I confirmed it as correct. She also knew why Barry and I were concerned about Mrs. Marsh and had gone to check on her. Could it be the paper would run a correct account of the whole business?
“Is it true you are a registered nurse at Lincoln Memorial, Sally?”
Again I verified her information.
“Have you lived in The Hedges long?”
“Almost a year and a half.”
“So you and Mrs. Marsh must have known each other quite well.”
“We made each other’s acquaintance about six months ago. We were casual friends.” I proceeded carefully. “We were the chat over the back fence, come inside and have a cup of tea, type of neighbors. After living next door to each other for a year it just happened.” I thought wryly that my neighbor to the right, the young couple who shared my bedroom wall, had been there as long as I had and I wasn’t even sure of their last name. They were out of town a lot and had not appeared since the tragedy.
“Oh, that was nice,” Miss Simmons said appreciatively, “I understand she had no family here so she must have enjoyed that.”
“No family,” I concurred, “but she led an active life and had several friends.”
The newswoman switched gears. “You know Mrs. Nimitz, we want to get as accurate a story as we can here. We want our readers to be informed so they can be taking precautions. It is pretty frightening for people, especially people living alone, and the elderly, to think someone just walked into that poor woman’s home and murdered her. Did you see anyone lurking about earlier that day? Have you seen any unusual activity in your neighborhood?”
I answered in the negative to both of the questions but held my tongue about the probability of Mrs. Marsh letting her killer in. No sense causing a panic that would keep every plumber and repairman from getting any work for the next month. Let Miss Simmons go back to the police reports or interview Inspector White for that sort of information. Instead I assured her the police had been patrolling frequently, there was no reason to suspect the people in our neighborhood were in any danger, but that we were all being cautious.
My interrogator hung up after thanking me profusely for my time. She left me with another clear thought. Mrs. Marsh had the usual elderly person’s suspicion of letting anyone into the house. Her front door was always locked. She used her peephole religiously to identify her callers. The back door to the patio was only unlocked when she was out in the back yard. She had expounded on her security habits on the one occasion she was persuaded to join me in my kitchen for a cup of my hazelnut coffee instead of having me over to sip English tea in hers.
Her body had been quite cool when Barry and I found her. David White stated during my interview the time of death was about noon. But the front door had been unlocked when Barry and I got there. I knew it was highly unlikely any smooth talking stranger could have conned his way into her home posing as a salesman or tradesman. If she didn’t know her visitor they didn’t get in, identification or not. I smiled sadly, remembering her relating to me the incident of the new grocery boy who had to wait while she confirmed who he was by calling back to the market.
At three o’clock the day before when the door was not locked I had assumed Mrs. Marsh had left the door open because she was expecting me, but that was a stupid assumption, totally out of character. She had opened her door to the person who had killed her, which meant she knew that person or was completely comfortable letting him or her in.
We are allowed to have pets in our buildings, even if renting. I own my condominium but have not yet felt the need for canine or feline companionship. My deceased neighbor had no pets either, but Miss Carey had, and it was her little terrier I heard yipping as my front doorbell rang. Miss Carey stood on the doorstep in cotton twill pants and a bright yellow rain parka, her hand firmly on the leash that kept Yippy in tow.
“Have I called at a bad time, dear? I’m so sorry.” She looked anxiously at my bathrobe and uncombed hair.
“You have not,” I assured her with a smile. “I keep strange hours, Miss Carey, but I have been up for a little while. I’m the one who’s sorry about the way I look. Won’t you come in?”
Miss Carey, bless her, is not one of those people who thinks everyone else should feel the same way about her dog that she does. She wrapped the leash securely around the wrought iron railing giving Yippy about five feet of moving room, admonished him to behave, and followed me into the house.
“Let me leave my raincoat right here. It was still coming down when I left the house and it will drip over everything.”
I deftly produced a wire hanger out of the front closet and hung her coat from the front door, where it could drip harmlessly on the tile in the entryway.
“How nice this is! It is so much fun to see how differently these rooms can be fixed up by the occupants. Including my own, I have been in four of these units, and you would hardly know they were almost the same when built. I’m afraid my home is rather cluttered. I hate to throw anything away and there are several pieces of furniture from my mother when she died squeezed in, too. You like open space don’t you? And yet this is so attractive and comfortable looking.” Miss Carey chattered on as I led her into the kitchen and set her down at the small dinette set overlooking the patio.
“Thank you. You don’t mind if we visit in here do you? How about a cup of coffee, and can I interest you in a croissant or a bagel?”
Miss Carey admitted her walk had made her a little hungry and thirsty, if it was not too much trouble, a bagel would be nice. Really, she was ashamed of herself, dropping in without calling first.
“I know you must have something on your mind, Miss Carey,” I said candidly, “and I’m glad you came by. We haven’t had a chance to talk since Wednesday.”
I had two whole-wheat bagels left from the stash I used for middle of the night lunches at work, and popped one into the toaster. “Have you been all right? Have you had someone staying with you?”
“Wednesday night I did. My sister insisted her grandson, Lance, he’s eighteen, and a rugged boy, come for the night.” Miss Carey grinned. “He slept on the couch with a baseball bat next to him. I must admit I felt very safe.” The grin faded, “But I didn’t sleep very well all the same, and only a little better last night. Lance would have come again but I really didn’t see the need. Why should someone who killed Amelia in broad daylight sneak into my house after dark? Besides, I kept some mace under my pillow and Yippy slept by the door. He would let me know if anyone was in the house.”
“Good point,” I conceded. “So, that’s not why you didn’t rest too well?”
“Oh, no, dear, and my joints weren’t aching too badly either, not even with this rain.” A deep sigh ensued from Miss Carey. She changed gears. “The coroner is releasing Amelia’s body to the funeral home later tomorrow. Sally, would you mind very much helping the Southbys and me tend to Amelia’s things on Sunday afternoon, after the funeral? The funeral is at two, it will be in today’s paper. The lawyers have contacted the pastor, asking him to go through her things. He called me last night, and I thought about you.”
I was flabbergasted. The bagel popped up out of the toaster, and with my mouth slightly open I placed in on a plate. “Miss Carey,” I said slowly, reaching for the cream cheese out of the refrigerator, a knife out of the drawer, and a napkin from another drawer, “why would you want me to be there?”
She thanked me for the bagel, and waited as I drew the cups out of the cupboard for our coffee, and placed both milk and sugar on the table. Only when I sat down to face her, the coffee poured, did she answer me.
“I’ve been Amelia’s friend for almost five years. We met at the hospital. She started volunteering there right after she moved here and we worked at the gift shop together.”
I had not known the ladies had been hospital volunteers and said so.
“Well,” Miss Carey admitted, “we didn’t last long. The head of the program was a tyrant! We didn’t enjoy it, either one of us, and both resigned after about three months. But I invited Amelia to go with me to church, and she liked it. One thing has led to another over the years. We both applied to move in here three years ago when these buildings were built, and with having all that in common we see,” she gulped, “or rather we saw, each other every week.”
I sipped my coffee and looked at her expectantly as she took a bite of her bagel. This was not answering my question.
“Almost everyone liked Amelia. You did, too, didn’t you?”
“Why, yes, I did,” I replied, rather surprised by her inquiry. I looked more closely at my guest. Her blue eyes were keen in her weathered face. One could be fooled by Miss Carey’s thin little voice and the old-fashioned pin curl hairdo she still wore into dismissing her as a foolish old maid. That would have been a mistake. I knew Anne Carey was retired from a distinguished career as a school superintendent. She was nowhere near her dotage yet. “Why do you ask?”
“She liked you too. She said you reminded her of June Fisk.”
I wracked my brain to think of who June Fisk could be. Miss Carey saw I could not place her.
“You never knew June. She died late last year but she was an old friend of Amelia’s. They went back to Britain together. I believe they met during the war. It was because of June she moved out here in the first place. There was no one left for her in New Jersey, you see, and June urged her to come. Amelia said you were a lot like June and you brought back good memories.”
“I never knew that,” I said slowly, “she never mentioned it.”
“Sally, it seems to me, the more I think about it, there were a lot of things she never talked about. She was so good at getting people to talk about themselves or engaging them in conversation about just routine things, like flowers or recipes. But you know most of us old people get to reminiscing sometimes. When Amelia did that, she would tell an interesting story but never really share about her life. Do you know what I mean?”
“I didn’t notice before,” I confessed, “because our relationship was not as close as yours. But yes, I do know what you’re saying. This still does not tell me why you want me to go through Mrs. Marsh’s things with you and the Southbys,” I added.
“Because,” she replied slowly, deliberately, “I think you would have a good eye and because Amelia would not mind. The police are going through all of her personal effects but we will be looking at everything in a different way.”
We sipped coffee and gazed idly out onto the patio, where a bird out of sight sang in a clear warble. Miss Carey did not seem to require a quick answer.
“It is possible you know,” I spoke, “we may find out some things we don’t want to know. Most of us have things in our lives we regret.”
“I am fully prepared for that,” my visitor said briskly. “But I have never shirked from the unpleasantness that comes as a part of life.”
I smiled at her broadly. “Miss Carey, I don’t doubt that for a minute. If you want me to be there after the funeral on Sunday you can count on me It is an honor to be asked.”
“If there is anything at all that we can do or anything we can discover to help the police find Amelia’s killer, we must do so,” Miss Carey summed up briskly, and I pretended not to notice the tears welling up behind her glasses.
After Miss Carey left I considered ringing Detective David White to tell him about the conclusion I had come to the night before. Perhaps he already knew it and I would be bothering him unnecessarily. After some more deliberation, a load of laundry thrown into the washer, and getting dressed, I decided to make the call. Expecting at least one middleman and a message machine, it was a surprise to find him not only in his office but almost immediately on line. I told him how sure I was Mrs. Marsh had willingly opened the door to her murderer and what that meant. I also told him about being asked to help go through her personal effects.
“You did say you wanted to know anything I came up with …” I finished lamely.
“I did and still do,” he reassured me, “don’t feel foolish. We suspected what you told me but you add more authenticity to it.” He paused, and then added, “Sally, did you know your neighbor had borne at least one child?”
“I wondered, but she never talked about it.”
“That’s what I’m getting from everyone. She never spoke about children.”
“My impression was, detective, and this was just that, because she never said so directly, was perhaps long ago she and her husband lost their child.”
He mulled over that for a moment, told me again to call him anytime, and rang off.