After falling asleep around four a.m., I didn't rouse again until after nine. Somewhere in the back of my memory, I thought I'd had a productive day planned but now I couldn't seem to focus. I showered and dressed in jeans and sweater. I really should go in to the office; there was correspondence waiting, I remembered. But Stacy's plight seemed to loom large. I couldn't help but wonder what had happened when she went home last night, if she went home. I speculated as to whether I should call.
Rusty and I went through our morning breakfast routine then left for the office. We arrived to find Ron pouring coffee into his mug with one hand, gripping his lower back with the other.
"So, how was bowling last night?" I teased.
He shot me a look through pinched eyebrows.
"I thought you were there to surveil not to participate."
"Well, you know. It looks kinda suspicious to sit around a bowling alley all evening and never pick up a ball," he explained.
"And Joey just happened to talk you into throwing a few."
"Yeah, well. . ."
"I'm not gonna ask who won. Obviously, your back didn't."
He ignored that and took his coffee to his own office. I stopped by Sally's desk on my way upstairs. She handed me one pink slip. Sarah Johnson. Sarah Johnson. . . Oh, yes, the one who worked with Jean Detweiller. Now what would she have to tell me?
As it turned out, I had to ponder the question awhile longer. There was no answer at the number she'd given. Assuming she still worked the late shift, maybe I could catch her as she arrived at work this afternoon. This left me without much choice but to go ahead and answer the letters that had stacked up on my desk.
By two o'clock I had that nasty little chore taken care of, Sally had left for the day, and Ron was again glued to his telephone. I slipped a note in front of him, letting him know I was switching on the answering machine and leaving. I'd been wondering how Josh was doing, and since the Detweiller house and Sarah's work were so close together, I might as well make one trip of it.
The boxy little house looked all closed up, with no cars in the driveway when I pulled up to the curb. I knocked on the front door anyway. No response. No big surprise. As I stepped off the porch, I saw a lady in the next yard holding the garden hose sprayer over a flower bed. She raised her hand in a little wave.
"Hi," I said, cutting across the Detweiller drive to approach her.
"Nobody's home there," she said. She leaned a bit closer to me. "The man and his wife were both murdered."
She didn't say "died" or even "killed." This one liked to get the sensational tidbits right into the conversation. I looked closely at her for the first time. She was in her late fifties, with short gray hair mostly hidden by a wide-brimmed gardening hat of turquoise fabric with pink dots the size of quarters all over it. Her pink garden gloves were nicely color coordinated, although the green slacks and pullover she wore clashed badly with the hat.
"I was hoping to find Josh at home," I told her. "Maybe he's back in school today."
"Oh, I don't think so," she said. "That blond girl was here earlier. I think her name's Casey. They had that music blasting me practically out of my house all morning. Then, about an hour ago they left together."
This woman must do a lot of yard work. She really was up on her neighbor's movements.
"I heard that Mr. Detweiller was killed right here in the driveway," I said. "You probably heard the shot."
"Well, I'm sure I would have, but Wednesday's Buzz and my bowling night. We never get home until after ten. That night, whooee, I mean to tell you, that was some commotion. Those cop cars and ambulance and all, they didn't leave till around midnight. Well, it was ten after, I'd say."
Pegged to the minute, I'm sure.
"What about the other neighbors? Were any of them home?"
"You some kinda investigator?" She narrowed her eyes briefly, scrutinizing me. Just as quickly, she brushed it off. "Well, anyway, I don't know about them others. You know, the people in this neighborhood, they don't look out for each other the way we always used to. I mean, I could be mugged on my own front porch and nobody'd come check on me for a week. Well, just look what happened here." She gestured toward the Detweiller driveway to prove her point.
I nodded, not wanting to slow her down.
"You know what it is? Stereo. That's right. You know they have stereo sound in TV sets now? Yeah. And people play them darn things so loud, why a bomb could go off in their own living room and they'd never hear it." She swung the hose sprayer toward an evergreen at the other side of her own driveway and I had to trot around to keep facing her. "Nope," she said, "I'm not a bit surprised no one heard that man get killed."
We edged our way through her front yard, each shrub getting a minute or two under the shower.
"Now me, if I'da been home, you can bet help woulda come that much faster. I'da heard that shot." She leveled a knowing look at me. I believed her.
"Well, I guess I'll try to catch Josh later," I said, somewhere between the lilacs and the roses.
"That poor boy." She pulled her upper lip down between her teeth, sharing his pain vicariously.
"I'm sure he'll have a tough time of it," I said.
"He's already had a tough time of it. They was always chewing on him for something."
"He'll probably go live with his aunt, I hear."
"I don't know if I've ever met the aunt," she said. "Well, she can't treat him a whole lot worse than the parents. And they kept such weird hours. You know, that mother was out all night. Every night." She tsked over this, like working a night job should have been on the list of mortal sins.
We'd just about made the rounds of the whole front yard by this time, and I didn't think I could handle the back as well, so I found an opening and took it. It seemed unusually peaceful in the car.
It was a little early for Sarah Johnson's work shift, and I remembered I hadn't eaten lunch. Maybe I'd go early and visit with Archie while I forced myself to eat another piece of that homemade pie.
Blueberry was on the menu today, a flavor I can never resist. Archie served it up with his usual graciousness. His whites today had the grease stains in different places, so I could assume that he did change clothes occasionally.
"So. Anything new with your investigation?" he asked.
"Not a lot," I admitted. "Jean's death kind of threw a kink in things, didn't it?"
"'Cause you were thinkin' she done it, right?"
I took a big forkful of pie, not wanting to admit he was right.
"Hey, I mighta thought so, too," he chuckled, "if I hadn't of known Jean so well. She had a temper. Man, that woman could really let you have it. Well, I mean she never let me have the temper, but I've seen her tie into these girls here sometimes."
He glanced up the counter, making sure the other customers weren't listening.
"One night, ol' Gary come by. He was raggin' on her about something, and pow! She let him have it. No way did she take any stuff off that husband of hers."
"But you still didn't think she killed him?"
"Naw. No way. Jean had a quick temper. You pissed her off, she let fly. Whew! The language got pretty hot sometimes. But then it was done. Just that quick. Jean never held nothin' inside. Five minutes later she'd have her arm around you, makin' up. I don't think she had it in her to plan something out, wait around, and strike. Not Jean."
He resumed filling the salt shakers while I finished off the pie. It was a quarter to four, and I decided to wait out in the parking lot for Sarah. Whatever she had to say, she might not want to say it in front of Archie. I put some money beside my empty plate and waved at him down at the other end of the counter.
Sarah's old pickup truck zipped into the lot at one minute to four. Luckily, this time I was safely in my own vehicle, not crossing the lot.
"Hi, Sarah." I approached quickly, wanting to catch her before she went inside. "I got your message, but no one answered your phone."
She seemed breathless and rush
ed. "Oh, yeah," she answered vaguely.
"Look, if you don't have time now, we can talk later. Want me to call you tomorrow?"
She searched mentally to remember why she'd called. "Yeah, that would be better," she said. "Oh, wait, now I know. I just wanted to ask if the police have released Jean's car yet. I loaned her a paperback book, and she'd told me it was out in the car. Then we got busy and I forgot about it. It's no big thing but I would like to get it back sometime."
I hadn't realized that the police had impounded the car. But then, it wasn't at the house, so I guess it made sense.
"Why would they take her car?" I asked.
Sarah was fast-walking toward the back entrance of the diner. I trotted to keep pace.
She stopped and looked puzzled. "Oh, didn't I tell you? The night she was killed, she and I got off work at the same time. We walked out together. There were no other cars in the lot and no one standing around. I was in a hurry so I jumped in my truck and took off." She looked at me with eyes so full of guilt it made me want to cry. "Usually we look out for each other. Make sure both our cars start, you know, just being careful. But that night, I left. And there must have been someone waiting for her in her car."
A chill ran up from the base of my spine to my neck and down both arms.
Chapter 19