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Al (Al & Karen) Wednesday 4:30 p.m.
While Karen was inside making dinner, Ron came by to let me know the other guys had agreed to investigate the cold case we’d been asked to look into. He said Alice was as excited about it as Julie was, which meant it was time for me to tell Karen.
When I went inside, all I could see of my wife was her rear end. While the casserole she’d made from last night’s leftovers baked, Karen was cleaning out the refrigerator. I swallowed a grunt of irritation. While I get that a trailer is small and you have to limit what you keep, my wife makes culling food an art form. I have to hold on to items I want with both hands.
A jar of pickles sat on the counter. “Don’t throw away my kosher dills.”
“They’ve been in there for a month.”
“They’re pickles, Karen. They last a while.”
“But you’re not eating them.”
“I will. Give me time.”
Reluctantly, she put the jar back onto a door shelf. When she put a hand on a bowl of leftover scalloped potatoes I said, “I’ll have those for lunch tomorrow.”
She frowned at the new monkey wrench I’d tossed into her plans. “I was going to make you a grilled cheese sandwich tomorrow and use up this cheddar.” Karen usually skips lunch because she thinks she’s overweight.
“The cheese will last another day. I’ll eat the potatoes tomorrow and have grilled cheese on Friday.”
Pursing her lips, she pushed the bowl aside. “What about this salsa? Are you going to eat the little bit that’s left in the jar?”
“I opened a new jar.”
Her face appeared over the refrigerator door. “Why?”
“There wasn’t enough in that jar, so I opened the new one.”
Silence indicated that was the wrong answer, so I didn’t object when she threw it into the trash. I’d have mixed the two once there was room in the second jar, but it wasn’t worth arguing about.
“You know, Al,” she said as she set several plates on the counter, “not everything in the fridge has to be on the top shelf.”
“I like stuff where I can see it.”
“But when it’s all crowded together, you can’t tell what’s there.” She moved some lunch meat and a loaf of bread to the bottom shelf. “The tall shelf is only for tall stuff, like milk jugs and pop bottles.”
Since Karen does the lion’s share of the work around our place, I promised myself I’d try to remember to do it the way she wants. Still, I don’t get why a guy can’t set stuff where he doesn’t have to bend over to get at it.
“That cop that investigated the murder last month came to see Ron and Julie,” I said as Karen opened a jar of mayonnaise and sniffed it. “They’re looking for a guy that might be living at B-Bird under an assumed name.”
She stopped rearranging and closed the refrigerator door. “Really.”
“Yeah. He wants some of us to do a secret canvass to find out who it might be.” I explained what I knew of the case, adding that Ron had gotten permission from the detective to include us as helpers.
She was every bit as skeptical as I’d feared. “You’re telling me the police want a bunch of senior citizens to do a secret investigation.”
“Ron thinks they don’t expect to get a result,” I said honestly. “He guesses somebody up in Nashville never forgot the murders, maybe a cop who hates that his first case never got solved. The people at our P.D. want to be able to tell their fellow officers they made an honest attempt to find the guy, but they doubt it’s going to happen.”
Karen’s nose wrinkled. “How would we go about looking for this mystery man?”
“Ron says we’ll sit down together tomorrow and figure that out.”
In spite of herself, Karen was interested. “One of us could say we had relatives living up there at the time.”
“But wouldn’t that make whoever killed them clam up like a...” I couldn’t come up with anything except, “...clam?”
“Maybe, but we’d watch how the suspect reacts when we mention the murders. A guilty person would show some sign of nervousness.”
Karen’s use of the word suspect told me she’d come over to my side. Maybe she needed a changed from medical bills and doctor appointments as much as I did.
We talked all through supper about how we might judge a guy’s reaction. Our ideas ranged from practical to ridiculous, and it felt kind of like a game. At several points one of us said aloud that this was serious, not merely a diversion for old people. Still, for once Karen and I had a new, intriguing topic of conversation. Not the weather, not the date of my next blood test, and not how fast I’m supposed to finish off a jar of kosher dills.
