HELEN MARCHED OUT of Sheriff Biddle’s office feeling as baffled as ever by the day’s events. It was past noon already, she noticed, checking her wristwatch. She picked up her pace, her shoes tapping on the sidewalk as she headed past the McCaffreys’—and their barking dog—then by the Kramers’ picket fence until she finally reached home.
Amber reclined on the green-painted steps leading up to the porch. He rolled onto his feet as she approached. His back arched as he stretched and his tail lifted straight into the air. He raised a paw to tug at the screen door, banging it against the frame as if to say, For God’s sake, woman, where have you been? Let me in!
“I hope you had a better morning than I did,” she told him and pushed the door wide. He turned his yellow eyes upward and blinked before he trotted past, his tail swishing as he loped toward the kitchen.
“Nancy?” Helen called as she came in from the porch. “Sweetheart, are you here?”
“Upstairs, Grandma,” she shouted in reply.
Helen ignored Amber’s howls—they were the “feed me now” kind, as opposed to the “pet me this instant” or “don’t you think it’s time for fresh kitty litter?” Grabbing hold of the banister, she trudged up the creaking stairs to the attic. She felt tired, she realized, but then she hadn’t been sleeping well, and with good cause. Add to that all the running around town she’d been doing, and it was no wonder her knees ached and her feet felt sore. It was at times like this that she remembered she was seventy-five. She was supposed to be relaxing in her sunset years, not dogging the local sheriff in a murder investigation.
But then Helen figured she’d never been good at relaxing. Not even when she and Joe had vacationed. She was a doer. She wasn’t good at sitting still. When she kept busy, she didn’t feel like seventy-five; she didn’t feel any particular age at all. She just felt alive. Doing the things she loved had kept her going after Joe had died. Why would she want to slow down now?
As she reached the top step, Helen paused, catching her breath and thinking of just how far she’d come after losing her husband. She decided she could get through near about anything after that, even Sheriff Biddle all but accusing her granddaughter of murder.
“Nancy?”
“In here,” called a voice from within the bathroom.
Helen crossed the wood floor and poked her head in, expecting to find the girl soaking in a sea of bubbles. Instead, she found Nancy gathering her toiletries and stuffing them into a small canvas bag.
“What’s going on?” she asked, pausing in the doorway. “You’re not going back to your apartment already?”
“I think it’s time I did.”
“But it’s only been a few days.”
Nancy dropped a tube of toothpaste into the bag and looked up. Her hair was drawn off her face by blue barrettes, and her face was devoid of makeup. If she’d had braces on her teeth, she would have looked exactly like her thirteen-year-old self, not the twenty-three-year-old woman she’d become. “I want to thank you for letting me stay with you, but I need to get back on my own two feet.”
“You’ve been through so much,” Helen said, biting her tongue before she added, and it’s not over yet.
“Grandma, listen.” Nancy ceased putting things in her bag. “I’m okay. I really am. Being fired by Grace one day and finding her dead the next threw me for a loop. But I’ll get through it.”
“The sheriff thinks—” Helen started to say, unable to forget her very recent conversation with Biddle in his office. Despite professing to look at other suspects, he still had his sights set on Nancy.
“I’m not worried about him,” Nancy said. “He’ll find who really killed Grace sooner or later, and he’ll realize I had nothing to do with it.”
“Of course he will.”
“Of course,” Nancy echoed. She picked up her canvas bag and dropped in a compact and her toothbrush before zipping it closed.
She brushed past Helen and went into the attic room, where a larger canvas bag lay half filled atop the quilted bedspread. Helen followed, taking a seat on an overstuffed chair. “Could I ask you a question, sweetheart?”
“Sure,” Nancy said without so much as glancing up.
“Now don’t take this the wrong way,” Helen began, not sure how to put it. “But I was wondering about you and Max.”
Nancy’s chin jerked up. “Me and Max Simpson?”
Helen fiddled with a button coming loose from the chair’s tufting. “When I saw you across the bridge, talking with him, he seemed pretty, um, passionate.”
“Passionate?”
“He cheated on Grace, right?” Helen said and gazed straight into Nancy’s flushed face. “His alibi for the night Grace was killed was another woman, and a married one at that. So I couldn’t help thinking that maybe you and he—”
“You think I slept with Max?” Nancy interrupted. But instead of answering, she pressed her lips together and forcefully shoved several pairs of socks into her duffel bag.
“Did you?”
“Grandma!”
“Nancy, please,” Helen said, getting up from the chair and going over to the bed. “It’s important that I know what’s going on. If you don’t tell me now, I’m sure the sheriff will find out, and he could take it all the wrong way.”
Nancy stood stock-still for a moment. Then she dropped onto the bed and sighed. “I didn’t sleep with him,” she said, shaking her head. “He did drop by the office a few times to see Grace, and he hit on me big-time.” She squirmed. “Maybe he asked me out once or twice, but I didn’t go.”
“Did Grace know?”
“I don’t think so,” Nancy said. “If she had, she would’ve fired me long ago. Besides, he had plenty of other women. That’s why Grace wouldn’t take him back. Well, that and the money.”
“What money?” Helen asked, and her heart pounded faster. “Did he steal from her?”
Nancy shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. Grace just complained about him trying to bleed her dry. But I could tell that she still loved him. I think that’s why the divorce wasn’t final when she died.” She cocked her head. “So is this inquisition done?”
“Inquisition?” Helen feigned offense. “I’m as bad as all that?”
Nancy smiled and approached, kissing the top of her grandmother’s head. “You’re very curious, that’s all,” she said. “Curious as a cat.”
Then she picked up her bag, hooking its strap across a shoulder. “I’ll bring my laptop over tomorrow and hang out with you while I hunt for a new job online. Is that all right?”
Helen stood. “You’re welcome here anytime.”
She followed her granddaughter downstairs and walked her to the porch. From behind the screens, she stood and watched as Nancy headed up the road. The girl turned once to wave before she went around the bend and was gone.