Mary walked in her back door as her doorbell rang. Millie careened through the house, barking. She only quit when Mary picked her up and opened the door to let in Mo Black.
‘Noisy, isn’t she?’ He held his hand out for Millie to smell.
She evidently decided she knew him because she quit barking and wagged her stub of a tail. Mary set her down and she immediately headed for the guest bedroom, now the computer room, and lay down on the old quilt Mary had left folded by the desk.
‘I guess she remembers me.’ Mo Black and Mary followed Millie into the room.
‘Sometimes it takes her a minute to decide it’s all right for someone to come in. I think you’re now on her acceptable list.’
Mo grinned. ‘Good thing.’ He laid a folder on the desk, stood back and indicated Mary should take the chair. ‘Let’s see you log on.’
Mary worked her way through logging into several websites and accessed her bank account. Mo pronounced her ready to email. ‘Do you remember how to do that?’
She didn’t. At least, not at first. Finally, she remembered and there it was. An empty email list. No. There was one email, welcoming her to the wonderful world of instant mail.
‘Today we’re going to practice sending and receiving emails and setting up separate folders of email addresses for different purposes. You’ll need that for all your committees.’
An hour later Mary had successfully emailed Ellen twice, had an email back from her, which she opened, and started two lists. Now all she needed were the addresses of people to put on them. She felt euphoric, as if she’d accomplished something monumental, and was completely exhausted.
Mo got up, stretched and handed Mary the notebook. ‘These are printouts of everything we’ve gone over today. When you try to do this stuff by yourself and realize you have no idea what to do next, just look in here. There are lessons on Word and some other things, but don’t try them until I come back. Which will be … Do you remember how to find the calendar?’
She didn’t, but there it was, on page five. She entered it. Day after tomorrow, at four p.m. She smiled and stood. ‘Before you leave I’d like to ask you a non-computer question, if you don’t mind?’
Mo Black’s face changed from friendly to wary and all traces of a smile vanished. ‘Depends on what it is.’
Feeling somewhat embarrassed, but why she didn’t know, Mary plowed on. ‘There’s a Mr Eric Wilson in town and I was told you were talking to him in the alley behind Lowell’s a few weeks ago. Can you tell me if that’s true?’
‘Can you tell me why you want to know?’ There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice. It might have been a nosy question but she hadn’t expected this degree of antagonism. She had to think for a second how to phrase her answer.
‘Mr Wilson is with the California Bureau of Investigation. It was his partner who was murdered at the Fourth of July celebration. He’s here investigating his death. We … that is, Dan Dunham … understood he’d never been in town before but I was told he had been seen talking to David. I wanted to know if Mr Wilson was … not telling our own police something important.’
Mo didn’t say anything for what seemed a long time. A hardness had developed around his mouth and seemed to cloud his eyes. ‘My nephew, Dave and I, we’ve known – if that’s the correct term – Eric Wilson for about ten years. He was one of the arresting officers of my brother and his wife. David’s parents. Dave was seven then. He keeps showing up from time to time like a bad penny. That was him in the alley, talking to me.’
Mary was too stunned to say anything for a moment. ‘But why? Is he worried about David?’
If that was it, why had he not mentioned it?
Mo’s snort wasn’t laughter. ‘He’s been certain for years I had some part in what my brother and his wife were doing. He tried to tie me to them then and he’s still trying. He thought Dave was also somehow involved. Tried to have him put in juvenile hall but there wasn’t one shred of evidence against either one of us. Still isn’t, but no one’s been able to make Wilson believe it.’ He turned to go but paused when Mary held up her hand.
‘Mr Black … Mo … what did your brother and sister-in-law do to …’ Heat crawled up her cheeks. It was an impertinent question but it had escaped before she could stop it.
Mo Black didn’t seem to think so. Instead, a small grim smile appeared. ‘They were convicted of robbing a series of jewelry stores.’