The side door was open. It sounded like a vacuum cleaner was going full blast. Mary walked in and abruptly stopped. The room was not at all as she had last seen it. Well, a lot of it wasn’t. The big items hadn’t been moved but the baby cribs were in one corner, the racks holding the clothes were pushed up against them and the tables that had been lined up through the center of the room, items neatly folded and displayed, had been pushed to one side. The items were no longer neat. Toasters sat on jackets; baby clothes were mixed with dog food dishes. It looked like a hurricane had gone through. The makeshift curtains that had hidden Miss Emilie were gone. The back wall was once more bare.
Caleb was vacuuming up white powder from the floor with the church’s commercial vacuum. He stopped when he saw her, turned it off and walked over to her. ‘Thought I’d come over and see how much damage those cops did. Not too bad, for cops. I’m trying to clean up what they didn’t. Took down those curtains, too. Don’t think any of the ladies would want to try on clothes in the same place Miss Emilie died.’
‘No,’ Mary said a bit faintly, wondering how Caleb knew how cops usually left things. ‘You’re probably right. What’s the kitchen like?’ For the first time, it occurred to her that probably no one had cleaned out the coffeepot. She hoped it had been turned off. If not, they’d have no coffee anytime soon.
‘Wasn’t too bad. Someone dumped the grounds and put the pot in the sink. I’ll get to all that after I finish this.’
‘Caleb, this is wonderful. I can’t thank you enough.’ She was already going through her list of volunteers, thinking who she could call to come over and re-do all the tables, put up some kind of dressing area and make sure everything was ready for Thursday morning. ‘Will you be able to push those tables back where we had them or do you want to wait until I can get some help?’
‘I pushed them over there. Guess I can push them back. Don’t know why the cops had to mess up these tables like that. They must have been looking for something, but I don’t know what. They vacuumed up where she … you know … pretty good, I can understand that, but they left the rest a mess.’
She had to agree. Dan would get a phone call. She was so absorbed in trying to think how they’d get everything back together she almost missed what Caleb was saying.
‘You heard about Gloria Sutherland, I guess.’ Caleb’s eyes had narrowed to almost a squint. He stared at Mary with an intensity she found a little unnerving.
‘Yes. It’s hard to believe she could lose her footing and fall like that. A real tragedy.’ Why she was avoiding the word ‘murder,’ she didn’t know. Everyone in town thought Gloria had been murdered, or did they? ‘Poor thing.’
‘Poor thing, my foot. She wasn’t a nice woman.’ He paused and an almost-calculating look passed over his face. ‘Lorraine hated her.’
‘What?’ Mary didn’t know what startled her more, Caleb’s disregard for Gloria’s fate or his willingness to, by innuendo, implicate his wife. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Gloria was a snoop. Lorraine found her in Miss Emilie’s room, going through her things on more than one occasion. She found her going through Miss Eloise’s bank books, too. She kept that kind of stuff in a desk in her bedroom, and Gloria was thumbing through it one day like it belonged to her. Plus, she ordered Lorraine around like she was a servant. “Bring me tea … This soup is cold … Miss Emilie shouldn’t eat beef.” She was on her back all the time. Lorraine couldn’t stand that woman.’
Mary didn’t know what to say. The only thing surprising about any of this was Caleb’s willingness to talk. ‘What did you think of Gloria?’
‘Hardly knew the woman. You want me to put up new curtains? We could put them in that corner. I’ll put the tables back in the middle and if I move those old wicker chairs I can set up a real nice area for the ladies.’ He started to say something more, closed his mouth then opened it again. His eyes shifted to the jumble of stuff on the long tables. ‘Lorraine’s been looking for that little dog Miss Emilie carried around. She thinks it ought to be buried with her but it doesn’t seem to be around. According to Mrs Brown it got put in one of the boxes she donated to your sale. You wouldn’t know where it got to, would you?’
What was there about that pathetic stuffed dog? Why was everybody so concerned about it? Mary decided she’d have another look at it before she turned it over to anyone. ‘I’m sure it will turn up. Now, I’m going to make some phone calls and see if we can get help putting this all back together.’
‘Yeah.’ Caleb kept his squinty-eyed stare on her for a moment then drifted down to Millie, who sat close beside Mary, not stirring, not wagging, but returning Caleb’s stare. Caleb blinked first, grabbed his vacuum cleaner and headed for the wall socket to unplug it.
Mary watched him for a minute, thinking about their conversation, then took out her cell phone and scrolled down through her contacts, looking for someone to call to come and help them.