Chapter 30

Sarah raced down from Mrs. Noonan’s and pounded on Andy’s door. It opened immediately and she was pounding so hard, she fell in, right into Andy. He was there, in the flesh. He was back.

He held her up and she didn’t let go. She leaned back, eyes riveted on his, biting her lip to keep from crying.

He cocked his head to the side, his lopsided grin hesitant. “I thought you’d be there to greet me after my long journey.” His tone was light, but he stared at her intently.

She held his gaze, mesmerized by his red hair, much longer than when he left, his green eyes, the same color as hers, and that lopsided grin.

“I thought you might be at the airport,” he said a second time.

She had no idea what he was talking about. “How would I meet you? I didn’t know you were coming.”

He dropped his arms and turned his head.

Then Sarah remembered the ICU rotation and her unread e-mail and even texts, and she told him in a gush about her month.

She saw the relief on his face. He took her back into his arms and they stood there. Together.

She had tried not to think too much about Andy while he was gone. Being busy at work certainly helped. When she did think about him, she told herself she was remembering wrong, that her view was distorted by distance, that no one could be that thoughtful, that kind.

But he was. As the days went by, Sarah remembered everything she loved about him. He was sweet, laid back, gentle, and handsome to boot. He was tall and broad and newly freckled from his time in Thailand and India and wherever else he’d been.

They met the day Andy moved into the building, on a rainy, gray day when his dresser tumbled off the moving truck and his prize possession, his grandmother’s piano, got soaked. His calm reaction was quintessential Andy. When she found out he would only be there a few months, she tried to keep her feelings in check. Which was hard, especially when he was so darn nice.

Now it was like he’d never left, except every so often he said words in another language, and he liked his food much spicier, and he drove slower in case a cow roamed into the street. Being with him was easy and comfortable and exciting.

As Frances Noonan predicted, Andy was able to find exactly what she wanted. Even before he formally started back to work, he combed the archives of the Philadelphia Inquirer and came up with an immense amount of information. Sarah relayed the information to the Fog Ladies as they gathered in Alma Gordon’s apartment for their weekly card game.

Joseph and Shelley Stalk had been married four years. Joseph Stalk had been arrested early in the marriage for domestic abuse, but Shelley wouldn’t press charges and the matter was dropped. They were shopping the day of the murder, and the clerk in the department store heard several sharp words from Mr. Stalk. Nine-month-old Joey Stalk was found alone in the lobby of the building by a neighbor returning from walking her dog. She took the child up to the Stalk’s apartment where she stated Mr. Stalk appeared surprised and angry. Mr. Stalk did not appear concerned about Shelley, said she was likely in the building somewhere and he had a ball game to watch. The neighbor, Mrs. Barbara Burkheimer, initiated a search on her own, telling the police later that she knew Shelley would never leave little Joey alone even for a moment. She found her easily in the back of her unlocked car, covered with a blue baby blanket. She had been strangled with her own scarf after being hit on the head with a blunt object. The police think Mr. Stalk had not yet had time to dispose of the body and had left the child in the lobby to be able to carry down the tools to do the job. A shovel and a pair of work gloves were in the apartment in the front hall next to the door. Mr. Stalk insisted he had planned to dig a sandpit for his child.

Shelley Stalk had a half-a-million-dollar life insurance policy through work and a second half-a-million policy that each spouse carried on their own. They had purchased the supplemental policies a year before, soon after Mr. Stalk began an affair with a client he met at his job as a Mercedes salesman. The woman, Ms. Theresa Sinclair, was cooperating with police and told them Mr. Stalk promised many times to leave his wife and even alluded to “never having to work again.”

The boy, Joey, was now almost two, and living with his mother’s sister, Evelyn Ringley, in Petaluma. Andy had an address for them but could not come up with a telephone number.

“I think that’s about everything.” Sarah smiled in spite of the seriousness of the conversation. She was like a kid at Christmas, always grinning, always happy, now that Andy was home. She looked around the room. The Fog Ladies were not silent for long.

“What kind of a father could do such a thing, possibly right in front of the child? What a sad and sordid story,” said Olivia Honeycut in her low voice.

“I knew Andy could help us,” said Frances Noonan.

“All men are vile,” said Harriet Flynn.

“A coldhearted killer,” Mrs. Honeycut agreed.

“No worse than our own killer, stabbing his wife over and over with the kitchen shears,” said Enid Carmichael.

“Oh, dear. Oh, dear,” said Alma Gordon, who stood apart from the others, perhaps because she was hosting.

“We do not know that!” said Mrs. Noonan from the other side of the room.

“You are grasping at air,” rasped Mrs. Honeycut. “These men are killers, blinded by money.”

“And sex,” said Mrs. Carmichael.

“Human flesh…” said Mrs. Flynn.

“Oh, dear. Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Gordon.

“Ladies, ladies,” said Mrs. Noonan. “We are here for the child. To see if this sister can help us at all with Ben.”

“Well, we have an address,” said Mrs. Carmichael. “What are we waiting for?”