I hate the world. Everything comes into it so clean and goes out so dirty.
—Cornell Woolrich, Cover Charge
“GIVE ME A MINUTE, EDDIE.”
With a sigh, I pulled my phone from the pocket of my slacks. I made a quick call to Sadie on her personal cell because I didn’t want to tie up the store phone. My aunt was obviously busy with a customer, so I left a voice mail message that I was okay and on my way back.
Eddie opened the police car door for me. Thankfully I was riding on the passenger side, and not in the back seat.
“Look, Eddie, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I found Norma’s sister’s address. I didn’t mean to hold out on you, I just wanted to talk to Norma—”
“Without a policeman around.” It wasn’t a question.
“I didn’t want to frighten her off.”
“Norma would never have run from me, Pen. But you couldn’t have known that,” Eddie insisted. “Anyway, it’s water under the bridge now. You didn’t find Norma. Instead, you got yourself into a peck of trouble.”
“I didn’t talk to anyone. Someone killed Norma’s sister the moment I arrived.”
“Dottie Willard is not Norma’s sister,” Eddie said as he started the car.
“What?” I cried over the roar of the engine.
“They’re not related. Dorothy Willard is an only child. She never had children, either. In fact, she was never married. I found out when I asked Detective Toland if the next of kin had been notified.”
“What’s her connection to Norma, then?”
Eddie shook his head. “None that I can find.”
“Did they work together?”
“I doubt it. Dorothy Willard moved to Millstone fairly recently, about two years ago. She was raised here. Prior to that she worked on the domestic staff for some wealthy family in Palm Beach, Florida.”
Eddie hit the gas pedal as soon as he left the outskirts of Millstone behind.
“While the crime scene unit was working, I went around the neighborhood and asked people if they knew Dorothy Willard, or if they’d seen a white van in the vicinity.”
“Any luck?”
“Nobody remembered seeing Norma or her van,” Eddie answered. “Dorothy Willard’s closest neighbor said she never had visitors. Meanwhile, the guy up the block said he conversed only once with Dorothy, when he came across her while fishing in the woods. He said she was friendly enough, but all they did was make small talk.”
“Anything else?”
“The woman on the other end of the block said she talked to Dottie Willard several times. Two weeks ago she mentioned to Dottie that she loved the flowers around her house. The next afternoon Dottie turned up on her doorstep with a bunch of potted plants. The woman wanted to pay for the plants, but Dottie said they were free, that she collected them in the woods—”
“What kind of plants?”
Eddie shrugged. “More of those purple blossoms, I guess. The neighbor had them planted all over her yard just like Dottie.”
“Do you think maybe Dottie Willard led the van life, like Norma, part of the year anyway?”
Eddie shook his head. “There’s a Buick registered to her name. That’s it.”
“So, who murdered poor Dottie and why?”
That question hung in the air for a minute. Then I asked—
“How did Max Braydon find out about Dottie in the first place? What exactly led him to show up at her house today?”
“I don’t have answers to any of those questions, Pen. I know as little as you do.”
“Okay, then what do you know about Max Braydon?”
“The same answer. Nothing.”
“Well, Eddie, don’t you think you should find out? I mean, he had you thrown off the case, insulted you, and then decided I was the devil incarnate.”
I saw a light go on behind Eddie’s eyes. A moment later, he pulled over to the side of the road.
“Back in a minute, Pen. I have to make a phone call.”