Doreen pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m not so sure.”
“No, no. You don’t understand. Nelly’s not like that.”
“Has she ever done anything like this before?”
“No, that’s the thing. She’s never left an outing like this before, especially not driving off in the van and stranding everyone. She’s the most perfect person you ever saw.”
“Nan.”
“I know you won’t believe me. As far as you’re concerned, this is all in my imagination.”
“No, not at all,” Doreen stated firmly. “Yet obviously we need to sort it out.”
“You’ll come down then, right?”
And such a note of eagerness filled her grandmother’s tone that again Doreen had to wonder. “Come down?”
“Yes. I told you. Nelly’s here, absolutely crying her heart out.”
“Oh, ouch. Yes, her sister has passed on. Of course she’ll be distraught.”
“No, it’s not that,” Nan corrected in a dry tone. “Nelly won’t talk to anybody but you.”
“Double ouch,” Doreen muttered to herself. “Okay, but, if it’s connected to this case, I must call Mack in.”
Silence came from the other end. “I suppose you must, don’t you?” Nan replied reluctantly.
“Yes, but, of course, we don’t know if Nelly’s desire to speak with me is connected to Ella’s death, or do we?” Doreen asked her grandmother.
“I don’t know that it’s connected, but I’m assuming it is,” Nan stated, with unusual honesty.
“Right, in that case …”
“No, you come here first, sort it out, and then, if you feel you must, you can call Mack.”
“Great. He may not look at it quite the same way.”
At that, her spirits slowly returning, Nan declared, “Too bad. One of us is hurting, and we must help them.” And, with that, she disconnected.
Doreen sighed loudly but knew what she had to do. “Guys, how about we walk down to Nan’s?”
Mugs wasn’t offering any argument to that at all. By the time she got everybody out of the house, and they saw where they were going, they raced ahead of her toward Rosemoor—almost as if they understood that, right now, some craziness was going on.
And, of course, craziness was one thing, but this craziness? That was a whole other problem. As Doreen walked, her mind wondered, Exactly what is going on here? If this was in any way connected to Ella’s death, Doreen must phone her favorite detective.
She smiled at the beautiful creek, as it trickled alongside her, happily bubbling away. She hadn’t realized how much the water mattered to her, but, boy, oh boy, this was hard to live without. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else now. It was such a joy to be here.
Nan had done so incredibly well, not only for herself but now for Doreen, having bought her house so long ago. And back then it must have gone for a tidy sum, even calculated in sums adjusted for that year. Doreen had no idea what its value was now because the value to her was priceless. She couldn’t even imagine selling.
As Doreen came around the corner and headed toward the Rosemoor parking lot, Nan impatiently shifted from foot to foot outside her patio on the grass. That was disturbing in itself because Nan was always this calm, at-peace person. Sure she got excited about events, but she rarely got this distraught.
As Doreen drew nearer, Nan saw her, smiled, and came running. “Hey.”
“This has really got you rattled, hasn’t it?” Doreen asked, giving her grandmother a hug.
She nodded, and then she lowered her voice. “I don’t want to think that Nelly killed her.”
At that, Doreen stopped in her tracks. “Oh Good Lord, do you really think that’s what happened?”
“No. … I don’t know,” Nan muttered, “but, of course, I’m worried about it.”
“Of course you are.” Doreen gave Nan another hug. Almost immediately Mugs jumped up to get into the middle. Nan chuckled and bent over, giving him a big hug and then one for Goliath, while Thaddeus jumped onto her back, surprising her. Still chuckling, she slowly straightened, as Thaddeus worked his way up to her shoulder and snuggled in against her neck.
“Thaddeus loves Nan. Thaddeus loves Nan.”
“And you, my dear, are such a sweetheart,” she replied warmly. She spent another moment just cuddling the animals, looking over at Doreen. “Every time somebody here loses family, it reminds me how grateful I am that you’re with me, dear.”
Doreen winced. “I was thinking something along that line too,” she said softly. “We’ve had an awful lot of cases where people have lost family and friends, and it’s been pretty rough.”
“Absolutely,” Nan agreed. “And, when you think you know all about what’s going on, and then something like this happens, you realize you really don’t have a clue.”
Doreen had definitely considered that too, time and time again. Nothing she could do but agree with Nan. “Let’s hope that this one’s fairly simple,” she suggested in a reassuring manner.
“I hope so, but I don’t know,” Nan murmured. “Nelly’s pretty upset.”
Instead of going to her patio for tea, Nan took Doreen inside, through her small apartment, and down the hallway to a completely different section of Rosemoor. Doreen followed along, not at all sure where she was going. When Nan finally came to a closed door and knocked, they heard a soft voice inside. Nan stepped inside and motioned for Doreen to follow.
Doreen came in behind Nan to find Nelly sitting there on her couch, a great big wad of tissues in her hand, several boxes of them beside her, with multiple balls of them all around her on the floor. Nelly’s face was puffy and red, looking as if she had lost her best friend. Or, in this case, her sister.
Doreen walked over and sat down and gave Nelly a gentle hug. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she whispered. At that, Nelly started to bawl even louder. “I am sorry,” Doreen repeated and gave Nelly several moments to compose herself, looking at Nan.
Nan said, “I’ll put on some tea.” She disappeared out into the hallway again, presumably to get tea from Rosemoor’s kitchen. Doreen wondered at that, but, hey, sometimes you couldn’t make sense of anything around this place.
Doreen waited, but, when Nelly showed no signs of calming down, Doreen mentioned, “Nan brought me here because you wanted to speak with me?”
At that, Nelly nodded, took several deep breaths, trying to bring her emotions under control, and then whispered in a low tone, “I killed her.”
Chapter 3
Shocked, Doreen wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that announcement. She stared at the tiny woman beside her and asked, “What do you mean, you killed her?”
She stared at Doreen. “I killed her,” she repeated more stoutly. “I got so angry.”
“How did you kill her?” Doreen asked.
“I hit her. I knocked her down. Boy, was she surprised,” Nelly admitted, and then she started to cry again.
“Okay, and then what did you do?”