She frowned. “What do you mean, what did I do?”
“Afterward.”
“I ran,” Nelly shared. “I was scared. I didn’t mean to hurt her. Well, I did mean to hurt her, but I didn’t mean to hurt her, hurt her.”
It was a little garbled, but, through the tears and the tissues, Doreen finally managed to get the rest of the story.
Earlier this morning Nelly had gone to the airport—stealing the Rosemoor van for this—to pick up Ella, knowing her sister was arriving. When Ella saw Nelly, the two sisters got in a big argument, and Nelly had hit Ella and then had run away. She’d come back in the Rosemoor van to the shopping mall to meet up with the other Rosemoor residents and had been in a terrible mood ever since.
The fact of the matter was, Nelly wasn’t allowed to drive the Rosemoor van, and she wasn’t allowed to go to the airport on her own. So all kinds of things were wrong with that scenario, but all kinds of things were right too.
“Were you supposed to pick up Ella?” Doreen asked.
“No. She had texted me from Vancouver, and we’d been having a doozie of a fight ever since. … When she landed, she still had to clear customs and had to get her luggage, but she was texting me the whole time, telling me what a rotten sister I was, how she would pull me out of Rosemoor, make me go to another home, one I don’t want to go to,” she added, her gaze flashing, as her temper kicked in.
“Did she have the power to make that happen?” Doreen asked curiously.
At that, Nelly frowned at her. “I don’t know, but she told me that she did.”
“Which makes it as good a threat as any,” Doreen noted.
The other woman nodded slowly. “It sure felt real.”
“Yes, of course it did,” Doreen agreed. “Okay, so what else?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Nelly stared at her.
“No. You hit her, knocked her down, hopped into the van, and came home, right?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Okay, so having told me that, why would you think that killed her?”
“She was found at the airport,” she stated in astonishment, “and I hit her.”
“So you think you hit her hard enough to kill her?”
“Yes, yes, that’s exactly what I think,” she admitted. Then she stopped and asked, “Don’t you?”
“I’m not so sure,” Doreen replied. “That’s not how I thought it happened.”
Nelly sat back and frowned. “Really?”
Doreen nodded. “Did you hit her with your hand?”
She winced. “I hit her with a book.”
“Okay, what book?” At that question, Nelly picked up the nearby book. As the self-help title flashed by, Doreen eyed Nelly and barely held back her smile. “That looks like a good book.”
“It is. I’m trying to be a better person,” Nelly stated.
Doreen wanted to note how maybe Nelly was failing at that but didn’t think that was terribly fair to say right now. “The book is about controlling your emotions. I gather you have a problem with your emotions flying out of control?”
Nelly nodded, shamefaced. “Yes, and Ella’s been on my case since forever to fix it. I thought I was.”
“I’m sure you were trying,” Doreen said. “This isn’t easy.”
“No, it isn’t,” Nelly wailed. “It’s terrible. And it always seems as if I’m the one in the wrong.”
Doreen didn’t say much to that, but she’d certainly known of quite a few relationships where one person was made to feel as if they were always in the wrong. “Okay, so what was Ella doing when you left?”
Nelly shook her head, then shrugged. “I don’t know. After hitting her, I hopped in the Rosemoor van, and I left.”
“Okay, well, at least that’s something. Was she lying down?”
Nelly nodded. “Yes, she stumbled and fell backward.”
“Okay, I must tell Mack about this,” Doreen stated, “but I don’t think this is as bad as you think it is.”
Nelly stared at her, but a glimmer of hope filled Nelly’s gaze. “You don’t think so? How is that possible?”
“I’m not sure yet. So I won’t say too much at the moment, not until I get this figured out. However, we will get it figured out,” she explained calmly.
Nelly looked at her hopefully. “Seriously, will you help?”
“Oh, absolutely I will help,” Doreen confirmed. “What was the reason behind the argument?”
The poor woman flushed. “I took something of hers.”
“What did you take?”
At that, Nelly pinched her lips together. “I don’t know that I should tell.”
“Your sister can’t get it back, so it’s too late to ask for forgiveness. However, the police are looking at who killed her, and they need to know all the details,” Doreen shared in a reasonable tone. “So, regardless, you’ll need to hand it over, and I would like to know what it is first.”
“Why?” Nelly asked bluntly.
“Because Ella’s connected to several cold cases,” Doreen replied. “And we were all really hoping to get answers from her as soon as she landed.”
Nelly nodded at that. “She was pretty upset that you talked to her when she was here.” At that, Nelly stared at Doreen.
“Yet she didn’t appear upset at all—not at the time,” said Doreen.
“She was,” Nelly stated bluntly. “She was upset that you brought up Bob Small.”
“Okay, what can you tell me about Bob Small?”
“They were lovers, for quite a while.”
“And did Ella know about his … activities?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what activities you’re talking about.”
And, of course, that would always be the next thing. Did Nelly know? For that matter, how much did Ella know? “Okay, what broke them up?”
“He disappeared. We don’t know how, why, or when, but they had a big fight, and he just disappeared.”
“Okay, and how long ago was that?”
“A long time ago,” Nelly noted, “at least ten years, if not twice that.”
“He went to jail, didn’t he?” Doreen asked.
Nelly frowned at that. “I don’t know whether he did or not. He should have. He was a bad man.” She had said it in such a simplistic way that it was obvious she believed it. Yet, from her tone of voice, Nelly didn’t really expect anybody else would believe it.
“I certainly believe that too,” Doreen admitted.
Nelly eyed her in surprise. “My sister always told me that he was misunderstood.”
“I don’t think he was so much misunderstood as much as he was a bad man,” Doreen replied bluntly.
At that, Nelly immediately nodded with enthusiasm. “I kept telling her to leave him alone, to stay away, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Sisters are like that,” Doreen noted, with a smile. “Particularly older sisters. You’re not supposed to know more than them.”
Nelly chuckled. “I often had a problem with that. … We used to fight a lot growing up, but somewhere along the line,” she added, her tone turning sad, “I lost the fight and then the will to fight.”