“Well, we can’t just have my neck hanging in the noose here,” she said. “That’s a very uncomfortable place to be, you know?”
“I’m sure it is,” he said, “but you need to leave the police alone, so they can solve it.”
At that, she laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? This is what I do,” she said, “or, at least, it’s what I was doing.”
“How much of that was cold cases?”
“Mack told you that, didn’t he?” she accused.
“Okay, hang on a minute,” he said. “Somehow I’m missing the train of thought in this conversation.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that a time or two,” she muttered.
“What are you talking about?”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I just need to make some inquiries.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What inquiries? Don’t you go off doing anything rash now. You have no idea what Mack is doing, and what we don’t want to do is cause him any trouble that messes with his ability to find out what actually happened here.”
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “I certainly don’t want to do that.”
“Oh, good, because I—”
“But I also don’t plan on sitting back and doing nothing.”
“That is precisely what you should be doing. Anything else will look like you’re trying to muddy the waters and to make it look like you’re not guilty.”
“But I’m not guilty,” she said reasonably, “so why wouldn’t I?”
His voice took on a tone of alarm. “No, no, no, no. Don’t do anything,” he said. “You’ve got to let Mack handle this.”
“Well, Mack was already here, and he hasn’t a clue who did this,” she said.
“And neither do you,” Nick said firmly. “Please stay out of my brother’s way.”
She frowned into the phone. “Right,” she said, “you don’t know him like I do.”
He gasped in frustration. “No?” he said. “Maybe not, but I know him pretty well, and he is very dedicated to doing what he needs to do.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a little bit of help here and there.” She looked down at her pets and smiled. “And we have a special brand of help.”
“Oh, I don’t like the sound of that,” Nick warned.
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “He’ll understand completely.” And, with that, she hung up. She sat here on her new hand-me-down chair at her new hand-me-down table for a few minutes, just enjoying the view, as she thought about how her world could have completely flipped around so quickly.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said to her animals, “but we didn’t kill her, and so we’ll find out who did.”
With that, she got up, and, just as she did, her phone rang again. She groaned, as she stared down at it. “Goodness, it’s turning into one of those days.” She answered it, when she saw Nan was calling. “Hey, Nan.”
“Did you hear?” Nan’s voice screamed through the phone.
“Yeah. So I heard. She’s dead. The B is dead.”
“Oh, I don’t think you should say it that way,” Nan said.
“I know. I’m not allowed to say anything now because everybody will judge me for it. Now either I’m guilty or I’m gloating or something else,” she said.
“Oh, dear. You’re having a bad morning, aren’t you?” she asked gently.
“Well, Mack was here, asking me questions about where I was during the whole time period that they suspect she was murdered,” she said. “So how do you think that made me feel?”
“Well, you should be excited, since now you actually understand what it’s like to be interviewed,” Nan said. “And you absolutely know Mack doesn’t believe you did it, so it should make you feel really good that he is at least covering all the angles to make sure he finds out who did.”
She stared down at the phone in surprise. Then sagged back in her chair. “Oh,” she said, “I guess I hadn’t gotten as far as all that yet.”
“Oh, dear, you were upset with him, I suppose.”
“Well, it wasn’t very nice,” she muttered.
“Of course not, but he didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Not unless he killed her himself.”
“Well, Mack has no reason for doing that,” Nan said in a firm voice.
“No, I suppose not,” she said, “but it did make me wonder.”
“Well, how could you possibly think he would do a thing like that?” Nan asked.
“I don’t know. He’s definitely angry at what my soon-to-be ex-husband and my ex-attorney conspired to do, ensuring I wouldn’t get a thing out of the divorce.”
“So what?” Nan said. “You’ve also left that unhappy marriage and have been free and clear here ever since. So Mack has no reason to hold a grudge against them, and you’ve known him long enough to know that Mack doesn’t hold grudges anyway.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m just feeling a little off this morning.”
“Well, you know what the answer to that is, dear. You need to stand up and to figure out what you’ll do.”
“Well, I’m still trying to get details on it. Mack did tell me that she was stabbed.”
“Ooh,” Nan said, as if she’d just heard a secret. “That’s interesting.”
“It’s also very telling,” she said calmly, as she thought about it. “It does mean it’s up close and personal, often somebody who is holding a grudge.”
“Which could also go along with that ex-husband of yours? We don’t know what all happened between them, but something certainly did, or Robin wouldn’t have been here, attacking you.”
“Yeah, well, it also lines up perfectly for anybody interested in putting me in jail,” she muttered.
“But we know you didn’t do it,” she said. “Besides, what was Robin even doing here in town, besides bothering you?”
“I’m sure that’s another part of this whole mystery we must solve.”
“Did she contact you again?”
“Nope, I don’t think so,” she said. “I wasn’t feeling good yesterday, and my shoulder was pretty sore, so I wasn’t on my laptop or my phone.”
“I’m not even sure you could have stabbed her.”
“I probably could have,” she muttered. “But not without some serious pain.” She frowned at that. “Mack should know that I’m still not in very good shape,” she said.
“Stop blaming Mack,” Nan said firmly. “He is doing exactly what he needs to do.”
Doreen groaned. “I can’t help that it still feels so wrong, like a betrayal.”
“No, honey. The betrayal is the fact that somebody killed her here in our town, making it look like it could have been you. How many people even knew your ex-lawyer was here?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “How many people even knew she existed? I certainly didn’t want her here,” she cried out. “I came here to get away from them.”