Dead in the Doorway

by Diane Kelly

  Becky took only one card. She must have a good hand, too. “The detective came to talk to me and Dad again, too. He asked if Mom had taken anything with her to the house when she went to tell Dakota the house had sold.”

  Roxanne frowned, her fingernails sticking up like bloody daggers as she held her hand. “He left his business card at my house. He’d written a note on it, telling me to call him. I haven’t had a chance yet. I had to run down to Shelbyville Wednesday afternoon and help my daughter with the grandkids. All three of them came down with some type of twenty-four-hour stomach bug, one after the other. I only found the card when I was heading over here.”

  Mary Sue peered over her cards, both her silvery hair and eyeglasses glinting in the overhead light as she sought additional illumination. “He talked to me, too, but I didn’t have anything to tell him. If Nelda was carrying something, shouldn’t it have been obvious? Seems it would’ve fallen onto the stairs or landing, or rolled down the lower steps to the downstairs hallway.” She turned to me. “Did you see anything lying about when you found her?”

  When all other heads turned my way, too, my already flaming face threatened to explode. I shook my head. “No, but I was totally freaked out. I’d just found Nelda, and then Dakota popped up downstairs. I had no idea who he was or why he was in the house. I didn’t even think to look around on the floor. I called nine-one-one, and next thing I knew, paramedics and police officers were swarming everywhere.”

  Gayle issued an affirmative mm-hmm. “That’s what the detective told us, too. He said that if Nelda had been carrying something, one of the first responders could have set it aside or kicked it away on accident.”

  Becky reached for her glass of spiked punch. “What would it matter if Mom had been carrying something? Either way, she tripped and fell.”

  All heads turned my way again. Some cocked in question. Brows rose on others.

  Before I could bite back my words, I blurted, “Why are you all looking at me?”

  Roxanne pointed an accusing finger at me. “Because you’re red as a beet. You know something, don’t you? You know why that detective is still poking around.”

  The joker was right. Darn my lousy poker face! “No!” I insisted. “It’s just that I have a really good hand.”

  They stared at me for a few more seconds as if trying to assess my response.

  Finally, Gayle harrumphed and turned to her friends. “Think she’s bluffing?”

  “About her hand?” Roxanne asked. “Or about whether she has the inside scoop on the investigation?”

  “Either,” Gayle said.

  Mary Sue raised her shoulders. “Who knows?”

  Gayle eyed me closely and let out a long, slow breath before her lips curled up in a cheeky smirk. “I think she’s bluffing about her hand. I bet I’ve got her beat.”

  I gave her my best cheeky smirk right back. “Don’t be so sure, lady.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Roxanne crowed. “This game is getting interesting. Someone’s finally giving Gayle a run for her money.”

  Mary Sue folded right away. Becky bet fifty cents. I raised a quarter. Roxanne raised another ten cents. Gayle raised another nickel. The time came for us to lay our cards on the table.

  “Three nines.” I placed the cards face up in front of me and reached for the pot. Surely nobody could beat that hand.

  Gayle wagged her finger at me. “Not so quick, hon.” She laid her cards on the table. Four tens.

  “Well, darn.” I slumped in my seat. “I was sure I’d won.”

  She chuckled. “Don’t fret. There’ll be lots of time for you to win your money back.”

  Roxanne snorted jovially. “Or to lose more of it.”

  As Gayle scooped up the coins, I noticed her movements had become clumsy, her eyes glassy.

  Mary Sue dealt the next hand and, between us exchanging our cards and placing bets, steered us back to our earlier topic of conversation, looking my way. “Speaking of that handrail, we all knew it was loose. That’s probably why Nelda didn’t bother grabbing it. At any rate, I’m glad you’ll be able to fix the place up, Whitney, get it back in shipshape. Lillian had always taken pride in her house. Shame that she couldn’t afford to keep it up these last few years.”

  Roxanne scoffed. “We all know why that was. That sorry son of hers bled her dry.”

  Given that Andy Walsh appeared to be gainfully employed selling insurance while Wayne was fixated on get-rich-quick schemes, I assumed Roxanne was referring to the latter. “Wayne, you mean?”

  “That’s the one,” Roxanne confirmed. “He borrowed thousands of dollars from Lillian over the years. Never paid a single cent of it back, far as I know.”

  Mary Sue’s words affirmed her reputation as the group’s pacifist. “We can’t blame Lillian for wanting to help Wayne out. After all, a mother’s love knows no bounds.”

  Roxanne tsked. “It wasn’t good for either of them, her always bailing him out and enabling him to jump into one risky business venture after another. Dakota’s turning out just like his father. Another deadbeat who can’t hold a job.” Roxanne’s gossip seemed particularly mean-spirited and relentless tonight, probably spurred on by the whiskey.

  “I hate to say it,” Becky said, saying it anyway, “but I don’t like that boy spending time with my girls. Dahlia’s got a good head on her shoulders, but Dakota keeps telling Daisy she’ll be the next Taylor Swift. If he fills her head with such notions, she might do something stupid like drop out of school.” She fished another brownie off the platter. “Mom never liked Dakota, either. He was the only thing she and I ever agreed on. Of course I’d be tickled to death if Daisy’s dreams come true. I just think it’s smart to have a backup plan, you know?”

  We murmured in agreement.

  Roxanne won the next hand, raking in a whopping dollar and thirty cents. As she scooped the coins up, the nail on her right index finger popped off and landed on the table. “I’m falling apart here.” She picked up the artificial nail and turned to Mary Sue. “Got any heavy-duty glue?”

  Mary Sue pushed back from the table and ventured over to her junk drawer. She rummaged around and returned with a tiny tube of super-hold adhesive. She handed it to Roxanne. “When did you start wearing artificial nails?”

  “I don’t normally,” Roxanne said, “but this one broke a few days ago. It was either cut all the others short or have my nail girl put a fake one on this finger.”

  “You made the right choice,” Mary Sue said. “Those long nails are so elegant. Wish mine would grow like that.” To illustrate her point, she held up her hands, showing everyone her short, rounded nails.

  “It helps to have a cleaning lady,” Roxanne said. “Housekeeping is heck on a manicure.”

  I couldn’t help but think back to the scratches on Nelda Dolan’s neck and hands. Could Roxanne’s tapered nails have caused those scratches? Had Roxanne’s fingernail been broken in an attack on Nelda? “How’d you break your nail?”

  Roxanne took a long sip of her drink before setting her glass down and answering my question. “Trying on shoes. I found this great pair of zebra-striped pumps on sale at the Opry Mills mall last Saturday morning. They didn’t have my size, though. I was trying to cram my size eights into a seven and a half. Didn’t have any luck, and ripped my nail in the process. Lucky for me, my nail girl could get me right in.”

  It seemed coincidental that Roxanne had to get her nail fixed the very day Nelda was found dead.

  As Becky dealt the third hand, Mary Sue turned my way. “It was awfully kind of you not to press charges against Dakota for trespassing. I’m assuming the detective has spoken with him, too. Was he any help?”

  I figured my best bet was to continue to feign no knowledge regarding the current investigation. I could only hope I’d do a better job of it this time. “The detective talked with Dakota last Saturday morning, of course, but I don’t know whether they’ve been back in touch since.”

  Becky finished dealing and, after we e
xchanged our cards, took another sip of her punch. “Maybe it’s the Jack Daniel’s talking, but I find it difficult to believe Dakota didn’t hear Mom go into the house and fall. The detective asked Dad and me if we’d heard anything going on over there, but the only thing I heard from outside from the time I went to bed until he came to our door Saturday morning was a couple barks from Mosey around three A.M. and Mary Sue’s house alarm going off at six.”

  Mary Sue hunched her shoulders and cringed in contrition. “Sorry about that. I forgot to disarm the system when I went out to get the newspaper.” She sighed. “Seems I’m getting more forgetful these days.”

  “Sorry about Mosey, too,” Gayle said. “That dog is in and out all night. Can’t control his bladder like he used to.”

  “Don’t worry,” Becky told Mary Sue and Gayle. “I went right back to sleep.” She leaned forward over the table, as if to share some juicy tidbit. “Get this. The detective found out that Dakota pawned Mom’s peacock necklace.”

  Roxanne gasped, her heavily made-up eyes going wide. “The one she said she lost at Lillian’s?”

  Becky nodded dramatically. “Detective Flynn said he’s going to talk to Dakota about it, find out where he got it from and whether he knew it belonged to my mother.”

  Roxanne frowned. “That’s probably why the detective’s been asking everyone about things missing from Lillian’s house. He’s trying to figure out if Dakota stole something from his grandmother or Nelda.”

  “Oh, my!” Mary Sue put her fingers to her lips. “This doesn’t look good for him, does it?” She removed her hand. “But we’d be wrong to jump to conclusions. It could just be a misunderstanding. He might have some growing up to do, but that doesn’t mean he’s a thief or…”

  Becky filled in the blank with a knowing look and a single word. “Worse?”

  Gayle fumbled with her hand and two cards slid out of her grip, falling to her lap. “If it talks like a duck and it walks like a duck…” She trailed off as she looked down and retrieved the fallen cards. When she looked back up and saw the rest of us watching her, she said, “Wait. Why are we talking about ducks?”

  Mary Sue gave her friend a sympathetic look. “Maybe you should sit the rest the games out, Gayle. Your pain pill seems to have gotten the better of you.”

  “Shoot,” Gayle said. “I suppose you’re right, but I don’t want to miss the fun.”

  Mary Sue stood. “I’ll make a pot of coffee. Maybe that will help.”

  It didn’t. Gayle drank three cups, and though the caffeine managed to keep her awake, it did nothing to clear the fog from her mind. While she might have been a card shark before, tonight she was more of a card cocktail shrimp, her mind cold, limp, and shriveled. Not wanting to embarrass her, the other ladies didn’t point out that she hadn’t actually won the pot when she laid down a jack, a queen, a king, and two threes and announced that she had a “Full flush!”

  By the end of the night, I’d lost eight dollars and fifty-three cents but gained four new friends. The fact that they could be suspects in a murder investigation probably meant I should seek different pals, but I’d had a good time nonetheless. I hadn’t even had to defend myself with the wrench in my pocket.

  CHAPTER 18

  SUSPECTS AND DUST SPECKS

  WHITNEY

  Becky and I took Gayle’s arms and helped her hobble home through the cold, dark night. With her pain meds impairing her motor skills and relaxing her muscles, it was like escorting a human-sized noodle.

  Bert met us at the door, thanking us for seeing his wife home safely. “We’re going to have to get back to that doctor. Those new pills are too strong. It’s no good if she can’t go about her life as usual.”

  We returned to Mary Sue’s for our dishes and Roxanne.

  “Don’t forget to set your alarm,” I told Mary Sue as we exited her front door. Whoever had come for Nelda could be targeting older women living alone. It would be wise for everyone to take safety precautions.

  It was half past eleven and the three of us were heading down Mary Sue’s front walk when Carl Dolan’s Impala turned into his drive and parked alongside the new Miata and Mustang. He emerged wearing dress slacks, a striped shirt, a sport coat, and a satisfied smile.

  Roxanne, having polished off three glasses of spiked punch, stuck her manicured fingers in her mouth and issued a loud wolf whistle. “Look at you, handsome fella!”

  Carl chuckled and turned side to side, his arms outstretched. “I clean up pretty good, don’t I?”

  “That you do,” Roxanne agreed. “Where you been all dressed up like that?”

  His smile wavering, Carl stiffened and hesitated a moment before saying, “Down at the VFW. Had a few drinks with the guys.”

  Becky seemed taken aback. “Since when do you dress up for beers with the boys?”

  Her father’s face clouded. “It didn’t seem right to wear my usual jeans and sweatshirt with my wife having just passed.”

  It also didn’t seem right that he carried leftovers in a bag bearing a steakhouse logo if he’d been having drinks at the VFW, but I didn’t point it out. If Carl had killed his wife, he just might kill me, too, if he thought I was onto him. I didn’t want to follow in Nelda’s footsteps and take a fall down the stairs myself. I’d pass the information on to Detective Flynn, let him sort it out.

  A sideways glance at Becky told me the bag hadn’t gone unnoticed by her, either. Her face was pinched in confusion and concern. Like me, she remained mum about it, but the worried wiggle of her mouth said it bothered her. Does she realize he’s not being forthright? Is she wondering if her father might have killed her mother?

  Becky split off and Roxanne and I bade her goodbye.

  “Poor guy,” Roxanne murmured as she watched Becky and Carl enter their house. “Nelda tricked him into marrying her, you know. Carl told my husband all about it years ago. Nelda was nice to him, at first. Laid the charm on thick. After they’d been dating awhile, she claimed she was pregnant. She knew Carl would do the right thing and marry her. They rushed down the aisle and then Becky was born.” She pursed her lips and cast me a look. “Eleven months later.”

  I’d heard of babies arriving a couple of weeks late, but an eleven-month pregnancy? Nope. There was no conceivable way Nelda could have been pregnant with Becky for that long.

  Roxanne turned her eyes back to the Dolans’ closed door. “Once they were married, Nelda showed her true colors. She was a controlling, conniving, jealous shrew. Carl tried to leave Nelda once when Becky was little, but Nelda said she’d keep him from seeing their daughter. Back then, judges always awarded the mother primary custody. Carl couldn’t bear the thought of Becky having to face Nelda alone and him only getting a few days’ visitation a month. He decided to stick it out and make the best of it. After a certain point, he seemed to become numb to her. He could’ve left Nelda once Becky grew up, but I suppose there wasn’t much to be gained from splitting up after all that time.”

  Maybe not. Or maybe he’d had nothing to gain until he met Dulce. Maybe Nelda had threatened him again, said she’d put him through the same type of nasty divorce their daughter was going through if he tried to leave her. Maybe he’d finally had enough and snapped. Who knows?

  I said goodbye to Roxanne, packed the cookie sheet and trifle bowl in the cargo bay of my vehicle, and climbed into the driver’s seat, heading for home. On the way, I mulled things over.

  Given that Gayle was impaired by medication, it was impossible to compare tonight’s pathetic performance at poker to her earlier reputation as a stellar player. She could be a cheat, as Nelda had claimed, and she could have traded out the playing cards that had been in the box earlier for ones that weren’t marked. Nothing that had occurred tonight had led me to any conclusions regarding Gayle’s guilt or innocence where Nelda’s murder was concerned.

  As for Becky, I was torn between considering her a more likely suspect and a less likely one. The fact that the life insurance policy on Nelda was soon
to expire could mean Becky had decided to do away with her mother while her mom’s life could still result in a windfall. Becky might have been only pretending not to know that the policy would expire on her mother’s upcoming seventy-fifth birthday. Of course, this same expiration date further implicated Carl as well. The fact that Becky seemed startled and anxious by her father’s obvious lie about his whereabouts tonight made her seem innocent and made him seem guilty. And, of course, there was the matter of Dulce …

  Roxanne seemed to have a valid excuse for not contacting the detective: that she’d been helping with sick grandchildren down in Shelbyville. And while the hopeless gossip had found fault with Wayne, Lillian, and Dakota, she’d refrained from making critical remarks about Nelda at the poker game, probably because Becky was present. Even if Becky and her mother had a less-than-ideal relationship, surely no daughter would want to hear a neighbor put down her mother, even if the daughter did so herself. Roxanne probably realized this and had exercised restraint, at least until Becky headed back into her house with her father.

  Still, I couldn’t forget the things Roxanne had said afterward, and the things she’d said at the memorial, too. How Nelda was a horrible wife and not a real friend. But would someone kill another person for these reasons? It seemed extreme. But maybe there was more to it, some deeper motive that had yet to come to light. Something much more personal. I remembered Becky saying how angry her mother would get when Carl fawned over Lillian and her pie. Had he fawned over Roxanne, too? Was Carl Dolan the neighborhood flirt? Could that have earned him some wrath with his wife, and could that wrath have turned into a feud between the women? Had Nelda made some baseless accusation against Roxanne that had enraged Roxanne enough to push her down the stairs? Or had Nelda made an accusation against Lillian, found something in the house to indicate that Lillian and Carl had been having an affair? A gift, maybe? A framed photo of Lillian and Carl together? Maybe Roxanne had come to Lillian’s defense and shoved Nelda down the stairs, later returning to remove the evidence that had been trapped under Nelda’s body.