Dead in the Doorway

by Diane Kelly

  * * *

  Buck was already at the house when I arrived. I found him in the kitchen, preparing the tools and equipment we’d need to install the black-and-white tile flooring. Along with the stacks of tile, he’d amassed a tub of grout, a mason’s trowel, a tape measure, a bubble level, and a wet saw, as well as a bucket of water and a sponge. He scowled. “You’re late.”

  “You’re ornery.”

  I tossed the bag his way and he snatched it out of the air, opening it to glance inside. “You’re forgiven.”

  “You’re still ornery.”

  As he bit into his scone, I gave him a heads-up about the detective coming here to question Wayne and Dakota about the will. “Don’t say anything about where we found it,” I told him. “The detective wants to see how they react when they learn there’s a secret hiding place in the house.”

  “I’ll play dumb,” Buck said.

  “Luckily for you,” I joked, “you don’t even have to pretend.”

  Our ribbing finished for the time being, I donned my kneepads and grabbed the measuring tape. When installing tile, the process should start in the center of the room to ensure the best look. I measured from several directions to determine exactly where the center of the room was, and marked it with a piece of chalk.

  Buck finished his scone, and the two of us got down to business. We’d just finished installing the first line of tile, alternating the black and white tiles in what would be a checkerboard pattern, when a knock sounded at the front door.

  I stood and brushed my hands on my coveralls before heading down the unfinished steps to let Detective Flynn inside.

  “’Mornin’.”

  I repeated the greeting. “Got an extra scone if you’re interested.”

  “Heck, yeah. I got called in early and had to skip breakfast this morning. We got a hit in one of those cold cases. Officer Hogarty and her partner are on their way to make an arrest as we speak.”

  “Glad to hear it.” I went up to the kitchen, careful to avoid the newly installed tiles, and retrieved the bakery bag from the counter.

  Collin waited in the doorway, eyeing the tile. “I always liked the checkerboard look. The black and white reminds me of a police cruiser.”

  I handed him the bag. “That’s the look we were going for. Classic cop car with early American influences.”

  He opened the bag and looked down into it before turning his green eyes on me. “Thanks.”

  “A man can’t survive on coffee and Chinese takeout alone.” As he devoured his scone, I gave him the scoop on Dulce and Carl. “I bought the scones at the grocery store where I saw Carl speaking with the bakery clerk. I was able to slip into conversation that I bought the house next door to Carl. Dulce admitted that they went out to dinner last Friday.”

  Collin swallowed the big bite he’d taken. “The VFW was a lie, then.”

  “Mm-hmm. I don’t know how long they’ve been dating, though, or whether she’s aware that Nelda just passed.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Collin said. “Get the details.”

  Ding-dong!

  The detective glanced at his watch. “They’re early.” He crumpled up the bag and tossed it into a plastic trash bin Buck had put out to collect our refuse. As Collin headed down the stairs, I followed after him. I’d been the one to come across Nelda Dolan’s body. If Collin was about to nail her killer, I wanted to see it happen.

  Two shapes were visible through the frosted-glass oval on the front door. The detective opened it to reveal Roxanne and Gayle standing side by side on the porch. A silvery head popped up between them as Mary Sue stood on tiptoe to look over their shoulders.

  Gayle pointed over her shoulder. “We saw your car out here again.”

  Roxanne poked her fake fingernail into the detective’s chest. “What’s really going on here, mister?” She jabbed a second time. “We have a right to know!”

  “Actually,” Collin replied, the epitome of calm as he stepped back out of finger range. “You don’t.”

  Roxanne crossed her arms over her chest and huffed, her breath creating a cloud in the air in front of her, as if she were a fire-breathing dragon.

  Gayle tried a different tack, opening her eyes wide and sticking her neck out in hope. “Would you be willing to tell us anyway? Please? We’re worried.”

  “All right,” he acquiesced. “I have reason to suspect that Nelda Dolan might not have tripped and fallen down the stairs.”

  Not strong enough to remain on tiptoe, Mary Sue disappeared again behind her taller friends. But while she could no longer be seen, her voice could be heard. “You mean she might have died some other way? Broke her hip and lost her balance, or suffered a heart attack or stroke?”

  Roxanne tossed an irritated look over her shoulder. “The medical examiner would have been able to tell if Nelda had a broken hip or died from a stroke or heart trouble. If the detective’s here, that means he thinks she was killed on purpose.” She turned her narrow eyes back on the detective. “Doesn’t it, Detective Flynn?”

  Seeming to realize there was nothing to be gained by arguing, he gave a single, definitive nod.

  The women immediately crowded forward, like hens around someone tossing chicken feed, their quick questions like the clucks of an anxious brood.

  Roxanne demanded to know, “Why would someone kill Nelda?”

  Gayle wanted to know how. “How do you know it wasn’t an accident?”

  Given that the where and when were already established, Mary Sue went for who. “Who do you think it could be?”

  Collin raised his hands. “Sorry, ladies. I’ve said all I’m going to about Nelda Dolan. But I will suggest that you be sure to keep your home-security systems activated at all times, if you’ve got them, and be extra careful coming and going from your homes.”

  Mary Sue’s mouth fell open. “You think the killer could come for us, too? That he’s targeting elderly women?”

  “It’s possible,” the detective replied. “Older people are seen as easier targets. You can’t ever be too careful.”

  Wayne Walsh’s green minivan pulled to the curb behind them. Dakota sat in the passenger seat. Both of them looked over at the women on the porch and turned to each other, exchanging words.

  As Wayne and Dakota climbed out of the car, the detective cued the ladies to disperse. “Y’all will have to leave the premises now.” Probably realizing he’d have more luck if he promised to follow up with them, he added, “As soon as I learn anything, I’ll make sure to let you know.”

  Roxanne harrumphed and turned to her friends. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to the sporting goods store right now to buy me a gun.”

  Mary Sue worried her lip. “You know how to shoot a gun?”

  “Not at all,” Roxanne said. “That’s why I’m going to get a shotgun. You hardly have to aim those suckers. You just pull the trigger and anything in its path is blown to kingdom come.”

  There’s a happy thought.

  The women turned en masse to go, Mary Sue now in the lead as they descended the porch steps.

  As the women passed him, Wayne ignored them. Dakota, on the other hand, remembered his manners, greeting each of them by name and giving them a warm smile and nod. “Good morning, Mrs. Mecklenberg. Mrs. Garner. Mrs. Donnelly.”

  Wayne barged right into the house without being invited, acting as if he still had a right to be here. Dakota was more tentative, stopping at the threshold and waiting for an invitation. Apparently, he’d learned his lesson about trespassing.

  Collin motioned the man-boy inside with his hand. “Come on in, Dakota.”

  The landing was crowded and I eased back, climbing a couple of steps up the upper staircase to give the three men more room and myself some personal space.

  Wayne didn’t even wait for the door to close before he hooted. “What a gaggle of hens, am I right?”

  Though I, too, had noticed a similarity between the women and birds, I knew that the correc
t term was brood. A gaggle referred to geese, not chickens. I’d also had the good sense not to say something so insulting out loud. Once, on a field trip to the zoo in fifth grade, a classmate had pointed out that, with my long limbs, I resembled a giraffe. When I’d blushed in embarrassment, he decided I looked more like a flamingo. I’d attempted to even the score by saying, “At least I don’t smell like the back end of an elephant!” The comment had only made him and his friends laugh. I got my revenge years later, in high school, when I’d taken the WD-40 I’d bought for shop class and squirted it through the vents in his locker. I never got caught, either. But I supposed the statute of limitations for my petty act of vandalism had long since passed.

  Though Detective Flynn had essentially told the women only a minute before that this investigation was none of their business, he came to their defense now that Wayne had poked fun at them. “It’s only natural for neighbors to be curious why a police detective is on their street.”

  Wayne wasn’t having it. “Bunch of busybodies, if you ask me. All they do is gossip, gossip, gossip.”

  Though Roxanne certainly wasn’t shy about sharing juicy tidbits, Wayne’s assessment wasn’t entirely fair. Nelda Dolan aside, much of the ladies’ talk about their neighbors’ business seemed to arise not from any malicious intent, but from a genuine concern about each other’s welfare and an interest in their lives. Nothing wrong with people looking out for each other.

  “So?” Wayne leaned toward the detective in his usual too-familiar way. “What’re we here about?”

  Flynn focused on their faces. “The secret compartment in this house.”

  Wayne and Dakota exchanged a look, but it wasn’t a knowing look. Rather, it was an unknowing look. Were they not aware of the compartment?

  Wayne shook his head once, as if he thought he’d heard wrong and was attempting to rearrange the detective’s words in his mind so they’d make sense. “Say what now?”

  “This house has a hidden storage compartment,” the detective said evenly. “Your mother must have told you two about it.”

  Wayne merely shook his head again, more emphatically this time. “Nope. She didn’t say anything to me.”

  Dakota’s face darkened, as if he felt hurt that his grandmother hadn’t trusted him with this secret. “Granny never told me about it, neither. Where is it?”

  Flynn held his cards close to his vest. “That’s classified.”

  “Well?” Wayne circled a finger in the air as if to speed things up. “I assume you found something in it. If it was empty, you wouldn’t have called us here. What did you discover?” He barked a laugh. “Please tell me it was a dozen gold bars.”

  “No. No gold bars.” The detective reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, removed a folded copy of the will I’d found under the stair, and handed it to Wayne. “Your mother had hidden this.”

  As Wayne ran his gaze over the first page, Dakota sidled closer to his father and glanced down at it. “Is that Granny’s will?”

  “One of them,” Collin said.

  Wayne looked up from the page. “You mean she made more than one copy?”

  “No,” Collin said. “I mean it’s a different will than the one that was filed for probate.” He gestured to the will in Wayne’s hand. “The one you’re looking at leaves everything to your brother Andy.”

  Wayne’s demeanor hardly changed as he flipped through the pages and looked them over. “This says everything goes to Andy, all right.” He looked up from the document a second time. “I guess Mom must’ve changed her mind later and decided to split things evenly between us.”

  “No. That will in your hand is more recent than the one that was filed for probate.”

  Wayne’s face screwed up as he tried to process the information. “Wait. Are you saying this is the right will? That the one that split everything fifty-fifty is the wrong one?”

  “Yes,” Flynn said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Andy should have received all of your mother’s property.”

  Wayne scoffed and threw up his hands. “Well, heck! I done already spent most of my share paying off bills. Ever’ one of my boys had an overbite. You got any idea how much an orthodontist charges to put braces on a kid’s teeth?”

  Did Wayne have any idea that he was digging himself in deeper by pointing out his financial woes? The detective eyed him, assessing, as Wayne lowered his hands.

  Wayne’s demeanor mellowed, his tone now wistful. “I wouldn’t even have all those boys if my wife and I hadn’t been trying to give my mother a granddaughter.”

  Ick. I didn’t want to think about Wayne and his wife “trying.” Maybe if I stuck a screwdriver in a socket it would zap the thought from my brain.

  “Mom only had me and my brother,” he said. “Once she had Andy, I think she was disappointed when I came out a boy, too. She never said as much, but I could read between the lines. She was always talking about how much she’d love to have a granddaughter to dress up and dote on, do her hair and play tea party with. She said it wasn’t fair Nelda got twin grandgirls when she was too much of sourpuss to enjoy them the way she should.”

  Well, heck. A minute ago I was sure this guy was a murderer, and now he had me feeling sorry for him. Maybe Lillian realized Wayne was trying to give her the little girl she’d always wanted, and that’s why she’d helped him support all the boys who’d come along instead. Of course, one of those boys was Dakota. I shifted my gaze to his face. He had a hangdog look about him, his shoulders slumped and his gaze directed downward.

  As if realizing he’d hurt his son’s feelings, Wayne put a hand on his Dakota’s back. “I didn’t mean nothing by that, Dakota. You know your grandmother thought the world of you and your brothers.” He leaned in and whispered. “You were her favorite, though. You know that, right?”

  On hearing this last bit, Dakota perked up, his back straightening.

  Having placated his son, Wayne turned back to the detective. “What do I do now? Do I have to pay Andy back?”

  “I suppose that’s up to him.” Flynn redirected the conversation. “Are you surprised your mother cut you out of her will?”

  “Truthfully? Can’t say I blame her one bit.” Wayne finally had the sense to look at least a little ashamed. He glanced over at his son, his voice softer when he returned his gaze to the detective. “She bailed me out a few times over the years when I got in over my head. More than a few times, if I’m being honest. It’s only fair she’d leave her estate to Andy. I’m not mad about it, but I have no idea how I’m going to make things square with him.” As he pondered his predicament, his face tightened with befuddlement. “Why didn’t Andy file this will? Mom would’ve given him a copy.”

  Collin said, “I’m wondering the same thing.” He turned to Dakota. “What about you? Did you know about this will?”

  “No.” Dakota shook his head. “Granny never said nothing about it.”

  The detective turned back to Wayne, staring him down.

  Realizing the stare was a challenge, Wayne flexed his jaw and a jagged blue vein pulsed in his neck, like liquid lighting under his skin. “What’s it to you, anyway, Detective? What’s it matter who my mother left her property to?” His eyes cut to me as if to determine whether I was in on the secret.

  “Look at the last page of the will,” Collin told him, “where the signatures are.”

  Wayne shifted his focus from me to the will, flipped to the final page, and eyed it. “Yeah? So?”

  Collin said, “Nelda Dolan witnessed that will.”

  “Like I said, so?” Wayne still didn’t seem to get it, hadn’t made a connection. But was he merely pretending? Had he known that Nelda had witnessed his mother’s recent will? Again, his gaze darted between me and the detective.

  “So.” Collin said, “The fact that Nelda Dolan witnessed the will means she knew you weren’t supposed to inherit anything. That could put you at odds with her.”

  Wayne chuckled mirthlessly. “Everyone was at odds with
that woman at one point or another. She wasn’t exactly what you’d call a nice person.”

  Seeming to realize he’d have to be blunt, the detective said, “That will could have given you a reason to want her gone. It could implicate you in Nelda’s death.”

  Dakota sucked in air and Wayne jerked his head back as if slapped. “I thought she fell down the stairs.”

  Now that my cat had found the hidden will, Flynn had no choice but to let the cat out of the bag in regards to the investigation. “She did fall down the stairs. But she was helped.”

  “Helped?” Dakota’s eyes popped wide. “Are you saying someone pushed Mrs. Dolan down the stairs?”

  Collin nodded.

  “Oh jeez, oh jeez, oh jeez!” Dakota’s breaths came fast and he wrapped his arms around his torso in a subconscious and instinctive act of self-protection. “That means a killer came in this house while I was sleeping! I could have been killed, too!”

  The way Dakota was freaking out made one thing clear. He didn’t do it. Even Meryl Streep couldn’t pull off such a convincing act.

  CHAPTER 25

  COVERALLS AND COVER-UPS

  WHITNEY

  Wayne gripped his son’s shoulder. “Calm down, boy! You’re still with us.” Releasing his son, Wayne turned to the detective and crossed his arms over his chest, much like Dakota. In this case, though, Wayne’s body language was defensive. “I didn’t kill Nelda Dolan, but I can tell you who might’ve. Roxanne Donnelly. Those two women butted heads for years over some nonsense or other.”

  My mind filled with an image of Nelda and Roxanne going beehive to bouffant in bell-bottom pantsuits. Not a pleasant image, but much better than the one of Wayne trying to conceive a baby girl with his wife.

  Wayne rambled off a list of Nelda’s and Roxanne’s grievances. “Those two got in a dither about Roxanne’s redbud tree dropping leaves on the Dolans’ side of their shared fence. Where visitors should park in the cul-de-sac. Outdoor Christmas decorations. The smoke from the Donnellys’ backyard grill. Nelda was always the one to start things, but Roxanne didn’t back down. Ever. Mary Sue Mecklenberg always had to intervene. Mom tried to stay out of it. She didn’t have much of a stomach for that type of unpleasantness.”