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Chapter Thirty-Seven

I couldn’t imagine what kept Alan and Clare, but I turned off the oven, placed the salad and dressings on the table, poured iced tea for the three of us, then sat on the sofa with Sophie. I imagined there could have been car trouble, or Jane invited them to sit with her, both of which seemed feasible to me.

When I twisted my body to look outside for them, Sophie opened an eye out of curiosity, then returned to her nap. Finally, I texted Alan: Is everything okay?

He returned a thumbs-up emoji, which wasn’t much help. A few moments later, he wrote: Heading home now .

I watched as he waited for traffic to clear before backing onto Church Street, then turning into our driveway. Clare sat in the front passenger seat, and they were deep in conversation.

Alan announced their arrival while I placed an over-done pot pie on each plate. “Sorry, honey,” he said, looking apologetic. “We lost track of time.” He put two pastry boxes on the island .

“Did you solve the case?” I asked, motioning for everyone to sit.

He gave a rue chuckle. “No, we had to wait for someone from the county’s Adult Protective Services to come and evaluate Jane.”

“Oh, no! What happened?”

“Apparently, she hadn’t been eating or drinking. She could barely unlock the door when we stopped by with the doughnuts, then almost collapsed in the hallway. Clare’s medical background came in handy because she knew the symptoms of dehydration.”

“Will they have to put Jane in a nursing home?” I asked.

Clare shook her head. “Jane refused, but they set up daily meal delivery and a weekly home visitation. I’ll look in on her each morning and call them if there are any other incidents.”

“Right,” Alan nodded. “Jane gave Clare a house key, so all is well.” He picked up his fork and broke through the dark crust. To my relief, the inside still looked creamy.

I passed the salad bowl. “Did you ask Jane where Liz may have gone that Saturday night after they went out to dinner?”

“She didn’t know,” Clare replied hesitantly. “She still may be somewhat confused or have memory problems, but she insisted that they both exited the car and went to their respective houses.”

I wondered if we should trust Jane’s recollection, yet didn’t press the topic. Clare, however, seemed anxious to continue the conversation.

“We know,” she stated, “my sister prepared for my arrival the next day, so I imagine she did go home after making sure Jane was safely inside. She put her purse in the hall closet, straightened the kitchen and living room, then went to bed.”

“Would Liz have gone to bed by eight o’clock?” I doubted it.

“Maybe she watched TV,” Clare suggested.

“Has anyone checked her phone records?” I asked.

Alan nodded. “Mark did, but I don’t think he sent me that report.”

“Well, we need it,” I said. “If it were me, I’d probably call a friend to talk. I certainly wouldn’t go to bed while we still had daylight.”

Alan reached for his phone and pressed Mark’s number. I noticed Sophie had moved to lie next to Clare’s chair.

He disconnected, saying, “Mark will send a CSV file to our agency email address, so we can take a look at it after supper.”

Clare added dressing to her salad as she commented, “I don’t know that she’d have been talking on the phone. Liz never liked spending time like that. If anything, she’d have gone to visit someone—or, maybe, invited someone in.”

“We’ll find out when we receive the file,” Alan noted.

While eating, my mind worked to recreate the scene. Before Alexa, my daughter, visited me, I cleaned the house and shopped for groceries. She never expected me to have a perfect home, but I always wanted to make the place comfortable for her.

“Clare,” I said, mulling, “What was in the refrigerator when you arrived?”

She rested her fork on her plate. “Not much. She had coffee creamer on the top shelf and condiments on the door. I remember thinking that she must have recently cleaned it.”

“No actual food?” I pressed .

She paused, thinking. “Yes, she had some eggs in a carton, a package of cheese, several small containers of yogurt, a partial head of lettuce, and a jar of applesauce.”

“Okay,” I said. “She cleaned out the refrigerator, probably in preparation for your visit, yet still needed to go to the grocery store. I would have gone on Saturday night.”

Alan caught my eye. “What’s your point, Sue?”

“I’m trying to recreate the setting.”

“Liz couldn’t have gone to the grocery store on Saturday night,” he remarked, “because Clare found her purse in the hall closet and there was hardly any food in the refrigerator when she arrived.”

“Right,” I agreed. “You told us, Clare, that you found mail in her curbside mailbox, so you knew you had the right house.”

“Yes,” she said, giving me a questioning gaze.

“How much mail?” I asked. “A week’s worth?”

“No, I wouldn’t think so. I don’t know how much mail you get each day in the U.S., but it didn’t look like much. I know there was an ad for a free dinner if she wanted to learn about a nursing home called Shady Acres. The rest were store ads.”

“Shady Acres is giving away free dinners?” Alan asked. “Did we get that offer?”

“I tossed the ad,” I replied. “I thought you never wanted to see that place again.”

“I wouldn’t mind a free dinner,” he mumbled.

I laughed as I collected everyone’s dishes, especially when he told Clare about the case we accepted a few months prior. “I have to admit, Sue used her remarkable skills of deduction again to solve that one.”

“Connection,” I corrected him. “Not deduction. I merely make connections. What did you buy for dessert? ”

“Take a guess,” Alan said with a quirky grin.

“Apple pie.”

“You looked!” he groused.

“No, I didn’t, but you’re so predictable. We have vanilla ice cream in the freezer, and you like a scoop on apple pie.” I opened the box and gloated. “See? I was right.”

He rolled his eyes and Clare laughed. I did, too, although I wished I could have solved her case as easily.

^^^

After supper, we retreated to the sunroom where Alan searched for Mark’s email on the computer. After finding it, he clicked on the link, opening it as an Excel spreadsheet.

Clare and I stood behind him, looking over his shoulder. He scrolled through the list, stopping at that Saturday evening. “I think you’re onto something, Sue. Liz received two calls, probably while she and Jane had supper at the Black Horse Pub. It appears that she returned them after she arrived home.”

“Who’d she call?” I asked.

“I need to use a reverse phone directory for that,” Alan said. “Give me a minute.”

We waited while he pulled up a website, then plugged in the first number. “Interesting,” he remarked. “She called Lindsey Wiley, her neighbor, and Janice Walker, her sister-in-law.”

“She didn’t talk very long to either,” I remarked, “which makes me think she made plans to visit both of them.”

“It would be easy to walk next door,” Clare remarked.

“Right,” I agreed. “She would have had to drive to Janice’s house, which she could have decided to do on Sunday morning.”

“After church,” Clare added.

I nodded. “Possibly. She spent that Saturday morning working with Janice on Ed’s accounts, so she may have forgotten something there.”

Alan closed the directory and saved the spreadsheet on the desktop. “I’d say Liz either went next door or invited Lindsey over to her house. The only way to find out is to pay the Wileys a visit.”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s only eight o’clock, so we could walk over there now.”

“Why don’t we just call?” Clare asked.

“We could,” I agreed, “although I’d like to watch her body language.”

Alan smiled, giving me his expression of pride. I figured he realized I’d paid attention to what he’d taught me, and that delighted me.