"Uh, I wanted to leave this casserole for Brian and Miranda, but nobody seems to be home."
Mrs. Carpenter joined me on the little porch, pulling the door closed behind her, probably to keep Yacky from escaping and terrorizing the neighborhood like Dogzilla. "Such a pity about Valerie, isn't it? She was the sweetest thing…" Her voice trailed off.
"Valerie and I used to jog together," I told her, stretching the truth just a smidge. "I still can't get used to the idea that she's gone."
"We haven't been neighbors for long, but in that time I grew to love her like a daughter." She half leaned, half sat against the wrought-iron railing. "When the Stones were building their house-you should have seen the old place, it was such a dump!-Valerie used to come over and visit with me while Brian talked to the contractors." Her eyes glistened. "I feel so sorry for Miranda."
My casserole was melting. The foil had frosted over; water had condensed on the sides and sweated off, dripping on my toes, which stuck naked out of the ends of my sandals. "I guess I should take this home," I said.
"Oh, no. Don't do that. Why not leave it with me? I'll just pop it in my freezer and keep it until Brian gets back." She pushed open the door, stepped back into her foyer and motioned for me to follow. "They've gone to New Jersey, by the way. With Valerie's body."
I figured some sort of response was required, so I said, "Oh."
The instant I stepped over the threshold, Yacky went nuts.
"Just ignore him," Mrs. Carpenter said. Easy for her to say. She wasn't carrying a newspaper and balancing a casserole with a maniac dog nipping at her heels. "What is it?" she asked.
"What's what?" I said, puzzled.
"The casserole."
"Oh, eggplant parmesan."
"My, my," said Mrs. Carpenter. "I'd better label it 'Tofu Delight' or Dick-that's my husband-will be all over it the minute our backs are turned." She waved an arm. "Come in, come in."
With Yacky dancing around my ankles, I followed her into the kitchen.
"Dick's off at a SPEBSQA convention," she said in way of explanation. "So it's just us girls."
Spebsqua? What the heck was a spebsqua?
Mrs. Carpenter grinned, apparently reading my mind. "S-P-E-B-S-Q-A," she spelled out. "It's the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. Dick sings in a quartet." She
opened the door of her side-by-side, shuffled a few items around, then pushed my eggplant parmesan all the way into the freezer with the flat of her hand. "There! Now we can tell Brian to come over here the next time he needs a good dinner. I'll even heat it up for him."
"Thanks, Mrs. Carpenter. I really appreciate it."
She flapped a hand. "Pshaw! And call me Kathy, please. Would you like some coffee?" she asked, all in one breath. “It'll put hair on your chest, but it's hot."
Kathy's coffee was as different from the cup I shared with Brian the day before as Valerie's coffee was from instant. "Mmmm, robust," I said. We were sitting at the kitchen table. A picture window, hung with cheerful yellow curtains dotted with plump strawberries, overlooked the river, which sparkled in the mid-morning sun.
"Kathy," I said after a respectful silence during which I was supposedly savoring the full-bodied flavor and aroma of her coffee, "I keep worrying about something."
Kathy set her cup down in its saucer and gave me her full attention. "What is it, dear?"
"Well, the last time Valerie and I talked, she told me Brian was going to be out of town on Monday. He had some sort of assignment, she said. I know they don't have live-in help, so I worried-" I paused. "I worried that it was Miranda who found her mother's body."
Kathy nodded so vigorously that the half glasses that had been perched on her forehead slipped down to rest on the bridge of her nose. "I'm afraid so."
I shuddered, suddenly cold in spite of the scalding hot coffee and the sun streaming through the window. "Poor little thing! What did she do?"
"She came looking for me, thank goodness. I'll never forget that day as long as I live." Kathy fished around in her jacket pocket, withdrew a wad of Kleenex and used it to blow her nose. "Eight o'clock in the morning, and there she was, at my back door, wearing her Hello Kitty pajamas, carrying her Elmo doll and telling me, 'Mommy won't wake up.'" Kathy pressed a hand flat against her chest and took a deep breath. "I thought my heart would break." A fat tear slid down her cheek; she swiped at it with the wadded-up Kleenex. "I'm like a grandmother to that child. Brian's parents have been dead for years and, well, you've met Katherine and Fletcher-“
For a split second I couldn't think who she was talking about, then I remembered-Valerie's parents, the Honorable Judge and missus. I set my coffee cup down on the table, narrowly missing the saucer. "Kathy, I'm so sorry. What on earth did you do?"
"I went next door with Miranda, of course, and sat her down in the kitchen with some cereal. Then I went upstairs to check on her mother." Kathy was crying openly now, the Kleenex ragged and useless. I got up, ripped a paper towel off the roll mounted over the sink and handed it to her. After a while she continued. "Valerie was cold as ice, Hannah. I don't have much experience with these things, thank goodness, but I suspect she had been dead for hours and hours."
"How awful for you."
"I dialed 911, as anyone would, and the paramedics came right away." She shook her head. "But there wasn't anything they could do." She spread the paper towel out on the table, smoothed out the creases, then pinched bits absentmindedly off the edges as she continued. "Then a policeman came, a nice young man, who stayed with us until we could get in touch with Brian."
"Where was Brian?" I asked.
She plowed on, ignoring my question. "It wasn't easy, I can tell you! I left three urgent messages on his cell phone. Three! It was over an hour before he called us back."
"I would hate to have been in your shoes, Kathy. How did you tell him? What on earth did you say?"
"Oh, I didn't talk to him, dear. I just couldn't! I let the policeman do it. I mean, it was private, family information, wasn't it? People to be notified. Decisions to be made. And Brian was miles away in Harpers Ferry."
"He must have been wild with grief."
"Oh, he was, he was. Brian was practically incoherent on the phone. Not much use to the police, I'm afraid. It was me who helped the officer find the telephone number of Valerie's doctor."
"Doctor?" I paused, swallowed, hoping she hadn't noticed that I'd practically yelped the word. "Didn't the police call the medical examiner?"
"The medical examiner? No, dear, why?"
"Well, I understood that all unattended deaths… you know."
She shook her head. "Everybody knew about the chemo and the risks Valerie took when she agreed to go through with it. Allen Kimmel's been her GP for years. He rushed right over and examined Valerie himself. If there had been even the slightest hint of something out of the ordinary, I'm sure Dr. Kimmel would have noticed."
"I'm sure," I said, but I wasn't sure at all.
"We should all be so lucky," Kathy Carpenter said, turning her cup round and round in its saucer.
"How so?"
"When my time comes, to go to sleep all peaceful like that, in my own bed with a comforter tucked up nice and neat under my chin."
Once again I froze. In the hospital, Valerie had tossed and turned until her bedding resembled a mixed salad. I decided to keep that information to myself. "I think Valerie deserved a few more years, don't you?"
Kathy's gaze shifted heavenward and she said, as if reading the words off the ceiling, "'So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.'" Her eyes settled on me again, and she smiled. "Psalm Ninety."