complete autopsy, a local funeral home had already arranged for a spray of white carnations for the front door, and a register stood in the foyer for callers.
Inside the house, a cone of silence followed behind him as people realized who he was; and when he asked to speak to Mrs. Shay, it was her cousin Eleanor who came down to escort him up to the bedroom where Mrs. Shay lay weeping on a blue velvet chaise longue, attended by three or four of her most intimate friends. On the hearth nearby, gas logs burned in a cast-iron grate. No doubt it was meant to be cheerful, but it made the room feel op- pressively warm to someone who had just come in out of the cold and wet, and the different floral scents worn by some of the women contributed to the hothouse effect.
Yet Mrs. Shay had a fleecy shawl wrapped around her shoulders as if she was chilled to the bone.
“Oh, Dwight!” she moaned. “What’s happening?
Have they found Cal?”
“No, ma’am, not yet. The police here have put out an Amber Alert and they’re questioning the neighbors again.” Mrs. Shay’s bedroom was one of those ultra-feminine rooms full of spindly furniture and breakable knickknacks that always made him feel like the Durham Bull in a tea shop and he tried not to bump anything as he crossed the thick white rug. “I was wondering if I could speak to you privately for a few minutes?”
Chirping and twittering, the elderly, well-mannered women immediately began to leave, but Mrs. Shay put her feet on the floor and sat up to reach for her cousin’s hand. “Whatever you have to say may be said in front of Eleanor.”
Eleanor Prentice tried to disengage her clasping fingers, but Mrs. Shay was insistent. “Please, Eleanor, I can’t do this alone. You know my heart can’t take much more of this.”
“It’s okay with me,” Dwight told her. Today was the second time he had met this cousin, and he was impressed by her calm demeanor and soothing air.
“Of course, I’ll stay if you want me,” she said, and 14 brought Dwight the sturdiest chair in the room. He sat down gingerly and she joined her cousin on the chaise.
Quietly, Dwight told them how someone had entered Jonna’s house during the night. Mrs. Shay murmured and exclaimed, and Dwight was struck anew by how little he had actually known of this woman before today.
She had flown out to Germany for their wedding, the only member of Jonna’s family to come, but there had been no time then to get to know each other. When he and Jonna returned stateside, Jonna had always come back to Shaysville alone and Mrs. Shay had visited them in Arlington only once, an overnight stay necessitated by a relative’s funeral. Indeed, this weekend was the first time they had met since the divorce, and except for Cal, there was no real shared mutuality. At times, in exasperation, Jonna had called her a spoiled hypochondriac, but that had not stopped her from hurrying home whenever Mrs. Shay called. He thought of Jonna’s financial records and the monthly bank draft from Mrs. Shay’s bank. Quid pro quo?
Trying to get information from her was like trying to hold smoke in his hands, yet when he said that the intruder had taken Cal’s sweater, she looked at him with sudden hope in her eyes. “But that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, it shows that Cal’s being tended to, doesn’t it?
Warm clothes? You don’t steal a sweater if you’re going to hurt— Going to— Oh, surely he’s still alive?” Her voice broke and she couldn’t continue.
“Something was also taken from the medicine cabinet.
Was Cal on any medication?”
“Not now. He had a real bad cough last week and the doctor prescribed a cough syrup, but it made him so sleepy that Jonna got scared and stopped it after a couple of days.”
“What about Jonna?”
“Only for her allergies.”
“Nothing more?”
“Certainly not!” Mrs. Shay said. “What are you implying, Dwight?”
He heard something defensive in her tone and his curiosity was pricked.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on. Cal’s dog didn’t bark, so it was probably someone familiar with the house, who knew where Jonna kept medication, because those were the only two things taken. Can you think of anyone it could have been?”
“None of Jonna’s friends would do such a thing,”
protested Mrs. Shay. “Sneak around in the dead of night?
Rummage through her medicine cabinet?” A sudden thought struck her. “Oh, Dwight! Could it have been Jonna?”
“We won’t know for several hours, but we’re pretty sure she died sometime before then.”
Yet even as he said it, Dwight found himself wondering if there were any chance in hell that it
“We’re also trying to locate some of her friends. Maybe you could tell us who she was close to? For instance, there 14 was a message on her machine from someone named Lou with a son named Jason?”
“Lou Cannady,” said Mrs. Shay. “And Jill Edwards.
They’ve been friends since kindergarten.”
He didn’t press for addresses. Surely one of them was bound to be in Jonna’s address book, and as Deborah had reminded him, one friend would probably lead to others.
As he stood to go, he asked again, “Are you sure you don’t know of any medications Jonna was on?”
