“Rhetorical Questions.”)
Dwight told them about Pam’s mental condition, I elaborated on how her friends had been told she was al- coholic, not psychotic, but that they agreed with Mrs.
Shay that Pam was truly fond of Cal. “They think she took him because she hopes to get custody of him.”
Dwight was outraged by that until I reminded him that this was a woman listening to inner voices about bloodhounds and ghosts and trains that no longer ran.
All five of us were at a loss to think of where Pam could be. No friends, Jonna dead. “Are you sure she’s not here in the house?” asked Lewes.
“I checked every room upstairs,” said Dwight.
“And I checked the basement before I found the parka,” I confessed. “Eleanor?”
She shook her head. “I can’t imagine. Unless the Anson cousins are hiding her? I’m her only other relative here and you’re welcome to search my house if you like.”
“You’re just around the corner, right?” asked Clark.
“No offense, ma’am, but if you’re sure you don’t mind, maybe I could just take a quick look?”
Eleanor was understandably offended. “Of course,”
she said frostily. “Let me get my coat.”
As the two of them left, I remembered that the only reason I was downstairs alone long enough to search the place was so that Dwight could question Mrs. Shay about the money.
“Did you tell Agent Lewes about Cal’s teacher?”
“Not yet.”
“Something new?” Lewes asked.
Dwight explained how we had run into Cal’s teacher at breakfast this morning. “On Tuesday, Cal told her that someone was going to smash his mother’s face in if she didn’t come up with five thousand and that she was crying because his grandmother wouldn’t give it to her.”
“Someone threatened her?” asked Lewes. “Who?”
“I don’t know and Mrs. Shay completely denies that it ever happened. She keeps insisting that Cal must have misunderstood.” He threw up his hands in exasperation.
“Who knows? Maybe he did. In any event, his teacher says that on Wednesday Cal was okay again, said that his mother had told him she had plenty of money and for him not to give it any more thought.”
Lewes frowned. “Maybe I’d better have a talk with Mrs. Shay.”
“Good luck,” Dwight said sourly. “She’ll just start crying.”
“How about I try after Jonna’s friends are gone?” I offered. Even as I spoke, I was struck by a sudden thought.
“Is there any chance that Pam could be hiding somewhere in the Morrow House?”
“Huh?” they both said.
“Well, think about it, Dwight. Mrs. Shay says she kept talking about Jonna being a ghost
“I don’t know,” Dwight said doubtfully.
“Won’t hurt to turn that place inside out,” Lewes said.
“I get the feeling that Mayhew guy may know more than he’s telling.”
“And while you’re there, see if you can see Mrs. Shay’s bedroom window from there. It’s awfully coincidental that she showed up in the wee hours just when Mrs. Shay was up and about, don’t you think?”
Eleanor returned with Clark, and Dwight offered to leave me his truck keys while he rode over to the Morrow House with the two state agents, but I told him I could certainly walk the block or two.
When Lou Cannady and Jill Edwards came back downstairs, I asked Eleanor if I could make us a cup of tea.
“Of course you may,” she said as she went up to see if Mrs. Shay wanted her.
Lou and Jill made noises about needing to get home, but when I said I had a few more questions, they came along to the kitchen with me. Despite their genuine sense of loss, I also sensed some of the repressed excitement I had seen before when tragedy jolts people out of their commonplace lives.
“Did Jonna talk much about her work?” I asked when we were settled around the table with steaming cups.
“Any conflicts there? Anyone she didn’t get along with?”
Not at all, they told me. Jonna loved being at the Morrow House. After all, it was her family. And wasn’t it fitting that the last Morrow in town married the last Shay?
That made Pam and Jonna the last to bear the Shay name.
“Jonna felt like it was her duty to help out over there as much as she could,” said Lou. “She was very civic- minded.”
