open house two doors down from Weyrich's apartment from eleven to two. Somebody's retirement party. All sorts of people up and down the hallway. And a couple next to her on the other side had a garageless garage sale going on until three. That hallway must have looked like a couple of great ethnic migrations colliding. About all I've got is two more long lists of names with a few that overlap with the deli opening list and are probably pure coincidence.'
“Nobody saw anyone going into Emma's apartment?' Jane asked.
“Quite the contrary. A lot of them saw somebody go into her apartment — or maybe the one next door. And I can't blame them for not being sure. The hallway's so anonymous. The only descriptions that might help are one of a woman who sounds a lot like Rhonda Stonecipher. But she says she was home all afternoon and Tony Belton says he was with her. I guess they could both be lying.'
“She's a type anyway,' Shelley said. 'Any well-dressed, well-groomed, rich-looking woman of the same age and coloring could be mistaken for her.'
“The other description we got of someone 191 who actually might have gone into the apartment sounds quite a lot like your friend LeAnne Doherty,' Mel said.
Jane sighed. 'I was afraid of that.' She and Shelley told him about their odd conversation with LeAnne at the grocery store.
“But she didn't say she'd been there?' Mel asked when they had stopped talking.
“She didn't
“It wasn't what she said so much as her manner,' Jane added. 'She was very nervous. White-knuckled and high-pitched. But Mel, you can't really suspect her.'
“Why not? Because you like her?' he asked, taking another cookie.
“No. Because she isn't the least bit canny.'
“Jane,' he said with impatience, 'criminals can be pretty dumb. That's one of the reasons they get caught so often. In fact, lots of times they seem to almost go out of their way to blab about the crime and make themselves look suspicious. A surprising number of them actually make scrapbooks of the clippings about the crime.'
“Mel, don't say that. I don't want it to be LeAnne,' Jane admitted. 'She's a bit dim, but really nice and she's had a hard enough time of it the last few years.”
Mel took his empty milk glass to the sink and rinsed it out. 'Okay. If it makes you feel better, I'm inclined to doubt she's the perp anyway. At least on the basis of what we know now.'
“Which is?'
“The pathology boys say their first impression is that Weyrich died between one and three. The red-haired woman who might have been your friend LeAnne was seen around noon.'
“Thank goodness!' Jane said.
“Now, now! I knew you'd do that if I told you,' Mel said regretfully. 'It doesn't let her off the hook. Not completely. For one thing, she might have come back. For another, the lab people are basing their preliminary findings on body temperature and it's not all that reliable, especially under the circumstances.'
“What circumstances?' Shelley asked.
“The apartment was air-conditioned,' Mel said. 'And it was set as cold as it can be. We have no idea if the murderer turned it down for some reason and the apartment gradually got colder and colder, or whether Weyrich always kept it cold in there. That alone could account for the missing hour. And there's another factor — she had one of those caller identification things on her phone. She got a call at five minutes after noon that she apparently didn't answer because there's a dial tone on her answering machine at the same time. Maybe she saw who was calling and didn't answer. But maybe she was already dead.”
“Who was the call from?' Jane asked eagerly.
Mel smiled at her. 'A roofing and siding company. Sorry.'
“Mel, how are you ever going to figure this out?' Shelley asked. 'It seems like such a huge, amorphous wad of information.'
“Slowly. Carefully. Bit by tiny bit,' he said grimly. 'And without any interference from you two if I can manage it.”
Jane and Shelley ignored this comment. 'Do you think the two incidents are connected?' Shelley asked. 'Emma's death and Stone-cipher's?'
“Maybe. When two people from one small office die within a couple days of each other, one by murder and one under strange circumstances, that has to be a possibility,' he said.
“Isn't there physical evidence from either one?' Jane asked. 'Fibers, fingerprints, blood drops, that kind of thing?'
“Tons in Emma's case, ninety-nine percent of which will turn out to be entirely irrelevant,' he said. 'And the same is true at the deli. But eventually it'll fall together.”
Jane gave him A Look. 'You're not telling us everything, are you?”
He just smiled back. 'Am I supposed to? How's Mike liking his new truck?' he asked, signifying that police confidences were over.16 Shelley called first thing in the morning. 'The paper says Stonecipher's funeral is this morning. Are we going?'
“Shelley, you know how I hate funerals. Do we have to?'
“No, but aren't you curious to see how the grieving widow who was about to divorce the late unlamented carries it off? Her wardrobe choice alone ought to be worth the effort.'
“You are a callous woman,' Jane said.
“So are you, and you know it.”
Jane sighed. 'What time?'
“Eleven.”
Rhonda Stonecipher had split the difference between grief and gaiety. She wore a gray linen suit with a matching hat that even had a suggestion of a veil. 'Where did she find that!' Shelley whispered. 'That's a great hat!”
But with the gray suit, she wore a gray, white, and fuschia — striped silk blouse with a matching fabric purse and a drapey fuschia scarf affixed with a large silver pin. It was a stunning outfit. She maintained a dignified and aloof manner, sitting at the front of the church with a number of people who were presumably members of her family or that of her late husband. She dabbed her eyes daintily from time to time with an old-fashioned fabric handkerchief with lacy trim.
There was a man who looked like an older version of Robert Stonecipher, who was presumably his brother. A very small woman with sharp, foxy features stood by him. A middle-aged woman who looked a great deal like Rhonda, without the money to dress as well, was in the front pew as well, with a man who looked like he'd rather be almost anywhere else. A woman in her twenties who must have been Rhonda's daughter because she had Rhonda's features, but very fair coloring, stood next to her mother. She was holding a baby.
“Rhonda must be a grandmother,' Jane whispered to Shelley. 'She sure keeps that quiet.”
Jane found herself feeling sorry for Tony Belton. Rhonda had apparently forced him to sit with her and the family, and he looked miserable. Rhonda shared his hymnal, leaning ever so slightly on his arm. The family members on her other side kept shooting him murderous glances. Or perhaps they were aimed at Rhonda and merely ricocheting.
Jane guessed the Stoneciphers weren't regular churchgoers, or perhaps the minister just didn't know them well. It was a generic service, without any reference to the man's life or circumstances surrounding his death.
Tony Belton gave a very short eulogy with the air of a man who had been forced into it, but did a workmanlike job. He concentrated, without being specific, on Stonecipher's civic interests. 'His ideas weren't always popular,' he admitted, 'but he did what he thought he had to for the greater good of the community.' As he meandered off into an account of Stonecipher's education, Jane's attention wandered. The church was less than half full, and those attending the service were widely scattered, as people do when they're attending a funeral out of duty, not friendship.
Patsy Mallett had come in her role as business acquaintance. She was sitting alone and looking down intently, as if she had something in her lap she was reading. As Jane watched, Patsy wet her finger to turn a page.
Grace Axton was there as well. Also alone. She stared straight ahead, absolutely expressionless, her mind probably a thousand miles away.
