Mark drove King and me in his car. He said it was an old car and he didn’t mind getting dog smell and dog hair on the back seat. When we arrived at the farm we released King to run off with her playmate while Mark and I went into the house. I was glad to see that Mark and Sandra hugged each other, although they didn’t kiss. At least they were acting civilly. Winston was happy to see Mark and promptly asked him about his car. We busied ourselves with food preparation.
Albert said, “Tell us about Donna.”
“As you know, she was Elise’s roommate,” I said. “She was also the one who discovered Elise. I’m hoping she might have some information that might lead to the killer.”
“Haven’t the police already questioned her?” Sandra asked.
“Yes, but the detective in charge of the investigation is young and I’m not sure he’s doing a thorough job.”
“Don’t trust anybody under 50, is that it?” Albert said.
“Couldn’t Donna be a suspect?” Sandra asked.
“That’s a possibility, of course, but she doesn’t seem to have a motive, except…” I looked at Mark, wondering how much I should say.
“Except what?” Albert prompted.
“Except that Donna appears to have a crush on Mark and she was upset when Elise filed the charge again him.”
“That’s hardly a motive for murder,” Sandra said, coldly.
“Probably not,” I agreed, quickly.
Mark wisely kept silent. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to talk about his groupies. Maybe getting Sandra together with Mark and Donna was a mistake. Sandra knew about Elise’s phone call to me so there wasn’t anything else we could say to convince her that the harassment charge had been false. And we certainly didn’t want her to start picturing Mark carrying on with other women.
I decided to mention something that might be in Mark’s favor. “The Bethany paper states that the autopsy showed Elise probably hadn’t had sex before she was murdered. Since she was found without any clothes on…”
“It still may not have been a lover’s quarrel,” Albert said. “Although the front window was broken, as I recall, indicating forced entry. But didn’t you say her boyfriend didn’t believe in sex before marriage?”
“Yes.”
“Then by backward reasoning, it could have been him. And he could have covered the murder by breaking the window.”
“Here comes a car,” Sandra said.
We watched through the large front windows as a car that had just appeared out of the woods came slowly along the meandering driveway past acres of lawn to the house.
“That’s Donna’s car,” I said.
I went outside to meet her and to try to prepare her for what lay ahead. She pulled to a stop beside Mark’s Toyota.
“Your directions were great, Mrs. Morgan…or I should say Dr. Morgan,” Donna said as she got out of her car. “I only went astray once and I immediately recognized my error and turned around.”
She wore a skirt and sweater and was dressed more formally than the rest of us. She looked wholesome, but Sandra was prettier, if a grandmother can be permitted an opinion. And Elise had been too.
“I’m retired,” I said. “Why don’t you call me Lillian? Everybody else does.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Here, I brought some rolls.”
“That was nice of you.” I usually baked rolls from scratch so she had infringed on my territory, but she was a guest and didn’t know any better. I led her along the narrow sidewalk to the front door, quickly going over the names and relationships of the people present. We went inside and into the kitchen, the center of activity, where I introduced her to the people she didn’t know.
Mark formally shook hands with her, acting very professorial in front of Sandra. Albert shook hands with her and welcomed her to his home. Sandra said hello from the stove and didn’t shake hands. Winston asked her if she had new tires on her car.
We sat down to eat at the round table just off the kitchen. With just six people it was a lot easier than carting food into the formal dining room. And that applied to getting seconds, also, which I allowed myself one meal a week. Donna got seated between Albert and Mark, more or less by accident since we didn’t have place cards.
The conversation while we ate started off as small talk. Albert asked Donna how he liked Mark’s class.
“Dr. Pappas is great,” Donna gushed. “Advanced Physics is tough but he explains everything so clearly.”
“I wish he’d explain it to me,” Sandra said. “I almost flunked beginning physics in college.”
“Do you want to be a scientist?” Albert asked Donna.
“Well, I’ve been told I have an aptitude for science. And that more women should go into it.” She paused, reflecting. “But I’d like to become a writer.”
“What do you like to write?” Mark asked.
“I write short stories and poetry. But if I could do what I really wanted I would be a lyricist.”
“You mean a song lyricist?”
“Yes. As I was telling Dr. Morgan, I wrote a bunch of songs for a musical review presented by Citrus Heights College last fall.”
“Some of which were sung by Elise,” I said.
“How long had you two known each other?” Albert asked.
“Since the beginning of the last school year, when Elise was a freshman and I was a sophomore. We both lived in the dorm, but we became friends because we had common interests. And then we decided to get an apartment together for this school year.”
“I would guess that the demand for lyricists is not great,” Sandra said, not unkindly. “I’ve written some poetry in my time and I can tell you that you can’t make a living as a poet.”
Donna sighed. “How true. Of course it’s also difficult to make a living as a singer, but Elise sang with a rock group last summer-a Christian rock group-and was going to have the lead in our May musical. At least she was getting some recognition.”
“Mark has written some poetry too,” Albert said.
“Yes, but Mark can do everything,” Sandra said, “so he doesn’t count.”
Sometimes it did seem as if Mark could do everything. “Donna brought a book of her compositions with her,” I said. I had asked her to do that. “Perhaps she can read some of them to those of us who are on dish duty.”
Before she had a chance to do that the conversation shifted to the murder. Fortunately, we had all finished eating. Sandra told Winston to go play with his car in the family room where she could keep an eye on him but he wouldn’t follow the conversation. He sat in the plastic car, supplied car noises with his voice and power with his feet as he practiced steering and driving forward and backward. He would be asking for a real car in another few years.
Donna retold the story of how she had found Elise. Although she had told it a few times already it was still traumatic for her and she had to pause to avoid being overcome by emotion as she recalled the events of that evening. Sandra gasped when she heard about the amount of blood on Elise and the bedclothes, Albert looked grim and Mark pressed his lips tightly together.
“We know Mark couldn’t have done it,” Sandra said when Donna had finished. “He knows how to pick locks.” The looks she got prompted Sandra to continue, “Well, you picked the lock of the apartment of that woman at Silver Acres last year.”
“I asked him to,” I said, quickly, “and before Donna gets the impression that she has fallen into a gang of thieves let me add that we were trying to solve another murder.”
“Did solve another murder,” Albert said, “but remember that you said you were going to retire from being a detective.”
I had promised with my fingers crossed, but to keep the peace I said, “All I’m doing right now is trying to help Mark.”
“According to the newspaper accounts,” Sandra said to Donna, “you must have just missed the murderer.
