I shrugged. I didn’t expect everyone to do what I did.
“I hear that the sheriff’s department has an automatic door that zips open and closed all day, so much traffic is going in and out.”
“You hear?” Someone’s lips were awfully loose.
“Anna-Lise Puck.”
Anna-Lise was Becca’s workout partner. She was also a civilian employee of the sheriff’s department.
“Should she be talking about that?”
“No,” Becca said. “But she enjoys being in the know so much that she just can’t resist.”
I shook my head. Anna-Lise would find herself unemployed pretty soon. “She better watch out,” I told Becca.
“She thinks she has job security.”
“Why?”
“Well, she was tight with the first Sheriff Schuster.” Becca shrugged. “She figures the second Sheriff Schuster won’t fire her because of that.”
We exchanged glances, and Becca grinned at me. Right.
“When I went to pick her up for lunch yesterday,” Becca told me, “guess who I saw coming out of the door?”
I looked a question.
“Jerrell Knopp,” she said significantly. “The stepfather himself.”
Poor Lacey. I wondered if she knew.
“And,” Becca continued, stepping on the word heavily, “our esteemed neighbor Carlton.”
I was shocked. I had always figured Carlton as too fastidious for Deedra. I could feel my lips tighten in a small sneer. It just went to show.
“In fact,” Becca said, “all the guys in our karate class have been in, including our esteemed
“Raphael? Bobo?” Raphael was the most married man I’d ever met, and Bobo was Deedra’s cousin.
“Yep, and the new guys. Plus a few men that haven’t been to class in a long time.”
“But why?” Even Deedra couldn’t have arranged a rendezvous with every single karate student.
Becca shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Obviously, there was some reason, something that had been discovered during the investigation that had led to this. “Are they bringing in the tae kwon do people?” I asked.
Becca looked pleased with me. “Exactly what I asked Anna-Lise,” she told me. “Yes, all the martial arts guys in Shakespeare are visiting with the sheriff. Whether or not they are really known to have known our late neighbor.”
“That’s quite a few men.” I hesitated, then went on. “I just wonder if they’ll ever find out who did kill her.”
“Lily, I want the police to solve this. You know one of the men she slept with did this to her.”
“Maybe.”
“They hauled out lots of sheets.”
“She had a drawerful of condoms.” Of course, I couldn’t be sure she’d used them, but I thought fear of pregnancy would have prompted caution, if fear of disease didn’t.
Becca stared at me, her eyes like bright blue marbles, while she thought that through. “So, most likely there won’t be semen stains on the sheets. So, no DNA to test and compare.” She’d crossed her legs, and her foot began to swing. “There may not be DNA inside her, anyway. Hey, she ever go with women?”
I returned her stare with interest, trying not to look shocked. I was learning a lot about myself today. “If she did, I never knew about it.”
“Now, don’t get all tight-ass, Lily,” Becca said, seeing I wasn’t happy with the conversation. “You know, lots of women who went through what you did would be inclined that way afterwards. Maybe Deedra had run the gamut of men, wanted something different.”
“And that would be equally no one else’s business,” I said pointedly.
“Oh, you’re no fun!” Becca recrossed her legs, picked up the morning newspaper, and tossed it down. “Well, how’s old Joe C?”
“I haven’t called the hospital yet, but I hear he’s still alive.”
“He’s lucky you came along.” Her narrow face was utterly sober.
“Eventually someone would have called the fire department, and the firefighters would have gotten him out.”
“Well, I’m going to say thank you anyway, since Joe C is my great-grandfather.”
“Did you visit him often?”
“I hadn’t been to Shakespeare since I was a little kid. But since Uncle Pardon died and I moved here, I’ve been by to see him maybe once every two weeks, something like that. That old rascal still likes short skirts and high heels, you know?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Kind of pathetic. But he’s a peppy old bastard; I’ll give him that. Still capable of launching into you in the wink of an eye, you give him cause. Rip you another asshole.”
“You specifically?”
“No, no. I was speaking in general. Not me.”
Was I supposed to ask who? I decided not to, out of sheer perversity. “I understand you inherit, with the other great-grandchildren,” I said instead, not knowing why I was commenting on what Bobo had told me.
“Yep, that’s the way I hear it.” Becca was smiling broadly. “But the old so-and-so isn’t dead yet!” She seemed pleased to be related to such a tough bird. But then her face grew serious. “What I really came here to tell you, Lily, is that you may be getting another visit from that woman sheriff.”
“Why?”
“Anna-Lise says all the karate women will come next. Because of the way Deedra died.”
“How did she die?”
“She was-.”
A heavy knock on the door interrupted this interesting bit of dialogue. “Too late,” Becca said, almost blithely.
Before I could say anything, Becca just got up and went out my back door. I was left to answer the front with an increasingly bad feeling.
“Sheriff Schuster,” I said, and it was impossible for me to sound anything but grudging. This day had been too much for me already.
“Miss Bard,” she said crisply.
Marta stepped in with Deputy Emanuel on her heels.
“Please have a seat,” I said, my voice cool and insincere.
Of course, they did.
“The results of Deedra Dean’s autopsy,” Marta Schuster said, “were very interesting.”
I raised my hand, palm up. What?
“Though various things were done to her after death”-I couldn’t help remembering the glint, of glass between Deedra’s thighs-“she died of a single hard punch to the solar plexus.” The sheriff tapped her own solar plexus by way of visual aid.
I probably looked as stumped as I felt. I finally could think of nothing to say but, “So…?”
“It was a massive blow, and it stopped her heart. She didn’t die from a fall or strangulation.”
I shook my head. I was still clueless. Whatever reaction Marta Schuster was expecting from me, she wasn’t getting it, and it was making her angry.
“Of course, it might have been an accident,” Clifton Emanuel said suddenly, so we both looked at him. “It might not have been intended to kill her. Someone might have just punched her, not knowing how hard they hit.”
Still I stared like a fool. I tried to understand the significance of his statement, which he had definitely delivered as though he was giving me the Big Clue.
“A hard punch,” I said blankly.
They waited, with twin expressions of expectancy, almost of gloating.
