“Nutso and full of opinions as always,” Mia said. I could hear the sound of a busy kitchen in the background, plates and pots and pans rattling around, voices raised. “She said you’re lucky, that she’s bored as crap, and she’d welcome a chance to come back and check out her old stomping grounds.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Would eleven A.M. tomorrow work for you?”
“Lucky for us both, my schedule is wide open,” I said.
“She just had one question.”
“What’s that?”
Mia laughed. “Like I said, she’s a bit nutso. She wants to know if you’re single or not.”
Funny question. “Legally, yes. Technically, no.”
“Fair warning, she’ll take that as a challenge,” Mia said.
“Did you tell her I just got out of the hospital?”
“Yeah, and she said that was just fine by her. She said most men she’s seeing nowadays are either going in or coming out of a medical facility. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”
Later in the day Paula Quinn checked in, and we made a dinner date—surprise, at my house. I asked her to pick up some groceries on the way over. She said yes but I detected a lack of enthusiasm, and I couldn’t blame her. Being the assistant editor of a struggling daily newspaper, being shorthanded and covering a homicide, that was enough to fill anyone’s plate, but asking her to also be a home health-care aide was like filling up the buffet table.
When she arrived and came in, I helped her with one of the plastic grocery bags, and I said, “All right, go settle down.”
“What?”
“Have a seat on the couch, put up your feet, and relax,” I said. “My turn to make dinner.”
“Lewis …”
“Go on, young lady, mind your manners, and your elders.”
She gave me a quick kiss, sat on the couch, kicked off her shoes, and put her feet up on the coffee table. Then she laughed as she picked up the remote.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“I should have known something was up,” Paula said, turning the television on and going to the local ABC affiliate, Channel 9 out of Manchester. “You had me pick up some veggies. You and veggies? As if.”
I went through the plastic grocery bags, found a bottle of Bass Phillip pinot noir from Australia, struggled some to get it open, and then I poured a glass for Paula and limped over. She took a satisfying sip and asked, “What’s for dinner, then?”
“Ham and cheese omelet for me,” I said. “Stir-fried veggie omelet for you.”
“With ham and cheese,” she asked.
“Got it.”
I went back to the kitchen, dug out two frying pans, and got to work. Pretty soon my kitchen was filled with satisfying cooking aromas and I got dinner up and served in less than thirty minutes.
Paula came back to the kitchen and we started eating. “Tastes good,” she said.
“It should,” I said. “Every meal tastes better when you don’t have to make it, am I right?”
She giggled at that and we kept on eating.
After dinner and the dishes, we cuddled up on the couch, and blundered our way through Jeopardy! She put her head on my shoulder. “How was your day, dear?” I asked.
Paula sighed. “Oh, the usual. Board meetings, police logs, trying to get the latest on Maggie Branch’s murder.”
“What do you have?”
“What, and give you a scoop before reading tomorrow’s paper? How in heck do you think the Chronicle will survive if you don’t pay for it?”
“I do pay for it,” I said. “I have an online subscription, and when I’ve been on my feet, I’ve bought the print edition as well.”
“Okay, then,” she said. “The Tyler cops are still shoved aside, and the state police and the task force are trying to squeeze her murder into the opioid crisis, but I don’t think it’s going to fit.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because there was just one packet of heroin found in her place of business, there were no opioids found in her system, and come on, can we believe that Maggie had anything to do with the heroin trade?”
“But there’s a chance she was murdered by somebody looking for cash or gold to buy heroin, right?”
“Right,” she said. “But that means a robbery that turned into a homicide. Not anything to do with heroin.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for that criminal update. How about the break-in at the paper? Anything new on that?”
Paula snuggled in closer. “One of Tyler’s finest is working on it, helping out Detective Sergeant Woods while she plays with the state police. So far, nothing untoward has been found. No fingerprints on the door, no apparent break-in. And it still looks like the silver sludge was taken.”
“But didn’t you say that some filing cabinets and bound back issues were disturbed?”
“Yeah, disturbed like tossed all over the place. Who knows. Maybe they got in the mood of wrecking things while hauling out the sludge.”
“And how’s the assistant editor’s job coming along?”
She laughed. “Well, not much more of a bump in pay, and a hell of a lot more responsibilities, but it’s a step forward. I’m beginning to like the editing process, especially with the freelancers we have working for us. Lots of dedication, lots of enthusiasm, not much in the way of grammar and style.”
We sat there for a while longer, then she said, “All right, fess up. Have you heard anything about your biopsies?”
I told her about my traveling tissues. She groaned and swore in all the right places, then asked, “Feel like being the subject of a story?”
“About that?”
“Why not? Our health-care system is one big screw-up from one end to the other. Why not publicize it?”
“Well … tell you what. When I get my results back, if it’s benign, you got it. If it’s not, I’ll have more important things to worry about.”
“I can see. You get any writing done lately?”
“Um—no.”
“I thought Shoreline gave you your job back.”
“In a manner of speaking, they did.”
She squirmed around so she was looking up at me. “That’s some kind of speaking. Do tell me more.”
“The guy
