“I understand.”
I did understand not wanting to move, but I didn’t completely get Lola. I wanted to ask if the police knew they were once roommates, but there was no nonaccusatory way to form the question. I’d ask the police myself.
“Shoot, Lola, Mallory’s death has to be extra hard on you. I’m sorry.”
Her eyes flashed briefly with teary gratitude. Had she just been waiting for someone to extend some sympathy her way?
“Thank you.” She sniffed. “Well, I wish my semester living with Mallory had given me some insight as to why someone might want her dead, but I’ve got nothing. She was a sweet, hardworking person who didn’t share much of herself, her inner self, you know. She was studious and quiet. Never talked about family or friends. I was shocked when I saw her dad coming over for a visit one day. I had no idea her father was such a big deal at the university. The rumors about her and Dr. Eban have been swirling for a while. I just don’t know. Dr. Eban and Dr. Clacher work together. The day I saw her father, I wondered if he knew about the rumors and how he felt, and I guess that Dr. Eban would be fired if Dr. Clacher found any truth to them.”
I couldn’t have told you one member of the administration of the university I attended, but maybe medical school and Scotland were different. Well, I remembered the president’s name, but that was it.
“How long ago did you see Mallory’s father come by?” I asked.
“A few months, I think. Look, I have some work to do.” She smiled stiffly again.
“Sure. Thanks, and thanks for getting the door all the time.”
“You’re welcome.”
She was distracted as she told me goodbye and then shut her door.
I walked down the hallway, past Mallory’s door, now devoid of tributes, up the stairs, and knocked on Sophie and Rena’s door, but just with a few gentle raps. Somehow, in my mind that seemed less intrusive.
“Delaney, come in,” Rena said as she opened the door. She didn’t smile, but her tone wasn’t unwelcoming.
“Thanks,” I said.
Sophie was right inside, sitting on the end of the couch.
“Delaney,” she said.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m sorry to intrude, and I know we just saw each other, but…”
“Have a seat. Believe it or not, we were kind of expecting you,” Rena said.
“Rena told me more about the article,” Sophie interjected.
“Oh, good, that’s why I came over,” I lied easily. “I wanted to explain that to you both. The church didn’t feel like the right place, and … I didn’t know Mallory before Friday night, and I certainly didn’t kill her.”
They looked at me with calm, expectant eyes. I didn’t know how to interpret their nonreactions. Did I need to explain more or were they not actually waiting to hear an explanation?
I went through the sequence of events of my explorations down the close, but as I told the story this time a new light was shed. Now, I could see myself through Bridget’s eyes, not as Tom’s girlfriend but as someone a bit too curious about the view through a window at the place she worked, the place near which someone had just been killed. I didn’t want to ponder the revelation in front of my friends, but I knew I would later. Though it seemed natural to be curious, I might be willing to feel a little less angry, resentful, and maybe even violent toward Bridget.
“But still,” I said, “there’s a killer on the loose, and I’m having a hard time thinking it was a random murder. She was at the bookshop, a place we’d talked about with Dr. Eban only a short time earlier. I can’t believe that either of you two were the killer either.” I still wasn’t sure, but I hoped I sounded like I was. “Do you two think Dr. Eban could have killed her?”
They shared a look.
Rena was the first to move her attention back to me. “Look, Delaney, we don’t think we owe you an explanation, but we’d like tae tell you something nevertheless. We haven’t told the police, but we are going tae, planned on calling them right before you knocked.”
“Okay.”
“We saw something,” Sophie began.
She paused for so long I thought she was going to change her mind and not tell me. I kept as steady and patient as I could and hoped she’d keep talking.
She resumed, “I saw a man sneaking out of Mallory’s flat a few months ago. Late.”
“Dr. Eban?” I asked.
“No, at first I thought so, but…”
“Sophie?”
“I think it was Dr. Jack Glenn.”
I looked at the women. “I’m … Did you recognize him? Hasn’t he been missing for ten years or so?”
“I didn’t recognize him at first. Mallory told us later who he was,” Sophie said.
“And you didn’t call the police?” I said, holding back firmly on a general sense of aghast.
Sophie looked at Rena. “We wanted to, but Mallory asked us not to.”
“Oh boy, you two, I don’t understand that one bit.”
“Delaney,” Rena said, “Dr. Glenn has been in Edinburgh for a few years. He befriended Mallory about six months ago. She didn’t know who he was, but kept their relationship hidden because he was so much older. It wasn’t until recently that she put the pieces together herself, after looking at pictures of him with her father from ten years ago.”
“That had to be a terrible discovery. Didn’t know who he was? He and her father were friends ten years ago. She didn’t recognize him?”
Rena shrugged. “She mentioned that she didn’t recognize him and then she fell in love with him. He with her, too. She said he wasn’t the same man he used tae be.” Rena shrugged again, but more stiffly this time. “We should have called the police a long time ago, but Mallory asked us not tae.
