She looked at Chester and grinned. “Chester, how can you walk after all that pizza yesterday?”
He smirked back at her. “Is there more?”
She smacked her lips and shook her head. “I ate all three leftover pieces for breakfast. You’d be proud of me.”
“Hey, that’s pretty good for you,” Chester said. “I must admit that pizza for breakfast is pretty easy to get down.”
She chuckled and then looked down at the poor woman covered by the sheet. “I feel sorry for her and her family, if there is anybody besides the grandson. If it is the grandson, I’m hoping he doesn’t inherit anything.”
“Maybe not,” Mack said, “but we don’t know that anything is suspicious about this either.”
She snorted. “When four little old ladies drop dead the same way, that’s suspicious. Then there’s the whole kiwi issue,” she said. He glared at her, and she raised both hands in frustration. “I know. I know. It’s not a cold case,” she said. “But you know Nan won’t leave me alone about this.”
“You’re not allowed to interfere,” he said with a glare and a warning.
She gave him an innocent look. “Of course not,” she said. “What could I possibly do to interfere? You’ve got this, Mack. You’ll find who did this in a couple days.”
“How do you figure that?” he asked.
“Because, once the media gets ahold of this,” she said, “the pressure will be incredibly intense. It doesn’t take me to tell you that four recent deaths of little gray-haired ladies is very suspicious.”
“Maybe it was just their time,” Arnold suggested.
“Sure. All outside and all in public, not one of them at home baking cookies?” she said. A frown crossed his face at that, and he reached up to scratch his head as he looked down at the lady. “It’s also rather early in the morning for a woman who doesn’t like walking,” Doreen said.
“Nan’s words of wisdom again, I presume,” Mack said.
“Yes,” she said. “Rosie doesn’t like to walk anywhere, and I have no idea what she’d be doing on this pathway right now.”
“I do,” Mack said with a sorry sigh. He reached down with his gloved hands and pulled out an envelope tucked into the old lady’s jacket pocket. On the outside was Doreen’s name. “She was coming to you.”
Chapter 9
Sunday Midmorning …
Doreen stared at the envelope with her heart sinking. “Oh my,” she said. “That poor woman.” She shook her head in dismay. “Why did I oversleep?” she asked. “I could have been down here earlier. Maybe I’d have seen her.”
“Well, she hasn’t been gone very long,” Arnold said. “We only got the phone call around eight.”
“And I think there are rules about when they’re allowed to leave the manor,” she said, frowning. “Nan could tell me more about that.” She looked at the envelope, then at Mack. “Have you opened it?”
“I’m proud of you,” he said. “You didn’t even ask for it.”
“There’s no point,” she said. “You won’t let me have it until the investigation is over.”
“Exactly,” he said, “it’s my investigation.”
She rolled her eyes. “So open it and let me know what she said. It’d probably give you pointers as to who might have done this to her.”
Immediately all the others crowded around. Mack carefully opened the envelope, which wasn’t sealed, and pulled out a little note. He read out loud, “Hi, Doreen. I’m a friend of your grandmother’s. I’m a little worried about talking to you in person, so I’ll leave you this note. Is there anything you can do about my grandson, Danny? He wants me to die, and he wants me to die early.” There was almost a pout left in the air with that. “He says he has no money, and he needs mine, and I should die sooner than later. I’d really appreciate your help. Thanks, Rosie.” Everybody stepped back with hard looks on their faces.
“It’s a little too pat,” Doreen said.
Mack looked at her and gave her a clipped nod. “Thank you,” he said. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Meaning that the grandson didn’t do it?” Arnold asked in confusion. “Why? He’s a perfect suspect for this.”
“Yes, that’s quite true,” she said, “but why the other dead older ladies then?”
“Ah,” Arnold said with a nod. “It’s one thing if it was just her, but it would be something else now that we’ve got four of them.”
“Exactly,” she said. “And I understand that one of the others had a heart condition and one definitely didn’t. And I can’t remember what Nan said about the third one.”
“We’ll find out,” Mack said, as he returned the note to the envelope. He put it into an evidence bag and sealed it up.
She looked at it and said, “If and when there’s an opportunity, any chance I could get a copy of that?”
“Why?”
“For my own sake,” she said. “I’m really sorry I couldn’t help her before she died. On the other hand,” she said, slowly looking at the letter in the bag. “Do you have any handwriting to match it to? Because, if somebody hated the grandson, what a perfect way to start tying these murders on him.”
Chester grinned. “I like the way she thinks. She’s devious.”
“She’s also not a cop,” Mack said, handing the envelope off to Chester. “Make sure this gets tagged and processed.”
Immediately Chester headed to the side, where he filled out the forensic form for chain of custody. She watched as they continued their investigation and then saw two men come around the corner. “Ah, the coroner is here,” she said, backing up slightly.
“Yeah, why don’t you go home now,” Mack said. “I told you that I’d be up there sooner or later.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “Good point. I’ll go back and have coffee.” She called the animals and headed toward home. She stopped at the creek on a nearby corner and sat down on a rock and watched them from
