“Good,” Doreen said. “That should be at least as authentic as anything.”
“Not unless it’s signed properly.” Darren came up behind her. But, indeed, two witness signatures were on it.
“Now you need to find those people,” she said. But her gaze was caught on the actual contents of the will. She pulled out her phone and quickly snapped a picture. Mack turned and glared at her. She shrugged. “You won’t let me see it any closer than that, will you?”
“Nope,” he said. “This has to all go into the station. We’ll contact a lawyer and see what’s going on.”
“Rosie changed her will at the last minute,” Doreen said. “And, given the nasty grandson who was here, I can understand why.”
“He’s likely to fight it in court,” Darren said.
“Unless,” Doreen said, “you can find these witnesses. Both of them have typewritten names and not just signatures, so it’s probably staff members.”
Mack nodded. “I’ve already got a list coming of all the Rosemoor employees,” he said. “We’ll talk to them.” Then he looked at her and said, “You get to go home now. Besides, it’s dark outside. Darren, will you walk her and her animals home, please?”
Darren nodded.
“Right,” she said, pulling off her gloves. “My job here is done.” And, with a chuckle, she walked toward Nan.
Nan had a massive grin on her face. “I knew you wouldn’t let Rosie down,” she said. She looked at the mirror. “She stared at that mirror all the time.”
“Ha. But I wonder why she would have thought that the will would be found there,” Doreen said.
“It probably wasn’t something she thought would be found as much as she was hoping that somebody else wouldn’t find it,” Richie said. That made a cryptic kind of sense to Doreen too.
Back home, she and her animals headed straight to bed.
Chapter 17
Monday Early Morning …
Doreen woke up the next morning, noting it was Monday. It was hard to believe Sunday had been such a crush of activity. As she laid in bed, she stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the devil that gardening award had to do with anything. Nobody would kill over something like that, and her bet was still on the snotty grandson, Danny. She had quickly checked the photos on her phone when she had gotten in last night, happy to see them, but it was too hard to read the will. And that pissed her off more.
She hopped from her bed and headed downstairs to the kitchen to put on coffee, but she stopped at the back door. She unlocked it and opened it up, then stared in pure joy at her upgraded backyard. But she had to hold the animals back and quickly close the screen door so they didn’t jump outside. Because, as much as she wanted her life back in terms of actually using her backyard, she wasn’t sure that it was safe to walk on even the deck back there yet, much less the concrete which was still being continuously soaked by sprinklers on timers. She quickly called Mack.
He answered, his voice groggy.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I’m awake,” he said. “And, if I’m not, I have to be anyway, so I can head into work. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know if we’re allowed to go out the back door now,” she said. “The deck, the concrete …”
He came more awake on that note. “Good question,” he said. “I’ll say, for the moment, no. Do your best to avoid all of it.”
“So we go out the front then today? Because I can’t go anywhere otherwise,” she said.
“We also have to apply another coat of stain on the wood,” he said. “You should be minimizing as much walking around as you can.”
“And the concrete?”
“Definitely not for another day, better two,” he said.
She groaned. “If you say so,” she said, staring out at the lovely backyard and patio. But she couldn’t even admire it fully. “I guess I could put them all on leashes and walk around, then come up the creekside, so we can look.”
“You could,” he said. “But remember that the animals can’t walk on the concrete either, so you don’t want to take a chance with them getting loose.”
“In other words, no walking. Got it,” she said. “Okay, I’ll need coffee for this then too.” And she hung up.
She turned to put on her coffee, knowing the animals wanted to run outside. As soon as she had a cup in her hand, she walked to the front door and called them. There, she let them out in the front yard, walking around a little bit to take a look at what had been done from this angle. On each side of her house, wood blocked access. Comfortable knowing that Mugs and Goliath wouldn’t make their way around to the back, she took them for a short walk around the cul-de-sac and down to the creek from that side.
If nothing else, she deserved to have a cup of coffee at her favorite place. Mack was right though. By walking back up to the creek this way, she was putting the deck and all the freshly poured concrete in danger of having the animals walk all over it. When her coffee was gone, she had enough energy to follow the trail to the cul-de-sac and to enter her front door again. She poured herself a second cup of coffee and sat down to some toast and cheese.
Then, with the animals all fed and at her feet, she wondered what today would bring. Yesterday had been nothing but nonstop action. She knew that the men would return somewhere along the line to cart off equipment. And that big pile of gravel in her front driveway would have to be moved too before she needed to drive anywhere
