Chapter 26
Wednesday Midafternoon …
After the call, Doreen struggled to understand the relationship between the women. But she felt the missing men was where the key lay. Something about friendly women with dead husbands. The fact that there had never been any reports on either of them also concerned her. Did the men get up and walk away? And nobody cared? Or did they send back notices, saying, Don’t let the police know where I’ve gone or don’t bother calling the police because I’m still alive, but you’re never getting a divorce? She didn’t understand that mentality. But then, she hadn’t done anything about her divorce or fixing the problems she had either, so maybe it was the same kind of disowning or trying to disavow the issues. She sat here for a long time, studying the men, when she called Nan again. “Do you know anybody who knew her husband?”
“Which husband?”
“Rosie’s husband,” she said.
“Not really,” she said. “Why?”
“I wanted to know if he would have had an affair with any of the other women in that group,” Doreen asked.
Nan sucked in her breath. “Now that you mention it …” And her voice trailed off.
“He did, didn’t he?”
“Rosie’s husband had a bit of a wandering eye,” Nan admitted. “He propositioned me more than a time or two.”
Doreen closed her eyes and winced. “Please tell me that you didn’t take him up on it.”
“Of course not,” Nan said stoutly. “Who do you think I am? I only dated men who were completely available. And Rosie was my friend. I’d never do that to her.”
“Good,” Doreen said. And she meant it because, as much as she would love and forgive Nan for it, she felt that Nan would be a much better person to have not crossed that line. And that she would go do her own thing and make her a happier soul. And that brought back the words of Kimmy Schwartz’s son, about healing old rifts, setting things right. “Any idea who he might have had an affair with?”
“I think it was Marsha,” she said. “I think that’s what was between the two of them.” She stopped for a moment, paused, and said, “Or was it the other way around?”
“Marsha’s husband and Rosie?”
“Yeah,” Nan said slowly. “Of course, that’s what the gossip mill says. Rosie had never mentioned anything to me though.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Twenty-plus years,” Nan said eerily. “But we didn’t always see each other all that time. You know? Like a lot of friends, you see each other, and then you don’t see or talk to them for six months, and then you meet them in a coffee shop, sit down, catch up, and carry on again. We’ve really only managed to spend some consecutive time together once we were both here, and I’ve only been here for about four months maybe. Sometime before you moved in the house.” She laughed. “I should have moved in years ago.”
Doreen smiled. “And I should have left years ago too,” she admitted. “But we’re both happy to be where we are right now.”
“Happy is a mild word for it,” Nan said. “I never knew all these old people could be so interesting, if for no other reason than their curiosities—their foibles, their little argumentative things, the stuff that they must get just right. I always knew I was pretty easygoing, but I didn’t really see it until I got here.”
Doreen’s eyes widened at that. “You also have a chance to do things that you never really spent much time on, like lawn bowling.”
“True, true, true,” she said. “Not to mention so many more opportunities for gambling. It’s such a lovely hobby.”
“Says you,” Doreen said, wincing.
“It’s been good for me here,” Nan said. “I hated to admit it to myself, but I was lonely sometimes living in that house all alone.”
“Well, you aren’t alone anymore,” Doreen said with a smile. “I’m here to spend time with you.”
“Why don’t you come for a cup of tea then?” Nan asked. “It’s been kind of a black morning. Everybody’s down about Rosie. They’re all making memorial plans, and it’s getting everybody depressed.”
“I’d love to come. I’m sitting out on my brand-new deck,” she said with a laugh. “Trying to do some research into Marsha and Rosie, and that’s why I was wondering about the husbands.”
“Well, you come on down,” Nan said, “and I’ll hop across and talk to Midge, see if she’s home. She might know something too.” With that, Nan hung up.
Doreen put her laptop inside, set the security, and thought of the jewels. She still had to deal with them when a new appraiser came to town. When she got that appraisal back, then she could set up a price and determine how to divide the rest of it. But she had yet to talk to Mack about that. Tossing all that old stuff to the back of her mind, she was much happier to deal with the current mystery.
With her animals in tow, she walked along the creek, noticing that this time the pathway was wet, as if the water had risen in the night to cover up the path and had receded enough during the day to reveal it again. She could still walk the path, and it was a little on the slippery side, but it meant that maybe in the next day or two she couldn’t walk along here at all. She made her way around the corner and down toward Nan’s with a bright smile. She saw Nan sitting outside, waiting for her. The animals raced ahead.
As she got there, Nan looked up from cuddling Mugs and Goliath and smiled. “I managed to walk into the dining room and grab us cream puffs,” she said. “I hit up Midge afterward, but she didn’t know anything more than I did.” She somehow managed to impart that information with a self-satisfied sniff. As if happy to know Midge didn’t have more gossip than Nan did.
“Cream puffs?” Doreen asked
