“I’ll call Doris Ann first thing, if you promise to tell the other committee members that we library patrons want thick cushions on the chairs in the reading room. It takes me a while to get through the daily Boston Globe, not to mention the monthly issue of Salt Water Sportsman. And those hard wood chairs can be murder on the, uh, posterior.”
“Oh, Seth, surely you can afford a subscription to the paper and the magazine so you can read them in the comfort of your home.” I raised my eyebrows so high they nearly met my hairline.
“I already pay for them every year in my homeowner’s taxes. You know, the tax that’s marked ‘library.’ I’m certainly not going to pay twice.”
No, you’re not, I thought.
He went on. “You stay safe down there, Jess, and be sure to let me know when you are coming home. We can have a welcome breakfast at Mara’s Luncheonette.”
“I’ll give you plenty of notice. Good-bye, Seth.” I tapped the off button. I was always amazed how that man could squeeze a penny ’til it squealed, as the saying goes.
I shook the Cabot Cove cobwebs out of my head. Now it was time to check on Dolores.
Chapter Seven
I tapped lightly on Dolores’s door, half hoping she was asleep, but she was wide-awake and exceptionally jittery.
Dolores paced back and forth, not quite bouncing off walls, while her words tumbled out at warp speed. “Clancy kept his promise. We brought up a breakfast tray to the playroom, and when Abby woke up, Clancy and I had tea and scones while Abby ate her cereal and fruit.
“For a while we played with that toy rabbit she found yesterday. Clancy actually deferred to me and said, ‘Granny Dolores has something to tell you, sweetheart.’”
Dolores might have seen it as Clancy letting her take the lead, but I thought it was pure cowardice on his part.
She went on. “Abby climbed into my lap, expecting a story, I suppose, and I told her as gently as I could that Grampy had gone to heaven to be with her mother. Abby said if she knew he was going today, she would have given him Fluffy—that’s the wooden bunny—to take as a present for Mommy. Isn’t she the sweetest little girl?”
Then Dolores’s anxiety got the best of her. “Oh, Jess, just because Clancy kept this one promise doesn’t mean he will let me stay in Abby’s life. I told her I would always be her granny but . . .”
I understood her fear. If anyone had ever tried to take our nephew Grady away from Frank and me after Frank’s brother and his wife died all those years ago, we would have moved heaven and earth to stay in Grady’s life. I knew Dolores felt the same about Abby, and I thought her fear was quite rational, given what I had seen of Clancy so far. Of course, I had no idea how Willis had bequeathed his assets. I knew only that he had threatened to remove Clancy as Abby’s trustee. Was that just an example of what Marjory meant when she talked about Willis’s tormenting people for his own amusement, or was it something Willis actually planned to do?
I distracted Dolores from one problem by bringing up another. “I am so sorry that Sheriff Halvorson didn’t allow me to stay with you in the library. How was your conversation with him?”
Dolores shrugged. “He has no idea what happened to Willis. No matter how many times I asked him, he couldn’t tell me a thing. I mean, he’s the sheriff—shouldn’t he know what happened?”
I nodded. “I quite understand your concern, Dolores, but what worries me is not his lack of answers to your questions. We need to think about what he asked you.”
Dolores folded her arms across her chest. “Nonsense. That’s what he asked me—a whole bunch of nonsense. Even went so far as to question our sleeping arrangements. Can you imagine? He wanted to know why we had separate bedrooms and if there was a connecting door and all sorts of other silliness.
“And when he wasn’t snooping in our private lives, he was asking about our financial lives. How much money did I bring to the marriage? What kind of arrangements had Willis made for me should anything happen to him? He went on and on. I kept begging him to tell me what happened to Willis and he kept not answering. Let me tell you, it was maddening.”
“I’m sure it was, but you must realize, you and Sheriff Halvorson were on different paths.” I knew I had to tread carefully, but I needed to make a point to Dolores, a point she wouldn’t want to hear. “You want to know what happened to your husband. The sheriff wants to know what happened, how it happened, and perhaps who made it happen.”
Dolores stopped pacing and stared at me. “‘Made it happen’? The sheriff thinks someone killed Willis?”
“Calm down, Dolores. We don’t know that yet, but the sheriff does have to examine every possibility, explore every avenue. Wouldn’t you want him to do that for Willis?”
Dolores began walking back and forth again, but her steps were slower, her expression thoughtful. “Yes, I guess I would, but really, Jess, who would harm Willis? Everyone loved him.”
I’d met Willis only twenty-four hours earlier, and I could have drawn up a list of people who didn’t even like him. Love him? Doubtful. Dolores must still have been looking through newlywed eyes. “That’s true, I am sure, but in my experience, law
