Rachel Miller lapsed into an uncharacteristic silence, leaving me ample opportunity for comment. I held off, waiting, saying nothing.
“Now that she knows, now that she’s gotten a grip on herself, she wants to talk to you, Detective Beaumont, either you or your partner. She wants to know exactly what happened. She wants to see the killer brought to justice.”
“So do we,” I said.
“Did you find LeAnn?” Rachel asked suddenly.
“Just this morning,” I answered. “The director of the shelter helped us locate her.”
“Good. If you see her again, tell her to get in touch with us right away. Someone has to take charge of funeral arrangements. Dotty isn’t in any condition for it. Daisy and I could, but it doesn’t seem like our place. By the way, did you tell her about Dorothy?” Rachel Miller’s eyes were brightly inquisitive behind the sparkling lenses of her glasses.
“Tell her what?”
“That Dorothy was…” She paused. “Sick,” she added lamely.
I shook my head. “It never occurred to me. You’re saying LeAnn didn’t know her mother-in-law was in the hospital?”
“It happened after LeAnn and the children left. There was no way for her to find out about it. We didn’t know how to reach her.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’m not sure she would have cared.”
“They didn’t get along?”
“It’s hard for more than one woman to live in the same house. Daisy and I do fine, but even with us there are times when it’s sticky. We call it cabin fever.” Rachel paused again, then continued. “I’m sure LeAnn was shocked to hear about Fred, but she’s lucky to be rid of him.”
Rachel Miller had evidently overcome her previous day’s reluctance to wash dirty family linen in public.
“You didn’t like your nephew much, did you?”
“No,” she answered.
“Did anybody?”
“His mother, but mothers are like that.”
“Was he upset when LeAnn moved out?”
“Upset is hardly the word for it. He came raging over here, wondering if we knew where she’d gone, demanding to know whether or not we had helped her.“
“Had you?”
“No, but I would have in a minute if she’d asked. I don’t blame her one bit. I thought Fred was going to have a stroke on the spot. He swore up and down that he’d see to it she never got another penny out of him. He was such a skinflint, I doubt she got much more than that the whole time they were married anyway.”
“He offered to give her money on Saturday, enough so she could move into her own apartment.”
Rachel looked incredulous. “Really? He didn’t actually give it to her, did he?”
“Evidently,” I said.
“Amazing. He was a wholesale tightwad, that man was. Just like his father, if you ask me. The idea of having to split things up in a divorce settlement scared him pea green. Dotty told me he was afraid LeAnn would get into his office and try to lay hands on his financial records. That’s why he changed the locks.”
“He changed them?”
“All of them-the house, the office, even the cars.”
“Cars?” I asked.
She nodded. “They had two cars. A new one and an older. One was his and the other was supposed to be LeAnn’s.”
“But you said he changed the locks on both of them.”
“That’s right.”
“LeAnn didn’t take a car when she left?”
“No. I don’t know exactly why, either. I would have if I’d been her. As I understand it, she left by bus. One of the neighbors saw her and the kids getting on a bus down on Green Lake Way. When Fred found out she was gone, he signed LeAnn’s car over to Dorothy.”
“That’s not legal,” I said. “LeAnn would have had to sign the title.”
Rachel looked at me as though I was somewhat dense. “LeAnn’s name wasn’t on the title,” she said. “Her name isn’t on the deed to the house, either.”
I could see that, community property laws notwithstanding, Dr. Frederick Nielsen had done his best to keep the deck stacked totally in his favor. LeAnn should have invested in a top-notch lawyer before she left the house.
“Where’s the car now?” I asked.
“Out in our garage. Dorothy can’t drive it now, not with her hip, of course. If I could figure out a way to give it back to LeAnn, though, I would.”
Across the driveway the door to Rachel and Daisy’s apartment opened and shut. Daisy came striding toward us, one hand shading her eyes.
“So you are here,” she said to me, dropping her hand from her face as she walked up to the bench. “Why didn’t you come in and let us know, Rachel? Dotty’s been asking for him.“
“She’s awake then?”
“Has been for some time,” Daisy replied. There was an undercurrent in the conversation that made me suspect that a serious case of sisterly cabin fever was brewing.
Rachel got up and placed her pith helmet over her silver hair. “All right then, take him in to talk with her. I’m going on over to the zoo. I’m almost late as it is.”
I held open the door to the Buick while Rachel climbed inside. With George’s help they must have managed to unload the U-Haul. It was nowhere in evidence.
When Rachel switched on the ignition, the old car coughed and sputtered and smoked, but gradually the engine caught and ran. Standing safely to one side, I watched the car lurch out of the driveway. She must have been using both the gas pedal and brake at the same time. It’s ladies like Rachel Miller who give women drivers a bad name.
“Are you coming or not?” Daisy asked impatiently. She was standing at the top of the plywood wheelchair ramp, holding the door open for me to enter.
“I’m coming,” I said, hurrying up to the door.
All the curtains on the lower floor had been drawn, throwing the room into cool, dusky shadow. The living room was still much as it had appeared the day before, except that the hospital bed was made up and the frail figure of a woman lay in it. The dining room, however, was stacked high with boxes and furniture, including Dorothy Nielsen’s rocking chair.
From somewhere behind the boxes I heard Buddy’s now-familiar voice. “Freeze, sucker.”
“My goodness,” said Dorothy Nielsen from her bed. “Can’t somebody shut that bird up? He’s driving me crazy!”
Daisy set off, threading her way through the stacks of boxes. Moments later, she returned. “He’s covered, Dotty. He’ll be quiet now.”
It sounded as though Buddy was in for some tough sledding with Dorothy Nielsen in the house. I don’t think she liked him any better than Big Al Lindstrom did.
“Detective Beaumont is here now,” Daisy said to her sister. “Would you like me to raise your bed so you can talk with him?”
“That would be fine,” Dotty answered.
By the time she had been raised to a sitting position, I could see that Dorothy Nielsen was a paler, more delicate version of her two sisters. Her features, though similar, were finer, more patrician somehow. Her skin was smooth and unweathered. A box of tissue lay beside her on the bed. She groped for one as she sat up, daubing her eyes with it.
“I can’t seem to stop crying,” she said. “The tears just keep coming. I think they’re finally gone, that I can’t possibly cry any more. Then they start all over again.”
“It’s perfectly understandable, Mrs. Nielsen.”
