Fred took the cake but appeared puzzled. I understood what Brittany meant when she said he was plain. I was short, but he only had me by five or six inches. Natasha towered over him. His waistline bulged over the belt he wore. He was bald in front. A horseshoe of mousey brown hair ringed his head.
“It’s a Coca-Cola cake to help you through this difficult time.”
I waved at him. “I’m Sophie Winston. I brought apple fritters with a bourbon sauce.”
“Are you from a church or something?” asked Fred.
“Didn’t Charlene mention that she had found her half sister?” asked Natasha.
“Uh, yeah. She did say something about that. Come in, please.” He showed us into the living room.
It was furnished nicely if somewhat sparsely and was immaculately clean. We sat on a blue sofa.
“Do you have any pictures of Charlene?” asked Natasha. “I’d love to see what she looks like under all those bruises.”
Fred’s shoulders sagged. He stared at the floor. “I hadn’t given it any thought before, but Charlene was the one who took photos on her phone. I don’t think I have any pictures of her. I wonder what happened to her phone. Maybe the police have it. Do you know what happened to her?”
Natasha coughed. “I hoped you knew.”
He shook his head, obviously not a big talker. “They asked me a lot of questions, but they didn’t tell me much.”
“What did Charlene do for a living?” Natasha asked.
“She had started a home business. She cooked for five families and delivered the food to them on weekdays. Sort of like having your own chef, except much cheaper.”
“She was a chef! Like me!” Natasha clasped her hands to her chest. “I bet we are a lot alike. What else can you tell me about her?”
Before he could speak, I said, “I’ll just pop the food into your refrigerator so it won’t go bad.” I was up on my feet and in the kitchen snooping before he could protest.
On a pad under a wall phone, someone had written Griselda Smith, Tacoma Park, Maryland.
I had the fridge door open when he rushed into the kitchen. “Um, I guess I should offer you something.”
“Oh no! Don’t be silly. I hope we’re not imposing. Natasha is devastated. She was looking forward to meeting her sister.”
“Yes, I see.”
I placed the items in his refrigerator, noting that he had an ample supply of cheeses and cold cuts. A bottle of milk looked lonely, but I expected that was for his breakfast cereal. Mustard, mayo, and an assortment of foreign beers filled the rest. No fruit. No veggies. I guessed that might be typical for a single man.
Like the living room, the kitchen was spotless. Not a dirty dish in the sink or a crumb on the floor. I followed him back to the living room, but not before catching a glance of the dining room, which was set up with a dining table and chairs. The crystal chandelier gave it an elegant touch. There was no hutch or buffet or painting on the wall.
When we returned to the living room, Natasha asked, “Is Charlene’s mother alive? I’d like to meet her.”
“Yes.” He didn’t offer any more information.
I tried to hide my surprise. Why did I think that Griselda was probably related to Charlene? Maybe he didn’t feel right giving out the mother’s information to a couple of nosy women he’d never met before.
A long-haired white cat with blue eyes sauntered toward us with the attitude of a feline who thought she owned the place.
“What a beautiful cat!” I exclaimed.
Natasha recoiled. “She won’t jump on me, will she?”
“No. She is a very well-mannered cat.”
The cat wound around my legs. I reached down and rubbed her ears. “And what do you do?” I asked.
“I work from home fixing people’s software problems.”
“That’s interesting. So I can call you if I run into a snag?” I asked.
“It doesn’t exactly work like that. I work for companies, and they send people my way.”
“Too bad. How did you meet Charlene?”
“In the grocery store. The guy in the cheese department didn’t know if they had smoked Gouda. Charlene was next in line. She saw it in the open case and handed it to me. We had coffee and . . .” He tailed off as if we knew the rest. Or maybe as if there was no more.
While Natasha peppered Fred with additional questions, I gazed around the room. It was remarkably devoid of knickknacks, which didn’t surprise me much. In my experience, a lot of single men spent their money on gadgets rather than decorative items. But there was something empty about his house. Almost as if it were a transitional place, not a home where he intended to stay.
“Natasha,” I said, “I think we’ve taken enough of Fred’s time. Again, I’m so terribly sorry about Charlene.”
He saw us to the door. After we stepped out, we heard a bolt lock snap closed inside.
Alma Riddenhauer was gardening across the street. She held a rake in one hand and motioned to us with the other. Alma and her husband had been fixtures in Old Town for a long time.
We crossed the street, and she hissed, “Fred is the quietest neighbor I’ve ever had. For a long time, I thought he was a hermit.”
“Do you know his girlfriend, Charlene?” I asked.
Alma nodded knowingly. “I think he clobbered her.”
Natasha gasped. “Really? Why?”
“First of all, I don’t know what a sweet thing like Charlene would be doing with Fred. Second, he’s just too quiet.”
That hardly pointed to violence. I sighed. Gossip. Sometimes there was a tinge of truth, but Alma’s reasoning wasn’t grounded in facts. “Why would he want to hurt Charlene?” I asked.
“He never says a word. He’s completely inhospitable. Honestly, I work outside all the time—”
“It looks beautiful,” Natasha interjected.
“Thank you, sweetheart. I don’t know what’s come over Old Town. It was always such a nice place. But we’ve had two bags of lime stolen from our yard. Now who would do that?”
“Lime?” asked Natasha.
“Yes, darling. Lime is the reason all our plants look so beautiful.”
“Are you saying Fred stole them?”
“I doubt it. Have you taken a close look at his yard? He could do with some lime. But he never comes over for a chat. He might wave or say hello, but that’s all. He’s definitely not from the South, I can tell you that for sure. He probably has a lovely mama, but she didn’t teach him a thing about manners.”
“Maybe he’s shy,” I suggested.
“Well how long do you get to be shy before you talk with your neighbor?” Alma asked. “It broke my heart to hear about Charlene. She sure didn’t deserve what he did to her.”
“I hope you’ve reported all this to Wolf,” said Natasha.
Alma snorted. “Ha! There’s another man with”—she drew an imaginary zipper across her lips—“a closed mouth. He wasn’t interested in what I know.”
“When did you see Charlene last?” I asked.
“On Friday evening. I saw her under the streetlights. She came running down the outside stairs of his house and dashed along the street that way.” Alma pointed in the direction of Abby’s house. “I said to my husband, I said, ‘She’s finally running away from him. Good for her. She deserves a nice man, not an ice man.’ He got a big kick out of that!”