“Oh, I’m too old to deal with that nonsense anymore,” he snapped. “Besides, it’s got nothing to do with who I am.”
“No, sure doesn’t,” she replied cheerfully. On that note, she closed her window and then cried out to him, “Have a nice day.”
He just glared at her and opened his mouth.
She didn’t give him a chance to say something nasty. Instead she gunned it and pulled back into traffic and got out of there. She didn’t know why people would have that reaction to her, but Mack would likely say it had to do with the cases that she’d solved and the perspective that a lot of people had that she was interfering.
Maybe she was. She’d certainly upset a few apple carts in the process, but it still wasn’t something that she terribly understood because she had been helping other people.
Back home again, she grabbed her milk and the animals and headed back inside. Just as she walked in her house, her phone rang. “Hey, Mack,” she said. “Have you decided to fill me in on the Poison in the Pansies case?”
“No,” he replied. “What were you doing in Rutland?”
She frowned. “And how did you know I was in Rutland?”
“Because somebody phoned in to report that animals had been left in a car. Including a dog, a cat, and a parrot.”
She stopped, shaking her head. “Yeah, I did. I left all three of them in the car, while I ran in and got a gallon of milk.”
“You drove to Rutland to get a gallon of milk, huh?” he asked, his tone neutral.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
“Well, we never like to see people leaving animals in a car,” he explained. “But it certainly wasn’t a hot day, and you weren’t gone for very long, so it’s not like it’s something that anybody needs to check out.”
As she thought about it, she asked, “It was that old goat, wasn’t it?”
He laughed. “What old goat?”
“There was this old guy, and he was glaring at me, so, maybe out of perverseness, I don’t know,” she explained, “I stopped and asked him if I could help him because obviously he needed help.”
“You said what?”
“Well, he was glaring at me, so obviously he was cranky and miserable and needed something,” she replied by way of her defense. “It seemed to really upset him that I took that frown of his that way though.” She snickered.
“Ya think?” he asked. Then he sighed. “And what did he want?”
“Nothing, I think he just realized who I was and said that I was an interfering busybody and that I should leave well enough alone.”
“And I suppose you told him that you weren’t, right?”
“Well, I’m not,” she argued.
“Not in your eyes, no,” he replied, “but you know a lot of people don’t take it that way.”
“Well, he certainly didn’t. He was just grumpy. Anyway, I told him to have a nice day, and I left. So I wonder if he called before our conversation or afterward.”
“Don’t know, probably before, if you left the animals in the car.”
“Right,” she muttered. “Anyway, yeah, went up to check out the area,” she added cheerfully. “And of course I have a cold case now to work on.”
At that, silence came from the other end. “You have a what?”
“That’s all right. I’m not stepping on your toes. You guys don’t even consider it to be a case.” She smiled broadly. “So it’s none of your business.”
“Anything you do is my business,” he noted, his tone grim.
“Nope, nope, nope, nope. I’m not in any danger on this one,” she argued. “I won’t be any trouble to you. I promise I’ll stay out of your world.”
At that, he snorted, the sound loud and clear to the point that even Thaddeus looked at her phone and cried out, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
“Wow, Thaddeus is on a rampage.”
“He heard you through the phone, so thanks for upsetting my animals.”
“Me?” he asked in outrage.
“Yeah, you,” she replied, “and your brother never called me.”
“Yeah, he’s probably avoiding you.” Mack laughed.
“Why? What did you tell him about me this time?” she asked in an ominous tone.
“I said that you were on a rampage, looking for money.”
“Oh, great.” She sighed.
“Well, you might not be on a rampage, but you definitely need money.”
“Yeah, but it’s not Robin’s money that I need,” she explained. “I need a way to be self-sufficient, without having to depend on people dying to get it.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end, and then, with a splutter, he added, “Well, that’s really good to hear. Then I won’t have to worry about you trying to knock off people to get money.”
“Oh my, can you imagine?”
“I don’t want to,” he replied. “That is not anything I even want to contemplate.”
“No, of course not,” she stated. And then she laughed. “But you know a lot of people would blame me for it, right?”
“A lot of people would blame you for a lot of things,” he stated quietly, “which is why I try so hard to keep you out of trouble.”
“Yeah, it’s not working though, is it?”
“No,” he roared. “But you could try.” And, on that note, he hung up the phone.
She put on the teakettle, took off the leashes, hung them up, and fed everybody a little treat. When the tea was ready, she took her laptop and her tea outside onto the deck. As she sat here, smiling at her beautiful deck, researching the names that Nan had given her, Doreen started her Google search with the one case that Mack was working on because Doreen had been up there looking in Rutland and everybody had said how nice Alan was.
Doreen found a small notice in the newspaper about him involved in some volunteer work. In that article he was surrounded by a group of people and had his arm around a woman at his side, as if they were close. If she was still in his life, she’d be going through a tough time. Doreen’s heart immediately went out to the poor woman.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It’s tough enough being with someone, but, in your case, if you were happy, then a loss like this is brutal.”
Absolutely no point in talking to this woman’s picture on the internet, but, hey, Doreen was probably seen as getting crazy about some cases these days. She quickly checked for more information and found it suspiciously silent on any actual helpful forensic data. But then, of course, the authorities may not know anything yet regarding Alan’s death. The police were just dealing with this case right now, so they probably didn’t have a whole lot to bring to the table yet. Now, if only Mack would let her help, that would be a different story.
On that note, she returned to the information she had found on Chrissy, who had died earlier this year. She’d also been talking about people poisoning her, apparently. And again, it was pretty hard to find anything, but there was an obit with a mention that she’d died peacefully in her sleep.