“You’ll let us know, won’t you?”
And such anxiousness was in his tone that she nodded. “I’ll let you know what I find out, if I can,” she stated, adding a cautious note at the end.
“Of course, of course.” He gave her a sage look. “Once you talk to the police, that is.”
“If I need to talk to the police,” she reminded him. “We don’t know who’s behind this, if anybody’s behind this.” And then she stood up, walked back to the door. “Now you have a good afternoon, okay?”
With that, she returned to Nan’s to get her animals, before they all headed out toward the river. Doreen just wanted something completely different for a change from all those gossipy tales going on at the seniors’ home. It was not exactly an easy place to ask questions, and yet they all had so much information. However, most of the time, they really didn’t have a clue what to do with the information.
As Doreen slowly wandered down the river, she picked up a few rocks and tossed them in. With Goliath racing to catch the rocks on the path and Mugs racing to catch the rocks in the water, she ended up with two very wet animals—Goliath very unhappy as he stalked ahead of her. Thaddeus had apparently not had a chance to sleep at all at Nan’s and was curled up against her neck.
She reached up, stroked his beautiful feathers and whispered, “We’ll be home soon.”
“Home,” he murmured. “Home.”
She smiled, tilted her head so that she could cuddle him a little closer, as she walked them home. Pretty quickly she saw the bench at her place, and, calling the animals to her, they headed up her garden pathway to the kitchen. When she reached for the kitchen door, she heard the front door slam closed. It took her a second to realize just what she heard, and then she raced out to the front door in time to see a small dark car tearing out of the cul-de-sac. That’s all she saw. But it was obvious that somebody had been in her house. As she turned around, she studied the chairs that were upturned and the few items on the shelves tossed.
“Good God,” she told Mugs, who was sniffing around the floor and at all the items on the floor. “I think we just had a break-in.”
Chapter 12
Mack stared at Doreen in shock. “You left the house, and you didn’t set the alarm?”
Since this was the third time he had questioned her on that, she glared at him. “I already apologized,” she snapped, her hands on her hips, as she stared at him. “You can’t make me feel any worse than I already do.”
He shook his head, snagged her in his arms, and pulled her in for a hug.
“You should have done that in the first place,” she muttered against his chest.
He chuckled. “You’re right. I should have. I’m sorry.”
She sniffed but let herself sink into his embrace.
“And did you see anybody?”
“No, as I came in the kitchen,” she stated patiently, knowing he would ask her over and over again, “all I saw was, … all I heard was the sound of the front door banging shut. When we raced out to the front yard to see, a little black car was taking off.”
“And did you see two people in the car?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure. What difference does it make?”
“Well, somebody got into the vehicle, and to turn it on first would take a little bit longer. Whereas, if they had somebody already in the getaway car, and this guy just had to get in the passenger side, and the engine was already on, then they could have gotten away that much faster.”
“Oh.” She felt foolish for not having considered that. “I guess it’s possible. I don’t know.”
Mack nodded. “Maybe your neighbor saw something.”
She sniffed at that. “I doubt Richard saw anything. Even when I went out the front door yesterday morning,” she noted, “he raced back inside, as if afraid I would see him.”
“You do have a strange relationship with that person,” he muttered, turning to look in the direction of Richard’s house.
“That’s not the word for it,” she argued. “And more or less it works because we don’t get in each other space.”
His lips twitched at that.
“Okay, fine,” she quickly amended. “I try not to irritate him too much. And in return he’s had a helpful tidbit or two.”
He nodded. “You are you, and, once again, I don’t want you to change.”
She smiled at that. “Every once in a while, you do say nice things.” She gave him a gentle pat on his back, and then she stepped away. “But I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”
“What brought all this on?”
“You mean, besides the fact that I’ve been down talking to everybody at Rosemoor, right?”
He winced. “Of course you have.” He sighed. “And did you come up with anything?”
“Chrissy’s old boyfriend may or may not have had something to do with her death. Nobody knows anything about who attacked Nan with a vase. She’s got several enemies at the senior’s home,” she noted. “As much as I hate to admit it, not everybody adores my grandmother like I do.”
He gave her a commiserating smile. “I don’t imagine everybody would like her style, but she comes from the heart.”
“She does, indeed.” Doreen smiled. “And surely that’s worth something.”
“It is to a lot of people and isn’t to a lot of others.” Mack shrugged. “So anything concrete?”
“Nope, absolutely nothing.”
And he had to laugh at the wealth of disgust in her voice. “That’s the fun of investigating.”
“Nope, not really,” she disagreed. “You know that somebody knows something.”
“But do they?” he asked. “I’m sure you’ve already considered who was attacked and where.”
“Absolutely,” she stated. “Nan has one of the few ground floor corner apartments, and, therefore, it has an easy access and an easy exit for anybody wanting to do something—whether from inside or outside.”
“Exactly.”
“And whether it was triggered by her investigation into Chrissy’s death, that really doesn’t have much bearing on it.”
“And why is that?” he asked, looking at her curiously.
“Because apparently she has enough people down there at Rosemoor who don’t particularly like her anyway,” she replied. “And that just confuses the issue. I had to make a couple deals with people to even get them to talk to me.” She shook her head. “That Patsy is something else.”
He grinned at her. “I even know that one. Patsy’s very much like your grandmother.”
“Yeah, I recognize that.” Doreen nodded. “Both of them always trying to work the angles.” He just looked over at her. She added, “Fine, fine. I probably come by it honestly myself,” she admitted, with a sigh.
“You do, indeed.” Mack laughed. “But not to be outdone, Patsy is generally a good-hearted person.”
“I won’t argue with you there,” she admitted. “It did appear that she wanted to get back into my grandmother’s good graces. Whether that’ll work or not, I don’t know.”