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“Oh, my Lord, to fall like that, all alone. That just breaks my heart.” His sister raised her watery gaze to Alia. “How long did she lie there? Was she in pain? Did she try to get to the phone? Brett and Mimi—those are her children—they tried to get her to wear one of those emergency call devices, but she was too stubborn. She said when it was her time, it was her time, and she would happily go.”
“I really don’t know, Mrs. Davison. Once we get some answers, we’ll share them with you.”
Mary Ellen nodded, satisfied for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Brett and Mimi... Has anyone told them yet?”
“The police department will notify them if they haven’t already.”
Landry thought he detected the smallest suggestion of impatience in Alia’s voice. She’d come to pump an old lady for gossip, found a suspicious death instead, and then had to break the news to family members. He would bet she didn’t get stuck with breaking bad news very often. He would bet it was one of the few jobs she didn’t excel at.
A squeal on the street drew their attention that way as Scott parked behind Landry’s car. A few minutes, Alia had said. An extravagant guess, considering Scott’s nerves were twisted nearly as tight as Mary Ellen’s. Stunned and pale, he greeted Landry and Alia with troubled looks. Mumbling something about too much and doctor and sedatives, he hustled Mary Ellen into the car, then jumped in himself, backed up into the drive across the street and headed home.
“Do you mind going out back with me and answering some questions?”
Landry gazed at the half dozen or more chairs scattered along the gallery, every one of them with access to the open door and the front windows. Without knowing anything more about the way Miss Viola had died, he knew he didn’t want to see her while officers walked around her, talked about her and, eventually, zipped her into a bag and hauled her off.
He went to the back gate, wiggled his fingers inside the heavy growth until he found the key hidden there, then undid the lock. He turned away from the patio and led her back to the twin chairs hidden from sight by the rows of corn.
“Why did she grow such a big garden?” Apparently Special Agent Kingsley preferred to open with the least important of all the questions at her disposal.
“To give away.”
“Her family and friends must have been pleased.”
“Not to them. Miss Viola figured they could buy their organically grown stuff at their trendy farmers’ markets like everyone else. She donated hers to soup kitchens and to markets in lower-income neighborhoods.”
She’d done so much more: paid medical bills, made house repairs, provided single mothers with cars to get to their jobs and single fathers with after-school help. She’d bought uniforms to outfit a dozen school classes, stocked preschools with everything, located jobs, provided counseling and made life better.
She’d done enough good to get herself into heaven three or four times over, while there wasn’t enough good possible to keep Jeremiah from hell. And if he had in any way contributed to her death, if whatever he’d done that led to his own murder had come back on her...
“Where were you between midnight and three?” Alia asked.
The question was perfunctory, lacking even a fraction of the interest she’d shown when she asked him the same thing with regard to his father. Because she believed he was capable of killing Jeremiah but not Miss Viola?
Score a point for her, because she was right.
“The bar closed at 3:00 a.m. I cleaned up and was in bed by 3:30.” He checked the time on his great-grandfather Landry’s Patek Philippe. He and Mary Ellen had had an appointment fifteen minutes ago with the funeral director to plan Jeremiah’s funeral. Landry hadn’t wanted to go at all, and now he would be going alone. What did he know about planning a funeral? He’d be better off trusting the funeral director to make the right choices.
Now it was his turn to ask a question. “You were just here yesterday. Why did you come back this morning?”
Alia crossed her legs. Once again her hair was pulled straight back from her face in a ridiculously tight braid, but she’d traded the drab blue suit for a tan shirt and brown skirt. She still looked all business, but at least the clothes had a little style, and the open-toed shoes with straps around her slender ankles showed off her legs well.
“I thought she was a little too careful with her responses yesterday.”
“You thought she was telling you what I wanted her to.”
Alia nodded. The sunlight catching in her hair gave it a high sheen. “I thought she might be more comfortable speaking with me about your family if you weren’t present.”
