A Veiled Antiquity (Torie O'Shea Mysteries) by Rett MacPherson Read Free Book Online

go to the bathroom, and I’m not answering any more of these questions until you’ve answered a few of mine.”
    “I don’t have to answer your questions,” he said.
    “Then you can get out of my house.”
    My mother said nothing. I knew she wouldn’t interrupt. This fight was between me and the sheriff. My mother was one of the most incredibly fair individuals I have ever known. I think it is something she learned from spending a lifetime in a wheelchair. She has observed more situations than most people.
    “What? What do you want to know?” he asked.
    “I’d like to know why this was not investigated as a homicide,” I said.
    “There is no reason for it to be. Duran checked out the scene. He questioned people. There is no reason to believe that her death was anything but an accident. I read the report.”
    “I’m not saying that somebody killed her on purpose. It could have been the result of an argument that went too far.”
    “Where’s your evidence?” he asked me. “There is no reason to believe that there was even another person in the house.”
    “Okay,” I said, “listen to this theory. And listen with an open mind.”
    He gave me a snarl, which in his heathen way meant that he would try to listen objectively. Oscar the Grouch has nothing on this guy. He waited with minimal patience as I tried to formulate in my mind what it was I wanted to say. Even my mother had stopped slicing tomatoes to listen to what I was about to tell him.
    I cleared my throat. “She lives alone. Just like you, Sheriff. You live alone. If you get up in the middle of the night to get a drink or go to the bathroom, do you bother with a housecoat? Slippers? I could see the slippers if it’s the dead of winter. But it’s September. I happen to know that the night Marie died it was sixty-seven degrees at two in the morning, because I called the weather bureau and found out. Now,” I said, swallowing, “let’s go a step further. Would you bother brushing your hair? If you were going to get a drink in the kitchen by yourself at two in the morning, would you bother with a housecoat, slippers, and brushing your hair to get a glass of milk?”
    He said nothing.
    My mother spoke up then. “In the middle of the night, I wouldn’t bother with it, and I don’t live alone. I wouldn’t expect to run into anybody in the kitchen. But even if I did bother with the housecoat and slippers, I definitely wouldn’t brush my hair.”
    “And neither would most people,” I added.
    Sheriff Brooke still said nothing.
    “Well?” I asked.
    “I might agree with you on that. But how do you know that’s what happened?” he asked.
    “It’s been established by forensics that the time of death was sometime between eleven P.M . and four A.M . on Wednesday morning, and don’t ask me how I found out that information because I will not tell you.” The sheriff rolled his eyes heavenward. I don’t know if that was in frustration, aggravation, or exasperation. Probably all three. I continued. “Anyway, I found a hairbrush on the foot of her bed, like she’d brushed her hair before she got up to answer the door. Everybody knows that she had on slippers and a robe. But this is the kicker. There were two clean glasses sitting on her table next to the jug of milk.”
    His face changed expressions completely. He sat to attention then. “You’re sure?”
    “Yes. Why would she get out two glasses? I think that somebody knocked at her door, so she brushed her hair, put on the robe, and so forth. She let in her killer. Whether or not the person came there with the intent to kill her, or if it was a result of an argument, I don’t know. But she was not alone,” I said. “I don’t think that she would have got out the milk before she went to bed and forgot to put it away. And why the two glasses? There should have been only one,” I said with great satisfaction.
    Sheriff Brooke sat with one leg crossed over the other, picking at the heel of his