Bernadine Fagan - Nora Lassiter 01 - Murder by the Old Maine Stream by Bernadine Fagan Page B

could make her voice harsh, I figured, if she were angry enough.
    “Was there something else you wanted?”
    “No. No, thank you.” How foolish to be wandering off mentally. Margaret looked like a good and decent woman. What was I thinking!
    I poked around for a while, checked out the Ken Follet section where Ida had been, sat on the foot stool she had probably sat on, and decided she was right about the guy being tall. At least six feet, maybe more, I’d guess, if his voice came through that Follet shelf. I tried to think of all the men around here who were six feet or over. Uncle JT, Percy, Al Collins, Nick. Too many to mean anything.
    There wasn’t much to do here, so I picked up a Ken Follett book and brought it to the checkout desk. I tried to think of what else to ask the librarian.
    “I know Ida Lassiter overhead people talking in here about a week ago. Do you know–”
    “Deputy Trimble was here with your aunt,” she interrupted, as she stamped my card with a thump. “I answered all his questions. I saw nothing.”
    She picked up some books, put them on a cart and headed away. I had been dismissed. Interesting. I thought she liked Lassiters.
     
    * * *
    I arrived back at Ida’s to absolute chaos. The family had gathered in the kitchen. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. “What happened?” I asked. “This about Collins?”
    “Worse,” Hannah said with a heavy sigh.
    “What could be worse? Collins was murdered.”
    “JT is missing,” Ida said. “He never came home last night. Sheriff Nick was just up to the house looking to question him and Ellie, but Ellie hasn’t seen him since yesterday noon.”
    Ellie, wearing a silver-gray warm-up suit, sat dabbing her eyes, sniffling, taking in great gulps of air. 
    “Nick called about twenty minutes ago asking again to speak to JT and I had to tell him the truth,” she said between gasps. 
    The truth? I looked at everyone here—Hannah, Agnes, Ida, Hannah’s son and daughter-in-law. Just to be clear, I asked, “Do you think he–” I stopped short, backtracked. “What truth? That he’s missing?”
    Everyone ignored the three children, ranging in age from four, or so, to about ten, as they raced through the kitchen, dragging what sounded like a load of tin cans.
    Ellie sobbed into her tissue. “He’d been acting strange lately. Nervous. Drinking more. Something’s going on, that’s for damn sure. He wouldn’t tell me what. We’ve been fighting for the past few months. More than usual, and that’s saying something. That’s why he left.”
    Her angry words the night of the party came back to me. You ass. Better watch your step. I have a key to that rifle cabinet.
    “You can’t think he murdered Collins.” I said.
    Ellie grabbed another tissue to sop up a new flood of tears. “I don’t know.”
    That set me on my heels.
    Aunt Agnes passed Ellie a handkerchief. “Use this. Much better than a tissue. I wouldn’t give you two cents for those tissues. They fall apart.”
    “I agree. We should all go back to handkerchiefs,” Hannah said.
    “Hear, hear,” put in Ida.
    “Oh, but they get so dirty. Better to throw them away,” Hannah’s daughter-in-law chimed in.
    “They’re wasteful,” Agnes said. “‘Course, nobody cares about being wasteful any more. Throw this out. Throw that out. They don’t care.”
    Handkerchiefs? Tissues? My uncle was missing. A man had been murdered on his property, or maybe my property, and they were talking about the best way to blow your nose.
    Something crashed in a back room. Nobody even flinched. I felt a headache coming on.
    “Does the sheriff think he killed Collins?” I asked Ellie, determined not to be sidetracked by the tissue debate, or distracted by the children who were now—judging from the noise—wrecking one of the back rooms.
    No one answered. Ida finally nodded, and said softly, “He’s a suspect.”
    ELEVEN
     
    I called Howie and told him everything. The business about Mom and