Chosen for Death by Kate Flora

occasions, especially antique jewelry. In her jewelry case she had the pair of enameled gold bracelets she'd gotten for graduation, Aunt Sylvia's gold earrings, the Art Nouveau locket I'd given her for her eighteenth birthday, her sweet-sixteen pearls. I shut the box with a snap and set it on the bureau. I couldn't bear to look at those things.
    I managed to clean out the linen closet without any tears. I don't get sentimental about sheets and towels. Not usually. After David died, I didn't wash the sheets for two months, because they still smelled like him, and I kept all his dirty clothes for the same reason. Suzanne finally washed them when she came to nurse me through a bout of flu. I cried and carried on like an infant. But I was sick, and sad, and she didn't hold it against me. I still have one of his shirts, unwashed, that I sleep in sometimes. After two years, it still smells faintly of him.
    I moved to the bathroom, sweeping everything from the medicine cabinet into a big plastic bag. I rolled up the bag, stuck it in one of the boxes, and lugged the boxes downstairs.
    By noon I was starving. There wasn't anything in the house I wanted to eat, and it was time for a break anyway. A walk downtown to get myself some lunch might clear my head. I laced up my spiffy new cross trainers. I often joke that my idea of cross training is walking briskly to the table and rhythmically raising and lowering a fork. It's not quite true. I march off to aerobics at the end of the day like all the nine-to-fivers and pound off the extra flesh.
    I was still wearing the sweater and pants I'd put on last night, but only I knew that. I stuck the apartment keys in my purse, slung it over my shoulder, and went out. Mrs. Bolduc might be away, but her curtain was still twitching. I waved at the window and the twitching stopped. Carrie must have hated being spied on. She probably gave Mrs. Bolduc the finger, and that's why Mrs. B. gave Carrie such bad press.
    The big trees along Mountain Street were beginning to show a hint of fall. A few yellow leaves blew along the sidewalk. The air was cool, with a gentle wind that lifted my hair. I turned right onto Main Street and walked down past the shops. The windows were full of attractive clothes in rich fall colors. A sage-green fisherman's sweater that was meant to go with my eyes beckoned, and I vowed to stop and try it on on the way back.
    I hadn't thought about where to go, but my feet were leading me to the bar and restaurant where Carrie had worked. Leadbetter's was in the basement of a four-story brick building. It had once been an auto repair shop, but now it was just a large room stripped back to bare brick walls, broken into sections by the occasional waist-high partition or raised platform. Seating in the bar was on old sofas and chairs from Grandma's attic. In the restaurant section, beyond, there were regular tables, and some booths along the wall. On the right, just inside the door, a small stage was cluttered with musician’s paraphernalia.
    The bar looked more inviting. I never eat on the sofa at home, because I might spill something. Then I'd have to get it cleaned, and that would be a big hassle. So I eat in my big leather chair, when I bother to eat at all. Then I can wipe the spills right off.
    The idea of lunch on someone else's sofa appealed to me. I chose a big faded chintz one off in a corner, plopped down, and waited for someone to notice me. The place wasn't busy, and I didn't wait long. My waitress was heavy, with curly brown hair corralled on top of her head with a bright elastic band. She planted her hands on her hips and looked at me placidly. "You eatin' or just drinkin'?"
    "Both."
    "Good," she said. "I need some business." She handed me a menu. "Get you somethin' from the bar?"
    Drinking in the middle of the day is always a disaster for me, but I could always go back and take a nap, and the place invited drinking. Dark and comforting, with soft rock, the kind you hum