Dead Jitterbug by Victoria Houston Page A

like that. Then she ran out on the deck, saw us, and ran back inside. That’s how come I know it was Kitsy.”
    “Okay,” said Lew, “that helps. Who else has been over there recently?”
    “No one that I know of,” said Jennifer. “But I might not see everyone who comes and goes. I have summer school in the mornings….”
    “Mrs. McDonald must have people who come to cut her grass and clean her house,” said Lew.
    “Oh, yeah,” said Jennifer. “There’s that Bunny woman, but she hasn’t been there either.”
    “Bunny?”
    “She’s the maid,” said Jenny. “She always wears a white dress. And that old man. The one who built the gazebo.”
    “Do you know his name?”
    Jennifer shrugged.
    “The garbage man,” said Timmy. “That scary-lookin’ guy.”
    “That would be Dairyl Wolniewicz—good buddy of mine. May look scary, but he’s a very nice man,” said Ray, in a tone that reminded the kids not to judge a person on their looks.
    “Okay, and the garbage man. Anyone else? What about Mr. Kelly, Mrs. McDonald’s husband? Doesn’t he come pretty often?”
    “If he’s the one who drives the big white car, he came one weekend,” said Jenny. “A while ago.”
    “Memorial Day?” asked her mother.
    “No, Mom, before that.”
    “You know,” said Jill, “I thought it was odd that they had no party this year. They used to always have lots of visitors on the big holidays. Definitely not this year. Funny, now that I think of it.”
    “So what you’re telling me is that Mrs. McDonald was alone most of the time,” said Lew. “I’m surprised. I would have thought such a famous, prominent person would have too many people around.”
    “It used to be that way,” said Jill. “When I moved in here four years ago, once the weather warmed, there was a constant stream—but things changed this past year. It’s been very quiet.”
    “What about Mrs. McDonald? Did she change?” asked Osborne. He had a vivid memory of Hope’s last appointment—she was vivacious, funny even. A petite, striking-looking woman, her personality always made her seem taller. She filled a room with her warmth and laughter. So much so that if her tall, handsome husband was there, you barely noticed him.
    “I don’t think she changed,” said Jennifer. “She always waved and smiled at me. Mom, she wasn’t alone all the time. Some days she drove to the Loon Lake Market and the drugstore.”
    “In the green car?” asked Lew. “The green Explorer. The car that’s in the garage?”
    “Yes—she would wave when she drove by.”
    “When was the last time you saw her drive by?” asked Lew.
    “That’s the thing,” said Jennifer, “not for a long time—two weeks maybe?”
    “So … around the time she had the fight with her daughter?”
    “Yeah, I think so. One more thing … sometimes I could hear her talking. But I wouldn’t hear anyone else—just her voice. Like she was talking to herself.”
    “And you fished there how often, Jennifer—every day?”
    “She never said I couldn’t.” Worry filled the child’s eyes.
    “Not to worry, kiddo,” said Lew. “You had permission.”
    “Good to know it was Jennifer who tried the door and set off the alarm,” said Lew as she and Osborne walked back down the driveway to the estate.
    “Better to know we don’t have to worry about someone going after her,” said Osborne.
    “What puzzles me, Doc,” said Lew, “is that as of eight thirty this morning and having checked all the doors and windows in that big house, the Wausau boys could find no sign of anyone breaking in. Whoever killed Hope McDonald had to be someone she knew, someone she had no problem letting into her home.”
    “Or,” said Osborne, “someone who had no problem getting into her home. Not necessarily the same thing.”

sixteen
    There is nothing which in a moment makes a tired, despondent, perhaps hopeless man suddenly become alert and keen as the hooking of a big fish.
    —Gilfrid Hartley
    Ed