Mother's Day Murder by Leslie Meier Page B

Is that okay?
    “Sure,” said Lucy, somewhat surprised. Ted, always budget conscious, rarely ran a special edition. What was going on? Was he trying to impress a potential buyer?
    “Good,” said Ted. “You can write the obit.”
    Lucy was about to protest, but he’d already hung up.
    She was studying a photo of a charming cottage garden that mixed flowers and vegetables in the home and garden special section when Sara passed her open door and did a double take. “Why are you still in bed?”
    “Dad thought I should take it easy today because of the way I fainted yesterday,” she explained. “He gave me breakfast in bed.”
    “Can I look at the paper?”
    “Sure.” Lucy passed over the front section, watching for Sara’s reaction.
    “Golly,” she said, sitting down on the foot of the bed. “Are they gonna arrest Mrs. Hume?”
    “Ted says they’re waiting to see if the bullet came from her gun.”
    “What’s going on? Can we come in?” Renee and Sassie were clustered in the doorway, adorable with their sleep-mussed hair and pastel jammies.
    Sara held up the paper. “Mrs. Nowak died.”
    “That’s awful,” said Sassie.
    “Poor Heather,” said Renee. “I can’t imagine losing my mom.”
    The girls fell silent. Finally Sassie spoke. “We have to do something.”
    “Like what?” asked Sara.
    “You know, what people do after somebody dies,” Sassie continued, looking at Lucy. “What do people do?”
    “Take the family food or flowers. Call and offer to help. Some people send cards, but I usually write a note. A note is nicer and more personal….”
    “We could text,” said Sara.
    “You could,” agreed Lucy, reminded once again that she was hopelessly out of date, and that for this generation, text messages had replaced handwritten notes.
    Sara pulled her cell phone from her bathrobe pocket. “What shall we say?”
    “Do you always carry your cell phone?” asked Lucy.
    All three looked at her. “Yeah,” they said in unison.
    “Oh,” said Lucy.
    “Oh, look. I’ve already got a text. It’s from Emily. She says we shouldn’t talk to Ashley, because her mom is a murderer.”
    The other girls were checking their phones. “I got one from Karen that says the same thing.”
    “Crystal wants to get Ashley in the bathroom and teach her a lesson,” reported Renee.
    “Hold on,” said Lucy, stunned at this display of adolescent venom. “Number one, Ashley’s mom hasn’t even been arrested, and even if she is charged with the shooting, she’s innocent until convicted by a jury, right? And two, even if she did lose her mind and kill Heather’s mom, which we don’t know, Ashley certainly had nothing to do with it. She isn’t responsible for her mother. She’s as much a victim as Heather is. Imagine what she’s going through. How would you feel if your mother was suspected of shooting someone?”
    “Well,” said Zoe, indignantly, poking her head through the door, “I’d want my Mother’s Day card back.”
     
    Lucy wasn’t too excited about having to work on Sunday afternoon, especially since it was another beautiful May day and, inspired by the newspaper, she wanted to work in the garden. The sprouting vegetables needed to be thinned, weeds were popping up, and she wanted to bed out some impatiens. The last thing she wanted to do was to relive the whole horrible scene, but when she passed Lenny’s office and saw his ancient Volvo parked outside, she knew her duty and pulled into the parking space beside it.
    Interviewing people who’d lost loved ones was the hardest part of her job, and the first few times she’d had to do it, she’d felt like a ghoul. She was shocked to discover, however, that oftentimes the survivors didn’t see it that way at all. They generally appreciated having an opportunity to talk about the loved one they had lost and to let others know what a wonderful person the deceased was. Whether it was a soldier killed in Iraq, a teen killed in a highway