Nervous Water by William G. Tapply Page B

no homemade audiotapes. Nothing that might tell me about her, tell me where she was.
    I did find some plastic CD cases in a pocket on the driver’s side door. Fleetwood Mac, Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton, the Bee Gees. Music from her formative years.
    The glove compartment held the registration—the Saab was registered to Cassandra Crandall, not Hurley—and a few road maps. I opened the maps on my lap but saw no circles or routes outlined on them that might’ve struck me as clues to her whereabouts.
    In the center console under a purse-sized pack of paper tissues, I found a cell phone. I hoped—and assumed—it was Cassie’s, the one with the full mailbox. I hesitated barely one second before I slipped it into my pocket.
    I found nothing else in Cassie’s car. But the cell phone was an excellent start, I thought.
    I got out of the Saab and closed the door, and when I turned to get into my own car, I saw Howard Litchfield with his Mutt-and-Jeff dogs standing in the street at the end of the driveway. He was wearing a yellow slicker with the hood over his head. The dogs were sitting patiently on the wet pavement.
    Litchfield was looking at me with no expression that I could read—not curiosity, not disapproval, not amusement, not even interest, really.
    I lifted my hand to him. He waved at me.
    I went out to the end of the driveway. “I’m glad I ran into you,” I said.
    â€œPretty hard not to,” he said. “Since I retired, this is where I am, what I do, most of the time, rain or shine. Walking my dogs up and down the street.”
    I smiled.
    â€œSo you’re back looking for Mrs. Hurley, huh?”
    â€œThat’s right,” I said. “I hoped I might find her at home this morning.”
    â€œI was thinking about what you said the other day,” he said. He gazed up at the sky for a minute. “My wife was pretty good friends with the, um, the previous Mrs. Hurley. The new one, though, we haven’t really gotten to know her.”
    â€œThe previous Mrs. Hurley?”
    He nodded. “Ellen was her name. God bless her. She died a few years ago. Lovely, quiet woman. She was sick much of the time. Asthma. That’s what she ended up dying of, I understand. Poor woman had her hands full, raising those two children of his, never mind taking care of him.”
    â€œHis children?” I said.
    He frowned. “Pardon?”
    â€œYou said ‘those two children of his.’ They weren’t hers?”
    â€œNo, no,” he said, “that’s right. A boy and a girl. Rebecca and James. They were with his first wife. The one before Ellen. She died, also.”
    â€œI met Rebecca and James,” I said. “They don’t live here with him, do they?”
    â€œNo, no. Not anymore. Rebecca, she’s married, has a baby, and James moved out recently. They come to visit now and then.” He looked at me. “You said you were interested in the, um, the third Mrs. Hurley. The present one. She’s your cousin, you said.”
    I nodded. “I haven’t seen her in a long time. Heard she’d gotten married and moved to Madison recently, and I thought I’d look her up. That’s all. I happened to be back in the neighborhood this morning, so I thought…”
    He arched his eyebrows. “Back in the neighborhood, eh?”
    I smiled. “More or less.” I lowered my voice conspiratorially. “It’s very important that I talk with Cassie, Mr. Litchfield. If you have any idea at all…”
    He looked up and down the street, then leaned his head toward me. “It’s impossible not to hear the two of them,” he said. “Her, especially.”
    â€œThey argue?”
    Howard Litchfield rolled his eyes. “She’s got a mouth on her, that one. When they’re going at it, my wife runs into the bathroom, turns on the ceiling fan, and shuts the door. She goes to church, my wife