Page 9 of The Dead Come to Stay
“Last night. Had a blue shirt and a rumpled, wet raincoat. Greenish—khaki, I guess? He changed out of muddy pants, ate a lot of biscuits and went up to bed before eleven.” She paused, thinking about the steamed dial of her bathroom clock. “I know, because I was in the shower by eleven ten.”
MacAdams’s pencil had been busily scratching, but now he looked up.
“How does that relate to the car—that wasn’t?” he asked. Jo blanked for a moment; it seemed so obvious now, almost beyond saying. Yet she’d missed it, too.
“When I left this morning, there wasn’t any sign that he had a car. I mean, I didn’t see one last night, either, but he got here somehow, didn’t he? I should have realized something was... well, wrong.”
MacAdams sat straighter, smoothing his own coat lapels after her description of Foley.
“You know we’ll need to search the cottage,” he said.
“You aren’t going to ban me from my home this time, are you? He didn’t get murdered there!”
MacAdams winced. “It’s not officially a murder until forensics—”
“Roberta said someone bashed his head in,” Jo interrupted. The wince hadn’t faded; it instead acquired a grimace.
“Yes, she is very forthright, is Roberta,” MacAdams said. “I will want a full statement from you, everything you remember. And I’ll need your keys for now.”
Jo put her hand inside her pocket, but didn’t withdraw them.
“Nah-ah. I’m coming with you.”
Of course she was. Saying no would change nothing, and to be honest, he wasn’t inclined to refuse her, anyway. He dialed the station for a forensic search team to follow, and asked her to lead on.
***
Jo fumbled slightly with the lock and dead bolt. MacAdams had wanted to go in first, but it was her house—and if anything was wrong, she’d know straight off.
“Here we are,” she said, stepping through. Nothing moved, not her books, not the furniture... not the tea and biscuits on the island that separated the tiny kitchen from the living room.
“This was your first guest?” MacAdams was asking behind her, but Jo had just reached the unopened Jammie Dodgers, and her answer stuck in her throat. Somehow, the little cookies unlocked emotions that the death announcement itself had not. She’d learned that lesson first when her mother died; the strawberries Jo bought for her spoiled in the fridge. Death was hard to grasp, uneaten meals painfully tangible.
“Sorry. Yes—he, um, he really liked these.” She waved the package.
“And his room?” MacAdams asked.
Technically, he’d seen the place before as a work in progress. Hemayhave participated in some of the work himself, especially the bathtub business. She’d meant to show it off in a more official way once complete, really impress him with it, but hadn’t got around to it. Now she hovered at the door, wondering if something awful might be on the other side. MacAdams was still behind her, on the stairs (and so also partly in the living room).Click-clack-click. The door swung open to reveal—nothing much.
They stepped into the breezy, yellow-green room, glinting in sunlight. It looked almostexactlyas it had before Ronan Foley ever arrived: new half bath in one corner, full-size bed, bureau, minitable, chintz armchair... and fresh wallpaper in green floral. It made Jo think ofThe Wind in the Willowsand sundry fur creatures huddled under quilts with steaming mugs of tea.
“Did you remake the bed?” MacAdams asked.
“Not me. Andhedidn’t, either—I know how I make a bed.” Jo pointed to the careful seams and tidily tucked corners. “He never slept in it.”
MacAdams didn’t reply; his attention had been drawn to the man’s duffel. It lay unzipped at one end of the mattress.
“You saw him close his door at eleven?”
“Yes. Then I showered. Was in bed by midnight.”
“And everything—this door, the cottage door—was locked up this morning?” MacAdams asked.
“I didn’t check this one. The front door was unlocked,” she said. MacAdams did almost a full circle turn, like a clumsy pirouette.
“Why didn’t you say so?” he asked, and Jo felt her face get warm. She grew up in Chicago and New York, learning to install all the best locks and dead bolts. But a year in the quiet countryside had made her forgetful—so much so, that leaving the doors unlocked of an evening had become a semiregular thing.
“Because I’m the one who didn’t lock it.”
