that was frustrating her more than anything. Deciding that getting an answer faster would be the best, she texted Mack and asked if he’d found out anything. About Jeremy. Zachary Winters. Reginald’s cause of death. The three recent deaths of the old ladies.
No.
She winced at that. A no from Mack somehow came with a thunderous oppressive silence, versus Nan’s chirpy birdlike no. They both meant the same thing; it was just so much easier to hear it from Nan. Doreen moved outside but found herself restless and out of sorts. She had checked the library and done everything she could. There didn’t appear to be anything obvious online, although she had started searching for Reginald Abelman’s name, looking for any sign there might be family. On a whim, she picked up the phone book and checked there. She found one.
Frowning, she picked up her phone and dialed the number. As an afterthought she checked her watch and hoped it wasn’t too early to call. She didn’t want to get people upset. But it was running on nine. When an older female answered, Doreen smiled to perk up her voice and dove right in with a direct approach. “Hello, my name is Doreen. I’m wondering if you are any relation to Reginald Abelman.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Who’s asking?”
She started again. “I’m Doreen,” she said. “I live in Kelowna, and I was speaking with Aretha and was wondering if you were a Reginald Abelman’s sister, who was her first husband.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not, but I find it so odd that you would ask.”
“Why is that odd?” Doreen asked.
“Because, if I was his sister, you’re assuming I wouldn’t have married,” she said, her voice snippy. “And I’m certainly not an old spinster.”
Doreen’s brows drew together; she had stepped on a land mine and didn’t have a clue what had happened. “Oh,” she said. “I meant no insult. I was trying to locate his sister, and there was always a chance she had been widowed or divorced and may have reverted to her maiden name. Or she could have remarried.” She knew she was grasping at straws.
The woman on the other end gave a snort. “Then she could have any name,” she said, her voice not quite as snappy but still enough so to make Doreen’s teeth grind.
“Possibly, yes,” Doreen said. “Really, I’m just trying to find any family members possible.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m not related.”
With that, Doreen’s shoulders sagged. “Oh,” she said. “Do you happen to know of any other family members?”
Doreen could all but feel the laser gaze coming through the phone line.
“It’s possible,” the other woman said. “I’ll have to think about it.” Then she promptly hung up.
Doreen stared at her phone, wondering why that had gone so badly. Then she tried to figure out in what way this woman could know somebody who might be related. But then, if she had married a male with the Abelman last name, she wouldn’t have been related, other than by marriage. At least she could be snippy and say, Not related by blood.
Doreen grabbed her notepad and wrote down the gist of the conversation, as well as the phone number. It was a fascinating thing to go into genealogy. She would love to do family trees, but it was so much easier to just do something on ancestry.com or another one of the DNA profile sites. She could see that being something people did automatically going forward. She’d have to check them all out herself. She didn’t know how that worked. Also Reginald’s parents had lived in Vancouver. She wondered if she could find records of them.
“I’m going crazy,” she said to Mugs.
Mugs just sat back and woofed at her.
“That sounded a little too much like a yes,” she said.
Just then the phone rang, and she looked at the number and groaned. “I’m not talking to you, Zachary.” But the phone rang and rang. She waited until the voicemail kicked in, then listened to his message. It was the same as before. He really wanted the emerald for his wife. It was the perfect match and nothing less was good enough. She appreciated the fact that he wanted it, but how could she sell something she didn’t feel was hers to sell?
The thought of getting ten thousand dollars for an emerald was great, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, she’d been asked to figure out who the jewels belonged to and to return them to their