on a car. The lights were bright, but all I could see were a pair of shoes and the bottoms of a pair of pants, or maybe overalls, sticking out from underneath an antique car, the kind with pronounced fins.
“Come on,” Grimaldi waved. She was already up on the stoop. I abandoned the window and hoofed it up next to her. By then, she had pushed the doorbell and was waiting for sounds of life inside.
“There’s somebody in the garage,” I informed her, “working on a car. But between the music and the noise, he might not be in a position to hear the bell.”
“If nobody answers, we’ll go knock on the window.” But she didn’t sound concerned, just looked around. “First impressions?”
“Of the house?”
“That’s your business, isn’t it?”
It was, now that she mentioned it. “Reasonably well-maintained,” I said, “but a little old-fashioned. We already know they’re older people, but I would have guessed that anyway, from the finishes.”
I touched the iron fretwork holding up the porch with my free hand. It was wrought iron with little leaves, painted white. “Most young people would have taken this out, or built a box around it, or at least painted it black or something.” Here, it matched the shutters, which would also have been painted a different color if I’d been renovating this house.
I had my mouth open to comment on the vinyl siding on the underside of the porch ceiling when Grimaldi raised her hand. After a second I heard it, too: footsteps from inside the house. A moment later the door opened a crack. “Yes? Can I help you?”
The face was as round and friendly as Millie Ruth Durbin’s, and of around the same vintage. Seventy, give or take a year or two. She had white hair, cut short into soft little curls, and she was dressed in a pair of pink velour pants and a matching T-shirt. They brought out the roses in her cheeks.
The eyes were blue, and they went big when Grimaldi flashed her badge. “Oh, Lord. My kids. Something’s happened to my grandkids—!”
“No.” Grimaldi held up a hand, and stopped Mrs. Drimmel in mid-shout. “No, ma’am. Nothing’s happened to anyone. Not recently. It’s about your daughter.”
“You found him,” Mrs. Drimmel said.
“No. I’m afraid not. But there’s been another murder…”
She sighed. “You’d better come in.”
She stepped back. Grimaldi crossed the threshold into a foyer paved with yellowed marble. I took a better grip on Carrie’s seat, and followed.
Mrs. Drimmel looked askance at us. Grimaldi looked official, in her dark suit and with her badge. I didn’t, in my blouse and flowery skirt and with a baby in my hand.
“The babysitter canceled,” I said. It wasn’t true, of course, but I didn’t want Grimaldi to seem unprofessional for showing up with a woman with a baby. And there was absolutely no way I’d leave Carrie alone in the car. Not even a police car with the doors locked.
Mrs. Drimmel nodded, as if my statement had actually made sense. “Have a seat. Through there.”
She gestured to the room to the left of the foyer. It turned out to be a formal living room, with wall to wall carpet covering the floors—another thing I’d change if I were renovating this place—and a fireplace flanked by bookcases, with a mantel full of what looked like family photographs.
Grimaldi waited for Mrs. Drimmel to take a seat on one of the chintz chairs before she lowered herself to sit on the sofa. I took a seat next to her and put Carrie and her carrier on the floor.
“Pretty baby,” Mrs. Drimmel said, peering at her.
“Thank you.” I stared at her, for some sign of prejudice over the fact that I was sitting here with a brown baby, but there was none visible. “She takes after her daddy.”
Mrs. Drimmel nodded. “I can see that she don’t favor you much.”
The niceties over with, Grimaldi cleared her throat. “I’m Tamara Grimaldi. I took over as chief of the Columbia PD in January.”
“We heard what happened to Carter,” Mrs. Drimmel nodded.
“You probably also heard that there was another woman found at the truck stop down by the interstate a couple of days ago.”
“My husband mentioned it. But that’s the sheriff’s job, isn’t it?”
“We’re working together,” Grimaldi said blandly. “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your daughter, Mrs. Drimmel. Or more specifically, about your son-in-law.”
“Frankie?” She sounded surprised. “I haven’t seen him in donkey’s years.”
“But they were still married when your daughter died.”
“Sure.” She