Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,15

my mother said. “Someone in this office got that key and put it back on the key board. No one here knew I was going to show the Anderton house this morning. I didn’t know it myself until last night, when Mr. Bartell called me at home. So it was likely the body wouldn’t be found for a long time—how often do we show the Anderton house? Maybe one client in ten can afford a house like that.”

For the first time Debbie Lincoln opened her mouth. “Someone,” she offered softly, “could have come in when Patty and me were both gone from the reception area.”

Patty shot her a look. “We’re never supposed to both be gone from the reception area. But there was a period of maybe five minutes this morning when both Debbie and I were not there,” she admitted. “While Debbie was in the back copying the sheet for the Blanding house, I had to visit the ladies’ room.”

“I walked through while no one was there,” Eileen said immediately. “And I didn’t see anyone coming in from outside.”

“So that narrows the time someone could have come in by a few more seconds,” I observed.

Mother said, “It would have to be someone who knew our system and could find the right hook for the Anderton key very quickly.”

“Every realtor in town knows where our key board is, and that we label every hook alphabetically,” Mackie said.

“So you’re saying whoever returned the key is another realtor, or one of you,” I pointed out. “Though I think anyone coming into the office could figure out the key board in seconds. But it does make more sense for a realtor to have returned it, to have realized not having the key on the board would have alerted us much sooner than the key being there. It’s just bad luck for whoever killed Tonia Lee that Martin Bartell wanted to see some big houses this morning, and that he called Mother at home last night after the office was closed.”

Again I was aware of my lack of popularity as the people around the table realized they’d just been boxed in.

“All right,” said Patty defensively and illogically, “where is Tonia Lee’s car? Why wasn’t it at the Anderton house this morning?”

That was another interesting question. And one I hadn’t thought of... nor had anyone else in the room.

“It’s parked behind Greenhouse Realty,” said a new voice from the door. “And wiped clean of fingerprints.”

My old buddy Lynn Liggett Smith, making another of her silent entrances.

“Your daughter-in-law told me to come on back,” she told my mother, who had a particularly nasty gleam in her eye. I didn’t think Melinda would be asked to answer the phones anymore.

Lynn was a tall, slim woman with short brown hair very attractively styled. She wore little or no makeup, always pumps or flats, and plain solid-color suits with bright blouses. Lynn was brave and smart, and sometimes I regretted that because of Arthur we would never be good friends. Lynn was also the only detective specifically designated “homicide” at the Lawrenceton police department; she’d served on the Atlanta police force before taking what she thought would be a lower-stress job. She hadn’t counted on Detective Sergeant Jack Burns.

“When did you find her car?” Mother was scrambling to regain her composure.

“This afternoon. Mr. Greenhouse knew it was there this morning, but he didn’t think that was important, because he thought Mrs. Greenhouse had driven off in someone else’s car. He just plain didn’t know where Mrs. Greenhouse was, and when she didn’t come home last night, he thought she was just spending the night with someone else. I gather it’s common knowledge she was prone to do that sort of thing.” Lynn had made a little pun, and she gave me the ghost of a smile.

“But today Mr. Knight has told us that Mrs. Greenhouse’s car was in the driveway of the Anderton house last night, so she got there under her own steam. Someone, presumably the murderer, drove that car to Greenhouse Realty and left it there out of sight of the street.” Lynn cocked her head and scanned our faces.

The absence of the car would have been noticed by Donnie Greenhouse, just as the absence of the key would have been noticed at our office, sooner or later.

But the murderer had had bad luck, no doubt about it.

“So,” Lynn continued, “who put the key back?”

“My daughter brought that up, too,” Mother said smoothly. “We have decided that