the same time, why wouldn’t the woman tell Doreen anything?
Was this Abelman woman a criminal? Was she somebody in politics or one of those wealthy families always worrying about privacy? Not that Doreen had ever had to worry about privacy with her controlling husband. He’d always been very careful to keep everybody out of their lives, so it wasn’t anything she had to worry about.
As she sat here, the phone rang yet again. She answered it to hear Mack on the other end.
“What are you doing?” he snarled.
Surprised, she stared at the phone. “What on earth are you talking about?” she asked. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Oh,” he said in surprise. There was a moment of silence.
“What did you think I was doing?” she asked curiously. “Because that was a pretty snarly attitude you tossed my way.”
“I don’t know. I just got a really bad feeling,” he said.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Are you a psychic now?”
“It depends,” he said, “if you’re doing something stupid.”
She snorted. “That’s not funny.”
“Neither is you getting into something you don’t belong in.”
“Maybe.” Remembering the two old ladies she’d met in the library, she asked him, “Do you know Mrs. Applegate and Mrs. Gundon?”
He said, “Not that I know of. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What were you doing? I tried to call you a moment ago,” he said. “The phone went to voicemail.”
“I was talking to somebody in the Abelman family.”
“You found Reginald’s sister?” he asked in surprise.
“No, I found an Abelman in the phone book, so I called and got this really weird woman.” She explained about the snippy woman and her conversation during the two calls.
“Well,” he said, “lots of people like their privacy.”
“I know,” she said. “It just seems odd.”
“You’re looking for trouble where there isn’t any.”
She snorted at that. “You’re a fine one to talk, considering what you said to me instead of hello. You’re the one looking for trouble.”
“In your case,” he said with a hard sigh, “it’s almost like there is no end to the trouble. But, if you’re not doing anything, and you’re sitting at home, staying out of trouble with the animals, then it’s all good.” And he hung up.
She snorted at that. “Jeez, Mack, you didn’t have to start imitating me,” she said to the empty room. But, of course, she was the one who had hung up on him so often that now he felt he could hang up on her. She had to admit she didn’t particularly like it and decided it was time to do something about it. So she sent him a text. Stop hanging up on me.
When she didn’t get an answer she sent another. Please.
This time, she got a reply right away.
Don’t like it, do you?
No. I don’t.
Another quick reply from Mack. Neither do I.
She groaned. Fine. I’ll only hang up on you when I really mean it.
And, with that, she tossed down her phone and grinned. She didn’t know what she wanted to do now, but there had to be something. She was willing to eat up the rest of the pasta though. It was just that this sister mystery was burning away at Doreen, and she wanted that snippy woman to call her back. How else could she find out? She walked outside and studied her neighbor’s fence. He’d lived here for a while; maybe he knew. She walked over to the fence and called out, “Hello?”
There was a grump on the other side.
“I just wondered if you knew any of the Abelman family around here.” She heard something being placed against the fence, and then Richard’s face popped up over the top to look down at her.
“Wilma Abelman?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “That’s possible though.”
“There’s Mickey Abelman. And Wilma is one of her daughters. They had four daughters. Mickey is the wife.”
“Hmm, any more details?”
“Abelman, Abelman. Oh, wait, it was Gorenstein, Wilma Gorenstein.”
“I’m looking for the sister of Reginald Abelman who had Johnson and Abelman Jewelers way back when.”
Richard stared at her, his eyebrows slowly rising. “Are you looking into that old theft?” he asked, looking delighted.
“Maybe,” she said cautiously, not understanding why he cared.
“A lot of us back then wanted to see that kid kicked out of the family,” he said. “Now the old couple, they were really something. They were good people, but that son-in-law of theirs, he was a loser.”
“Right,” she said, sighing. “And what about their daughter?”
He just rolled his eyes at that. “Aretha has always been a snob,” he