I wasn’t about to be brushed off so quickly. I pretended to be oblivious and I kept my place. “It just seems so odd. I can only imagine what you must have been feeling. And I think at a time like that, I might say something like oh, no or please, tell me it’s not true. Even this wasn’t supposed to happen makes sense to me, because of course, it wasn’t. Beth was loved by her friends and her family. She’s going to be missed. What happened to her shouldn’t happen to anyone. But it’s that one little word. That yet . . .”
Michael blanched. I was pretty sure he was going to roll up in a ball and crumple to the floor until something behind me caught his eye. I turned to see that Edward Monroe was looking our way. When I turned again to Michael, he pulled back his shoulders and lifted his chin.
“Of course it wasn’t supposed to happen yet,” he snapped. “Beth and I were supposed to live a long life together. We were going to grow old together, retire together, watch our great-grandchildren grow up. You understand that, don’t you, Annie? It wasn’t supposed to happen yet.” He drew out the word so I had plenty of time to think about it. “No one’s supposed to die that young.”
“Of course.” What else could I say? With another smile tinged with just enough sympathy to be sincere but not too cloying, I backed away.
And headed straight for the door.
Did I believe Michael? Sure, everything he told me made sense, but that didn’t mean I was going to take it all at face value. This was my perfect opportunity not only to do a little digging, casewise, but to do what I’d gone to McLean on Saturday to do in the first place.
I left the funeral chapel and within a couple minutes, I was parked around the corner from Beth and Michael’s house, the better to make sure my car wasn’t spotted. I hurried up the driveway and peeked in the windows. There was no one around.
And remember, there was a hide-a-key.
The tantalizing thought flitted through my brain, teasing and tempting me. I glanced around the yard, trying to put myself in Beth’s place, and in Celia and Glynis’s, too, since they said they all kept keys hidden outside their homes. Under those fake rocks seemed a little too obvious. So did under the mat. (I know, because I looked and there was nothing there.) That left . . .
I stepped down from the porch and looked over the house, trying to think like a detective. If all the women had hidden keys, and each of them knew where the others’ were, then it would make sense if they were all in the same sort of place. I had never been to either Vickie’s or Glynis’s house, but I’d driven by. Each house was as different and individual as each woman. Beth’s was modern, Celia’s was cottagey-cute. Vickie’s was a sturdy Colonial much like the one I imagined for myself, and Glynis’s was a sprawling monstrosity that looked more like a medical building than a house. In fact, there was only one thing each of the homes had in common.
My gaze lit on the Welcome Friends sign with the moose and the bear, and I knew my instincts were right on. As it turned out, there was a little door in the back of the sign, and inside that—
“The front door key!” I held it up triumphantly, but I knew I couldn’t waste time. The calling hours at the funeral home wouldn’t last forever. I raced inside the house. Ignoring the broken shelves that had once held Michael’s glass collection and the smudges of dark color that still stained the floor tiles, I headed straight for the kitchen. The envelope with the Girl Scout cookie money in it was still in my purse and I pulled it out and looked for a place to put it. If I left it out on the kitchen countertop, it would be too obvious. I needed something more subtle, someplace Michael would think Beth had put the envelope and forgotten about it.
I found the perfect solution in the desk just outside the laundry room. Feeling as relieved as if I was dropping a weight from my shoulders, I slid open the top drawer, popped the envelope into place, and breathed a sigh of guilt-free relief.
That taken care of, I thought about