said.
"Don't have to. I live here and you don't." Norvel hadn't wasted any time consoling himself for his ordeal, I saw, and smelled.
"This time, the police won't come and I won't stop," I said.
I could tell from his eyes that Norvel had made up his mind to move, but before he could shift his feet, a shove from behind sent him flying out the door, staggering to keep his feet under him.
T. L. stood in the doorway, his arm still extended, his mouth in a tight line of anger.
"You piece of trash," he told Norvel, who had spun around to face this unexpected attack, "if the next landlord don't evict you, it won't be for lack of my trying. You leave this woman alone. I don't care where you go, but you get out of my sight."
T. L. was absolutely sincere, and that evidently impressed Norvel, no matter what Norvel's condition was. He looked sullen, but he acted swiftly, heel-and-toeing it out of the parking area.
Now I had to thank T. L., and I didn't much want to.
"Lily, you probably wanted to get in a few more licks," T. L. said, with a smile that looked like his old self. "But I just can't sit still when I hear something like that. And I am the acting landlord. At least the lawyer asked me to lock the doors at night like Pardon did."
I had to smile. "I appreciate it, T. L.," I said.
"You come to see us? Alvah said you were going to drop by."
"Yep."
"Come on in."
The door to the York apartment was still open. I couldn't help glancing over at Pardon's. The crime-scene tape was still across the door. I followed T. L. into his living room, where Alvah was cross-stitching something blue and pink.
If T. L. was close to recovery, Alvah was not. I was sorry to see her face looked old, far older than it had the week before. She moved slowly and stiffly as she rose to get my money.
"Will you be needing me to help finish up?" I asked. I was babbling, but there was something awful and self-conscious about Alvah's sudden decline that made me want to fill the silence.
"I pretty much done it," Alvah said listlessly. But the curtains were still off the windows, and the ceiling fan above their little dining table hadn't been dusted, a quick look told me.
T. L. had sat himself down in his favorite chair, a leather easy chair with a pouch hanging over one arm that held a TV Guide, the remote control, and a Sports Illustrated. He opened the Sports Illustrated, but I had a feeling he wasn't really reading the page in front of him.
"Harley Don Murrell killed himself," Alvah said, handing me the money.
"Oh," I said slowly. "Well, that's..." My voice trailed off. I had no idea what that was. Good - a bad man dead? Bad - he hadn't had time to get the full horror of being in prison? A relief - their granddaughter no longer had to fear the day he got out on parole?
"How'd he do it?" I asked briskly, as if it mattered.
"He was on the third tier. He jumped over the rail and landed on his head." Alvah's eyes were fixed on my face, but I didn't think she was seeing me any more than T. L. was reading Sports Illustrated.
"Quick then," I said, almost at random. "Well, see you soon."
I had barely cleared the door when I heard it close and lock behind me.
I was unnerved by this little exchange. I wondered what the Yorks' future would be like.
I went to the lawyer's office, and I cleaned, but I was absorbed in my thoughts the whole time and hardly remember doing it afterward. I was recalled to my self when I nodded to his secretary on my way out the door. Now I had to drive two miles out of town to Mrs. Rossiter's. I had forgotten my earplugs, damn it.
Today was Durwood's biweekly bath. Durwood is Mrs. Rossiter's old cocker spaniel, and Mrs. Rossiter likes him to smell good, which is not a normal state for Durwood. When Mrs. Rossiter had fallen out with the local pet groomer, she'd been in a quandary, since Durwood doesn't travel by car well enough to handle a drive to Montrose. She'd been explaining her problem at her church-circle meeting, and God bless Mrs. Hofstettler, she'd chimed in to say she was sure Lily Bard could bathe that little dog.
Durwood