No Neighborhood for Old Women (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) Read Free

Peering through the peephole, I saw Mike and opened the door. Every single woman my age should dream about opening her front door to a Mike Shandy. I’m tall, but he’s taller. I’m dark, but his hair is sort of dark blonde, cut close to his head for efficiency. He’s neither skinny nor fat, neither drop-dead handsome, which would scare me, nor marred by some awful features. He’s just…well, Mike, and his eyes light up with laughter when I open the door for him or when the girls rush to clamor for his attention. I’m lucky, and I know it. What I can’t figure out is why I haven’t bought into the whole falling in love thing, but I haven’t.
    “You need to give me a key,” he said. “‘I’ll wake the girls ringing that damned old-fashioned clanging bell you have on the door.”
    “Not a bad idea,” I said.
    “What? Giving me a key or waking the girls?” He grinned and didn’t wait for an answer. “You got a beer? I’m off duty, thank goodness.”
    I got him a Corona, picked up my glass of now-warm wine, and waited until he was ready to talk.
    “Guthrie’s going to be all right, and the court-appointed lawyer will plead temporary insanity for Mrs. Guthrie. He’ll get her out on bail tomorrow, so she’ll only spend one night in jail. I’m betting that’s all she ever spends.”
    I could feel my face flushing. “She has a lawyer,” I said.
    “Well, he wasn’t there, and she didn’t speak up for herself.”
    That didn’t surprise me. “He’s on his way downtown now. The girls distracted me, and… and I forgot to call him until just now.”
    He gave me a long look that said, “Good going, Kelly!” But then he grinned and put his hand over mine. “You know, she said something strange to me in the car, something that had nothing to do with shooting her husband.”
    “What?” I asked, even as I knew what he meant. I’d been chewing on her strange strong comment on Florence Dodson.
    “She said she was glad her husband would be okay, but she wasn’t sorry that the old lady died. Called her a nasty bitch.”
    “She said something like that to me too. I wonder what went on between them.”
    “Well, it wasn’t homicide, so I guess she can’t get in more trouble for nasty thoughts. But I sure thought it was strange to talk about someone’s death that way.”
    “And out of character for Claire, though I guess I don’t know her that well.” Remembering my conversation with Angus Mitchell, I asked, “Where will she go when she gets out? Not back to the house?”
    “She and her husband will have to work that out. It’s way beyond my part of the puzzle. I’ll just have to testify at the trial.”
    I frequently buy myself more trouble than I need, and this time I jumped in with both feet. “I’ll put her in my guest house.”
    “Kelly! You can’t save everyone. Wait and see what she wants to do. Besides, I’m uncomfortable with your idea. Something about Claire Guthrie makes me nervous, and I don’t think you should expose the girls to her. And if it goes to trial I’ll have to testify against her.”
    Didn’t think of that. But I wasn’t worried about the girls—Claire was a kind person, and she’d only shot in the heat of passion. I’d put the offer out there and deal with problems as they came up. “She was in shock tonight,” I said. “Tell me about Mrs. Dodson.”
    “Not much more to tell. Looks like she fell. An old lady shouldn’t have been going down those rickety steps, even though it wasn’t full dark yet.”
    “She wasn’t that old, and she was always…well, sprightly.” Of course she was sprightly—enough so to complain about a lot of things. I added, “I don’t think she fell.”
    “Kelly, don’t go suspecting villains everywhere. People fall down steps every day, even much younger people, and sometimes they hit their heads.”
    “I don’t believe it. I know you laugh at my hunches or instinct, but it’s there about this.”
    Mike had the grace to