“Did Mr. Pittman or Benjy Stephens have an opportunity to go upstairs that you’re aware of?”
“No, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. Dickce took Mr. Pittman out to the garage apartment, where they found Benjy Stephens.” She paused as a thought struck her. “I suppose it’s possible that Benjy could have entered the house and then returned to the garage apartment before Dickce and Mr. Pittman found him there. I don’t think it’s likely, though.”
“Thanks,” Kanesha said. She consulted her notebook again. “I want to get another sequence fixed in my mind. When you came into the front parlor with the tea, you were accompanied by Mr. Pittman and Mr. Stephens. You found Mrs. Pittman and Mrs. Cameron already here. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” An’gel said. “I have no idea how long they’d been here, though. At least a couple of minutes, at a guess, because Mrs. Pittman was examining that vase and commenting on it to her sister.” She pointed to the Ming Dynasty piece. She didn’t think it necessary to repeat Maudine’s catty remark, nor her own comeback.
“How long was it after you came into the room that Mr. Thurmond joined you?”
“No more than five minutes,” An’gel said.
“That left Mrs. Sultan, Miss Cameron, and Ms. Stephens the only ones upstairs at that point.” Kanesha tapped the notebook with her pen.
“Then the question has to be, when did someone put water on the stairs and Vaseline on the banister?” An’gel said.
Kanesha nodded. “I’m thinking it was most likely done either before any of them came downstairs, or between the time Mrs. Pittman, Mrs. Cameron, and Mr. Thurmond came down and when Ms. Stephens fell.”
An’gel pondered that a moment. “I suppose Mr. Thurmond could have done it on his way downstairs.” She shrugged. “But he wouldn’t have had much time, unless his sisters had come down several minutes before him. He would have had to use a container for the water and then gotten rid of the Vaseline and cleaned off his hands before he came into the parlor.” She paused. “I think I would have noticed if he had been wiping his hands or if they had been visibly greasy.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” Kanesha set her notebook and pen down on the table near her chair. “We really need to find that Vaseline and whatever was used to hold the water.”
“That latter bit may be tough,” An’gel said. “There are a number of vases upstairs in the hall and in the bedrooms, not to mention cups in the bathroom cabinets for guests to use. Dickce and I also have cups in our bathrooms.”
“Are they the disposable kind?”
“In the guest rooms, yes,” An’gel said. “Dickce and I have glasses, actually, not cups.”
“So we could be looking for a disposable cup,” Kanesha said. “Or possibly two, since the person responsible for this might have put the Vaseline into one, rather than take the entire container to the banister and then have to return it.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” An’gel said. Kanesha was so sharp, she thought. I’m sure she’ll get this sorted out as quickly as possible.
“How big are the cups?” Kanesha asked. “Would one of them hold enough water to make small puddles on a couple of stairs? If not, something larger would have been used.”
“They’re not that big,” An’gel said. “They’re about big enough for a mouthful of water, to rinse out toothpaste or take a pill. No more than that.”
“Not big enough then for the amount of water needed, I’m thinking. At least not without more than one trip, and I don’t think that’s likely.”
An’gel nodded. “Must be something else.” She thought for a moment. “There are no fresh flowers upstairs, so it wouldn’t be a vase with water already in it.”
Kanesha added that information to her notebook. Then she looked up and frowned. “This is highly irregular.”
“What do you mean?” The remark confused An’gel.
“Talking over the case with you like this.” Kanesha sighed. “By rights I should consider both you and Miss Dickce suspects, and I wouldn’t be talking like this with a suspect.” She shrugged. “No way in the world, though, that I’d ever think you and Miss Dickce deliberately injured a guest in your home.”
An’gel understood the chief deputy’s dilemma and appreciated the consideration for her and Dickce. She did not want Kanesha to get in any trouble, however, for not following proper procedure.
“Thank you for that,” she said lightly. “Dickce and I know you have a job to do, and it’s important to do it right. We’ll go along with whatever you need.”
“Thank you,” Kanesha said. “That brings me to one final question I have for you.” She paused. “Are you willing to let these people continue to stay with you and your sister until the investigation is complete?”
CHAPTER 11
Dickce wished she could have gone with An’gel and Kanesha. She wanted to be doing something instead of just sitting here in the window seat. Her curiosity about what An’gel and Kanesha were discussing was making her restless, she realized, along with the fact that she was stuck in a roomful of people she had met for the first time within the past few hours.
Her gaze fell on the young man beside her, and her fidgeting ceased. Benjy had lost his mother, violently, less than an hour ago. Dickce was glad Diesel was here to comfort the boy, because none of Rosabelle’s family had paid any attention to him.
Except Juanita, Dickce reminded herself. Rosabelle’s granddaughter appeared to have a kind heart, but now Juanita’s attention was focused on her mother and her aunt. Dickce glanced over at the sisters, and to her mind, they both still looked a bit peaky. Wade Thurmond remained behind the desk, staring into space. Junior Pittman squirmed in his chair while he watched his mother.
Dickce wanted to reach out to Benjy but realized that, under the watchful eye of the young deputy, it probably wasn’t a good idea right now. Besides, Benjy might prefer Diesel to a strange elderly woman like herself.
Elderly. Dickce suppressed a shudder. She hated thinking of herself that way. Most days she felt fifty, maybe fifty-five tops. The about-to-be eighty-year-old woman who stared back at her in the mirror in the mornings had to be someone else.
Dickce continued to sit in the window seat with Benjy and Diesel and watched as, one after another, Rosabelle’s daughters, son, and grandchildren were called out of the room to talk to Kanesha. Finally, only she and Benjy, along with the cat, remained.
All this time—and Dickce estimated that at least an hour had passed since An’gel left with Kanesha—Benjy had given little indication he was aware of his surroundings, other than to stroke the cat’s head. Dickce was amazed by Diesel’s patience. He lay with his head, chest, and front legs in Benjy’s lap the whole time. He purred on and off, and seemed content to remain with the boy.
When the deputy came to take Benjy across the hall to the parlor, the young man rose after gently sliding Diesel from his lap. “You stay here, kitty.” He gave the cat’s head one last stroke and followed the deputy from the room.
Diesel stood and stretched on the window seat. He turned to look at Dickce, his head nearly on level with hers. She touched a finger to his nose. He warbled, and she told him, “It won’t be much longer, and we’ll be out of here. Better settle down with me until it’s my turn to talk to Kanesha.”
The cat warbled again and arranged himself so that his head lay against her thigh and the rest of him spread out to cover the remainder of the window seat. He closed his eyes, and Dickce thought he went to sleep right away. She leaned back and stared out the window, but her gaze focused inward.
For the past hour Dickce had purposely let her mind flit around, like a bee in a field of clover, because she really didn’t want to think about the death of Marla Stephens. Alone in the room now, except for the deputy who had resumed his position by the door, she found she could no longer keep the tragic event out of her mind.