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Deedra had had at least two tapes with previous Saturday night shows on them in her film library. She'd taped the same pattern of shows each weekend. So where was the tape from last Saturday night? She hadn't died until Sunday; she'd been alive when Marlon had left her Sunday morning, he'd said. Even if I didn't want to believe Marlon, she'd talked to her mother at church, right? So where was the Saturday night tape?
It was probably an unimportant detail, but unimportant details are what make up housecleaning. Those details add up. A shiny sink, a neatly folded towel, a dustless television screen; this is the visible proof that your house has been labored over.
I was begi
It was a relief when the phone rang.
"Lily!" Carrie said happily.
"Mrs. Dr. Friedrich," I answered.
There was a long pause over the line. "Wow," she breathed. "I just can't get used to it. You think it'll take people a long time to start calling me Dr. Friedrich?"
"Maybe a week."
"Oh boy," she said happily, sounding all of eighteen. "Oh, boy. Hey, how are you? Anything big happen while we were gone?"
"Not too much. How was Hot Springs?"
"Oh ... beautiful," she said, sighing. "I can't believe we have to go to work tomorrow."
I heard a rumble in the background.
"Claude says thanks for standing up for us at the courthouse," Carrie relayed.
"I was glad to do it. Are you at your house?"
"Yes. We'll have to get Claude's things moved soon. I told my parents about an hour ago! They'd given up hope on me, and they just went nuts."
"What do you and Claude need for your wedding present?" I asked.
"Lily, we don't need a thing. We're so old, and we've been set up on our own for so long. There's not a thing we need."
"Okay," I said. "I can see that. What about me cleaning Claude's apartment after he gets his stuff out?"
"Oh, Lily, that would be great! One less thing we have to do."
"Then consider it done."
Carrie was telling Claude what I proposed, and he was objecting.
"Claude says that's too much on you since you clean for a living," Carrie reported.
"Tell Claude to put a sock in it. It's a gift," I said, and Carrie giggled and gave him the message.
"Lily, I'll see you soon," she said. "Oh, Lily, I'm so happy!"
"I'm glad for both of you," I said. Sooner or later, someone would tell Carrie about the fire, and she'd chide me for not telling her myself. But she didn't need to come down from her cloud of happiness and be retroactively worried about me. Tomorrow she'd be back at work and so would Claude. The lives of a doctor and a chief of police are not giddy and irresponsible.
The next morning I found myself wondering why I hadn't heard from Lacey. She'd wanted me to work some more in the apartment. Her marriage crisis must have changed her agenda, and I wasn't surprised. I worked that morning after all. The gap caused by losing Joe C as a client was filled when Mrs. Jepperson's sitter called to ask me to come over.
Mrs. Jepperson was having a lucid day, Laquanda Titchnor told me all too loudly as she let me in. Laquanda, whom I held in low regard, was the woman Mrs. Jepperson's daughter had had to settle for when better aides had all been employed.
Laquanda's greatest virtues were that she showed up on time, stayed as long as she was supposed to, and knew how to dial 911. And she talked to Mrs. Jepperson, rather than just staring at the television silently all day, as I'd seen other babysitters (of both the young and the elderly) do. Laquanda and Birdie Rossiter were sisters under the skin, at least as far as their need to provide commentary every moment of every day.
Today Laquanda had a problem. Her daughter had called from the high school to tell her mother she was throwing up and ru
"I just need you to watch Mrs. Jepperson while I run to get my girl and take her to the doctor," Laquanda told me. She didn't sound very pleased I was there. It was clear to both of us we weren't exactly a mutual admiration society.
"So go," I said. Laquanda waited for me to say something else. When I didn't, she pointed out the list of emergency numbers, grabbed her purse, and hightailed it out the kitchen door. The house was still clean from my last visit, I noticed, after I cast a glance in the master bedroom at the sleeping lady. For something to do, I gave a cursory scrub to the bathroom and kitchen surfaces. Laquanda always did the laundry and dishes (what little there was to do) in between monologues, and Mrs. Jepperson was bedridden and didn't have much occasion to litter the house. Her family visited every day, either her daughter, her son, their spouses, or any of the eight grandchildren. There were great-grandchildren, too, maybe three or four.
After I'd written a brief list of needed supplies and stuck it to the refrigerator (the granddaughter would pick it up and take it to the store) I perched on the edge of Laquanda's chair set close to the bed. She'd carefully angled it so she could see the front door, the television, and Mrs. Jepperson, all in a single sweeping glance.
I'd thought Mrs. Jepperson was still asleep, but after a minute she opened her eyes. Narrowed by drooping, wrinkled lids, her eyes were dark brown and cloudy, and since her eyebrows and eyelashes were almost invisible she looked like some old reptile in the sun.
"She's really not so bad," Mrs. Jepperson told me, in a dry, rustling voice that increased her resemblance to a reptile. "She just talks to keep her spirits up. Her job is so boring." And the old woman gave a faint smile that had the traces of a formidable charm lingering around the edges.
I couldn't think of any response.
Mrs. Jepperson looked at me with greater attention.
"You're the housecleaner," she said, as if she'd just slapped a label on my forehead.
"Yes."
"Your name is ... ?"
"Lily Bard."
"Are you married, Lily?" Mrs. Jepperson seemed to feel obliged to be social.
"No."
My employer seemed to ponder that. "I was married for forty-five years," she said after a pause.
"A long time."
"Yep. I couldn't stand him for the last thirty-five of them."
I made a strangled noise that was actually an attempt to stifle a snort of laughter.
"You all right, young woman?"
"Yes ma'am. I'm fine."
"My children and grandchildren hate me talking like this," Mrs. Jepperson said in her leisurely way. Her narrow brown eyes coasted my way to give me a close examination. "But that's the luxury of outliving your husband. You get to talk about him all you want."
"I never thought of that."
"Here I am, talking," she said undeniably. "He had an eye for other women. I'm not saying he ever actually did anything about it, but he looked aplenty. He liked stupid women."
"Then he made a mistake."
She laughed herself, after a second of thinking that through. Even her laughter had a dry and rustling sound. "Yes, he did," she said, still amused. "He did right well in the lumber business, left me enough to last out my lifetime without me having to go teach school or do some other fool thing I wasn't meant to do. ‘Course, I had to run the business after he died. But I already knew a lot, and I learned more right smart."
"I guess you know who owns all the land hereabouts, since you were in lumber." It occurred to me I had a valuable source of information right here in front of me.
She looked at me, a little surprised. "I did. I used to."