Better To Rest

“What kind of stuff?”

Bill gri

“Jesus.” Prince remembered Mrs. Lydia Tompkins, a short, plump, bright-eyed woman who had most definitely achieved elder status, and tried to reconcile that picture with the sexual dynamo Bill was describing.

“Yeah. I want to be Lydia when I grow up.” Bill paused. “It must have about killed her when Stan Sr. died.”

“So you never had any disagreements with her yourself?”

“Oh, hell, yes. You can’t be even once-a-month friends for over twenty years and not fight. Not if the friendship is real. I told her she was spoiling Karen and she was mad at me for, oh, about five minutes, I think it was. But Lydia could never stay mad at anyone for long.”

Bill sighed. “I should be angry at who killed her. I should be breathing fire and smoke up one road and down another, as far as roads go in this town, until I sniff out the bastard and a

It was the closest Prince had ever heard Bill come to admitting to human weakness, and she didn’t know quite what to say in response. She fell back on formula. “You can’t think of anyone who would have wanted to hurt her?”

Bill shook her head.

“Can you give me directions to Lola’s house? I can track down everyone else.”

“Okay.” Bill drew Prince’s notebook to her and began to write.

Alta Peterson, owner and proprietor of the Bay View I

Prince narrowed her eyes against the glare and cleared her throat.

“Diana. What can I do for you?” Alta did not leap to her feet. This was Newenham. It was October. Jo and Gary Dunaway and Special Agent James G. Mason were the only three customers she had at present, and she wasn’t expecting Diana to bring her any more.

“You hear about Lydia Tompkins?”

“Yes.”

“I’m talking to everyone who knew her.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Bill Billington tells me you were a member of Lydia’s book club.”

“Yes.”

“You were good friends?”

“Yes.”

“Before she died, did she say she was having trouble with anyone? Anybody threatening her, anything like that?”

“For what reason?”

“I don’t know; I was kind of hoping you could tell me.”

Alta closed the book, marking her spot with one forefinger, but she didn’t pull her feet off the counter. “Lydia Tompkins was a good and true friend of mine from the time my husband first brought me to Newenham. If anyone had threatened her and I had heard about it, I would have sought them out and kicked their behind. What’s more, I would have had to stand in line to do it.”

“She had a lot of friends?”

“She didn’t have anything but friends.”

“You remember her talking about any problems she might have had with her children?”

“No.”

Alta had elevated the monosyllablic response to an art form. “Well, if you remember anything-”

“If I do.” Alta opened her book again.

Prince took the hint and left.

Mamie Hagemeister was Alta Peterson’s polar opposite in temperament. She burst into tears at her desk at the local jail and had to be ministered to with Kleenex and a can of Coke from the machine down the hall. “She was the greatest gal,” Mamie said, blowing her nose. “One time I was sick with the flu, really sick, and she came and got my kids and kept them for three days so I could sleep. She did things like that for everybody. And she did things in the community, too. She taught Yupik at the grade school, and ran the fund-raising drive for the new fire truck, and donated time down at Maklak Center. She had an uncle who was a drunk.” With a rare flash of pragmatism, she added, “Everybody in Newenham has an uncle who’s a drunk. But Lydia did something about it.” Dissolving once again into tears, she said, “I just don’t know who would do such an awful thing. Everybody loved Lydia.”

Prince’s ears pricked up at the news that Lydia had volunteered at the small clinic attached to the tiny hospital that treated drug and alcohol abusers. Users were notoriously unstable people, quick to take offense and slow to take responsibility, with a tendency to hit first when they were high and apologize later when they were sober and about to be jailed for the third time. There was a possibility that Lydia had offended someone and that it had resulted in a confrontation in her home. Counselors in the big city had unlisted phone numbers and had mail sent to a box at the post office. In small towns like Newenham, it just wasn’t that hard to find someone.

Charlene Taylor was in the air, tracking down a rumor of a group of hunters going for bear in an area the Fish and Game had closed to hunting the month before. Prince moved on to Prime Cut, Newenham’s lone beauty salon, located in the minimall that housed the Eagle grocery store. Sharon Ilutsik was blow-drying Jimmy Barnes’ hair. Jimmy Barnes, a rotund, bouncy little man and Newenham’s harbormaster, greeted Prince with some embarrassment and was out of the chair a second later. Sharon sighed a little over his tip, and then he came bustling back in, even redder of face, to mumble an apology and shove a couple of bills her way. She brightened and accompanied Prince to the espresso stand next door to order a double ski

“Lydia Tompkins,” Sharon said. “Yeah, we were friends. I usually only saw her once a month, at book club, except when she came in for a haircut. You could use one, by the way,” she said, giving Prince a critical once-over. “You’re getting a little shaggy around the ears and the back of your head.”

Prince ran a hand through her short, dark curls. “I’ll make an appointment after we’re done here. When did you last see Lydia?”

“At the last book club. Saturday before last.”

“Did she seem upset about anything? Anything at all, it doesn’t matter how unimportant it seems to you.”

“No. Although-”

“What?”

“Her daughter showed up about halfway through the evening. I remember because we were right in the middle of sitting down to di

“That’s a little harsh.”

“Harsh but true,” Sharon said cheerfully. “Karen defines herself by the men she sleeps with. I swear the girl has notches on her bedpost. It’s probably posts, plural, by now.”

“Like her mother.”

“Lydia didn’t sleep around,” Sharon said sharply. “She and her husband had plenty of fun, and she liked to tease us with stories about it, but she wasn’t at all like Karen. She was a one-man woman.” She paused. “At least, she was while Stan Sr. was alive.”

Prince stared. Mrs. Lydia Tompkins, plump, seventy-four, mother of four, grandmother of two, brainer of muggers with jars of sun-dried tomatoes, was doing the nasty with somebody?I want to be Lydia when I grow up, Bill had said. So, suddenly, did Prince. “You mean she took a lover?”