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“Slow down a little, ma’am,” the dispatcher said. “I’m having trouble understanding you.”
Good, Darcy thought.
She cleared her throat. “Is this better? Can you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am, I can now. Just take it easy. You said you needed an ambulance?”
“Yes, at 24 Sugar Mill Lane.”
“Are you hurt, Mrs. Anderson?”
“Not me, my husband. He fell down the stairs. He might only be unconscious, but I think he’s dead.”
The dispatcher said she would send an ambulance immediately. Darcy surmised she’d also send a Yarmouth police car. A state police car as well, if one were currently in the area. She hoped there wasn’t. She went back into the front hall and sat on the bench there, but not for long. It was his eyes, looking at her. Accusing her.
She took his sport coat, wrapped it around herself, and went out on the front walk to wait for the ambulance. – 17 -
The policeman who took her statement was Harold Shrewsbury, a local. Darcy didn’t know him, but did know his wife, as it happened; Arlene Shrewsbury was a Knitting Knut. He talked to her in the kitchen while the EMTs first examined Bob’s body and then took it away, not knowing there was another corpse inside him. A fellow who had been much more dangerous than Robert Anderson, CPA.
“Would you like coffee, Officer Shrewsbury? It’s no trouble.”
He looked at her trembling hands and said he would be very happy to make it for both of them. “I’m very handy in the kitchen.”
“Arlene has never mentioned that,” she said as he got up. He left his notebook open on the kitchen table. So far he had written nothing in it but her name, Bob’s name, their address, and their telephone number. She took that as a good sign.
“No, she likes to hide my light under a bushel,” he said. “Mrs. Anderson-Darcy-I’m very sorry for your loss, and I’m sure Arlene would say the same.”
Darcy began to cry again. Officer Shrewsbury tore a handful of paper towels off the roll and gave them to her. “Sturdier than Kleenex.”
“You have experience with this,” she said.
He checked the Bu
She told him about Bob finding the double-date pe
Officer Shrewsbury jotted something in his notebook, snapped it closed, then looked at her levelly. “Okay. I want you to come with me. Get your coat.”
“What? Where?”
To jail, of course. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, go directly to jail. Bob had gotten away with almost a dozen murders, and she hadn’t even been able to get away with one (of course he had pla
“My house,” he said. “You’re staying with me and Arlene tonight.”
She gaped at him. “I don’t… I can’t…”
“You can,” he said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “She’d kill me if I left you here by yourself. Do you want to be responsible for my murder?”
She wiped tears from her face and smiled wanly. “No, I guess not. But… Officer Shrewsbury…”
“Harry.”
“I have to make phone calls. My children… they don’t know yet.” The thought of this brought on fresh tears, and she put the last of the paper towels to work on them. Who knew a person could have so many tears inside them? She hadn’t touched her coffee and now drank half of it in three long swallows, although it was still hot.
“I think we can stand the expense of a few long-distance calls,” Harry Shrewsbury said. “And listen. Do you have something you can take? Anything of a, you know, calming nature?”
“Nothing like that,” she whispered. “Only Ambien.”
“Then Arlene will loan you one of her Valiums,” he said. “You should take one at least half an hour before you start making any stressful calls. Meantime, I’ll just let her know we’re coming.”
“You’re very kind.”
He opened first one of her kitchen drawers, then another, then a third. Darcy felt her heart slip into her throat as he opened the fourth. He took a dishwiper from it and handed it to her. “Sturdier than paper towels.”
“Thank you,” she said. “So much.”
“How long were you married, Mrs. Anderson?”
“Twenty-seven years,” she said.
“Twenty-seven,” he marveled. “God. I am so sorry.”
“So am I,” she said, and lowered her face into the dishtowel. – 18 -
Robert Emory Anderson was laid to rest in Yarmouth’s Peace Cemetery two days later. Do
Her eyes brimmed and she wiped at them periodically with the handkerchief she held in one black-gloved hand; Petra cried steadily and without letup; Do
Soon this would be over. Do
Not that anything had gone wrong; far from it. She didn’t think things could have gone better if she had pla
There had been no hard questions. Her story was simple, believable, and almost true. The most important part was the solid bedrock beneath it: they had a marriage stretching back almost three decades, a good marriage, and there had been no recent arguments to mar it. Really, what was there to question?
The minister invited the family to step forward. They did so.
“Rest in peace, Pop,” Do
“Daddy, I miss you so much,” Petra said, and threw her own handful of earth.
Darcy came last. She bent, took up a loose handful in her black glove, and let it fall. She said nothing.
The minister invoked a moment of silent prayer. The mourners bowed their heads. The wind rattled the branches. Not too far distant, traffic rushed by on I-295. Darcy thought: God, if You’re there, let this be the end. – 19 -
It wasn’t.
Seven weeks or so after the funeral-it was the new year now, the weather blue and hard and cold-the doorbell of the house on Sugar Mill Lane rang. When Darcy opened it, she saw an elderly gentleman wearing a black topcoat and red muffler. Held before him in his gloved hands was an old-school Homburg hat. His face was deeply lined (with pain as well as age, Darcy thought) and what remained of his gray hair was buzzed to a fuzz.