finished the list, Vera had gone on her way, and Estelle maintained a steady vigil over the two telephones, one clipped to her waist, the other in her hand.
When Vera returned, she stayed and helped Estelle make a dinner fit for a king. Estelle refused to believe Sam wouldn’t be home to eat it, so she pulled out all the stops—not just lasagna, but homemade garlic bread, a gourmet salad with olives and feta cheese, and a cheesecake. From scratch. To keep herself busy, and so she’d have to put down the telephone—her hand was getting sweaty.
When she heard the garage door start to open, Estelle jumped and dropped her mixing spoon. “He’s here,” she gasped as she heard the car pull in.
“I’ll go out the front so you two can be alone,” Vera said.
“I’ll save you some cheesecake.”
“You’d better.”
Estelle threw open the kitchen door that led to the garage and hurried out to meet Sam. He looked tired, like he’d had a long day, but they hadn’t shaved his head or tattooed a cell number on his forehead or anything like that. She gathered him in her arms and held him long and hard. They stood that way for several minutes and she breathed in his faded cologne, wondering if she could somehow inhale him, too, so he could never be taken from her again.
Finally they walked inside, and she pulled a perfectly bubbly lasagna from the oven.
“You spoil me,” Sam told her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.
“I had to keep busy.” She placed the pan on the counter to cool, then turned to meet her husband’s eyes. “What happened?”
“They took me down to the station and questioned me. In the end, they had to let me come home—there was no evidence, except that the body was in our trash and they wanted to know why I hadn’t seen anything when I put the mouse in. I’m still a person of interest, though.” He ran a hand through his dignified silvering hair. “There’s something else, honey. They identified the victim. They didn’t tell me at the station, but it was all over the radio as I drove home.”
“Who was it?”
“Senator Caldwell.”
Episode 3
“Senator Caldwell?” Estelle stared at her husband. “What was he doing in our neighborhood? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” Sam took a cookie from the jar, and the ‘I’m about to serve dinner’ rebuke that automatically formed on Estelle’s lips was frozen. Let the man have a cookie. He’d been through a lot.
They carried the food to the table and dished it up, then began to eat. Sam took a bite of the lasagna, then sat back and looked at Estelle with eyes full of love and admiration. “You goddess. Not only is this my favorite meal, but I think this is the best you’ve ever made it.”
Estelle smiled even as her eyes filled with tears. How could she stand it if something happened to this wonderful man?
She didn’t have long to dwell on the macabre, though. The doorbell sounded, and she rose to answer it. Sally Hunter stood on the porch, her eyes wide.
“Is everything all right? The police were over earlier, and they were asking all kinds of questions, and then they wanted to know if we’d seen anyone put something in your garbage bin. What’s going on?”
Estelle took a deep breath, relieved that the police hadn’t used the words ‘dead body’ or ‘Sam is a murderer’ when talking to the neighbors. “It’s nothing, really. We’re not at liberty to discuss it, but it should all be resolved soon.” She sounded a bit like Matlock. She was proud of herself.
“Well, are you sure?” Sally looked disappointed. “If there’s anything you need, you’ll let me know?”
“Absolutely.”
After a friendly farewell, Sally went home, and Estelle returned to the table. “What did I miss?”
“I took a second helping of everything.”
“You did? I was only gone a few minutes.”
“I was hungry.”
Estelle indulgently watched Sam shovel in his next bite of salad. He could eat the whole table, for all she cared—she was just so glad he was home.
Two more neighbors showed up before the cheesecake was served, and Estelle was getting tired of practicing forced diplomacy. Maybe she should make a sign and hang it on the door so she wouldn’t have to keep repeating herself.
Sam helped her load the dishwasher, then headed upstairs to take a long, hot shower. Estelle cut a nice wedge of cheesecake and put it in a sealable plastic container for Vera, then set it on the top shelf of the fridge next to the other leftovers. Then she gathered up Sam’s dirty clothes from the bedroom floor where he’d dropped them, and took them down to the laundry room, along with the hamper from the bathroom. Might as well get a start on the next day’s chores—she was wound tight and knew it would be hours before she’d be able to go to sleep. Laundry, and then maybe even ironing. Might as well be a productive uptight insomniac.
As she neared the laundry room door, she heard a sound. She froze, listening hard. There it was again—a kind of scuffle. No broom would do this time—it was a larger intruder.
She put down the hamper and quietly stepped over to the counter, where her knife block stood handy. She pulled out the biggest, scariest butcher knife she had and held it like Anthony Perkins in Psycho. She couldn’t remember his character’s name, but she supposed it didn’t matter. She could Google it later, after she caught the murderer in her laundry room. It crossed her mind to wait for Sam, but he wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion.
She turned the door knob slowly, then flung the door open, shouting “Aha!” and brandishing her knife.
Her son, Andrew, sitting on top of the dryer and holding a container of cheesecake, startled. The dessert tumbled down his necktie and landed in his lap.
“Mom, you scared me! What are you doing?”
Estelle lowered her knife. “Well, you scared me! What are you doing here? And why are you hiding in the laundry room eating cheesecake?”
“This happens to be very good cheesecake.”
“I know. I’m proud of my cheesecake. But why are you hiding in the laundry room?”
Andrew scooped the food off his lap and put it back in the container. Then he grabbed a clean dishcloth from the top of the washer where it waited to be put away and dabbed the cherries off his fingers. “I kept hearing voices out there. I thought I’d better wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For everyone to go away.”
Estelle sighed. “I don’t understand. Would you please come out? I’ve never had a conversation in a laundry room before, and it’s very distressing.”
Andrew
