Letter From Home by Carolyn Hart Page A

her hand away from the knob. A murderer had touched this handle, turned it. For the first time since Barb had rattled her bedroom screen, Gretchen confronted the word: murderer.
    Who?
    The chief wanted to know about the quarrel between Barb’s mother and father. Barb was scared. She’d locked her door. Was she afraid of her father?
    Gretchen stepped back. The screen door sighed shut. She hurried down the steps, then hesitated. What if Barb was inside, all alone in the house where her mother had died? Gretchen glanced at the front windows. The shades were down. She started toward the sidewalk, stopped, shook her head, hurried around the side of the house. A recently painted white picket fence marked the boundary of the Crane yard. She glanced past a clothesline. Sheets flapped in the midmorning breeze. A Venetian blind jiggled in the first window, providing a slit just big enough to look through. Gretchen wondered what Mrs. Crane had told Chief Fraser. Gretchen passed a tipped-over hay wagon, a pile of weathered lumber, a rusted butter churn, a washtub sprouting ivy. She reached the backyard, skirted an overgrown garden.
    The door to the screened-in porch wasn’t latched. Gretchen listened hard then slipped inside. “Barb?” Her loud voice startled a cardinal in a wisteria bush. The sweet scent of the wisteria mingled with the sharper smells of paint and turpentine. Slowly, Gretchen walked toward an easel and looked at the half-done painting. A woman in a white dress rested languidly on a white wicker sofa. The only color was the red rose in one trailing hand and the red cushion bunched behind her head. The woman’s face was only partially glimpsed behind an open book held in the other hand. There was a sense of white and peace, red and vigor.
    The kitchen door squeaked open. Barb stood in the doorway. “Mama was a good painter.” Barb brushed back her tousled reddish brown hair, stared at the unfinished painting with red-rimmed eyes. “She was happy when she painted.”
    Gretchen took two quick steps to stand just in front of Barb. “Why did you go off without telling me? Why didn’t you answer the door?” She knew she sounded angry. She was. She hated the thought of Barb alone in the house.
    Barb slumped against the wall. “I came home. I had to.” Her voice was dull. “I want to be here for Daddy.” She took a deep breath. “But he hasn’t come. I don’t know what to do.” She wore a blue shirtwaist dress and white sandals, the bandage bulky on her right foot. Yesterday she would have been beautiful. Today her face was puffy and pale, her hair haphazardly brushed. She didn’t even have on any lipstick.
    Gretchen picked her way carefully because this might be the wrong thing to do, all wrong, but it might be the best thing to do. “Maybe you ought to go on to the courthouse. When there’s any word, they’ll know in the county attorney’s office.”
    Any word . . . Gretchen knew the police were looking for Mr. Tatum to tell him about Mrs. Tatum’s murder. And, she thought coldly, feeling an icy heaviness in her chest, to ask him where he was last night and how mad he had been at his wife and whether he’d come in the front door and quarreled with her. Gretchen frowned. “You said somebody knocked on the door. Your dad wouldn’t have knocked.”
    â€œNo, it wasn’t Daddy.” Her voice was dull, but determined. “Daddy wouldn’t knock. He’d just come in.”
    â€œYou’re sure you heard a knock?” They stood so close together, Gretchen heard the soft, quick breath Barb drew.
    Barb’s eyes brightened, widened. “Somebody knocked. That proves it wasn’t Daddy.” Barb gave a sigh of relief. “I told the chief, but I’m going to tell Mr. Durwood. He can make the chief understand. Of course he will. I’ll go now.” She turned away, limping on her