No Neighborhood for Old Women (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) by Judy Alter Page B

know she didn’t. And the fingerprints? Those pots don’t look to me like they were used to bash anyone’s head. They look like they were thrown down the stairs.”
    Suddenly, he laughed, not a belly laugh by any means but a small chuckle. He sat down close to me, stretched out until his feet rested on the coffee table, and took my hand. “Maybe Buck Conroy should listen to you after all. Flower pots weren’t the weapon. It appears to have been something metal, something with a hard but blunt edge, according to the coroner.”
    “And it’s gone?”
    “Yeah, it’s gone. You want to say, ‘I told you so’?”
    I shook my head. “No, I want you all to find out who killed her, so other little old ladies won’t be frightened.”
    “We’re trying,” he said. “All I can do is keep an eye out when I’m on patrol. And what you can do is let the department do its work. You don’t have to do it for us. And besides putting yourself in danger, you get in our way.”
    What I couldn’t bring myself to put into words was the question of whether or not Claire was a suspect. I didn’t need to.
    “Conroy’s getting a search warrant for the Guthrie property. If he finds the murder weapon, Mrs. G. is in big trouble.”
    I thought of Claire, probably sleeping fitfully in the outside apartment.
    “You got any dinner left over? I didn’t have time to stop at the Grill tonight.”
    I heated him the last of Claire’s leftover casserole, thinking stale frittata was not a good thing, and brought a drink—he was in a pinot grigio mood rather than beer. I joined him in the wine and sat close to him on the couch.
    While he ate, he talked about his day. “When I was on patrol, maybe ten people stopped to ask if patrol in the neighborhood would be increased. I told them it wasn’t necessary. And a lady on Sixth stopped to tell me how much safer she felt because I patrol the neighborhood. Makes me feel good, but I hate this hysteria.”
    Nestled back into the couch, I asked “What if it’s not hysteria?”
    “Kelly, there is no serial killer. I agree with Buck. If it wasn’t Claire, it was someone else who knew the old lady. They haven’t found those nephews yet. Most murder victims are killed by people they know. But it was not a serial killer.”
    Mike relaxed more than the night before, and I thought maybe everything was okay. Or would be once I got over my sulk. My mistake was I didn’t give up. “Joe says it’s not a gang thing. They don’t pick on harmless old ladies. But that’s Conroy’s pet theory. I know that’s wrong.”
    Mike sighed. “Kelly, there you go again. You shouldn’t have talked to Joe about it. He’s on Conroy’s list.”
    “I know he is,” I said, bitterness in my voice. “He’s already been to their apartment, questioned Theresa. He’ll go back.”
    After Mike left, with a quick kiss on the forehead, I sat on the couch for a long time, wondering if I could see a future with him. The physical attraction, the way he treated the girls, his steadfast honesty all called out to me. But, I was gun-shy, not sure I wanted a close relationship, let alone another husband. I trusted Tim, thought we would grow old together, and I was hurt when he left me alone with the girls.
    And there were the girls. My mom would be horrified if I thought about living with a man I wasn’t married to, and in fifteen or twenty years I’d feel the same about my girls. But I was darned if I was going to marry anyone ever again without living with him first. And how could I explain that to the girls—or Mom, if she carried through on moving down here.
    But the biggest problem between us might be police work. I could stay out of it if things didn’t happen in my face—but I can’t keep quiet about hunches. Mike once called me impulsive, and maybe I am, but I wasn’t going to change, and he wasn’t going to quit being a policeman, so there we were. Stuck.
    I was still sitting there, spinning woolly thoughts,