Trick or Treat Murder by Leslie Meier

looking up. "I haven't had this in years."

    "Tuna's a staple around here," said Lucy, taking a sip of her own tea. "I suppose you've been to see the police and all. Are they making any progress in the investigation?"

    "None, none at all," he answered, taking a bite of his sand¬wich. "They're absolute incompetents as far as I can tell. I've lost my house, and my wife, and they don't seem to care." His tone was belligerent, almost angry.

    "I'm sure that's not true," said Lucy, in a soothing voice.

    "Then why did that idiot police chief, Growley or Crowley or whatever his name is, keep me waiting forty-five minutes before he'd see me? And then he gave me the brush-off." Outrage burned in his eyes.

    Lucy ventured to guess that Roland knew a brush-off when he encountered one. As a successful doctor, he certainly knew the value of his time. He was most likely an experienced practitioner of the very tactics he deplored in Chief Crowley.

    "He's just a small-town cop," said Lucy. "The state police are probably in charge of the investigation."

    "I don't care who's in charge. I want some answers. Somebody's gonna have to pay for this," he asserted, slamming his fist on the table and making the crumbs on his plate jump.

    "This must be absolutely horrible for you," sympathized Lucy.

    "Horrible doesn't begin to describe it." He shook his head. "And it couldn't have come at a worse time. My nomination for the Danforth prize was announced last week, you know."

    "I didn't know. Congratulations." She paused. "I'm not familiar with the Danforth. What's it for?"

    "The medical society's most prestigious award. It's between me and Feldman, the gastroenterologist. This won't do me much good, I can tell you. The society are a pretty conservative group. They simply will not tolerate the least whiff of scandal."

    "How could they hold something as tragic as this against you? I should think you'll get a huge sympathy vote. After all, none of this was your fault."

    "You're absolutely right about that. Monica was so stubborn. She always had to have her own way. She wouldn't listen to me. Oh, no! If this was anybody's fault, it was hers."

    "Her fault?" Lucy was puzzled. The conversation seemed to have taken a strange turn. Perhaps Roland wasn't quite as distraught as she had first thought.

    "She took one look and went running off—wouldn't even wait for an explanation. That would have required rationality, something Monica didn't have a great deal of."

    "She was upset about something?"

    "You could say that. What the hell? Everybody has fights, right? We'd been married for a long time. Thirty years."

    "That is a long time," agreed Lucy.

    "Hey, murder only gets you twenty, twenty-five years in this state, right?" It was an old joke, one he told automatically.

    "I guess," said Lucy, trying not to be judgmental. Grief took everyone differently, she reminded herself.

    "I gotta get going. Hey, I almost forgot. I stopped by to give you this," he said, rising and shoving the package across the table. "It's a scrapbook Monica kept during the renovation."
    "Really?" Lucy was delighted, and deeply moved. "How thoughtful of you to think of us. We'll treasure it always.
    "
    "What was I gonna do with it?" he said, as she opened the door for him. "Right now, the fewer reminders I've got to deal with, the better."

CHAPTER NINE

    Later that evening, supper over, Lucy gave the kitchen counter one last wipe with the sponge and tossed it into the sink. For the first time since she'd come home from the hospital with Zoe, the kitchen was neat and tidy. The sink was empty of dirty dishes. The counter was clear of clutter. The stove top gleamed. Two dozen Halloween cupcakes, complete with orange icing and candy com decorations, sat on the kitchen table, ready to be packed in a plastic container and hiidden on the top shelf of the pantry.

    It was the same with every baby, she thought smugly. The first weeks were always chaotic, the baby's needs came first