Софи Райан - A Whisker Оf Trouble

“What about the week before? Did you see anyone then?”

“No, I mean except for Ethan Hall and the man who died—Quinn, I think his name was.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything.

“I saw them several times in the past couple of weeks.” He ran his hand over his smooth scalp again. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything that will help.”

“It’s all right,” Rose said.

He looked over at his daughter and Mr. P. again. “It’s a pretty quiet neighborhood. That’s one of the reasons we bought this house. You could talk to Sharon Marshall, the blue house across the street. She’s been around a lot more in the last six weeks. She had hip replacement surgery. I’m not sure if she’s home right now. She has physio a couple of mornings a week.” He bent down to pick up a lime green pail and shovel on the grass at his feet. “Although I think if she’d seen anyone around other than Ethan, Mr. Quinn or the recyclers, she would have mentioned it.” He straightened up and smiled at us.

“Recyclers?” I said.

“That’s what we call the trash pickers. It’s just a nicer word. I don’t want Alyssa to think reusing things is a bad idea.”

Rose and I exchanged a look. “Who exactly are these recyclers?” I asked.

“It’s just one, really,” Paul said, brushing a clump of mud off the side of the little pail. “I saw her a couple of times the week before last, you know, when it was the spring-cleaning pickup.”

Once a year North Harbor did a recycling and garbage pickup. There were rules about what could be put out at the curb, but in theory if two people could move it, the town would pick it up to be either recycled or taken to the landfill. In practice, most things didn’t spend very long curbside and didn’t usually end up at the recycling center or the landfill, either. People came from other towns to cruise around looking for freebies.

Mac and I had come across some great finds that week and had bought a few more from the pickers we regularly did business with.

“Can you describe her?” I asked.

Paul frowned and looked at me. “I’d say she’s a bit shorter than you, swimmer’s build—you know, wide shoulders and strong legs.”

“Long curly hair?” I finished.

“You know her?”

“We do,” Rose said.

“Her name is Teresa,” I said. “I’ve bought some things from her for the store. Do you remember when you last saw her over at the Hall house?”

I shifted a bit uneasily from one foot to the other. I hated to think that Teresa Reynard might be involved in Ronan Quinn’s death. I didn’t know her well, but she’d always brought me good-quality items—no junk—and she’d always been fair in the prices she asked.

Paul blew out a breath. “Let me see. Four or five days before . . .” He paused. “Before, you know, what happened, I saw her with Ethan. She was putting a couple of concrete planters and a small concrete statue—I think it was a lion—in the back of her van. It’s an old Volkswagen van. Blue.”

It was definitely Teresa whom Paul had seen. She called her old van Mitch. It always made me think of the little clown cars at the circus when she started unloading it. She somehow managed to put far more inside than the laws of physics decreed should fit.

“Was that the last time you saw Teresa around here?” Rose asked.

“Actually no,” Paul said. “That morning we drove down to Portland, I saw her van go by. Sometime before six.” He glanced over in the direction of the swing. “Alyssa is an early bird. She was in the living room watching a video. I’d just slipped into the kitchen to make a cup of instant coffee.” He rolled his eyes. “My wife thinks I drink too much coffee.” His expression grew serious. “You don’t think this Teresa person killed that man, do you?”

“Heavens, no!” Rose gave her head a slight shake. “But she might have seen something when she was in the neighborhood.” Her eyes darted to me for a brief second. “We’ve taken enough of your time, Paul. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Rose looked in Mr. P.’s direction and raised a hand. He nodded, then said something to Alyssa before giving her one last push. He walked over to us.

“You have an enchanting daughter,” he said to Paul.

“Thank you for entertaining her,” Paul said.

“The pleasure was mine.”

Alyssa was still swinging, pumping now with her legs to go higher. She waved at Mr. P., who waved back.

There was no one home at the blue bungalow that belonged to Sharon Marshall or at the white Cape Cod on the other side of Edison Hall’s house.

We walked back to the SUV.

“Sarah, do you have an address for Teresa Reynard?” Mr. P. asked once he was settled in the backseat.

I was buckling my seat belt and I half turned to look at him. “Don’t tell me you can lip-read at that distance?” I said.

He frowned and looked a little confused. “I can’t lip-read at all, my dear,” he said. “Although I can read upside down, which has proved very useful a time or two. Why do you think I was lip-reading?”

Rose was smiling. “The little one told you, didn’t she?”

Mr. P. smiled back at her, the puzzled look gone from his face now. “And her father told you,” he said.

“Yes, he did,” Rose said. “He’s a pleasant young man, but I’d forgotten how literal-minded he could be.” She gave Alfred an inquiring look.

He held up a hand before she could speak. “And before either of you worry that I interrogated that lovely child, I didn’t. I just happened to notice that she had one of those little old wooden toy jeeps that you”—he tipped his head in my direction—“bought from Teresa about two weeks ago. All I did was ask her where she got it.”

“Teresa gave it to her,” I said.

He nodded. “She said the nice lady with the rolly hair gave it to her.”

“Rolly” was a good description of Teresa’s mass of dark curls. I checked for traffic and pulled away from the curb.

“Then she asked me if I liked to play hide-and-seek,” Mr. P. continued.

“Children that age have a very short attention span,” Rose said. Rose had been a teacher for a lot of years. Not only did she know a lot about kids, but she also knew pretty much every scheme or scam a kid between the age of five and eighteen could come up with.

“Alyssa is very bright for her age,” Mr. P. said. “And very observant.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror and he gave me a Cheshire cat smile. “For example, she noticed Teresa, over at the Hall house the morning of the murder, playing hide-and-seek. Or to be more exact, hiding by the side of the garage.”

Chapter 5

“We have to talk to her,” Rose said at once. I could feel her eyes on me. “Sarah, where does Teresa live?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Somewhere just outside town, I think.”

“It doesn’t matter, dear,” she said. From the corner of my eye, I saw her pull out her phone. “I’ll Google her address.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I need to get back to the shop and . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to get any more involved than I already was and, even more important, not wanting to insult either one of them by pointing out the obvious.

“And what?” Rose asked.

I stopped at the corner, checked the traffic in both directions and took the opportunity, while we were stopped, to look at both of them. “And have you considered the fact that your information came from a four-year-old?”

“She’s very bright,” Mr. P. said immediately, leaning forward and placing one hand on the back of my seat. “She has the vocabulary of a much older child.”

Rose turned partway round to look at him. “Sarah was the same way,” she said. “She could read before she started school. Isabel used to get her to read everyone’s horoscope out of the newspaper.”