And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(60)

“But by then it’ll be too late for old Mrs. McDonald. Hacked to bits, they’ll say.”

She seemed to be having fun with him. He said, “If you look out your window, you’ll see my vehicle parked in the lot. It says Sheriff on it.”

There was scuffing and clattering at the other end of the phone, then silence, then more scuffing and then the security door buzzed and he was inside. A sign pointed him to the right for apartments 100–105. He was halfway down a carpeted hallway that smelled like dusty potpourri when he saw a white head poke out from the door at the end. He called out, “Hello, Mrs. McDonald.”

She was a tiny thing with hiked shoulders, a thick waist, and a rounded neck that made him think it had been years since she’d been able to look up and see the sky. She wore a pink turtleneck, green pants, and house slippers. She looked up as far as she could to take in as much of him as her neck would allow. “Well, aren’t you handsome,” she said.

Packard gave her his best smile. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

“If I’d known what a looker you were, I would have suggested you take me for a ride in your police car.”

She stepped back and he followed her inside her apartment. There was a tiny galley kitchen and a small dining table just inside the door. Beyond that was the living room with a newer green couch and a padded rocking chair arranged across from a sliding patio door. She had framed needlepoints and a simple wooden cross on the walls and an older television. The apartment reminded him of a college dorm room the way a few meaningful things from home did nothing to make it feel any less temporary.

They sat down at the dining table where Olivia had the frame of a 500-piece puzzle nearly complete. The top of the box showed snowy owls in a winter tree. At the other open seat was a half-eaten meal in a cardboard tray and a small carton of skim milk.

“I’m sorry for interrupting your lunch,” Packard said.

“It’s nothing. I usually heat it up and pick at it. Hot or cold doesn’t seem to make much difference to the taste. God forbid you give old folks salt in their food. They might run naked into the street like crazy people.”

Packard took out his phone and pulled up the picture of the pill bottles then slid it across the table. “This is what I wanted to ask you about. Do you recognize this bottle?”

She picked up the phone and stared at it for a minute through the bottom of her glasses. “Well, that’s my name for sure. I don’t take any prescriptions for anything. I’m as solid as a rock. Those pills are from two years ago when I broke my foot. Why do you have a picture of my pills?”

Packard ignored her question. “Do you know the name Sam Gherlick?” he asked.

Mrs. McDonald thought for a minute. “I know the name Gherlick. I’ve known a few Sams in my day. I’m trying to put the two together.”

Packard gave her a short physical description. “Teenager. About six feet. Blond hair. Muscled. He’s Dan Gherlick’s son. Sheriff Shaw’s grandson.”

“I remember him now,” she said. She pointed at the half-eaten meal at the other end of the table. “He brought Meals on Wheels for a while last summer. I remember the first time I saw him that he looked familiar. I used to teach in the middle school, and I had his dad and his uncle in my class. The first time I saw him I said, ‘Now, whose boy are you? I know that face.’”

“Did you get to know him at all?”

She shrugged. “Not exactly. He was kind of…nosy, I thought. I’m sure they train them to be personable and to check up on us crazy old folks to make sure we’re not living in our own filth or petting a dead cat. He always wanted something. A glass of water or to use the bathroom. I thought it was a little bit intrusive. I wrote it off as a generational thing. Are you saying he stole my pills?”

“Unless you gave them to him.”

“I did no such thing. To be honest I never noticed they were missing. I took a couple of them and didn’t like how dizzy and sleepy they made me and got by with ibuprofen after that.”

“When’s the last time you saw Sam?”

“A year ago? Maybe longer. You learn not to get too attached to the people who deliver the food. They rotate routes or get busy and quit volunteering. They probably try not to get attached to us either. One day we’re answering the door and the next…” She rolled her eyes back and stuck out her tongue, then gave him a big smile.

“What happens if they bring the food and you’re not here?”

“We’re supposed to put a cooler outside the door for them to leave the food in if we know we’re not going to be home.”

“Do you leave your door unlocked when you’re not here?”

Mrs. McDonald nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. “There’s probably a key to the front door down in the depths of my handbag, but I wouldn’t want to swear on it. I have nothing worth stealing.”

“You don’t own a gun, do you?”

“A gun? Heavens no. All my husband’s guns went to the kids after he passed.”

“Do you know anyone with the last name Chambers? First initial is D?”

She thought for a minute and shook her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Packard said, “There’s a bottle with Elizabeth Marsh’s name on it. She lives here at Lakeside Manor, too. Do you know her?”