Just This Once by Diana X Dunn

Author:Diana X Dunn [Dunn, Diana X.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-18T22:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Julia stood impatiently at the end of Virginia Duncan’s driveway, waiting for Blake to catch up. Blake gulped down the rest of his coffee and arrived at her side in three long strides.

“Off we go,” he muttered under his breath, leading Julia up the path.

This time they heard movement immediately after Blake’s first knock, but it was several minutes before the door opened. The woman who opened it looked every day of her eighty-plus years and then some. She was bent over awkwardly, with thinning grey-white hair and eyes concealed behind thick glasses. Laser surgery had eliminated the need for glasses many years earlier. Julia wondered where Mrs. Duncan managed to get replacements when her old glasses wore out or broke.

“I know I’m old. You don’t have to stare,” the woman all but shouted at them as they stood on the doorstep. “You’re the police, no doubt, come about that doings across the road. I guess you’d better come in.”

Julia and Blake looked at each other and then slowly followed the old woman into the house. She took them immediately into the living room that was right where it should have been in the copycat house.

“Sit down then and ask your questions,” she said, lowering herself slowly into an overstuffed armchair. Blake shuffled over to a long low couch and settled himself onto it. Julia perched on the opposite end and took a good look around.

The room was overstuffed with things. From the looks of it, the woman hadn’t thrown away anything in eighty years. Julia saw old-fashioned photographs, framed and standing on shelves that looked ready to fall off the irregularly wallpapered walls. There were trinkets and knick-knacks and all manner of junk that Julia couldn’t begin to describe. She took a breath and felt dust tickling her nose.

“I don’t have all day, you know,” the woman interrupted the silence. “I don’t have long left, anyway, and I would rather not waste too much time with you two. I have better things to do with my time.”

Julia hid a smile, admiring the old woman’s spirit.

“We will try not to keep you too long,” Blake answered formally. “Can you please confirm, firstly, that you are Mrs. Virginia Duncan, the owner of this house?”

The woman looked at Blake as if he was completely insane. “Of course I am, and if that is the sort of questions you have for me, I’ll thank you to just go.”

I’m sorry, but we have to follow certain procedures in these matters,” Blake explained patiently.

“Bah, procedures didn’t save that woman across the road from whoever killed her, did they?” Virginia demanded, “and it didn’t stop the world from going to hell in a hand basket, neither.”

Blake glanced at Julia before he continued. “We know that you’ve already given a statement to one of our officers. What we’re hoping for today is that you can help provide more information about the neighbors.”

Mrs. Duncan shook her head. “Don’t know any of them. Don’t like any of them. I’m sorry to see anyone murdered, of course.

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