Marge approached the counter and called out a rapid-fire list of five different sandwiches with a multitudinous list of toppings and breads. The woman behind the line took it in stride.
Maybe the office ordered the same thing every day so it wasn’t as confusing as it sounded to me.
“She developed this obsession for one of the doctors.” Marge lowered her voice, glancing around every few seconds to make sure we weren’t overheard, as if she were some kind of zaftig Russian spy. “She sent him love letters, called him all the time, the whole bit. Practically stalking the poor guy.”
I ordered a large coffee and we shuffled along with a line of people toward the cash register.
“Eventually she was dismissed and came to work for Birch.” Marge grabbed a pile of napkins and plastic utensils and shoved them into the paper bag filled with sandwiches. “I guess she’s getting crazy over your friend now, right? That’s why you’re here?”
“Something like that, yeah,” I mumbled as I emptied a couple of creamers into my cup.
We paid, left the cafeteria, and opened the main doors to brave the elements again.
“When Birch left to open his own practice, he didn’t ask Ardine to go with him,” Marge yelled at me above the rush of the wind. “My boss let her go soon after that, using the excuse that there wasn’t enough work for her. She was a bright girl, but too weird.”
We skirted the tables, and I cursed silently as hot coffee slopped over my fingers.
“She didn’t get along with everyone else and it made things uncomfortable. He gave her a good recommendation, though. I think she got a job with a medical supply company in the end.”
“Oh, okay, thanks,” I said, as we neared the office building. “I’ll try to track her down that way. Thanks so much for all your help.”
I said good-bye to Marge and retraced my steps to the pavilion. Even though it was freezing outside, I needed a quiet space to collect my thoughts.
Did Ardine do the same thing with Birch? Develop some kind of crazy obsession over him that spurred her to kill his wife? I shook the droplets from my fingers as I sucked down a gulp of the hot, bracing liquid. But Ardine had been at the house when Birch and Angus were cleaning out the garage. Everything had seemed perfectly cordial between them. I hadn’t noticed any tension then, or at the auction.
Not to mention the fact that Bettina should have been her target now if that was the case.
Serrano said Ardine had an alibi for Harriet’s murder because she’d been at the conference hall all day preparing her exhibit. But I’d seen more than a few women at the show with shoulder-length gray hair and somewhat frumpy attire. It might have been easy to mistake Ardine for someone else from the back.
With her nursing background, she’d know how to operate a remote for an insulin pump. But why on earth would she want to kill Sophie, too?
I shivered inside my windbreaker, clasping the cup for warmth. I’d just taken another sip when Marybeth Skelton hurried out of the hospital doors.
She didn’t glance in my direction as she headed for the parking lot, but even from this distance, I could see she had a big white bandage on her right hand.
• • •
I choked on my mouthful of coffee. What the heck was she doing here in Langhorne? Why not go to Doylestown Hospital? It was much closer to Millbury and Sheepville.
Unless she’d deliberately picked a place that was so far out of the way she wouldn’t see anyone she knew while being treated for a nasty cut. From a wine bottle, for instance.