Lie of the Needle(13)

            When they first started dating, Martha had done her best to clean up his act, but you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks. He’d cut his hair a few inches and she’d smartened up his wardrobe, but lately he seemed to be regressing. Almost like a kid rebelling against too many rules. Now he looked more like Mick Jagger’s evil twin after a killer weekend.

            Still, he had a relatively fit body and should prove to be an interesting moody contrast to the sunny-faced mailman or the young firefighters.

            “There should be something for everyone in this calendar,” I said.

            “Fersure.” Roos smiled at me. “I can’t wait to get that film developed. Hey, Daisy, man, is it okay if I use the facilities?”

            “Help yourself.”

            The doorbell clanged as Dottie Brown, the owner of the yarn store and wife to Mr. October, the pumpkin man, came bustling in. She was a solid, capable woman with white hair cropped in a no-nonsense cut, a stocky build, and an attitude toward life that allowed her to trundle over any of its little inconveniences.

            “Did you hear the news?” she asked us. “Stanley Bornstein died.”

            “What?” I gripped the counter. “But I just saw him last night!”

            She shrugged. “Didn’t know if you knew.”

            “My God. No, we did not,” Martha said, frowning. The neighboring town of Sheepville had the Sheepville Times, but our village didn’t have a local newspaper. However, we had Martha, and she hated to be scooped on a headline event. “When did this happen?” she demanded.

            I sank onto a stool behind the register, my heart pounding in my chest, as I stared at Dottie.

            “It must have been early this morning.” Her eyes were somber. “My daughter, Kathleen, was called in first thing to clean the place from top to bottom. A special cleaning for the shivah. The funeral is at four o’clock.”

            Kathleen Brown was cut from the same sensible cloth as her mother, with the same sturdy build. They even had the same hairstyle, except Kathleen’s brown locks were streaked with chunky highlights. She owned a successful cleaning service, and the Bornsteins were one of her clients.

            “This afternoon? So soon?” I could barely get the words out past the tightness in my throat.

            “In the Jewish religion funerals happen very quickly, Daisy,” Eleanor murmured. “It’s considered a humiliation of the dead not to bury them right away.”

            “Was there any sign of foul play?” I managed. “Was it the Alzheimer’s that finally killed him?”

            “No one actually dies from Alzheimer’s, you know,” Martha said with a note of authority in her voice. “It’s usually from some secondary cause. In my support group after Teddy died, there were several women who’d lost their husbands to that dreadful disease. But it was pneumonia or another infection that took them in the end.”

            Dottie pursed her lips. “Well, supposedly he’d been very sick with a bad cold. Ruth is such a good person. I feel so sorry for her.”

            “Poor Stanley,” Eleanor murmured. “And poor Ruth.”

            “Yes, it’s terrible,” Martha said. “Still, perhaps it’s for the best.”

            There was a pause while we each absorbed the news and the toilet flushed faintly in the back.

            “How’s your calendar coming along?” Dottie asked. “Sounds like a fun project.”

            “Good. We’re almost done,” Martha said.