Eddie and Tom had reached the small blond woman. Gregor sped up to be sure he heard everything that was said.
“She was taking too long,” the woman was saying. “She said she’d be just a minute and it was minute after minute, I was just sitting here, and you know there are things to do, I have my children to pick up at school and she has, she had hers, she was supposed to, we were both supposed to, because we can’t just leave them there now, can we. I mean, there are all the problems they’re having, those horrid children, yelling at them, calling them names, playing tricks. They used to ride the school bus but we can’t do that anymore. We really can’t. We have to pick them up and she said she’d only be a minute and then it was all so long so I thought I’d just go to the door and tell her we had to go and then the door was wide open so I walked right inside and it felt wrong to do that it wasn’t my house but there it was, you see what I mean, and there she, there she—”
“Take a deep breath,” Eddie Block said, not unkindly. “Take a deep breath, hold it in for a second, then let it out. Then I’d appreciate it if you told me your name.”
The woman took a deep breath and held it. She looked like she was about to turn blue. She let the breath out again. “Shelley Niederman,” she said. “My name is Shelley Niederman.”
“Good,” Eddie Block said. “Very good. Now, I take it you live in town.”
Shelley Niederman blinked. “Yes,” she said, sounding faintly annoyed. “Of course I live in town. I live in Fox Run. So did she. So did Judy.”
“Who’s Judy?” Eddie Block said.
Now Shelley Niederman looked very annoyed. “You don’t have to do this, you know? You don’t have to pretend you don’t know who we are. I mean, for God’s sake, what’s wrong with you people here? You’re all a pack of savages, that’s what you are. I don’t know why Steve wanted to take this job, I really don’t. The money is good, I know that, but there are other things beside money, and we’re stuck out here with a bunch of hillbillies who still think the earth is flat and then this happens—something like this happens and—”
“I still don’t know who Judy is,” Eddie Block said calmly. “It’s not that uncommon a name.”
“Judy Cornish,” Shelley Niederman said. “And you know who she is and you know who I am. Everybody in this godforsaken town knows, because we had to file a lawsuit to make sure our kids got a decent education, because if we’d left it up to you people you’d have been presenting Noah’s Ark in history class. God, I hate this place. I really hate it.”
Eddie Block was taking deep breaths himself. So was Tom Fordman. Gregor stepped forward a little.
“Excuse me,” he said.
Shelley Niederman looked him up and down. “I know you. I know who you are. We saw your picture on the Internet. You’re Gregor Demarkian. Well, it’s a good thing you’re here. Now there’s a murder for you to solve. That’s probably why they brought you in in the first place. They probably knew there was going to be a murder to solve. I don’t understand what’s wrong with these people. I don’t understand what’s wrong.”
Gregor took a deep breath of his own and shot a look at Eddie Block. He would have shot one at Tom Fordman, too, but he was looking at the ground. Both of these men were ready to strangle this woman, and Gregor didn’t entirely blame them.
“What you’re saying,” he said, “is that this woman, this Judy Cornish, has been murdered?”
“Of course she’s been murdered,” Shelley Niederman said. “How else could that—Could that—” The tears welled up again and threatened to spill over. Then they did spill over. Shelley put a hand to her face and wiped them away. “She’s in there, don’t you understand? She’s right in there and she was only going in for a minute, just to check something, it didn’t make any sense to me but then nothing ever makes any sense to me around here. She was only going to be a minute and then she was gone too long and I called out to her and she didn’t answer and then I went inside and then there she was and then I came out here and called on the cell phone because I’ve got a cell phone, of course I do, I’m not a Neanderthal like some people around here—honest to God, you’d think technology was the devil. You’d think everything was the devil. They see the devil under their beds and they probably hunt witches, really, they probably burn them right on that green thing with the war memorial—”