Free Rosemary Remembered by Susan Wittig Albert

he's guilty. Anyway, he's got an alibi."
    It's interesting. When McQuaid and I debated Rob bins's guilt yesterday evening, I was on the other side. But that's no surprise. It's almost instinct for me to take up the cause of the accused.
    Ruby gave her tea bag a scornful swish. "His sister? We know where her loyalty lies."
    I put the cash drawer into my vintage brass register and changed the date stamper. It stuck, as usual. The darn thing always malfunctions when the humidity's high. I got out my nail clipper, flipped out the little metal file, and tinkered with the stamper. Maybe someday I'll break down and get a register that really works, one of those electronic jobs that don't make any noise. But I'd miss the old-fashioned brassy clang that celebrates every sale.
    "You know Curtis Robbins's sister?" I asked.
    "No," Ruby admitted. "I don't know Curtis Robbins, either." She dropped her tea bag in the wastebasket. "But any sister worth her salt would lie for her brother, wouldn't she?"
    "Not unless she wanted to go to jail for perjury," I said evenly. The date stamper finally clicked into place and I closed the register. Behind me, I could hear the air conditioner whimpering. It didn't sound at all good.
    "I still think Robbins did it," Ruby said. "He manages a sporting goods store, doesn't he? They sell guns, don't they?"
    "That's an undistributed middle," I said.
    "What?"
    "It's a fallacy."
    "What?"
    "A faulty argument," I said. "But never mind — everybody does it, even lawyers." I got out the lemon oil and a cloth and began to wipe the wooden counter. It's only cheap pine sanded smooth, but polished, it looks very nice.
    Ruby shook her head, musing. "It's hard to believe she's dead. I just keep remembering Rosemary the way she was. She really had it together."
    I thought of the Rosemary I had seen lying on the seat of McQuaid's truck, blood and bits of the inside of her head splattered all over. I shivered. / didn't want to remember Rosemary the way she was, at least not the way I had found her. "I wonder if she really did have it together. Anyway, I'm not sure that any of us knew her well enough to know."
    "Of course we knew her." Ruby was indignant. "She did our taxes, didn't she?"
    "That gives us some magical insight into her personality?" I unlocked the front door, flipped the Closed sign to Open, and trundled the rack of potted herbs outside. I was putting down a clay pot of aloe vera when Sheila Dawson came up the walk.
    "McQuaid told me about Rosemary Robbins's murder," Sheila said. "What a rotten shame."
    "Yes," I said. Sheila's in her thirties, with shoulder-length blond hair, creamy skin, Jackie's style and Hillary's chutzpah. In her slim pink suit, dyed-to-match pumps, purse, and pearls, she looked like a Dallas Junior Leaguer on her way to lunch at Daddy's club. But under that feminine frivolity, she's all cop. Last March, she was hired as CTSU's chief of security. Before that, she was assistant chief of security at UT Arlington, and before that, a sergeant with the Dallas PD. You have to wonder about somebody who looks like a homecoming queen and thinks like the regional director of the FBI.
    Ruby came out on the step behind me with the broom in her hand. "Hi, Sheila. I didn't know you knew Rosemary."
    "That gal was one sharp tax lady," Sheila said. Her smile was sad. "She knew every trick in the book, even some that weren't. But who cares how she did it? She got me a refund."
    "She got me one, too," Ruby said. She began to sweep with short, hard strokes. "A nice refund. Not to mention straightening out all my tax problems. I didn't owe the IRS as much as they said I did." She swept harder.
    Sheila turned to me. "Have you talked to Bubba? Has he turned up any leads?"
    "Her ex did it," Ruby said, still sweeping. "He was abusing her. He manages a sporting goods store, you know. He could use any gun he wanted and put it right back on the shelf, and nobody'd be the wiser."
    "Did Rosemary say anything to you