Free Coming Unclued by Judith Jackson

She put the book down. “In the book the woman goes to a bed and breakfast in a seaside village. She’s fleeing a romance gone sour.” Rose paused for a moment, to check that I was following the plot. I nodded my head to confirm that I was still with her. “She arrives at the bed and breakfast. It seems like a nice enough place. Well the first morning that she’s there she comes out of the shower — she has a private bath. They don’t all have private baths. I personally couldn’t stay at a B & B where I had to share a toilet. So she comes out of the shower and there’s a dead man in her bed. Stabbed, just like your fella. He’s got the knife still in him and she makes the mistake of pulling it out.” Rose pointed her cane at me. “Fingerprints. At least you didn’t make that mistake.”
    “Small mercies,” I said.
    Rose settled back in her chair and shut her eyes again.
    “So what happens?” I asked. “How does she solve the murder?”
    “I’m thinking,” Rose said. “I can’t remember. I read so many of these things they all kind of blur together.” She opened her eyes. “The point is, she was the prime suspect and she was very proactive. Just like you need to be.”
    I decided to get proactive and get out of there. I stood up and went over and gave Rose a hug. “Thanks Rose. I appreciate all your help. I’m just going to drop in on a few people, see if they saw anything and then head back to Julie’s. I’ll keep in touch.”
    “Have you talked to Bambi? Better check where she was last night. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
    Bambi was Rose’s name for Heather. The animosity ran both ways with those two. “I’ve seen her. She’s been very helpful.”
    “Sure she has. Must be something in it for her.”
    Heather had attended the last annual resident’s meeting and given an impassioned speech about the elderly women congregating in the lobby. She had a couple of residents on her side until she got carried away and said the women reeked of death and despair. A little harsh, most people thought. Rose no longer spoke to her. I tried to explain to Rose that Heather had a flair for the dramatic and didn’t mean to be so disparaging but Rose wasn’t having it. “My good opinion once lost is lost forever,” she said. She liked to toss the occasional literary quote into the conversation so people wouldn’t think she only read genre fiction and British tabloids.
    “I’ll give you a call when I know what’s going on,” I called to Rose as I shut her door. Now what? Should I knock on every door and see if anyone had seen me come in with Mr. Potter? Why didn’t I live in a building with a doorman? A kindly man who would have sent Mr. Potter on his way and seen me safely up to my apartment with a discreet comment that a nice lady like me needed to be more careful. A doorman who would have glanced up from his book, seen a knife-wielding maniac struggling with the locked door and told him, “No — go take your business somewhere else.”
    As I stood in the lobby, stymied as to where to begin, I was startled by a dog barking behind me. It was Daisy, the yappy little cockapoo who lived on the third floor. Daisy was wearing a pink Shearling coat and little pink booties. Very stylish. Daisy’s owner, aka Daisy’s mummy, Doris, was wearing a turquoise track suit and a black down-filled coat that came almost to her ankles. She was shedding a lot of feathers. Daisy always looked more put together than Doris. Sad really. As soon as Doris saw me she picked up Daisy and held her close. No one could say she wasn’t a good mummy.
    “When did they let you out?” Doris asked.
    “I was never in. This has all been a misunderstanding. I’m innocent.”
    “Un huh,” said Doris, inching away from me. “This isn’t going to do anything for our property values.”
    “Yes it will. It’ll lower them I expect. Who wants to live in a building where there’s been a grisly murder?” I wasn’t going