Free Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) by E. E. Kennedy

journalist mode.
    Hester donned a pair of glasses and threaded a needle. “Right after I got back from work, so it would’ve been about, oh, two or so.”
    A square of patchwork fabric, sandwiched around some white fluffy stuff, was stretched in a wooden hoop the size of a steering wheel. Hester held it level in her lap and plunged the needle dead-center. A second later, it peeked up from underneath, a millimeter from the point of entry. She pulled the thread taut, then dipped the needle rapidly several times into the fabric.
    For a few moments, we sat transfixed, watching Hester’s hands move hypnotically up and down with the precision of a machine.
    “Did you talk to her?” Gil asked, his eyes still on the quilting. “Find out where she was going?”
    Hester pulled the thread taut. “Heck, no! You won’t catch me interfering with the police.”
    “Police!” Gil and I exchanged glances.
    “Besides, I was having my own problems,” Hester said. “I was taking Flippy, my dog—our dog—” Her voice broke.
    Her hands drooped over her work. She bowed her head and removed her glasses. When she looked up at us, she was blinking back tears.
    “I was taking our little dog to the vet’s. For the last time—” A sob escaped, and she fumbled on a side table for a box of tissues.
    Bert shook his head wearily. “Poor ol’ Flippy. He was real sick. It was his time.”
    “He was like our baby, you know?” Hester looked at me as she dabbed her eye.
    I nodded. I was lying, of course. I had no idea. I was never much of a pet person. Ask Sam.
    “We were gonna do it ourselves. Kinda like pulling the plug or something. Bert’s cousin—he’s got a farm out in Chazy—give him some capsules.”
    “Honey,” Bert protested, “they don’t want to hear all this sad stuff.”
    Hester was not to be diverted. “Just put a couple down his throat like vitamins, he told us, and Flippy’d go to sleep.” She ended the sentence on a high note of pain. “We were gonna bury him out in the yard with a little stone and everything.”
    “Honey—” Bert said.
    “We couldn’t do it.” Hester turned a shaky smile toward her husband and reached out her hand. Bert stepped forward and grasped it firmly. “This great big man has such a soft heart—” She blew her nose. “Oh, I’m sorry. It just gets to me, taking our little baby to strangers.”
    “He didn’t feel a thing, Hester,” Bert pointed out gently.
    “I know.” Hester was resigned. She looked at Gil. “Anyway, I was just thinking I kind of knew how Marie felt when I looked over and saw her locking her front door and getting into a police car.”
    “Were they arresting her?” I asked. “I mean, did they have—handcuffs on her?”
    “Didn’t see any.” Hester donned the spectacles and resumed her quilting. “One of the cops was helping her carry a suitcase. She just got in the car and they drove off without a word to us.” She shrugged. “Bert ’n’ I were gonna keep some of her out of town people here in our spare room. For the funeral, you know. Guess that’s off.”
    Bert was gathering up our pie plates. “Maybe not. She might be coming back. You should’ve asked.”
    “Well, I wasn’t going to embarrass the woman right there on the street with the police and all. Remember what a ruckus there was over your dad.”
    “That was years ago. Nobody wants to hear it any more. You folks like some more coffee?”
    I declined, but Gil accepted. Apparently, the interview wasn’t over yet.
    “It was just for smuggling,” Hester whispered while Bert was in the kitchen. “Whiskey out of Canada. Everybody did it, only his dad had to sample it too. That’s how he got caught—” she broke off as Bert returned with Gil’s refilled cup.
    “Couldn’t leave it alone, could ya, Hester?” said Bert good-naturedly. “Careful there, Dickensen, you’re gonna spill it. Trouble is, she never tells the end of the story. My dad was let off due to lack of