“And they fished Gertie out?” I asked.
“Nope,” Ida Belle said. “A drunk fisherman docked behind the casino heard the splash and thought fish were jumping. He threw a cast net over her and was trying to drag it in when the security guards got there. I’ve never seen a man so disappointed. He thought he’d snagged a hundred-and-forty-pound bass.”
“A hundred and ten pounds,” Gertie said.
“Maybe in 1953,” Ida Belle said.
“Why doesn’t that story surprise me?” Carter’s voice sounded behind me, and we turned to look at him. “I’m done for now. I have no problem with you guys staying here. I think he needs someone to watch him, but I don’t want anyone upstairs or in the backyard.”
“How is he?” Gertie asked.
“Completely broken up,” Carter said. “I can’t begin to imagine…anyway, my mom said to let her know if Marie can’t stay tonight and she’ll be happy to do it.”
“Tell her thank you,” Gertie said. “And we’ll let her know if we need her.”
He nodded, then glanced at me before heading out. I rose from the recliner and looked out the front window. “He’s driving away. Unbelievable.” Then I remembered Ida Belle’s phone call to Myrtle. “What did you do?”
“I asked Myrtle to get him out of here for a bit,” Ida Belle said.
“And how did she do that?” I asked.
Ida Belle shook her head. “I assume she told him there was police business that needed handling and no one else was available.”
Ida Belle’s phone signaled that she’d received a text and she looked down at it. “Oh no.”
“What?” I asked. Based on her expression, it was nothing good.
“She sent him to the hotel. It seems the state police have turned over the case of the night desk clerk who accused the maintenance man of attempting to sexually assault a nun in the hotel lobby.”
*
It took some doing, but Gertie finally coaxed Nolan into eating some casserole. He was slow to take the first bite, but once he did, he seemed to realize he was hungry. He ate a smaller portion than what a man his size would probably have consumed under normal circumstances, but it was enough to keep him from passing out. Gertie urged him to taste one of the cookies she’d brought but he’d given them a glance and said “maybe later.”
He’d eaten the entire meal in silence and we hadn’t tried to get him talking, but once the dishes were cleared, Ida Belle gave us a nod, signaling that she was going to see if he was up to a chat.
“Is there anything else we can do for you?” Gertie asked.
“No, thank you,” Nolan said. “You’ve all been quite kind. Everyone has been so kind.”
“We’re all very sad and upset,” Gertie said. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.”
Nolan nodded. “She was everything. No other woman was like Gail.”
“She was an incredible person,” Ida Belle agreed. “I think that’s why it’s all so shocking…”
I watched Nolan’s face closely as Ida Belle let that sentence linger. We all knew what she’d left unspoken. Nolan’s jaw tightened so briefly that if I hadn’t been paying attention so well, I might have thought I’d imagined it.
“I can’t imagine,” he said, “who would do such a thing. Everyone loved Gail.”
I felt a tingle at the back of my neck. He was lying, but about which statement? Either he had an idea who might have killed his wife, or he knew someone or more than one person who didn’t think Gail was as great as the rest of us did.
“I suppose,” Ida Belle said, “with her work there is the possibility of unpleasantness. Someone who didn’t qualify for help, or that sort of thing.”
“A good percentage of the homeless are mentally ill,” I said. “It’s possible someone imagined a slight or misunderstood what could be done to help. It’s such a difficult problem.”
Ida Belle nodded. “So many layers.” She looked at Nolan. “Gail never mentioned a client that she was frightened of, did she? Fortune makes a good point. If mental illness were involved, that would explain a lot.”
Nolan frowned. “She never said anything. Lately, she’d look more worried than usual. I could see the strain on her face, but when I asked about it, she said it was concerns over an upcoming grant renewal.”
“Yes,” Ida Belle said. “Maintaining funding for such endeavors is a constant worry. When I served on a charity board years ago, it seemed we were always busy trying to find more money and struggling to keep from losing what we had. It’s unfortunate that there’s so much more need than we can find the funds for.”