I walked over and helped her up, checking out her gait as we headed for the front door.
“Thanks so much for the baby shawl,” Peaches said to Gertie. “You always make the prettiest things.”
“You’re welcome, dear,” Gertie said, “and I’m so sorry about the downstairs toilet.”
Peaches waved a hand in dismissal. “That wasn’t even your fault. I swear, I’m going to start charging Brandi a damage fee to babysit. Although I suppose mine will be walking soon enough. I should go ahead and get those lock things for the toilets.”
We headed down the sidewalk to the car.
“Let me know if I can do anything to help with Nolan,” Peaches called.
We gave her a wave, climbed into the car, and headed down the street. As soon as we rounded the corner, Gertie stopped the car. “Would you mind driving?” she asked Ida Belle.
Ida Belle narrowed her eyes. “Less than a block?”
“My guess is she’s sprained her right ankle,” I said. She’d tried to disguise it, but I had noticed the limp when we left and given that the right foot was the driving foot, I figured that’s where the problem was.
“What the heck did you do to yourself?” Ida Belle asked.
“Well, she walked upstairs,” I said, “then reentered the house through the front door, so that should give you an idea.”
“You fell out of a window, didn’t you?” Ida Belle asked.
“I did not,” Gertie protested.
“Well, you didn’t fly down from the second story,” Ida Belle said.
“She fell off the deck,” I said. “A giant shrub broke her fall, which is why we didn’t have to call 911.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “If that shrub hadn’t been there, more likely we’d have been calling the coroner.”
“Hey, at least I saved the camera,” Gertie said.
“Wonderful,” Ida Belle said. “Please tell me you got a picture before you went deck diving?”
I sucked in a breath. I hadn’t even considered that all that might have been for nothing.
“Of course I did,” Gertie said. “I had it on that rapid thing, you know, where I get a bunch of pictures at one time.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “Why in the world did you bring that fancy camera with you? It’s too complicated.”
“We needed the zoom lens,” Gertie said. “The phone camera wouldn’t have taken as good a picture.”
“Uh-huh,” Ida belle said. “I suppose if the pictures are in focus, we might be in business.”
“I had the camera on the autofocus setting,” Gertie said.
A ray of hope beamed in. If we weren’t relying on Gertie’s sketchy vision for focus, then the pictures might be usable.
“Great,” Ida Belle said as she climbed out of the car. “If you had your glasses on when you selected the autofocus feature, we might be in business.”
Crap.
*
Marie looked tired, but happy to see us. She said Nolan was taking a shower—the downstairs bathroom was equipped for him to manage by himself—and should be out soon. A lady from the insurance company, whose associate had left a message the day before, would be there in fifteen minutes for an appointment. Marie had managed to get Nolan to eat eggs and toast around 10:00 a.m. but suggested we start pushing lunch on him after the insurance lady left. Half of Gertie’s casserole from the day before remained, and the ladies of Sinful had dropped off a collection of other items.
“It’s like a buffet exploded in there,” Marie said. “You should be able to entice him with something. I apologize that I haven’t had time to organize it all. As soon as I got one woman out the door, it seemed another showed up.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Gertie said. “We’ll get it all organized and make sure he eats.”
“And don’t rush back,” Ida Belle said. “You’re exhausted and need some rest yourself. Take a hot soak in the tub and a long nap. We’ve got all day.”
“You’re sure?” Marie asked. “I don’t want to interfere with your schedules.”
I held in a laugh. Since our “schedules” only included figuring out who killed Gail and why, and Nolan and this house were the only leads we had, the only thing interfering with our schedules at the moment was Marie and police tape.
“We don’t have anything scheduled,” Ida Belle insisted. “Please take your time.”
“Thanks,” Marie said, looking relieved. “Emmaline is going to come by tonight after I return. I feel guilty and hate admitting it but I’ll like having the company. It’s hard to know what to say. I don’t usually have trouble with grief, but…”
“This situation is hardly an ordinary one,” Ida Belle said.
“Get going,” Gertie said. “We’ll go organize the kitchen. If we run out of things to do, we’ll find some trouble to get into.”