“You work?”
She tried not to be offended at the surprise in the other woman’s voice. After all, it had been a long and arduous search for a way for her to make money without leaving the house. “Yep. I sell things online. Antiques and collectables, mainly. Dad goes to the auctions and estate sales, and he brings back boxes and boxes filled with…well, mostly junk.” She gave a small laugh. “Dad doesn’t have a clue about old stuff, and he doesn’t have any interest in learning about it, either. He texts me a lot of pictures, and I text back with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. I clean and repair what I think will sell and then list it online.”
“Nice,” Lou said, playing with the cap of her water bottle. “Ingenious, really. There probably aren’t that many jobs that don’t require at least some outside time.”
“Nope, there really aren’t.” Her smile felt a little forced as she gestured toward the living room with the hand not holding her coffee mug. “Do you want to sit down?”
“Sure.” As Daisy led the way, Lou continued, “I have to say that your house is not what I expected. In fact, you’re not what I expected.”
Although she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, Daisy couldn’t resist asking, “In what way?”
Lou settled on one end of the sofa, tucking her socked feet underneath her. She was so relaxed, as if she’d been there a hundred times before. Sitting on the other side of the couch, Daisy was envious, unable to even imagine possessing that kind of confidence.
“Well, you’re hot, for one.”
Lou’s comment caught Daisy in the middle of taking a sip of coffee. It took some effort not to spray the mouthful across the room. “Excuse me?”
Her expression must have revealed her reaction, since Lou laughed. “When I think ‘shut-in,’ I think old and ugly, and you’re definitely neither. I also imagined you dressed like an Amish woman, but I’m not sure why.”
Daisy choked again. “Um…Amish?”
“You know.” Lou gestured at her own thermal shirt and jeans. “Long dress, apron, funky hat.”
After sitting with her mouth open for a few seconds, Daisy started laughing. “Why?”
“I said I didn’t know why!” Despite her aggrieved tone, Lou was snickering, as well. “When I heard that you didn’t leave the house, a picture of an Amish grandma popped into my head. It was random and weird. That happens to me a lot.”
“Mental pictures of Amish grandmothers?”
“Well, sometimes. But mostly random and weird thoughts.”
“I see.” Taking a deep breath, Daisy got her amusement under control. “Why did the house surprise you? Did you have a mental picture of that, too?”
“Yes.” Lou winced, taking a drink of her water in an obvious attempt to delay elaborating.
“Tell me. I promise I won’t be offended.”
“Piles of newspapers and lots of cats,” Lou muttered, her gaze focused firmly on the water bottle cap she was twisting and untwisting.
“Huh.” Although Daisy figured she should be insulted, she just found it funny. “So, I’m an elderly Amish hoarder.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t ‘Amish hoarder’ be some kind of oxymoron?”
Lou laughed. “I think so.”
When their laughter faded, the silence reminded Daisy of the purpose of Lou’s visit. “Did Chris tell you why he thought we should talk?”
“Not really,” Lou said. “He called me this morning and said it would behoove me to swing by Daisy Little’s house to chat, and that he’d ‘warned’ you I’d be coming. There were lots of meaningful pauses, but I had no clue what he was getting at. He was being very un-Chris-like in his vagueness, but he was pretty insistent about me talking to you. When I told him that Callum had the truck, Chris even picked me up from my house and drove me here.”
“He told me he couldn’t talk about the Willard Gray case, but that I should talk to you.”
Lou’s eyes lit, and she leaned toward Daisy. “Do you know something about the case? I’m doing the whole Encyclopedia Brown thing, ever since I discovered poor Willard.”
“Encyclopedia…what?”
Waving off the question, Lou tilted so far forward that Daisy was afraid she’d topple over. “I’ve been looking into Willard Gray’s murder, even before we knew who he was. Callum and I put together a murder board and everything.”
The more Lou explained things, the more confused Daisy got. “A murder board?”
“It’s just a whiteboard with everything we know about the case. I snuck a couple of my less wild theories on there, too, much to Callum’s dismay. He’s more of a just-the-facts kind of guy.”