After stopping at the donut shop for coffee, Jesse took a detour away from the station and backtracked the few short blocks to Berkshire Street. He had taken a quick look at the reports from Molly, Alisha, and Gabe Weathers after they had spoken to the residents living on Maude Cain’s block. It had netted them very little information. But canvassing, knocking on doors and talking to neighbors, was real police work. More cases got closed with worn soles and bruised knuckles than by DNA or deduction. The thing was, Jesse had learned that it often paid dividends to knock on the same doors more than once. That people weren’t robots, they were imperfect, and sometimes, with a few days for their minds to focus on other matters, they would recall things they had forgotten or give you information they weren’t even aware they had.
There were dangers in it, too. The human mind is a curious thing and it can conflate events or even create memories to fit scenarios according to what it’s heard or read. It isn’t malicious or intentional, and Jesse accounted for the possibility. One of the ways he protected against it was to catch people off guard. That’s why he was standing on the porch of 20 Berkshire Street at seven a.m., his finger pressed to the doorbell. Unlike Maude Cain’s house, which was directly across the street, 20 Berkshire was well maintained and updated. It was a pumpkin-orange and forest-green farmhouse, Victorian without much of the fussiness of the more elaborate Victorians up on the Bluffs.
Jesse backed his finger off the bell, knowing that when the door was eventually answered, the person on the other side wouldn’t be very happy. He was right about that.
“For chrissakes almighty! Who the hell is getting me out of bed at this hour?” An angry woman’s voice cut through the wood-and-glass door as if it were made of tissue paper. “Who is it?”
“Chief Stone, ma’am, of the Paradise PD.”
Two locks clicked open and the door pulled back. Standing there in the vestibule was a slender woman in her early sixties with short, slightly disheveled gray/brown hair. She had a thin, handsome face that was probably much more welcoming with a smile on it. She was dressed in a beat-up white robe and had bare feet.
“What can I do for you, Chief?”
“I’m here about Maude Cain.”
Her face went from anger to sadness. “Terrible thing. Terrible.”
“You’re Mrs. Lynch, is that right?”
“Sharon Lynch, yes. Come on in, Chief. I’ll make us some coffee.”
Jesse followed her into the kitchen and sat quietly, listening to Sharon Lynch make small talk as she put on the coffee. He was careful not to speak unless she asked a specific question. He was anxious to hear how she filled the void.
“I don’t know what I can tell you that I didn’t tell that pretty officer of yours who was here on Sunday. Beautiful black woman. What was her name?”
“Alisha.”
“Alisha, right. Like I said, I’m not sure what I can add, Chief. How would you like your coffee?”
“I’ll have it the way you’re having it.”
That made her smile, as he knew it would. She placed the coffee down on the place mat. “Here ya go.” She sat directly across from him.
“What was it you said to Alisha? I haven’t had a chance to study the reports.”
She didn’t like that and made a face. “Ralph, that’s Mr. Lynch, and I were going to go down to Boston to visit our kids, Jeremy and Jill. And—”
Jesse cut her off. “Where is Ralph now?”
She liked that even less. “Work. He owns a construction business. He’s an early riser and is out of the house most days before I get up. Like I was saying, we were going down to Boston and were going to get an early start, but one of his men called and he had to go into the office to put out a fire.”
“Did you or Ralph notice anything out of the ordinary Saturday?”
“Like we told your officer, we didn’t notice a thing. Maude has kept to herself lately and didn’t come out of the house much these days.”
“What was Maude like?”
“Nice woman. A very proud woman and one ahead of her time. She kept her own name. Pity, though.”
That got Jesse’s attention. “What’s a pity? Her dying?”
“Of course, but that’s not what I mean, Chief. Their family had more money than the Lord himself, but poor Maude needed to take in boarders for years in order to pay her bills. You’d think the people in the family would have planned better for their own. Charity is a good thing, but at the expense of your own... I just don’t see it.”
“Boarders?”
“Boarders, yes. Lodgers, you know. But not for the last few years,” Sharon said. “She couldn’t handle it any longer. Still, until about five years ago she was still taking them in... mostly in the summer.”
Jesse thought about questioning her further but decided he could always come back another time. First he wanted to knock on some other doors. Then he wanted to have a talk with someone at town hall.