Dying Echo: A Grim Reaper Mystery (Grim Reaper Series) by Judy Clemens

the doorstep.
    “Are you the cleaning lady?” she asked Casey.
    Death laughed.
    “No,” Casey said.
    “Oh, I thought…” the woman gestured at Casey’s pale blue warm-ups and the dustrag she’d stuck in her pocket during her search. Casey had to admit she saw her point.
    “Police?” the woman tried again.
    “No, I’m—”
    “Another girlfriend ?”
    “I’m Ricky’s sister.”
    The woman stopped short. “His sister? He has a sister ?”
    “I haven’t been around much lately. I don’t live here.”
    “And where do you live?”
    Casey frowned. “Who are you?”
    The woman clapped a hand to her mouth and laughed uproariously. “You must think I’m terrible. I am. I’m awful. I’m also Geraldine, and I live over there. I moved in last year, came from Vegas, can you imagine?” She pointed a long, crimson fingernail toward the house across the street, where pink flamingoes and oversized whirligigs filled the small lawn. The house would have been normal otherwise, except for the bright orange shutters and the life-sized buffalo statue in between the house and garage. “I’ve just been devastated about what’s happened, and wanted to know if there’s anything I can do to help. That’s why I came over. There hasn’t been anybody here since the police—those horrible people!—left yesterday. They took things out, you know. Ricky’s computer and his phone and sheets and who knows what else. Like they really think he could have done anything to that sweet girl.”
    “You knew her?”
    Geraldine opened her mouth to say something else, but then stopped and peered over Casey’s shoulder into the house.
    “You know what she wants,” Death said. “Might as well go with it, if you’re thinking of getting any information out of her. If she has some, she’ll share it if the circumstances are right. Which basically means she needs to feel a part of things.”
    Casey wanted to shut the door on the woman’s face, but instead she said, “Would you like to come in?” with what she hoped was a welcoming voice.
    “I hate to impose,” Geraldine said as she shouldered past. She lumbered right through the foyer into the kitchen and around the side to the living room where she plopped herself down on the sofa. She situated herself where she had a view of the side and front yards, then crossed her ankles and placed her hands in her lap, like a genteel southern belle. “I only met the girl once, you see, and it wasn’t here. The two of them were at the grocery store, picking out fruit, and I went right up and introduced myself. She was a pretty little thing, wasn’t she, and Ricky looked so happy!”
    “Did she tell you her name?”
    “Of course, which is more than you’ve done.” She looked at Casey knowingly.
    “Casey.”
    “Well, Casey , Ricky introduced her as Alicia and said they were getting snacks for watching a movie that night. Now, isn’t that romantic?”
    Sounded pretty normal to Casey, but what did she know?
    “I never saw her here,” Geraldine continued. “I’m not sure why. I pretty much know everything that happens on this block, and why Ricky never brought her home is a mystery to me. They were holding hands and looking at each other all lovey-dovey when I ran into them at the store. It’s not like she was hideous or deformed or anything. She looked like a nice, normal girl.”
    “Most girls do.”
    “Well, that’s true. But the things I’ve seen!” She fanned herself with her hand. “Delivery men staying longer than they should, girls out running with hardly a stitch on, people, you know, doing it , in their yards at night. It’s enough to make a grown woman blush.”
    The thought of this woman adding one more color to her palette made Casey shudder.
    “But Ricky and his girl—woman, I suppose I should say, you know, to be what they call politically correct —they acted in love, not in lust , if you know what I mean. Very sweet, actually. It made me remember my young