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

days, when I first met my Arthur.”
    Casey groaned inwardly. Was this woman really going to go on about her past? But no…
    “I saw Ricky come home that night, you know. The night the girl was murdered . Late, of course. But he looked completely normal. At least, what I could see through his car window, and when he got out of the car before the garage door closed. I really think I would have noticed blood or torn clothing or even if he looked upset.”
    “What did he look like?”
    Geraldine smiled, her expression going all dreamy. “Happy.”
    It was like a punch to Casey’s solar plexus. Her poor brother. He might have been happy then, but the next morning it was like his world had exploded. But that’s how life worked. One moment you were content, feeling like nothing could touch you, and the next…
    “Relaxed,” Geraldine said again. “Like those nights when Arthur and I had been, you know, intimate —”
    “Aah!” Death screamed.
    “Is there something I can do for you, Geraldine?” Casey said, hoping she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.
    “Oh, you don’t need to do anything for me,” Geraldine said, not even fazed by the interruption. “But I think there’s something I can do for you .”
    “And what’s that?”
    She smiled mysteriously. “I can tell you about the man who showed up here at your brother’s house the day after she died.”
    Casey gripped her chair’s arms. “What man? And do the police know about him?”
    “Of course they do. I told them right away. He was a bad man, I could tell. He had that look in his eye.”
    “You saw him up close?”
    “Of course I did. He was over at Ricky’s house after Ricky went to work. This was before we knew anything had happened to his girlfriend, you know. The man was wearing a uniform, like from a home repair place or something like that. Hometown Interiors , the patch said. I wasn’t able to find them anywhere in the phone book, but you know how things are these days, with cell phones. If you don’t have a landline you have to move heaven and earth to get your name in the yellow pages.”
    “What did the man say?”
    “Well, I watched him go right around the back of the house, and when I didn’t see him for a while I went over. He was just coming out, and I asked him what he was doing. He was very polite, I must say, but like I said, his eyes were all wrong. He said he was fixing something in Ricky’s bathroom, that Ricky had left the back door open for him, which I suppose could be right because we live in a very safe neighborhood, and people do that sort of thing.”
    “What did the police say?”
    “They checked on him, said it was a legitimate business, and there was paperwork and on-line correspondence to corroborate what he said.”
    Ricky hadn’t said anything about a repairman. But then, when Casey had seen him that afternoon he wasn’t exactly in the state of mind to be talking about his bathroom. And she hadn’t known to ask.
    “I called again the next day to ask the police about the man,” Geraldine said, “but they brushed me off, said they’d already gone down that avenue. I told them—”
    Casey got up and walked to the bathroom on the first floor. Geraldine skittered along behind, watching over Casey’s shoulder. There was no sign of any recent work. No stickers on the window, no unmatched wood or fresh paint. And when she had cleaned the room there hadn’t been any sawdust or dirty footprints. Nothing but regular bathroom grime and fingerprint dust.
    They trooped upstairs, but there were no signs of new repair or construction in that bathroom, either.
    “That man wasn’t working on anything,” Geraldine gushed. “But he spent quite some time in here. What do you suppose he was doing?”
    There was no way to be sure, but Casey figured she had a good idea. He was planting things. Things like bloody shirts and paper trails.

Chapter Twelve
    “Time to hound the cops?”
    Geraldine had gone back