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scared me out of ten years,” she gasped. She patted her chest rapidly. Then as fear fled, I could see suspicion replace it.
    “What are you doing here? Why are you in Martha’s house?” She began to move slowly backward toward her door. “I never saw you here before.”
    “Sure you did.” Maybe she wasn’t as sharp as I’d thought. “We talked out front.”
    She shot me a scathing look. “I know that. Before today. And you shouldn’t be here. No one should be here. Martha’s dead.” It was a wail. Clearly she’d cared for Martha. “I called the police and told them there had been people here. I told them you were here.”
    “Good,” I said, holding out my phone. “I was about to do the same thing.”
    She blinked, uncertain what to think of me. I couldn’t blame her.
    “How did you learn about Martha?” I asked.
    “That phone call? That was my friend Jennie. She heard about it on the TV.” Tears filled her eyes and rolled slowly down her wrinkled cheeks. “She was so nice.”
    “That’s what I hear.” I smiled sadly. “I wish I had known her.”
    Mrs. Wilson drew back like I’d slapped her and I knew I’d said the wrong thing.
    “If you don’t—didn’t know her, what are you doing here?” She shook her finger at me. “You go away. Right now.”
    “I want to wait for the police,” I said.
    “No. You go. Now.” Her voice quavered with distress, but her eyes were determined. She stepped back until she was at her door. She leaned, clearly reaching for something just inside. When she drew her hand out, I stared in disbelief at the object she held. She clutched the burglar bar for her slider and she swung it through the air with all the panache of a knight wielding his broadsword.
    “Go,” she ordered as the rush of air from her mighty swing brushed my face.
    “But—”
    “Go!” She took a step toward me, her weapon raised. Clearly her years with Sergeant Major Wilson and the army had rubbed off on her.
    Feeling like a Great Dane being chased by a miniature dachshund, I went.

FIVE
    B eing chased by an amazingly spry eightysomething-year-old lady was very unnerving, especially by one as intent on bashing me as Mrs. Wilson. When I jumped into my car, I half expected her to use her burglar bar on my windshield.
    Instead she stood panting on the front walk and I had visions of her keeling over on the spot from a massive coronary; all the blame would be mine.
    “But, honestly, officer, she came after me.”
    “Yeah, right. Hands behind your back.” Snick, snick clicked the cuffs. “You have the right…”
    As I drove away, I watched her in my rearview mirror in case she did collapse. The last I saw of her before a curve in the road hid her from view, she was giving the bar a final shake in my direction.
    Now that I was safe, I became very curious about the man who had lived so many years with a woman as feisty as Mrs. Wilson. Had the sergeant major been Special Forces or some such highly trained group? Had he come home from work each day and taught her all he knew? Was their home life the Wilson version of Clouseau and Cato in the original Pink Panther series as they stalked each other from room to room?
    I had just taken my seat at my desk back at the newsroom when my phone rang. William to tell me off about Mrs. Wilson and Martha’s place?
    “Is this Merrileigh Kramer, award-winning journalist?” a man asked, his familiar voice booming down the line. Though he was reticent by temperament, he always projected on the phone like an out-of-work actor auditioning for a last-ditch opportunity at a starring role.
    I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it in disbelief. Why was Ron Henrey, my former editor back in Pittsburgh, where I had cut my reporting teeth first as an intern, then as a staff reporter, calling me?
    “Are you still there, Merry?”
    I jammed the phone back against my ear. “I’m here, Mr. Henrey.”
    “Surprised you speechless, eh?”
    “Something like