“Well, if there was something you wanted to say to me,” Kate stated, “I’d hope that you would have called out to me before I left.”
“Depends on what you’re talking about,” she quipped, “but, with a double murder of those two women in the neighborhood, it’s not hard to guess.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Kate murmured. “I was just wondering if you saw the women’s husbands or anybody else out during the early hours of the morning on the day the women were murdered.” Then she also gave her the other date.
“Nope, can’t say I did,” she replied, “at least not on those mornings. I did see a couple people out after that. But, of course, the two women were gone.”
“What hours and what days?”
“God only knows,” she declared. “My memory is not exactly what it used to be. I was only up because, well, it’s a known fact that old people don’t sleep much.” She snorted. “I thought all those rumors were lies, until I got old myself, but now I realize we really don’t sleep much anymore. But nothing goes on in the world between four and seven in the morning that we can really talk about.”
“What do you do at those hours?”
“I usually get up, have tea, maybe work on a puzzle. Nothing much is on TV at all. I get on my computer, doodle around on the internet a bit,” she said, “but, other than that, it’s books. I read, lots and lots of books, mostly on my Kindle.”
“Interesting,” Kate noted, “so you wouldn’t have seen anybody anyway because, chances were, you were inside the house.”
“Oh no, I sit out here a lot in the summertime.”
“Do you remember seeing anybody?”
“I saw the two women leave on the morning they were murdered,” she stated.
“Did you see anybody else around?”
She shrugged. “Nope, I didn’t, but I did go in and have tea when they left.”
“Why is that?”
“Because they always reminded me of a time when I wasn’t old,” she explained. “That gets distressing after a while, so I just got up and went inside, rather than have the constant reminders.”
“And yet they would have left the area already, right?”
“That doesn’t mean that just because they’re out of sight that the reminder is gone, Detective. I get that you’re young enough to not be concerned about getting old, but you might want to remember that it catches up with you pretty damn fast. Then you do your darndest to make every day count. But most of the time people forget about that mantra, and they just carry on, so busy with their lives that they don’t even enjoy their youth plus don’t give a fuck about the future.”
Since Kate was equally guilty of that, she nodded slowly. “I think it’s always a good thing to remember to live in the moment,” she agreed. “Unfortunately, because of the field that I’m in, I get reminders on a daily basis of how short life can be.”
At that, the older woman stopped, looked at her in surprise. “You know what? Maybe that’s a good thing about what you do,” she suggested. “I could never do it myself, just too much evil out there in the world. I wouldn’t want to be reminded of it daily, but you should take time to smell the roses. You should take timeto find that partner, to have the kids, to go on holidays, and to sit outside, watching the sunsets, while the ocean rolls onto the beach,” she stated. “Because, before you know it, your number of sunsets is limited, and those rolling waves are hard to get to because it’s hard to walk in the sand. And then you can’t take holidays anymore because the travel insurance is so damn much, and your kids are long gone and don’t even give a shit about you anymore.” She shook her head. “And all those years I’ve put in, you could almost divide it into parts that started and ended. And now I sit here, in the last part, the twilight section, wondering when this one will end.”
Her tone wasn’t sad exactly but more pragmatic, as if expecting to see the end coming soon.
Kate murmured, “This has been a good reminder, but I don’t necessarily think that, because you’re in your twilight years, that it should be sad either.”
“Maybe not, but it’s really hard to find much to look forward to when you’re counting your pills and making sure you’ve had enough fiber to take a crap. All things that nobody in their younger years even contemplates.” She shrugged. “And why would you?”
At that, Kate laughed. “There is something to be said aboutWhy would you?because, when it happens, then you have to deal with it. So worrying about it ahead of time won’t really make it any easier.”
The older woman grinned. “No, and that’s one of the reasons why I make sure I get my red wine at night, so my morning is a little easier.”
“The red wine at night is a good idea too,” she agreed, “and, so far, I think the research still supports that.”
“You know what? There’s something about all that research.” The older woman leaned forward in a confidential manner. “It’llchange every couple years anyway, and I’ve been around long enough that nothing surprises me anymore.”
Kate looked at her and asked, “What about the murders? Did anything about that surprise you?”
She shook her head. “No, not really. But I heard about the two people killed after that, and those ones surprised me.”
“Why?” Kate asked.