I nodded. “Yes, and we were saying how awful it was for Vera to die like that.” I watched Hank as I spoke, interested to see his reaction.

He winced. “The woman is dead. Why can’t everyone let it go? She was probably drunk and fell down the stairs. She was knocking back the booze the last time I saw her.”

I couldn’t believe either of them was naive enough to believe it was an accident. They had to be putting on an act for my benefit. I decided to drop a little bomb and see what happened.

“What if it wasn’t an accident?” I asked. They’d probably think I was a gossipy idiot, but that didn’t matter. “Know what I heard? I heard her husband pushed her down the stairs because she wouldn’t give him a divorce.”

“Who told you that?” Hank’s face reddened as he snapped out the words.

I shrugged. “Oh, it’s just something that’s going around.”

“That’s awful,” Sissy said, her voice cool. “Vera was a giant pain in the rear, but surely nobody would murder her.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Hank glared at me. “The whole thing is ridiculous. I told you, Vera was drunk as a skunk. She fell. Morty would never kill her, no matter how much she provoked him.”

Sissy shrugged and addressed me. “No point in arguing with him.” She opened her mouth to continue, but Hank interrupted her.

“Has the garage called about my car?”

“No, not this morning,” Sissy said.

Hank swore. “They’ve had it for almost two weeks now. It can’t be that hard to fix.” He sighed. “Then I’ll have to borrow yours again. Before court this morning I have to run over to Oxford and get a deposition.”

“You know where the keys are.” Sissy turned to me. “What was it you came about, Charlie? I don’t think you ever said.”

“No, I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.” I offered them both a self-deprecating smile. “I’m here on behalf of the Friends of the Library. Miss An’gel asked me to help collect the pledges people made at the gala. With everything that happened, quite naturally some people forgot to make good on them that night.”

“I see.” Sissy shared an uncertain glance with her brother. “I thought you already took care of that, Hank.”

Hank responded in a testy voice, “I thought you took care of it. I have to get going or I won’t get to Oxford and back in time for court. You deal with it.” He whirled around and stomped out of the room.

Sissy glared at his retreating back. “You’ll have to excuse him. He’s in the middle of a really difficult case right now, and he’s always tense when he has to go to court. He’d be a lot happier doing something else.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, but Sissy didn’t appear to need an answer. She excused herself, saying she’d be back with a check in a minute.