He’d worked hard on making the last part come true, anyway.

“I’ve got to call-Lily, I’m so glad you’re here today!”

Mrs. Hofstettler was more upset than I’d ever seen her, and I’d heard her fume for two weeks over the altar boy at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church lighting the wrong candle during Advent.

“Who did you want to call?” I asked, putting down the dust cloth.

“The police. Pardon was here yesterday. It was the first of the month, you know. I get a check from Chuck toward the end of the month, and I deposit it, and every first, here comes Mr. Albee, regular as clockwork. I always have my check made out and sitting on the table for him, and he always… Oh, I think I should tell the police he was here!”

“I’ll call, then.” I hoped Mrs. Hofstettler could ease her agitation with a phone call. To my surprise and dismay, the dispatcher at the Shakespeare Police Department said someone would be right by to listen to Mrs. Hofstettler’s story.

“You’d better make some coffee, Lily, please,” the old lady said. “Maybe the policeman will want some. Oh, what could have happened to Pardon? I can’t believe it. Just yesterday, he was standing right there. And now he’s dead, and him a good twenty-five years younger than me! And Lily, could you pick up that tissue there, and straighten that pillow on the sofa? Oh, durn these stiff old legs! You just don’t know, Lily, how frustrating being old can be.”

There was no safe response to that, so I straightened the room very quickly. The coffee was perking, everything in the apartment was dusted, and I’d given the bathroom a quick once-over by the time the doorbell rang. I was pulling the clothes from the dryer, but I’d become infected by Marie’s house-pride, so I hastily carried the clean wash back to deposit in the guest bedroom and shut the louver doors that concealed the washer and dryer on my way back to answer the bell.