The searcher was trying to find a secret hiding place for something that could be put in a drawer but not bidden behind books… something that couldn’t be hidden between sheets and towels but could be hidden in a large pot. I tried to image Jane hiding-a suitcase full of money? What else? A box of-documents revealing a terrible secret? I opened the top half of the closet to look at Jane’s neatly folded sheets and towels without actually seeing them. I should be grateful those hadn’t been dumped out, too, I mused with half of my brain, since Jane had been a champion folder; the towels were neater than I’d ever get them, and the sheets appeared to have been ironed, something I hadn’t seen since I was a child.

Not money or documents; those could have been divided to fit into the spaces that the searcher had ignored.

The door bell rang, making me jump a foot.

It was only the glass repair people, a husband and wife team I’d called when window problems arose at my mother’s apartments. They accepted me being at this address without any questions, and the woman commented when she saw the back window that lots of houses were getting broken into these days, though it had been a rarity when she’d been “a kid.”

“Those people coming out from the city,” she told me seriously, raising her heavily penciled eyebrows.

“Reckon so?” I asked, to establish my goodwill.

“Oh sure, honey. They come out here to get away from the city, but they bring their city habits with ‘em.”

Lawrenceton loved the commuters’ money without actually trusting or loving the commuters.