Catch a Falling Knife

I don’t want you going to Club Cavalier or talking to anybody connected with Elise, including her roommate, her parents or her boyfriend. You’re going to leave that sort of thing to the police. And to me.”
    “What about me?” I asked, feeling guilty because I hadn’t told them that Donna claimed to be the Shooting Star. Maybe I shouldn’t have promised her to keep quiet.
    “Aunt Lillian, you’re the last person I would try to tell what to do. Nobody can tell you what to do. You’re irrepressible. In fact, I encourage you to continue your own investigation because you might find something that the police don’t. I heard about your previous exploits as a detective and I’m impressed. If you’re even a little bit careful I don’t think the police will be bugged by what you’re doing because you can fly under their radar. They don’t expect you to be out there and you can accomplish things without them noticing.”
     
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    With Burt’s blessing I drove to Bethany again Saturday afternoon. Tess rode shotgun with me and watched the map.
    “How do you think I should play it with Ted?” I asked, as we turned onto the main street of Bethany.”
    “Maybe I should go in with you,” Tess said. “It sounds to me as if Ted is a very religious person and you’re about as religious as a vulture.”
    “That’s not fair,” I protested. “Just because I watch the ceiling whenever I’m inside a church to see if it’s going to come crashing down doesn’t mean that I can’t talk to religious people. And besides, I try to increase harmony in the world.”
    “I never said you weren’t a good person. Being a good person isn’t the same as being a religious person.”
    “Amen to that.”
    “Turn right at the light.”
    A few more turns and we were on the street where Ted lived, in the basement of a residential house. Donna had given me his address and told me that we were likely to find him home even on a weekend because he spent a lot of his time studying, although his routine would understandably have been interrupted by Elise’s murder. Tess spotted the house and we parked 100 feet past it. My recent experiences had taught me it’s a good thing to be somewhat devious when one is a detective.
    I decided that Tess might add some leavening to my vulture-like approach (using her words) and so we walked back to the house together. The long driveway was asphalt, instead of the gravel of the Hoffmans’ driveway, and thus easy walking. Our walk took us past the house, itself, an older wooden model with odd shapes projecting from the walls, forming, I suppose, nooks inside where the inhabitants found sanctuary.
    The door in the back was right where Donna had said it would be so I didn’t hesitate to knock on it. There was no doorbell. My knock was followed by silence for so long that I suspected Ted was not in residence, but eventually footsteps sounded behind the door and it opened.
    The young man who looked out at us was tall and quite thin, with short, blondish hair and aviator-style glasses, which gave him a studious look.
    “I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, practicing my compassion, “but I knew Elise, and I wanted to express my condolences to you. I’m Lillian Morgan and this is my friend Tess.”
    “Er, thank you,” he said, looking from one of us to the other. And then, as an afterthought, “Uh, won’t you come in?”
    As he turned to lead us inside I detected a whiff of what might be alcohol on his breath. Did religious people drink alcohol? There were a number of steps going down to what was clearly the basement. I hung onto Tess, whose walking was somewhat wobbly under the best of conditions. We made it all right and followed Ted into a messy room with a few pieces of furniture and two small, ground-level windows, high up on adjoining walls.
    “Do you want to sit down?” he asked, lifting a pile of clothes from an old chair and throwing them into a corner. I suspected this was his only room, except for a small kitchen and smaller bathroom that I could see through open doors.
    I let Tess take the closest chair because it looked firm and she had the hardest time getting up. I sat on the couch, which I was sure had a hide-a-bed hiding beneath the pillows. Ted sat in a chair with a footrest, facing a television set that was broadcasting a basketball game. A lit lamp on a table beside him didn’t help much to relieve the