Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

firmly. “Really, Ethel, I don’t know how you can stand to live with that constant yap-yap-yap. Such an irritating noise.”
    “It’s easy.” Ethel smiled. “I just turn down my hearing aids.”
    Hazel picked up her scissors and stared at Ethel. “Larry Kirk has a woman friend? Ethel, I don’t believe it! At least, not in the way you mean. He is such a fine, upstanding young man.”
    “What way
do
you mean, Ethel?” Jane asked, arching her silvery eyebrows. “Is he
sleeping
with her?”
    Ethel shrugged. “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Whoever this woman is, she always seems to pick the wrong times to drop in. After Mr. Kirk has gone to his shop, I mean. I’ve seen her.” For emphasis, she tapped her thimble sharply against her scissors, once, twice. “Two different times.”
    Keeping track of the comings and goings of her neighbors was Ethel’s favorite hobby—next to quilting, that is. A few of the residents of Pecan Street resented her insistent, intrusive nosiness and wished she would stop. But Ruby Wilcox, who lived next door on the east at 1111, pointed out that Mrs. Wauer was a useful adjunct to the Neighborhood Watch (especially since Oodles the Poodle was on guard as well), and most agreed that Ethel was a nuisance, but well-meaning. And harmless.
    Hazel Schulz was not one of them. “You have been snooping again, Ethel,” she said reproachfully. “That’s not very nice, you know. People have a right to their privacy.”
    Ethel frowned. “Well, I have to wash my dishes, don’t I? And the window over my kitchen sink looks out onto the alley, doesn’t it? I can glance right out my window and see her, sneakin’ down the alley and goin’ through the Kirks’ back gate. In fact, I’d have to shut my eyes to
keep
from seeing her, Hazel, in spite of the fact that she obviously doesn’t want to be seen, which is why she’s goin’ down the alley in the first place.” She sniffed. “And I don’t know about you, but when I see a black-haired lady walkin’ in her high heels down the alley, I take notice.”
    Jane took her thimble off. “Now that you mention it, I’ve seen her, too, Ethel,” she said thoughtfully. She wiped her fingers on a tissue and put her thimble back on. “Long black hair, straight, stylish, early forties?”
    “That’s the one,” Ethel said, nodding. “A little too much makeup for my taste. And not a happy look on her face.”
    “I didn’t see her in the alley,” Jane said. “But I did see her getting into her car the other day—one of those little foreign cars, Hyundai or something like that. She was parked down at the end of the block, in front of the McNallys’. I asked Mrs. McNally who she was, but she didn’t know. She did say, though, that she’d seen her parked out there a couple of times. Just sitting in the car, like she was waiting for somebody.” Her pause was meaningful. “Now that you’ve told us about her going into Mr. Kirk’s backyard, I’m wondering if she was maybe waiting for him to come home.”
    “These young people,” Mildred said with a sigh. “Always getting up to monkey business.”
    Ethel cackled. “It’s not like you ever did that in
your
younger years, is it, Mildred?”
    “Not hardly,” Mildred retorted in an injured tone. “At least, not
that
. We might’ve gone out behind the barn for some neckin’, but that’s as far as it went.” She tilted her head and a remembering smile ghosted across her lips. “Mostly, anyway.”
    “I wonder if the Kirks will sell their house,” Hazel said. She squinted at her needle, trying to rethread it. “You know, that garage of theirs is two feet over on our side of the property line. Sam has been having fits about it for years. Sometimes he gets so mad, he could just chew bullets.” She stopped squinting and handed her needle and thread to Jane. “I can’t see to thread this dratted needle, Jane. Will you?”
    “Yes, Hazel, we all know about Sam and the property line and theKirks’ garage,” Mildred said crisply. “And we all wonder why you and Sam don’t just sell them that piddling little strip.”
    Hazel rolled her eyes. “Oh, you know Sam. What’s his is his and he won’t give up one single inch of it.”
    “Except that the Kirks’ garage has taken two whole feet instead of one single inch, and has for years and years,” Ethel put in. “So let’s not talk about it again, shall we?”
    “Anyway, now that the Kirks are getting divorced, they’ll