It had to be You

house belonged to her parents, they were the ones who fed workers.
    She showed him into a Victorian parlor adorned with frilly doilies covering every surface. They had probably been white to start with, but were now a dun brown. Walker guessed they hadn’t been washed for years, for fear they’d disintegrate if soap and water was applied. There was an old-fashioned bell jar covering a bowl of wax flowers that had faded to pale, brownish shades of pinks and greens. The walls were covered with faded floral wallpaper of big pink roses.
    Walker started revising his idea of how old this house really was. He’d assumed Mrs. Connor’s father had built it. But this room probably went back to her grandfather’s time, at least. Perhaps that huge table and all the chairs had originally been used to accommodate a family with lots of children. He started wondering just how many other relatives the woman must have—probably dozens and dozens. And he might have to hunt down as many as he could find to question them as well.
    That would involve hours of crawling up ladders to bring down title books, going to churches to find out the genealogy of the entire mob of cousins, second-cousins once-removed, and great-grandchildren’s baptism dates. There simply wasn’t time for all this unless he found, and stole, the family Bible.
    Mrs. Connor watched him sullenly as he looked around the room, and wondered why he hadn’t said anything yet. She hadn’t been happy to let him in the house to snoop in the first place.
    Walker finally realized he needed to question her. “What did you say to Miss Twibell when you visited her today?“
    “Why would that be any of your business?”
    “Because your husband’s dead, and the circumstances are peculiar,“ he replied.
    “I suppose it’s the only way to get you to go away and leave me alone,“ she said. She told him the same story she’d told Miss Twibell, but not so emotionally. She was offended to be asked by an officer of the law about her private business, and said so. And oddly, her words sounded rehearsed to him. He wondered whether she knew yet that her husband hadn’t died of his illness but had been murdered. It was the first time he’d wondered why she wasn’t one of the witnesses when the meeting was held with the judge. He had to ask this unpleasant question about her impression of the reason for Mr. Connor ‘s death.
    It finally roused her to outright anger. “Of course I’ve been told that he was smothered to death. But I don’t believe it, and I certainly didn’t kill him, if that’s your next question. I needed him back to run the farm. He was firm and often rude to our workers, but fair. They simply won’t take orders from me. I’ve already lost two of them and the third one is suggesting it’s too much work for him to do alone. I desperately wanted Sean to get well and come back to sort this out before planting time for this year’s crops. You’d understand this if you knew anything about farming.“
    “I do know a little,“ he said. It was too bad that he couldn’t arrest her just because he didn’t like her. He’d never taken to belligerent women, especially those who were taller than he. So he asked her if he could have her permission to speak to her husband’s attorney. She was reluctant but grudgingly gave her consent. He also had to ask her for the name of the attorney and where his office was: She also supplied this information with bad grace.
    As she was walking briskly to the door to see him out, he stopped on the porch and asked, “Did you ever have a worker named Mark Farleigh here before the war?“
    “Do you honestly think I’d keep track of every itinerant who worked for a couple months that long ago? We’ve had dozens and dozens. Maybe hundreds.”
    The door slammed behind him.

    When he’d introduced himself to the attorney’s secretary, who was surprisingly young and pretty, but surly, he asked if he could see the will.
    “That will be up to Mr. Woodly to discuss with you.“
    “I need to speak with him now,“ Walker said.
    “I’ll see if he’s free to see you. I don’t have you in my appointment book,“ she said, running a long, red, pointy fingernail down the page of the book in front of her.
    When Howard was finally allowed to speak to the attorney, a plump individual sporting greased-back hair and a pin-striped suit that was a little too snug for his frame, the first thing the man said was, “Do you have a