Someone to watch over me

wall. The shed held gardening tools and watering cans and had a high shelf with empty seed packets.
    Walker and Ralph went to the front of the house. “Might I have a private word with you, Mrs. Anderson?“ Walker said.
    Eugene stepped forward. “I don’t think my sister should talk to you. She’s very upset.“
    “I think everyone is upset, but I have to speak to her here or take her to town. I’d rather it was here, and I think she might feel that way as well.”
    Roxanne put her hand on her brother’s arm. “Don’t worry, Gene. I’m all right. I’m not the sort to run around admitting anything that’s not true. And I have absolutely nothing to conceal.”
    He looked at her for a long while before saying, “I’ll take the kids inside and give them some of those cookies you made this morning.
    “He’ll spoil their lunch,“ she said under her breath, then shrugged and faced Walker with fire in her eyes.
    Chapter 17
    Roxanne sat down on the top step of the front porch and indicated that Howard Walker should sit next to her. She was almost smiling but not quite.
    In a voice as delicate and deadly as a rapier, she said, “Chief Walker, I’m a smart, hardworking, commonsense woman. Ask anyone you like if this isn’t true. I know I’m your best suspect in my husband’s murder, but can you really imagine I’m stupid enough to implicate myself by hiding that satchel under my own bed?“
    “Can you explain it, then?“
    “No. And I don’t have to,“ she said. “But I’ll tell you what I do know. Donald left Saturday morning when I was in the bathtub. I always lock the door to keep the children out. It’s the only time I ever have alone. He called goodbye through the door.
    “I didn’t see him,“ she went on. “I didn’t know what he was wearing. I didn’t know where he was going. I didn’t know whether he had the satchel with him. Occasionally when he had a dirty job that lasted a couple of days, he wore his work clothes instead of his suit.“
    “But he was wearing a suit when he was found.”
    She put out her hands in a so-what gesture. “I didn’t know that when you told me he’d died. For all I knew, he was doing some sort of office work and didn’t need his work clothes and left the satchel behind. I haven’t had time or energy to dust under that bed for months, let alone pull up the skirt to see what’s under it.“
    “He didn’t tell you where he was working?“
    “He usually didn’t know. He just went looking for any job he could get. I’ll swear to all this and so will my brother. Most of the town knows our situation as well. Question anyone you wish about my standards and morals. I’ve lived here all my life in this very house. It was my parents’ and my mother’s parents’ before her.“
    “I don’t doubt I’d get a good report from everyone,“ Howard said. “But I can’t even explain to myself, much less anyone else, how the satchel he was known to carry almost every day ended up under the bed.“
    “I don’t know either. That’s the dad-blamed truth, and you can believe it or not. I did not kill my husband.”
    Howard was quiet for a while. “Suppose he had the satchel with him?“ She started to say something and he held up a hand to stop her. “Just suppose. Could the person who killed him have come in your house and hidden it there to suggest that you’d done it?”
    She thought a moment. “Frankly, it’s unlikely. But possible. Since I learned of his death, a great many neighbors have been in and out of the house. I keep finding casseroles sitting on the kitchen table when we come inside. We don’t have locks on the doors. We all spend a lot of time outside. My brother and my children all help in the garden.“
    “You’ve been gardening these last few days?”
    She looked at him as if he were mad. “Of course we have. Our lives can’t stop. We need the money we make on the vegetables. There’s weeding and watering to be done every day so I can produce the best and freshest food of anyone in town.“
    “Do you miss your husband?“ Walker hadn’t really meant to ask this. It just came into his mind and out his mouth before he could think about it.
    She answered immediately. “No. You might as well know from me before someone else tells you, if they haven’t already. Donald wasn’t a good husband, not for a long time. Even before he lost his job, he was having flings with other women, and it only got worse after the