Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

“He got along with them in business. He golfed with some, but nobody close.”

“What about hobbies, ma’am? Was there anything special he liked to do?”

“He liked to repair things. He was a good carpenter. And he liked to read. Whenever he met somebody new, he would find out what they were interested in, or what kind of work they did. Then he’d go to the library and come back with books about it.”

“When you say somebody new, do you mean a new woman?” Charlie Player asked.

“Yes,” she said quietly, and looked toward the door, and realized she was seeing Jim right now, with a load of books in his arms.

There had been a wide range of subjects over the years — speech therapy, rocks and jewelry making, singing, genetics, pottery, nursing, and most recently the airline industry and passenger safety.

“Ma’am.” Player recalled her from her daydream. “Ma’am, your husband was killed sometime yesterday afternoon, maybe early evening.”

Sarah looked at the clock on the stove. It was six-thirty. It would be dark soon. Jim had been dead a whole day.

“We’ve already checked with the golf club. He hadn’t signed up to play yesterday, and no one remembers seeing him. Did your husband usually play golf on Sundays?”

“Usual isn’t a good word to describe Jim. Sometimes he played on Sundays.”

It was Kentucky who leaned toward her then, as soft-spoken as he had been before. “Ma’am, can you tell us where you were yesterday afternoon?”

Yesterday was Sunday, she had to remind herself. She’d gone to church in the morning. The service was at eleven. After that she and Pastor Bicks and his wife drove to Essex to a flower show. “We had planned to go to an afternoon movie, but Mrs. Bicks turned her ankle and we came back early. They dropped me off. I got home about four.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I stayed here, made some supper, watched Sixty Minutes, read the Sunday paper, and worked on the crossword puzzle.”

She was suddenly overwhelmingly tired. She leaned forward and rested her arms on the table, hugging her elbows. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d like to be alone now.”

Kentucky looked at Player and nodded. The two men rose. “Just one more thing. Do you know of anyone who would have a reason to kill your husband?”

She stared at him for a long moment and then shook her head. “I know what you’re asking me, but I didn’t know them all.”

It was almost dark when they pulled away from the Fullerton house. At the top of the incline of Oak Street Kentucky had to swerve to avoid a kid sailing out of a driveway on a skateboard. He thought of turning on the siren to give the boy a scare, but the kid was halfway down the hill already. There was no point in disturbing the quiet street.

“I’ll drop you off at the station, and then I’ll go on over to see the minister,” Kentucky said. “You give the girlfriend a call.”

“Sure. You don’t think the wife did it, do you?”

Kentucky shrugged. “You know the way it’s supposed to go. You start with the wife and then the girlfriend.”

“Yeah, I know that, but that isn’t what I asked you.”

“Well, the answer is I don’t know. The wife is always my first guess, and I suppose I’ll stay with that for now. It sounds like Sarah Fullerton had a whole harem full of reasons. But it’s too soon to tell. Let’s see what the minister and the girlfriend have to say. And there’s the lab we have to hear from.”

Player got out of the car, but didn’t close the door. He leaned back in, folding himself over the door. Kentucky stared, marveling at his contortion.

“What makes a nice woman like that stay with such a bum?” Player asked.

Kentucky shrugged. He used to ask those kinds of questions. He didn’t anymore. He’d gotten tired of not knowing the answers. “A lot of things. Security. Habit. Who knows?” He smiled. “Just because I’m at the half-century mark doesn’t mean I have all the answers.”

“Somehow I thought you did.” Player grinned, straightened, and was about to close the door.

“Hold it a minute,” Kentucky called out. “That was nice work you did back there, coming in with those questions about what her husband did for a living. I thought she’d frozen up on us for good. Changing the subject right quick like that got her unstuck and going again. Where’d you learn to do that?”

Player kept grinning. “I’ll tell you over a beer sometime.”

“I’ll remind you,” Kentucky said with a chuckle. “Get onto that stewardess now, and don’t forget to check her story with the airline.”

“Flight attendant,” Player said and shut the door.

The Presbyterian church was a red-brick building with a white steeple on Sycamore Avenue. Reverend Bicks and his wife lived in a small wood-frame house across from it. Kentucky hadn’t met them before. The minister came to the door.

“I heard Cranford had gotten itself a detective squad,” the minister said after Kentucky had introduced himself. He led the way into a small living room where there were lace curtains at the windows.