“Would you like to make a statement?” a man asked, so Elaine stopped daydreaming and looked down to see who’d spoken. One of the local reporters was standing in front of the first floor veranda below the balcony where she was sitting. He’d interrupted her thoughts, but she didn’t mind. He gazed up at her as if his job depended on getting his hands on the kind of information none of his colleagues had.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“I was wondering if you’d like to make a statement,” he repeated.
Elaine laughed a little. “You’re confusing me with somebody important. I’m just a maid.”
“You live here, though. You must know what’s going on.”
“I don’t. So, if you’ll excuse me….” She stood up to leave.
“Ma’am, please wait,” he said. “Could you explain some old news to me?”
Elaine stopped and looked at him again, for the first time considering him as a working man with a family to feed. His thick, black-rimmed glasses and slicked back hair made him look ordinary, and his cheap, polyester suit suggested that he lived on her side of the tracks. Staring at the creases he’d gotten on the front of his jacket from sitting, she felt as if there was no harm in hearing him out.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why did Anastasia McAvoy try to commit suicide, and does that have anything to do with Carl Kastenmeier’s murder?”
Elaine didn’t say anything.
“The people in this community have a right to know why someone they admired and respected got killed. Carl Kastenmeier did a lot for this city.” He paused to study the rise he was starting to get out of her. “Was his murder a crime of passion?”
“I’m afraid this conversation’s over,” Elaine said, turning to leave.
“Wait, wait,” he said. “Please, miss.”
She turned to him again, but this time he didn’t look as innocent as he had before. “What is it?” she said.
“Tell me why Miss McAvoy took that job downtown. And more than that, why did she come back here to work after only five weeks? Did she and Mr. Kastenmeier have a falling out?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask her about that.”
“Are the rumors true? Were they lovers?”
Elaine froze, staring at the man. “I wouldn’t know,” she finally said, and that made him crack a smile. It was a devious one, nevertheless.
“I can tell you know all about it,” he said, using his index finger to push up his glasses. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Too bad you can’t quote eye contact and innuendo,” she said. “So I guess you’re shit out of luck.”
“My boss would be willing to pay you, if he can use what you have to say.”
Sam came up behind the man and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Okay, buddy, get going.”
“I was just talking….”
“Well, your time is up. What’s it going to be? Do you leave now or spend the night in jail?”
“Take your hands off me!” he said. “I’ve got rights, you know.”
“You sure do,” Officer Blanchard said, coming out onto the balcony and standing beside Elaine. Sam let the man go, but he certainly didn’t want to. “And these folks have rights, too. Like the right not to be harassed. They put that gate up for a reason, son.”
The reporter frowned defiantly at the policeman; he didn’t budge an inch.
Blanchard paused, folding his arms in front of his uniformed chest and wrinkling his brow. “If I have to come down there to make my point, I’ll haul your butt downtown, press or no. It’s your choice.”
“Well, could you at least have them open the gate for me?” he asked.
“Climb back over it the way you came in,” Officer Blanchard said. “And if I see heel marks from your shoes, or any scratches or scrapes at all on that gate, your employer will be sent the bill.”
The reporter scowled at Elaine as if she’d set him up, and then walked off toward the gate in a huff. It was difficult to say why, but her thoughts went spinning off again to that night at the restaurant. Perhaps the reporter’s pointed question about Tasia’s temporary change of employment rehashed the old memory once again.