“She must have wondered how he knew. Only me and her sister knew, and we never said a word and never would have. She didn’t want the attention or pity. Her eye doctor knew, but he wouldn’t have talked.”
With that the last puzzle piece fell into place. “Dalton’s cane wasn’t metaphorical, even if he’d intended it to be.”
Shelly shook her head. “Laura was losing her eyesight. Quickly. Some progressive condition—I forget what it’s called. How could Taylor have been so cruel to her?”
“Could the Blackwells have known? Or the Karlsens?”
“No, Laura was insistent it stay a secret, and she could see well enough to hide it.”
“She still drove a car.”
“Not for long, and not outside of Juniper Grove. She was going to sell it this month.”
“What about others at the New Year’s brunch? Charlotte Wynn and Brodie Keegan. Could they have known?”
“Rachel, only three people besides Laura knew. Me, Laura’s sister Deena, and Laura’s eye doctor. Deena doesn’t live in Colorado and she wouldn’t break a confidence. Laura only told me because I’d seen her stumble in her garden a couple times and she knew she’d need my help soon.”
Shelly raised her teacup. Her expression hardened, and she lowered it without taking a drink. “Now I think of it, when she was working on a project in her studio, you could tell something was wrong. She’d have to get close to what she was working on, and she’d squint and turn her head to the side a little—she could see best out of her right eye. If someone saw her working on a painting or greeting card, or doing any closeup work, they would’ve . . . yeah, they would’ve thought she was having problems.”
“Did people visit her studio?”
“Not often, but sometimes. Her house, too. If only I’d seen someone, or even a car out front, the day she was killed. I was watching TV.”
“Did any of the brunch guests visit her in the past two months?”
“Mary and Clay, definitely. Isak and Shasta Karlsen two or three times. Never, ever Taylor, though Laura went to his studio once. All it took was one person to leak her secret, right? What’s ironic is she could still see well enough to spot a change to that vile painting.”
“I think someone told her the cane had been added.”
“Dalton.”
“I doubt it.”
“Who then?”
I believed I knew who, but as I only suspected and didn’t know for certain, I kept the name to myself. “Someone at the brunch.”
“She shouldn’t have gone to that thing. I’d invited her here on New Year’s Day.” A gust of wind scraped the bare whips of a tall shrub against the window pane. Shelly turned her head to look out over the back yard. “When I think of how giving up her art weighed on her. Not just giving up the joy of it, but the sheer survival difficulties that come with being blind. She had some savings, but as a self-employed artist she didn’t have a pension. She was a good ten years from retirement age. A lot of creative, money-making years left.”
“Would she have stayed in her house?”
“You bet.” Her jaw set, her voice resolute, she turned back to me. “She wouldn’t have sold it. She had me, and eventually, when she told our neighbors, she would’ve had them. We also found out the county has an assistance program for the visually impaired and blind. Juniper Grove does too. She wasn’t happy about applying for help, but she was a realist. She would’ve survived. But Dalton took that from her.”
There was no point arguing that Dalton wasn’t the killer. In her grief, Shelly had concluded that he was, and she would not be budged. It felt right and safe. I grabbed a quick sip of tea—it tasted as sour as it smelled—and thanked her for taking time out of her day.
At the door she told me to watch my step, drawing my attention to the wind-driven sheet of snow on her walkway.
I took one step forward and wheeled back. “You said Laura applied for assistance.”
“She started the process. It takes time to complete.”
“Assistance from Juniper Grove as well as the county?”
“Sure. The county offers financial help, but the town offers practical help through a volunteer program. Snow shoveling, lawn cleanup, driving to appointments, that kind of thing. Laura was going to need both money and everyday help.”
“What’s the town’s program called?”
“The Volunteer Aid Program.”
“Where did she apply, and when?”
Bewildered by my questions, Shelly nevertheless answered. “She printed the application online, then she took it to Town Hall, about two weeks ago. Before Christmas. Why? Is it important?”
CHAPTER 14
Moments later I was in my Forester, driving for Town Hall. Why hadn’t I thought of it? None of Laura’s confidants had betrayed her. Town records had. Charlotte or Brodie had.
With a new snowstorm darkening the sky to the west, there weren’t many shoppers on Main Street, so I easily found an empty parking space. Luckily, Joan Hudson was at her desk in the Records Section. She took one look at me, barreling toward her with focused determination, and assumed I was on the rampage over her calling Dalton.
“I phoned Dalton about Brodie searching his divorce records because he deserved to know,” she said through nearly locked jaws. “It’s not something I regularly do, and telling you would have—”
I broke in. “I’m not here about that. I think you did the right thing telling Dalton.”
She brightened and her jaws unlocked. “Oh.”
Taking the chair by her desk I asked her if she recalled Brodie or Charlotte looking up records in the Volunteer Aid Program.
