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on the sofa and offered a cup of coffee or something else to drink, which the woman refused politely. Then Phyllis asked, “Is your house a bed-and-breakfast, too?”
    “Oh, no. It’s just a private residence. But it’s a big place, too big for me to keep up with on my own. It was a different when my kids were at home, but since they’ve moved out . . .” Darcy shrugged.
    It was a feeling Phyllis knew all too well. During that interval after Kenny had died, before she opened the big old house in Weatherford to other retired teachers, she had thought she might go mad knocking around by herself in the empty home.
    “Anyway,” Darcy went on, “the reason I came over, other than to be neighborly and introduce myself—”
    “Was to find out what happened this morning,” Phyllis finished for her. She saw the slightly startled look on Darcy’s face and hurried on. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted you that way. It was rude of me. And after all those years I got on to my students for interrupting one another.”
    “You’re a teacher?”
    “I was. Eighth-grade history. But I’m retired now.”
    Darcy seemed to accept Phyllis’s apology. “I admit, I’m curious about what happened. I know the ambulance came and took someone away, and I heard that a man who was staying here had died.”
    Phyllis nodded. “Mr. McKenna. He had a heart attack while he was out on the pier fishing.” She didn’t go into detail about how Ed McKenna had fallen into the water and Sam had hauled him out.
    “How terrible!” Darcy said. “That poor man.”
    “Yes, it’s a tragedy,” Phyllis agreed.
    “Did he have family here with him?”
    Phyllis shook her head. “No, he was alone.”
    But he had to have family somewhere, she thought, and that reminded her of the fact that they would need to be notified of his death. Surely the police would handle that, though. That wasn’t something she should have to deal with . . . she hoped.
    “Is there anything I can do to help?”
    “I don’t know what it would be,” Phyllis said. “Once I’ve found out about Mr. McKenna’s next of kin, I suppose I’ll have to gather his belongings and send them. But other than that, I don’t think there’s anything else I’ll need to do.”
    Before she could say anything else, she heard the back door open and close, and then Consuela’s voice sounded in the kitchen, talking to Carolyn.
    Darcy got to her feet quickly and said, “I’d better be going. It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Newsom.”
    “Please, call me Phyllis.”
    “And I’m sorry about what happened. It must have been terrible for you.”
    Much worse for Ed McKenna, Phyllis thought, but she kept that to herself. She had already been rude to Darcy once—although that hadn’t been her intention—and she didn’t want to do it again.
    She showed Darcy out, lifting a hand in farewell as the woman walked down the steps. Then she turned and went back along the hall to the kitchen.
    Consuela was putting away the groceries she had brought back from Wal-Mart. Carolyn wasn’t in the kitchen now, and Phyllis supposed she must have gone up the rear stairs just off the pantry.
    “Mrs. Wilbarger said somebody was here,” Consuela said.
    “Yes, Darcy Maxwell from next door.”
    Consuela made a face. “Her.”
    “You don’t like her?” Phyllis asked with a frown. “She seemed nice enough, and she spoke very highly of you.”
    Consuela shrugged and said, “She’s all right, I guess. She’s just the biggest gossip between here and Corpus Christi. She offered me a job once, and when I turned her down she spread some nasty stories about my girls.” Consuela’s expression hardened. “You could say I don’t like her, all right. I’m glad she’s not gonna be next door much longer.”
    “Why not?”
    “Oh, she and her husband sold their house. That’s what I heard, anyway. They said it was too big for them with their kids gone. I don’t know when they’re supposed to