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“Just pick anyone! How hard is it to deal with a simple traffic accident!”

Dolores shrugged.“Pretty difficult, apparently, since no one has given these people the time of day since they came in yesterday.”

But seeing the look on the Chief’s face must have told her she was treading on thin ice, for she quietly closed the door and retreated back to her own lair.

When I looked up, I found Uncle Alec staring at me intently. I innocently returned his intent perusal of my noble visage.

“What are those cats doing here?” he asked irritably.

“You told me I could bring them into the station,” Odelia reminded him.

Uncle Alec produced a sound halfway between a snort and a grunt, and it told me, along with the unfavorable look he was still casting in my direction, that he was on the verge of rescinding his permission. But Odelia, who must have seen the way the wind was blowing, now promptly got up and said,“So what do you want us to do?”

And Uncle Alec had just opened his mouth to issue his instructions when another knock sounded at the door and immediately Dolores popped her head in.

“What did I tell you about knocking and waiting?!” the Chief bellowed.

“Neda Hoeppner’s house was broken into again,” said Dolores, once more ignoring her boss’s outburst, as probably she’d been ignoring his outbursts ever since she first started working at the station.

Odelia immediately sank down again, looking stunned.“Broken into? When?”

“Just now,” said Dolores. “A Cher Shorn called and said she went over to Neda’s place to drop off some stuff and discovered that the backdoor had been forced open.”

“Was anything taken?” asked Chase.

“No idea. You’ll have to ask her. She’s still over at the house, waiting for you.”

“Well,” said Uncle Alec with an impatient gesture of his hand. “Don’t keep the woman waiting. Off you go. Chop, chop.”

And like the good little detectives that we were, off we went.

21

We were back at Neda’s house, though this time at least no lethal consequences had resulted from this most recent breakin.

Cher Shorn, Neda’s loyal secretary, opened the door even as Chase parked in front of the house, and looked both rattled and shaken. And of course I could see why that would be. First her employer was murdered in her own house, and next some unknown and unseen force of evil barged in to abscond with who knows what. It would rattle a lesser person to the core to find themselves alone in such a place, with no way of knowing if this same person isn’t still lurking upstairs, hiding in some cupboard or under the bed.

“What happened?” asked Chase the moment we set paw inside the house.

Cher took a deep breath and launched into her tale.“I got here at nine o’clock to return some of Neda’s stuff, and to prepare for my interview with her sister, when I discovered that the backdoor had been forced open.”

“You’re meeting Titta?” asked Odelia.

“Yes, she called me this morning out of the blue, said she was in town and could we please meet.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even know Neda had a sister, to be honest.”

“Neda never mentioned her to you?” asked Odelia as they walked to the back of the house, and halted in front of the backdoor.

“No, never. Which is odd, considering I worked for her for so many years.”

The backdoor had indeed been the subject of a vicious attack: the window had been broken near the lock, and the door was ajar.

“We were out in front of the house last night,” I told Odelia from my vantage point on the floor. Someone had turned off the floor heating, and the stone floor had become stone cold, unfortunately. “In fact two neighborhood watches were parked outside, watching the house, and we didn’t see a thing.”

Though in all honesty the respective members of both neighborhood watches had been more interested in figuring out the limits of their turf than doing what they were supposed to be doing: keeping an eye out for any nefarious or burglarious activities.

Odelia nodded, to show me she’d understood what I said.

“The neighborhood watch was out in full force last night,” she told Chase, “but apparently this burglar managed to evade detection.”

“If whoever broke in here came in through this backdoor,” said Chase as he studied the vandalized door, “and the watch was watching the front, that stands to reason. You didn’t touch anything?” he asked the secretary, who quickly shook her head.

“The moment I saw what happened I called it in,” said Cher.

“I’ll get forensics out here,” Chase grunted, and excused himself for a moment to make the necessary phone calls.

“Did you check if anything was taken?” asked Odelia as we walked back to the living room, where we paused at the spot where Neda’s body had been found.

Cher inadvertently clutched a hand to her neck and visibly shivered.“No—not that I can tell at first glance. Though to be honest with you, the moment I saw that backdoor, I immediately called 911 and locked myself in the hallway, waiting for you to arrive.”

“So you haven’t checked the house?” asked Odelia, glancing in the direction of the staircase.