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.I noted several different translations of the Bible and dozens of ledgers with dates written on the spines.Near the postage machine was a stack of what appeared to be subscription forms, and I picked up one.For three hundred dollars a year, you could call as often as once a day and Jennifer Deighton would spend up to three minutes telling you your horoscope “based on personal details, including the Alignment of the planets at the moment of your birth.”For an additional two hundred dollars a year, she would throw in “a weekly reading.”Upon payment of the fee, the subscriber would receive a card with an identification code that was valid only as long as the annual fee continued to be paid.“What a lot of horseshit,” Marino said to me.“I'm assuming she lived alone.”“That's the way it's looking so far.A woman alone running a business like this - a damn good way to attract the wrong person.”“Marino, do you know how many telephone lines she has?”“No.Why?”I told him about the hang ups I had been getting while he stared hard at me.His jaw muscles began to flex.“I need to know if her fax machine and phone are on the same line,” I concluded.“Jesus Christ.”“If they are and she happened to have her fax machine turned on the night I dialed back the number that appeared on my Caller ID screen,” I went on, “that would explain the tone I heard.”'Jesus friggin' Christ,” he said, snatching the portable radio out of his coat pocket.“Why the hell didn't you cell me this before?”“I didn't want to mention it when others were around.”He moved the radio close to his lips.“Seven-ten.”Then he said to me, “If you were worried about hang ups, why didn't you say something weeks ago?”“I wasn't that worried about them.”“Seven-ten,” the dispatcher's voice crackled back.“Ten-five eight-twenty-one.”The dispatcher sent out a broadcast for 821, the code for the inspector.“Got a number I need you to dial,” Marino said why he and the inspector connected on the air.“You got your cellular phone handy?”“Ten-fo'.”Marino gave him Jennifer Deighton's number and then turned on the fax machine.Momentarily, it began a series of rings, beeps, and other complaints.“That answer your question?”Marino asked me.“It answers one question, but not the most important question,” I said.The name of the neighbor across the street who had notified the police was Myra Clary.I accompanied Marino to her small aluminum sided house with its plastic Santa lit up on the front lawn and lights strung in the boxwoods.Marino barely had rung the bell when the front door opened and Mrs.Clary invited us in without asking who we were.It occurred to me that she probably had watched our approach from a window.She showed us into a dismal living room where we found her husband huddled by the electric fire, lap robe over his spindly legs, his vacuous stare fixed on a man lathering up with deodorant soap on television.The pitiful custodial care of the years manifested itself everywhere.Upholstery was threadbare and soiled where human flesh had made repeated contact with it.Wood was cloudy from layers of wax, prints on walls yellowed behind dusty glass.The oily smell of a million meals cooked in the kitchen and eaten on TV trays permeated the air.Marino explained why we were here as Mrs.Clary moved about nervously, plucking newspapers off the couch, turning down the television, and carrying dirty dinner plates into the kitchen.Her husband did not venture forth from his interior world, his head trembling on its stalklike neck.Parkinson's disease is when the machine shakes violently just before it conks out, as if it knows what is ahead and protests the only way it can.“Nope, we don't need a thing,” Marino said when Mrs.Clary offered us food and drink.“Sit down and try to relax.I know this has been a tough day for you.”“They said she was in her car breathing in those fumes.Oh, my,” she said.“I saw how smoky the window was, looked like the garage had been on fire.I knew the worst right then.”“Who's they?” Marino asked.“The police.After I called, I was watching for them.When they pulled up, I went straight over to see if Jenny was all right.”Mrs.Clary could not sit still in the wing chair across from the couch where Marino and I had settled.Her gray hair had strayed out of the bun on top of her head, face as wrinkled as a dried apple, eyes hungry for information and bright with fear.“I know you already talked to the police earlier,” Marino said, moving the ashtray loser.“But I want you to go through it chapter and verse for us, beginning with when you saw Jennifer Deighton last.”“I saw her the other day -”Marino interrupted.“Which day?”“Friday.I remember the phone rang and I went to the kitchen to answer it and saw her through the window.She was pulling into her driveway.”“Did she always park her car in the garage?” I asked.“She always did.”“What about yesterday?” Marino inquired.“You see her or her car yesterday?”“No, I didn't.But I went out to get the mail.It was late, tends to be that way this time of year.Three, four o'clock and still no mail.I guess it was dose to five-thirty, maybe a little later, when I remembered to check the mailbox again.It was getting dark and I noticed smoke coming out of Jenny's chimney.”“You sure about that?” Marino asked.She nodded.“Oh, yes.I remembered went through my mind it was a good night for a fire.But fires were always Jimmy's job.He never showed me how, you see.When he was good at something, that was his.So I quit on the fires and had the electric log put in.”Jimmy Clary was looking at her.I wondered if he knew what she was saying.“I like to cook,” she went on.“This time of year I do a lot of baking.I make sugar cakes and give them to the neighbors.Yesterday I wanted to drop one by for Jenny, but I like to call first.It's hard to tell when someone's in, especially when they keep their car in a garage.And you leave a cake on the doormat and one of the dogs around here gets it.So I tried her and got that machine.All day I tried and she didn't answer, and to tell you the truth, I was a little worried.”“Why?” I asked.“Did she have health problems, any sort of problems you were aware of?”“Bad cholesterol.Way over two hundred's what's she told me once.Plus high blood pressure, which she said ran in the family.”I had not seen any prescription drugs in Jennifer Deighton's house.“Do you know who her doctor was?” I asked.“I can't recall.But Jenny believed in natural cures.She told me when she felt poorly she'd meditate.”“Sounds like the two of you were pretty close,” Marino said.Mrs.Clary was plucking at her skirt, hands like hyperactive children.“I'm here all day except when I go to the store.”She glanced at her husband, who was staring at the TV again.“Now and then I'd go see her, you know, just being neighborly, maybe to drop by something I'd been cooking.”“Was she a friendly sort?” Marino asked.“She have a lot of visitors?”“Well, you know she worked out of the house.I think she handled most of her business over the phone.But occasionally I'd see people going in.”“Anybody you knew?”“Not that I recall
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