Seed Money

      A silver Lexus pulled into the driveway.

          “Oh, Lord, it’s Mrs. Adams. I clean forgot. She told me on the boat she was going to come by.”

      “Interesting timing.” Bobby glanced at the kitchen, where Meredith’s groceries were still sitting on the kitchen table. “Haven’t even put the food away. Bet she hasn’t either.”

      “Pushy woman,” said Meredith.

       Catherine Adams paused on the walkway to inspect the primroses Meredith had set out earlier in the spring. A few were still flowering.

        She was herself past her first bloom. Her hair was a blond helmet that didn’t reach her shoulders. “What we used to call a page boy,” thought Meredith. The khaki slacks and white blouse were calculatedly casual. Business casual. Chanel casual. Several years ago, she had descended on the island like an acquiring angel and started buying up property. Her latest acquisition, after the family’s initial flat refusal to sell to her and three years of working it, was the Surf.  No one would deny that she was a hard worker. No one knew, either, whether the seed money came from her much older and apparently retired husband or whether it derived from her own labors. That was about to become a critical piece of information.

     “Maybe this isn’t just a social call, and Joseph has already called her,” said Meredith, wondering in that case at the leisurely (and maybe slightly critical?) poise with which Mrs. Adams inspected the primrose path. “After all, the dead man is her husband. Was.”

        She knocked on the front door. Meredith glanced at Bobby. “Emily Post didn’t cover this.” She heaved herself up and went to the door.