Page 70 of Winterset

“Oh, yes. She worked at the house with me for two or three years, I guess.”

“What can you tell us about her death?” Reed asked her.

She looked at him blankly. “I—I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t know much about her death. One day she wasn’t there, and we didn’t know what happened to her. Then they found her and said she’d been killed.”

“Didn’t you think about who might have done it?” Anna asked. “I mean, didn’t you and the others talk about who the killer might be?”

Mrs. Parmer looked down at her hands, twisting the gold band on her ring finger around and around beneath the swollen knuckle. “It wasn’t my place to talk about things like that. That was for the magistrate and such.”

“Did you talk to the magistrate? The constable?”

Mrs. Parmer shrugged. “I remember the constable came and talked to all of us. I didn’t know anything to tell him.”

“You don’t remember any speculation about who could have killed Susan—or the farmer?” Anna asked.

“Everyone said it was the Beast,” Mrs. Parmer offered.

At that moment Gert trundled in, carrying the tea tray, and their conversation was interrupted. A few minutes were taken up with the niceties of serving the tea.

Finally, after Anna felt she had taken enough sips to be polite, she said, “Did you believe that Susan was killed by the Beast, Mrs. Parmer?”

“Who else would have done it?” the woman replied.

“Well, at first, did they not believe it was her fiancé?” Reed put in.

“Oh, him.” Mrs. Parmer grimaced and made a dismissive move with her hand. “That one didn’t have it in him to kill anyone, let alone Susan. It was daft to think he had done it.”

“What about some other man?” Anna asked. “Was there anyone else with whom you saw Susan talking? Or someone who seemed interested in her? Jealous, perhaps, because she had chosen another?”

The old woman shook her head. “No. We weren’t allowed to have callers at the house. The only time Susan saw her fiancé or anyone besides the rest of us servants was when she went home on a Sunday.”

“Did she go home on the day she was killed?”

Mrs. Parmer looked at her. “It’s been a long time, miss. I don’t remember.”

“Were you off that Sunday, Mrs. Parmer?” Reed inquired.

“Oh, no. I was working. We got every other Sunday off. Reduced staff, you see, so that there would be someone there to wait on the family.”

Anna looked at Reed. She felt dissatisfied, but she could think of nothing else to ask the woman. Reed gave a ghost of a shrug, as if he felt the same way. He turned to Mrs. Parmer.

“Thank you very much for talking to us today. I hope we have not disturbed your day too much.”

“Oh, no, indeed.” The old woman smiled a little archly at Reed, not too old, apparently, to feel his charm.

They took their leave of Mrs. Parmer and mounted their horses, riding away from her neat little house. Anna cast a glance over at Reed.

“Did you think—” She cast about in her mind for a way to express what she felt.

“That she was hiding something?” Reed suggested.

“You felt it, too!” Anna exclaimed. “Well, perhaps not that she was hiding something, but at least that she was not telling us everything she knew.”

“She seemed cagey,” Reed agreed. “The way she sidestepped gossiping about the event.”

“Yes, and the pious statement that it wasn’t her place to speculate about such things. As if that ever stopped anyone from doing so.”

“The thing is,” Reed went on, “I cannot imagine why she would do so. After all these years, what difference does it make? Almost everyone involved in the matter must be dead. Who would she hurt? Who would care?”