“It’s my married name,” I told her. “My parents are wise and kind. They never would have saddled me with such a silly signature.”

She smiled. A sly, smirky John Wayne smile. “So you actually took the name of your own accord? Love makes us do the craziest things!” Shaking her head and shrugging her brawny shoulders, she moved her large frame out of the doorway and motioned for me to enter. “Come on in, Paige Turner. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“Thank you,” I said, stifling the urge to giggle again. I’d never thought of John Wayne as a tea drinker.

ONE STEP INSIDE THE APARTMENT AND I was in the kitchen. A cozy little kitchen with a green linoleum floor and a ruffled gingham curtain on the only window, which offered a sunless view of the gray stone wall of the building next door. A small table and two chairs sat near the window, and I thought we’d be sitting there, too, but my husky hostess led me on through the tiny kitchen, into the next chamber of her small railroad flat-an even tinier sitting room with no window at all.

“Take off your coat and have a seat,” she said, directing me to one of the two chintz-covered wing chairs positioned on either side of a low, round coffee (okay, tea) table. On the table were several silver-framed family photographs, a silver cigarette box, and a lamp with a fringed shade. The only other furniture in the room was a Philco television-a large wooden floor model with a small round screen.

I handed Mrs. Londergan my coat and she carried it into the next room-her bedroom-and put it on the bed. I could see what she was doing because there was no door, no wall-not even a folding screen-between the bedroom and the sitting room.

“Hold on a second,” she said, walking back through the sitting room and into the kitchen again. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

I was starting to get antsy, afraid the whole tea-for-two ritual would take up so much time I wouldn’t get to ask enough questions. Deciding not to wait for her to return to the sitting room to begin my investigation, I called out, “Are all of the apartments in this building the same as yours, Mrs. Londergan? Same layout, same number of rooms?”

“Yep!” she answered, running some water, clanging a pot on the stove. “They’re all the same. Skinny little railroads with open-ended rooms. Makes it easier for the cockroaches to get around. The only room that has a door is the bathroom. Gotta be grateful for small favors.” She had a deep voice for a woman, and a flat midwestern accent.

“Judy Catcher lived right across the hall from you, right? In 2D?”

“That’s right,” she said, adding nothing but a long, sad, heavy sigh. She opened and closed the refrigerator, scraped and scrambled through the silverware drawer, then rattled some china around. I thought she was making more noise than was absolutely necessary, but I could have been imagining things. Or maybe this was just the normal kind of racket made by a very large woman living in a very small space.

“Did you hear or see anything the night Judy was shot?” I asked.

“No. I wasn’t home. I was down the street at Milly Es terbrook’s playing canasta. Our landlord discovered the body and it had already been removed by the time I got home.”

“Terry told me that you and Judy were really close-that she was like a daughter to you.”

“That’s true,” she said. “I really loved that girl. Did my best to help her. Her mother died when she was just a baby, so… hey, whaddaya want in your tea? Cream? Lemon? Sugar?”

“Nothing at all, thank you,” I said, just hoping to speed the process along. I really wanted cream and sugar, but I didn’t want to make her take the time. My throat was getting sore from talking so loudly. “So what was Judy like?” I probed, trying to get her involved in the conversation instead of the tea preparation. “Was she as tough and feisty as Terry said she was, or was that just an act-a ploy to hide her insecurity?”

For some reason, that question got Mrs. Londergan’s undivided attention. Suddenly planting her large body in the doorless doorway from the kitchen to the sitting room, she propped both hands on her hips, craned her sharply sculpted chin toward me, and said, “Okay, Paige Turner. Why are you really here? You say you’re a friend of Terry Catcher’s, but how do I know that’s true? You could be a goddamn insurance investigator, for all I know. Why do you want to talk to me about Judy? Why are you asking me all these sneaky questions?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Londergan,” I quickly replied. “I should have explained myself sooner. I’m a writer, a true crime reporter. I work for Daring Detective magazine, and Terry Catcher has asked me to look into the facts surrounding his sister’s death. He believes Judy was intentionally murdered, not killed during a random burglary.”

She softened her wide shoulders and pulled in her chin. “Oh,” she said, staring down at the sitting room carpet for a few seconds. Then she returned to the kitchen and knocked some more china around. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was probably less than a minute, she came back into the sitting room carrying two cups of tea on a small tray. She set the tray down on the table, and sat herself down in the chair across from me.

“You know, I wondered about that myself,” she said, aiming her eyes (which were every bit as blue as the Duke’s) directly into mine. “I thought, what if there really wasn’t any burglary? What if Judy knew the person who killed her? I asked the police about this, but they said I was barking up the wrong tree-that I had no reason to question their findings. The detective in charge, a nasty little man named Sweeny, actually told me to stop being a busybody. I don’t know about you, but I really hate it when a man patronizes me like that. Makes me want to knock his block off.”

I laughed out loud. Not only did I share Mrs. Londergan’s sentiments about patronizing men, but I knew that if one of them really deserved to get his block knocked off by a woman, she would be the best one for the job.

“Sweeny gave Terry Catcher the brush-off, too,” I told her. “Once he latched onto the random burglary premise, he wouldn’t let go. Case closed. He wouldn’t even consider Terry’s theory about the murder. That’s why Terry asked me to scout around. He’s hoping I can dig up enough evidence to convince the cops to get back on the case.”

“Poor Mr. Catcher,” she said. “Such a nice young man. And so devoted to his sister!”

“Yes,” I said, keeping a lid on my emotions, too pressed for time to sink into the sadness of the situation. “You said you tried to help Judy,” I interjected, hating to change the subject so abruptly, but feeling desperate to speed things up. “What did you mean by that, Mrs. Londergan? What kind of help did Judy need?”

“Call me Elsie,” she said. “My friends all call me Elsie, but my given name is Elspeth.” (I was surprised it wasn’t Marion.) She picked up her tea and slurped it noisily.

“Okay,” I replied, groaning to myself, watching a steady stream of sand plummet to the base of an imaginary hourglass. “Elsie it is.” I held my teacup aloft, as if in a toast, then took a big swig. After nursing my scorched tongue for a second or two, I urgently repeated the question. “So tell me, Elsie, what kind of help did Judy need?”

“Every kind.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Mothering, understanding, encouragement, advice-she needed it all. She was over here all the time, asking me what should she do about this, and what should she do about that, and which blouse looks best with this skirt, and what should she have for dinner, and why does every man she falls in love with have brown eyes? She was a bundle of self-absorption and instability. Just what you would expect from a girl who had no mother, and whose father was a worthless drunk.”