He chewed mechanically, still scanning the street for Sylvie.
“As to your previous question, nothing out of the ordinary. No unusual vehicles, no one lurking outside. On the other hand, Heather would leave her house every Thursday night,” Paula said between bites. “Around seven o'clock. She'd be gone for about ninety minutes, give or take.”
Bit stopped chewing, suddenly alert. Regular, predictable absences hadn't been mentioned in the case files. At least, not that he could recall.
“Every Thursday?”
Paula nodded, taking another bite of her Twizzler.
“Like clockwork. Whatever it was, it was important enough that she never missed it. Not even that Thursday before the blizzard that came through here months before she died. Everyone else was at the grocery store stocking up on breadand milk, but not Heather. She still went out at seven, right on schedule.”
Bit attempted to go through the possibilities. A class? A support group? A secret relationship? He thought of the social media data he'd been scraping. Maybe she’d left a trail of some sort.
“Did she dress up for these outings?”
“Nothing special,” Paula replied, studying the remaining portion of her candy. "Typical everyday clothes. Sometimes she'd carry a bag with her, one of those canvas totes with the long handles.”
Bit glanced out the windshield again, hoping to spot Sylvie, but the landscape remained stubbornly empty. A sense of unease settled in his stomach. This was potentially valuable information, and he was out of his depth conducting this interview alone.
Paula seemed to read his thoughts.
“Your colleague isn't coming back anytime soon. Mrs. Henderson talks even more than I do, and that's saying something.”
“And you have no idea where Heather would go on those evenings?”
“That's what makes it interesting, doesn't it? Nothing happens in Harrowick at seven o'clock on Thursday nights. The community center closes at six. Church activities are on Wednesdays. The only thing open that late is the diner and the gas station.”
Paula paused, her expression shifting slightly. Without warning, she stuck her index finger into her mouth and, to Bit's mounting horror, hooked it around her top dentures. With a practiced motion, she pulled the entire dental plate out with a loud pop and held it in her palm, examining it with clinical detachment.
“Never did get these fitted quite right,” Paula muttered in disgust, using her thumb to adjust something on the underside of the dentures. “These things always get loose after eating sticky food.”
Bit's stomach lurched.
He stared, transfixed by the surreal sight of an elderly woman holding her teeth in her hand as casually as if she were checking her watch. The Twizzler in his stomach threatened to make a reappearance.
Paula tilted her head, eyeing the dentures critically before slipping them back into her mouth with a wet clicking sound. She worked her jaw back and forth, testing the fit.
“Should have used more Fixodent this morning,” Paula exclaimed, seemingly oblivious to Bit's adverse reaction. “Where were we?”
Bit began jostling his knee to get his mind to think of anything else. He even fixed his gaze on a point just over Paula's shoulder, desperately trying to regain his composure.
“Thursday nights, wasn’t it? As I was saying,” Paula continued, reaching into her coat pocket and withdrawing a neatly folded tissue. She dabbed it at the corners of her mouth, then wiped her fingers methodically, one at a time. “It's odd, because nothing is happening around town at seven o'clock. Nothing official, anyway.”
She tucked the used tissue back into her pocket and smoothed her coat with both hands. Bit forced himself to refocus on the conversation, pushing the denture incident to a dark corner of his mind where he hoped it would never resurface.
“Did you share this information with the sheriff?” Bit asked, his voice only slightly strained.
“I did. He took notes. I could see him writing things down, but he didn't seem to think it was any big deal.” Paula sniffeddisapprovingly. “He said lots of young people have standing appointments. Could be anything from therapy to a book club.”
“What about when the FBI came to town? Did you tell them about the Thursday pattern?”
Paula's eyes narrowed slightly at the memory.
“I was on a Caribbean cruise with my sister when they showed up. Ten days on the Royal Princess. First vacation I'd taken in fifteen years. I assumed the sheriff had passed along my information.”
Paula examined the half-eaten Twizzler. She frowned at it before tucking it into her pocket, and Bit breathed a sigh of relief.
“I need to fix these teeth before I finish this,” Paula announced, patting her pocket.
