Mystery Solved

So then Colette asks me if I liked the valentine she gave me.

"What valentine?" I ask.

"You know," she says. "The one with the kitties."

This after I have already embarrassed myself with all three of my suspects. This after have already called the girl Watson to my Holmes.

"Colette," I say. "do you mean the valentine that I have spent the past two weeks trying to discover who it came from? That one?"

Colette looked confused. "You didn't know that was from me? I thought you'd gotten a mystery valentine and that's what we were trying to find. I thought you recognized the kitty one."

"Recognize it?" I said. "what do you mean recognize it? That wasn't your handwriting."

"I know," she says. "It's yours."

"What?

"You gave me that card when we were in first grade."

I took the card out of my bag. Yes I have been carrying it around all the time so shut up. The written words were wobbly but I guess that could have been my handwriting back then. And the "Margi" I guess could have been a signature rather than a greeting. And I guess I have always liked kitties.

But then ni reverted quickly to Sherlock Vachon mode, all suspicious-like.

"Wait just a minute," I said. "How did you get this, then?"

See, when Colette died and came back her parents literally chased her off of her front lawn with garden implements and wouldn't let her return. And then they moved away and didn't tell her where they were going.

"My brother," she said, and she was smiling. "He's back from the war. He found some of my things in the basement of my parents' new home and sent them to me."

"Your brother? How did he find you?"

"He saw my photo on the Virual Wall of the Dead," she said. He never believed them when they told him I didn't come back.". She sort of laughed. "Margi, he's going to come see me."

I shrieked right there in the hallway and hugged her because I was so happy for her. And because her brother is kind of hot, at let he was a few years ago when he left for his service. I was so happy I didn't even mind that I didn't really have a secret admirer and that nobody loves me and I am destined to die a lonely old spinster with a dozen cats.

Ok maybe I was a little disappointed. But mostly I was just happy for my friend.