MONICA
popped into my head as if it had been on the tip of my tongue since the day I first saw her in Lake Geneva, almost a week ago. My unmarked vehicle moved at a crawl down Main Street through traffic already growing thick for the upcoming weekend, never mind the rain. The petite Hispanic woman with the long, dark hair had embraced Roland Markham, then gotten into a black sedan with Illinois plates and driven away. I was too far away to read the numbers, but it was probably a rental.
What on earth was she doing here? Details of my interview with her in Los Angeles flashed through my mind. She’d sat on her fancy white sofa, looked me in the eye, and swore she’d never heard of Lake Geneva before. That she’d never met her husband’s childhood friends, Bobby and Jason. In fact, she denied that Fritz Geissler was her husband at all. She insisted his rightful name was Will Read and that he had been born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Then why was she here? Hugging Bobby Markham’s father? When I interviewed her at her home, my conclusion was that she had been as deceived as anyone about her husband’s identity and background. But was she?
I slipped into her parking spot and hopped out of the SUV. Roland was still standing under the awning outside Egg Harbor, hands in his cardigan pockets as he watched Angelica drive away.
“Hey, Roland.” Rain tapped against my black weatherproof jacket with the embroidered badge on the left breast.
“Monica.” Roland grinned, straightening as he saw me. “How are you this fine, wet day?”
I stepped next to him under the protection of the canopy and nodded at the retreating black sedan. “Wasn’t that Angelica Read?” I pushed my hands into my pockets to keep them warm.
“Why, yes. She mentioned you two had met.”
“How do you know her?”
“We bumped into each other at the library. Struck up a conversation and found out we had… well, that we had common connections.”
I shifted an eyebrow. They’d just happened to meet… at the library? Then again, what were the alternatives? That she and Roland had known each other all along? If that were the case, how? She’d married Fritz years after he vanished. If Roland knew her, then he’d known where Fritz was—and never told me. The initial investigation had cleared him of any involvement in the Markham Ring—I’d double checked every detail personally.
The next possibility was that Angelica had sought Roland out on purpose. I remembered her tears and shouts during our interview. She’d been the inconsolable, terrified, disbelieving wife—not buying for a minute that her husband was a fugitive living under a false identity.
But did I buy that? How could a woman be married to a guy for fifteen years and have no idea who he really was?
“She’s a long way from LA,” I commented.
“Yes.” Roland shrugged. “Well, you can understand, I’m sure. Her husband’s death, the truth of his past—such a shock. She came to see the place where he grew up.”
“Why?” I asked, perhaps too bluntly.
Roland looked at me, befuddled, offended even. “To get to know him. Granted, most people square that away during the dating phase, but not every couple is that traditional.”
I couldn’t help grinning acknowledgment of his witty and annoyed comeback. I nodded my chin in the direction Angelica had driven. “Looks like you two hit it off.”
“Yes. We had many memories to exchange.”
“What did you tell her?”
Roland’s sky-blue eyes turned a little harder. “Everything I could,” he said firmly. “She has a right to know, don’t you agree?”
I decided to try to cool the conversation down. “Sure, yeah,” I said with a generous shrug. But was it really a coincidence that she’d managed to find Roland Markham, one of the few people in Lake Geneva who had known all three members of the Markham Ring intimately? What did she want from him?
“You’re upset with me, aren’t you?” Roland went on. “You think I’ve told her too much.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you thought it. Tell me, Monica, does solving crime mean we must all cease to be decent people? She lost her husband.”
I sighed. I hadn’t wanted this to turn into an argument. “I just want you to stay safe,” I said. “I don’t know much about Angelica Read—”
He pointed across the street. “You don’t know much about that woman, either, I’ll wager.” He’d indicated a random shopper with paper boutique bags in her hand and an umbrella over her shoulder.
Heat rose to my face, despite the cold in the air. His point was irrelevant. “Angelica was directly connected to one of the members of the Markham Ring—a member whose murder is still unsolved.” I motioned toward the lake. “We found his body at the end of your pier. Did you tell her that?”
Roland met my gaze and nodded soberly. “Yes, I did.” In the tense silence that followed, the raindrops drummed on the awning. “You believe she’s a suspect?”
“At the least, she’s a witness who has proved very uncooperative.”
“Well. I won’t interfere with your job. Mistrust is the price you paid, I suppose, when you donned the badge.” He lifted his thin white eyebrows. “Lucky for me, I never took any such oaths of office. Which means I can blithely go on treating her like any decent human being—one who just lost her husband violently and tragically.”
I wasn’t sure if his naivety made me love him or hate him. I sighed. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
He grinned. “If I had a dollar for every time you told me to be careful, I’d be a rich man.”
I scoffed. “You are a rich man. But you’ll be a dead rich man if you don’t start taking that promise more seriously.”
“Well.” Roland smiled. “I can think of a number of charities that will be delighted to finally receive my estate.”
I groaned and turned away. My conversations with him made me feel as if I were running in a hamster wheel. I felt his hand on my arm and looked at him again.
“I don’t mean to distress you, Monica. I’m sorry.”
Well, that was something anyway. I sighed. “Will you let me know if Angelica does or says anything strange?”
He hesitated, mouth open as if he wanted to speak but thought better of it.
I frowned. “Roland, what do you know? What has she said to you?”
He groaned. “I really do think the two of you need to sit down and have a good talk sometime.”
“We already had a talk.”
“It wasn’t a very good one.”
“Well, don’t worry. I have every intention of talking to her again.”
“All she wants is to know who killed her husband and why.”
“I’ll notify her as soon as we have information.”
Roland looked away and rocked on the balls of his feet. “Unless she notifies you first,” he muttered absently.
“What’s that?” His meaning clicked into place. “She’s investigating her husband’s death?”
Roland looked momentarily guilty, as if he’d said something he wasn’t supposed to. But immediately afterwards, he turned defensive. “Well, can you blame her? It’s been three weeks without a scrap of information. The girl is starving for answers.”
“Has she found anything?”
“No. Of course not. You know best that clues to this case aren’t exactly littering the ground.”
I nodded, feeling justified. “But you’ll tell me if she finds anything?”
“As I’ve already said, the two of you ought to sit down and have a good talk.”
“Work with her?”
“Well, yes. Why not?”
“She’s not law enforcement.”
“And she wasn’t born yesterday, either. I think you’re missing an opportunity.”
“Duly noted. In the meantime, you’ll at least tell me if she says or does anything strange?”
He scoffed. “I hardly think—”
I hardened my gaze. “Roland, I’m about to investigate the very real possibility that Angelica Read knew exactly who her husband was and what he did. I don’t know how deeply involved she could be or what her goals and motives are. And so I want to know why she came here and why she’s talking to you, someone who knew Bobby, Fritz, and Jason closely. She could be playing you for information.”
His brow went stormy—an expression I’d never seen on him before. “I’ve told you why she came.”
“And I’ll accept that—for now. In the meantime, please, please be careful.”
“I promise,” he said, underscoring his words with a lift of his shoulders. “If Angelica does or says anything strange, you will be the first to know.”
“Good.” I pulled the car keys out of my pocket and stepped back into the rain. “Stay safe,” I said, pointing a finger at him.
“Duly noted,” he said, throwing my own words back at me.
I wagged my head and got back into the SUV. There was no helping Roland Markham, and it annoyed the piss out of me.