Chapter 5

Dad left Ken’s question unanswered, but after maybe ten minutes of silence, he leaned his forearms on the table and reflected it back at him. “Who do you think might have killed her?”

Ken scratched his cheek. “She didn’t have a whole lot of friends in town, but she had been going out more lately.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “It’s going to come out. I thought there may have been someone else. Or that maybe she was back to her old—”

A loud banging downstairs interrupted him.

“Liz, could you?” Dad said.

I nodded and went to see what the commotion was. With the shop lights on, I could see someone pounding on our front door, but I couldn’t identify the two figures, lit only by the streetlights and flashing of the emergency response vehicles. As I drew closer, their faces came into dim focus. Reynolds paused to tent his eyes and peer inside the shop. The mayor stood next to him.

“Good evening, Miss McCall,” Mayor Briggs said as I cracked opened the door. Then he glanced at his watch. “Or rather morning. May we come in?”

I pulled the door open a little wider.

Reynolds looked around. “Is Ken still here?”

“He’s upstairs with Dad.”

“Can we see him, please?” Reynolds said.

“Sure. Right this way.” I couldn’t recall if Mayor Briggs had set foot in our store. At least not since the grand opening where he’d wished Dad and me the best of luck in all our endeavors. It struck me as a cold and rather generic speech, considering how long and hard Dad had served “at the pleasure of the mayor.”

The balding, slightly portly man was considerably older than Lori, or at least appeared to be. He had only three years on her, but without the benefit of Lori’s spa maintenance and pricy makeup, his age was much more apparent in the deep lines around his eyes and the wattle of his neck.

I cleared my throat when I reached the top of the stairs, lest the mayor and the department’s senior detective catch Ken saying something incriminating. Not that I thought he was guilty.

The coffeepot gurgled again and Dad was poised to get the first cup when I pulled open the door. He glanced up at me, then at Reynolds and the mayor as they cleared the threshold.

“Howard. Mayor,” Dad said as he nodded to them.

“Hank.” Mayor Briggs surveyed our small apartment, made even smaller by the piles of cardboard boxes.

Of course the day the mayor comes to call is when we look ready to appear on an episode of Hoarders. I straightened the chairs at the table, as if that made a difference. “Would you care to sit? Coffee?”

Mayor Briggs waved me off. “We won’t be but a moment,” he said, his attention on Dad. “I suppose you heard what happened.”

“I got the gist of it,” Dad said.

“We just learned the news crews are on their way. We’re going to have to make a statement.”

Ken pushed himself out of his chair. “Give me a moment to clean up.”

But the mayor shook his head vehemently. “I don’t want you anywhere near a camera. In fact …” He paused and drew a long breath.

“You’re firing me?” Ken said.

The mayor laid a calming hand on Ken’s arm. “Let’s call it a temporary paid suspension, pending the results of a thorough, impartial investigation.”

Ken’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t raise an argument. Finally, he clapped Reynolds on the shoulder. “Howard’s a good man. He’ll get the job done.”

“Not me.” Reynolds put up his hands. “They don’t pay me enough to touch this one. I’m not going to lead an investigation that could end up …”

Ken quirked an eyebrow.

“Sorry, boss,” Reynolds said.

“Don’t apologize for loyalty, son,” Dad said before turning back to the mayor. “So, what are you going to do?”

The mayor grinned at Dad, the first smile since the men had entered the room. “Hank?”

The meaning of that smile washed over me instantaneously. “No!” I said.

The mayor ignored me and kept his gaze on Dad. My stomach was performing rhythmic gymnastics in anticipation of the words I knew would follow.

“Would you consider serving as interim chief of police? Just until we can clear this mess up?”

Dad didn’t respond immediately. He studied the mayor’s pudgy face before redirecting his gaze toward Reynolds. Then he looked at Ken’s blank expression. Finally, Dad sent a brief apologetic glance to me. “My daughter may kill me.” He shook the mayor’s hand. “Yes, I’ll serve as interim.”

“You can be impartial?” the mayor asked.

Dad took a long breath. “Always.”

*   *   *

While Dad, Reynolds, and Mayor Briggs turned our kitchen into a war room, strategizing how best to confront the media, I was elected to drive Ken home.

“My truck is here,” Ken said, pulling out his keys.

Dad made a grab for them. “You’re in no condition. I’ll get someone to drive it home for you. Uh, permission to search the vehicle?”

Ken had stared, or perhaps glared, for a moment. I held my breath wondering if he’d make Dad try for a search warrant. He’d probably not get one. What might he be looking for in the truck? If Marya was strangled with an object close to hand, there would be no missing weapon, no gun, smoking or otherwise. But there might be evidence of the couple’s recent marital disputes.

Ken threw up his hands. “Have at it.”

He pushed himself out of his chair and out the door so fast, I rushed to gather my purse and follow him. Fortunately my Civic was parked in the alley behind the store, so at least I didn’t need to face the responders, the bystanders, and the media in my Scooby-Doo pajamas.

I drove a couple of blocks out of the way to avoid doubling back down Main Street, not that it was open to traffic yet.

“You know where?” Ken said.

“Yeah,” I said.

When Marya had moved to town, Ken had given up his rented bachelor digs and had purchased a smallish house just a few blocks off Main. I might have driven past it once or twice, especially early on. It was probably the petty part of me that inspected Marya’s attempts at landscaping and choice of drapery colors and found them wanting.

Jealous? You betcha, not that I admitted that to anyone.

But this time I pulled in the drive noting that Marya would never return to her little starter home, and it just made me sad. Sad for her. Sad for Ken.

I shifted the car into park, turned off the headlights, and silenced the engine. Ken made no motion to get out.

“You okay?” I asked.

He sniffed and stared down at the dashboard. “Can you come in for a minute?”

“I’m not quite sure I should.”

“Liz,” he said, gripping my hand. “I didn’t kill her.”

I gave it a squeeze. “I know that. But you know what this town is like. If some neighbor sees me going into your house right after your wife …”

He flung his head backward into the headrest. “I’m beginning to hate small towns. As soon as this whole thing is over, I’m packing up and moving to the biggest city that’ll hire me. That is, of course, if your father doesn’t lock me up and throw away the key out of spite.”

“He wouldn’t do that. If you’re innocent, he’ll clear you and find the killer.”

“If?”

“A logical argument. Of course I think you’re innocent. The argument I heard could have occurred between any married couple.”

“What argument?”

“The fight you had in the barber shop yesterday afternoon.”

“You could hear that through the wall? Did your father hear?”

“He wasn’t in the shop,” I said, not volunteering that I’d had my ear to the drywall. Before Ken could look too relieved, I added, “Besides, you admitted as much to him in conversation sitting at our kitchen table. Also that you suspected there was someone else.”

Ken’s eyelids popped as if this was news to him. “That’s not something I know for sure. Just that she’d been secretive lately, going out more. I’d caught her lying to me, and I was trying to get to the bottom of it.” He turned to look out the passenger window. “They’re going to crucify me.”

“Not legal in this state,” I quipped.

“Liz, I need your help.” He paused to take a long, deep breath. “Keep me apprised of the investigation?”

“I’ll do what I can to help, but I’m not sure my father’s going to tell me much. He’ll try to keep me out of it. Maybe you should step back, too.”

“What am I supposed to do? Sit on my hands?”

A nearby porch light flickered on, and I pulled back my hand, which he’d been clutching until this point. “Did Marya have any family to notify?”

“None that she kept in touch with,” he said. “Long story.” He rubbed his hands down his thighs. “But I suppose I should call my sisters. They kept in contact even when I thought our marriage was over. I honestly think they liked her better than they like me sometimes.” He stared at his house through the windshield, making no move to go. “They had a lot to do with Marya coming here. I don’t think they wanted to lose her as a sister-in-law.” He glanced up at me. “You’d like them, I think. But they’re a force to be reckoned with.”

If they were responsible for sending Marya, I doubted we’d get along all that well, but I just nodded.

“So one phone call,” he said, “and then I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ve never been that good at thumb-twiddling. Any pointers?”

“Frankly,” I said, “my technique is a little rusty, too. But try to get some sleep. Take a shower. Eat a good breakfast. And put all those little gray cells of yours, as Hercule Poirot might say, into coming up with a list of anyone you think had a motive to kill your wife.”

“Other than me, you mean.” He reached for the door handle.

“Other than you.” I turned the engine back on and watched as he made his way, shoulders hunched, into his dark, silent home.