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ANGELA WAS ALREADY outside her door when I stepped from my car and walked toward her house. She was dressed much more casual this time, wearing shorts that revealed her long, fit legs. Her baggy buttoned-down shirt looked like it might’ve been a man’s. It looked good on her the way she had it unbuttoned low on her chest. She didn’t seem to be shy about showing off what she knew she had. For a woman her age, I didn’t blame her. She looked as good as someone half her age.
She stood in her bare feet, holding a glass of wine, and smiled as she held open the door. “Thanks for coming out here,” she said. She gestured for me to walk in ahead of her. “I hope you don’t mind driving out this way.”
We turned into a living room where a piano caught my eye. I nodded toward it. “Do you play?”
She shrugged. “A little.”
I looked around the room with an oversized couch and two smaller couches surrounding a square, glass coffee table. There was a small bar built into the wall on one side of the room with four stools and shelves stocked with bottles of liquor.
Compared to John and Michelle’s house, it was quite modest. At least in size. But there was something cozy about it I liked.
“John and I bought this house together. It was our first big purchase. I remember it like it was yesterday. Felt like we broke the bank at the time. If I’d only known what it’d be worth today. I would have bought more just like it.”
“I’d never leave my house,” I said as I glanced back at the piano.
“Do you play any instruments?”
I shrugged. “I used to. Had a piano growing up, and used to play guitar. But it’s been a long time. If I could fit a piano on my boat...”
She nodded toward the bar. “Well, I know you like to enjoy a drink, right?” She walked around the other side of the bar and first topped off her glass of wine. Then she reached for a rocks glass and opened the freezer door. With her back to me, I heard ice cubes hit the bottom of the glass. She turned and poured a healthy pour of Jack Daniels, then slid it across the bar. She held up two fingers. “Two cubes.” She smiled.
I raised my drink to her and took a sip.
Angela came back around to my side but walked past me and sat down on the couch. She put her hand down on the seat next to her. “Come sit down,” she said.
I pretended I didn’t notice and took a seat on the smaller couch to her left as she sipped her wine and watched me over the top of her glass.
She said, “Did I already apologize for not making it into our meeting yesterday? I try not to ever let that happen, but—”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Not a big deal.”
“Sometimes there’s a lot of handholding involved with Roy. John happened to be the one who handled his account, but...”
“I met his son earlier yesterday.”
“Brian?”
“Does he have more than one?”
She started to shake her head, but put her glass down on the table. “He had a son who was killed in an ATV accident. He was just four years old at the time.”
“Four? And he was riding on an ATV?”
Angela closed her eyes for a brief moment. “It was such a tragedy. You’d think it’d destroy a man, but Roy’d never let you see that side of him. A man’s man, I guess is what you’d call him.”
I took a sip of Jack and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, holding the glass. “Was John like that?”
“Like what?”
“A man’s man.”
Angela laughed as she tucked her bare leg under the other and leaned with her elbow on one end of the couch. Her body was stretched out as she turned in my direction. “John wasn’t a man’s man. But you would call him a lady’s man. Which is what’d gotten him in trouble throughout his life.”
“So they weren’t that much alike?”
“Who, John and Roy?” She let out a slight laugh and shook her head. “Not at all, really. Roy liked his Budweiser and anything made in America. John liked Paris and wine and foreign cars.”
“But they got along?”
She shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Were they friends? Or was it more about business?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure it was a little of both.” Angela got up from the couch and walked around to the other side of the bar. She poured more wine into her glass and held the bottle of Jack out toward me. “Would you like to top it off?”
I stood up as I finished what was left in my glass. I slid it across the bar and Angela dropped two cubes inside then poured a healthy shot over the top.
I leaned with my hands down on the bar. “Michelle was pretty surprised to see me, you know.”
She sipped her wine. “What did you expect? She had no idea I’d hired you.”
I looked down into my glass. “She made it sound like you two don’t get along very well?”
Angela huffed out a laugh and rolled her eyes. “That’s just Michelle being Michelle. She’s always been a little paranoid. ”
“It’s just...I know you’re his ex-wife. But being his business partner, I found it a little odd the two of you barely talked.”
She gave me a look. “What exactly would you have liked us to talk about?”
I thought for a moment. “I was just surprised she’d never even been to your office.”
Angela’s eyebrows dropped down over her eyes. “She told you that?”
I nodded. “Why? Is it not true?”
Angela took a moment, looked as if she was thinking it through. “I have no idea, to be honest.” She threw back her wine and emptied what little was left in the bottle into her glass. As she walked around to my side of the bar, she said, “I wasn’t being totally honest with you. I know you met Brian. Roy called me, told me what’d happened.”
I stared back at her. “You knew?”
She nodded. “He said you broke his nose.”
I hesitated to go into the details. “He followed me out the door. He was looking for a fight. All he said was he didn’t want me asking questions about John.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Brian’s a little hot under the collar. But you have to understand...in some ways, John was like family to him.”
I stepped away from the bar and turned to her. “Why didn’t you say you knew when I told you I’d met him?” I shook my head. “I’m not going to play games here, Angela.”
She swallowed hard, looked past me for a moment as if she was afraid to look me in the eye. “I said I was sorry.”
“Then why won’t you tell me who I should be looking at? If there’s something you’re not telling me...”
Angela moved back to the couch with her glass of wine.
“Angela, I need to know everything. About the business, about his personal life...about your personal life. You can’t leave out any details. Who were his enemies?”
Angela sipped her wine. “I wish I could tell you more. I mean, of course John wasn’t loved by everyone. Who is? He burnt some bridges over the years. When you stay in the same business and live in the same place for most of your life, chances are at some point you’re going to step on someone’s toes.”
“But there’s nobody you can think of? Not a single person whose name you can give me?”
She looked me in the eye. “All I can tell you is when I heard John had died out there at the park...the first thought that entered my mind was somebody must’ve killed him.”