Chapter Twelve

“Why would you care?”

“I don’t know, Dad. That’s the same question she asked.”

“She being the widow?”

“Yes.”

“So? Why would you care?”

“I guess because I don’t believe she should be in jail. And I take some responsibility for that.”

“Because no one told her not to leave town?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t that be obvious?”

“Not necessarily to a young woman whose husband was just brutally murdered, who was sedated, and who wasn’t thinking clearly.”

The Sheriff was making one of his rare appearances at the courthouse and was seated in his office with nothing much to do except show the flag, so to speak. Staff members and Deputies stopped in to pay their respects. They lifted his spirits.

“Judge Hiller, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to him.”

“Were he to lower the bail to a more manageable number, her parents could likely post it. Be good if he could do it right away. She’s still in some kind of emotional shock. Being in jail is tough on her.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I stood and stepped over to him. I squeezed his shoulder and rested my hand gently on his cheek for a moment.

“Don’t go getting all soft and mushy on me, Buddy,” he said.

“I’ll try my best.”

When I reached the door, he called to me. “You’re not interested in this woman, are you?”

“Interested?”

“You’re not doing this because you’re attracted to her? Like you were with the last one.”

“The last one?”

“The Reverend’s sister.”

“Why would you say a thing like that?”

“You know what I’m getting at, Buddy. Best not to shit where you eat.”

I stared at him. “You know, Regina has a point.”

“About?”

“About what a profane son of a bitch you are.”

He flashed me his most sardonic grin. “And proud of it, too.”

The conversation with my father was unsettling. It’s true I might have stepped over the line when I became involved with Maggie de Winter, the sister of the con-artist preacher I had been investigating when we met.

I keep telling myself it was inadvertent. A sudden, irresistible itch that I scratched before realizing what I was doing.

But psychoanalysis had taught me that this type of self-justification was bullshit. Unconsciously, I had set myself up for a fall and, while I became mired in self-pity for a moment when it ended, I knew damn well it was doomed right from the start. We were both emotionally unavailable, but despite that, I had lurched forward with un-evolved blindness.

“Be wary of participating in a conspiracy against yourself,” my shrink always told me.

Which is what I had not done with Maggie. And I paid a price for it.

I vowed not to succumb to my feral instincts. Kimber Carson was damaged goods and taking advantage of her vulnerability, although tempting, was another way of emotionally shooting myself in the foot. I would do what I could to help her because I had a measure of guilt over her having left town. But as for hooking up with her, no way, no how.

My musings were interrupted by the insistent intrusion of my cell phone. “What?”

“You need to see something,” Johnny Kennerly barked back at me.

“What do I need to see?”

“It’s beyond description. You have to see it for yourself.”

“Where?”

“Temple Israel.”

“When?”

“Rabbi Weiner is waiting for you.”

“And you?”

“I’m with him.”

The call served to postpone my musings about the possibility that I might once again be on the threshold of behaving neurotically. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

With a sigh of relief, I said, “I’m on my way.”