Page 44 of A Seer and Present Danger

“Good choice.” She stood and took my keys. “Let me get this to Laura. She’ll take care of it.”

She jingled out through the back door, called for Laura, and came back.

“Cash or credit?”

I gave her my card and tried not to wince as she rang me up. Luxury meant you paid for it, too, but it bought me time to talk to her.

“You can sit over there,” she said. “It’s going to take a while.”

“Thank you.” I made a point to look at the name plaque she had propped on her desk. “I’m really sorry to hear about your husband.”

She held my gaze long enough I couldn’t tell what emotion was rolling behind all that make-up.

Then she lifted one shoulder. “He did a lot of things. Things that made people mad. I always told him he’d regret it. Treating people like that. He’d laugh and tell me they’d have to catch him first.”

Her gaze locked down again, and I had a feeling she couldn’t see me. I had a feeling she saw him, laughing at her. Or maybe she saw him trying to run while she stabbed him in the back.

“They caught him,” she said. “Easy as that. Someone caught him. He’s not laughing now, is he?”

“No,” I said. “I suppose not.”

She shook her head, sniffed, and moved over to her desk.

For a widow of a recently murdered man, she didn’t seem to be all that upset. But then, people handled grief differently. Maybe working, pretending that things were normal, that this had been inevitable, was her way to process such a sad reality.

Plus, he’d been her almost ex. Maybe she was glad he was permanently gone.

“Do you know who he was going to see at the diner?” I asked.

She jiggled the mouse and clicked, starting up the deer again.

“He didn’t talk to me,” she said to the screen. “Not anymore. You know how it is.” She glanced over, then away. “Being married for so many years. He had better things to do than talk to me. Plus, he was leaving.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Everyone says that. But I had better things to do too. Better people to be with. He could have his secret little business deals. He could have his delusion of scoring that million-dollar hit. I knew what he’d do if he ever fell into that kind of money. He’d just throw it all away trying to get more.

“Just like he threw away everything good trying to get better. Only he never got anything better. He got killed.”

“Do you know who would have done that? Killed him?”

“You sound like the police. Ask them. I say it’s Jean Reed. She was there. She could have killed him over the three hundred parking tickets he hadn’t paid. I wouldn’t even blame her.”

“But if it wasn’t Jean? Who else might have wanted him dead?”

“Well, me.” She glanced at me and laughed, a hard rattle of a sound. “Of course I’m a suspect. Wife, right? The killer is usually someone the victim knows? I must be at the top of the list.”

“Did you kill him, Gail?” I asked softly.

“I maybe wanted to sometimes.” She clicked the screen.

It switched to street food. Someone pouring batter. She watched the cook work the grill, laying out dozens of identical puddles in rows. The chef added piles of shredded cabbage on top of the batter.

“You wanted to?” I prompted.

“Sure. But I didn’t.” Her eyes flicked up, then back to the food. Eggs were getting involved. “He wasn’t worth it. He cheated on me. More than once. Took my savings. Why would I kill him if he was already dead to me? I was leaving anyway.”

“For Kenny?”