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It was obvious that he was taking the death almost as hard as she was, as she knew he would. Was she being selfish? Only concerned with her own needs, she wondered? She hadn’t really given much thought to him since Sonya had been more her friend than his, though the two had got to know each other very well over the years.
Still, she should’ve known that the death would hit him just as hard. She blew her horn and waved when he got closer and he drove over, stopping next to her. “I think I’ll go look in on Niall and the children before I go in. What do you have planned?”
“I have some paperwork to take care of then I guess I’ll go check in on them as well sometime this afternoon.” She nodded her head and put the car in gear. “I’ll see you later then.” She smiled and started to drive off but he stopped her.
“Hey, I thought you might take the day off, you know, because of…” His voice tapered off because he still wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. He’d decided to let her be the one to bring it up when she was ready.
“No-no, I think it’s best that I keep busy, that way I won’t sit around and think about it. I’m afraid if I stop moving I’ll never be able to pick myself up again. It still hasn’t quite set in that she’s gone you know.”
Riley regretted bringing it up at the look of sadness on his wife’s face. Yesterday she’d been a mess. He’d never seen his always well-put together wife that close to unraveling before and he knew that the wildness of the night they’d shared was a result.
But he knew that nothing could hold back the grief that she’d face in the coming days and wanted to be there when the enormity of her friend’s death finally hit home. Maybe it was a good idea for her to keep busy like she said; everyone has their own way of dealing with loss. So he nodded his head in agreement, putting his own unease aside for now. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
“Were you just in the woods?”
“Not really, I just drove up there but I didn’t get out. I’m still finding it hard to accept you know. She was so close. While she was being murdered I was not more than a few hundred feet away in one of the barns looking after the sick calf.”
He wiped his hand across his face and shook his head as his wife nodded her head and drove off. She was acting just the way he’d come to expect. In the last few years she’d gone from a sweet, bright, fun loving girl, to this cold person he hardly knew.
Last night he’d seen a glimpse of the woman he’d married, but he was afraid there was something else beneath it. Like grief, the grief of losing someone very close to her. He’d just have to keep an eye on her is all, make sure he was there to catch her when she fell as he was sure she would.
She was wound so tight there’s no question that she’d hit a wall soon. He headed back to the house to grab some breakfast since he’d missed dinner last night, his mind going to the beautiful woman who’d lost her life and the children she’d left behind.
Sonya had been such an integral part of their lives he was finding it hard to accept her passing, he didn’t think he ever would. It was harder when someone as young and vibrant as she was lost their life no matter how it came about. But the way she’d died… He shook his head to dispel the images that intruded.
He was going to miss their chats and truth be told their secret meetings. Meetings that neither his wife nor her husband would’ve understood. He shook his head once more as he entered the house, leaving the climbing morning heat behind him.
Detective Sparks checked her watch again for the third time in as many minutes. She was late, the gallery was supposed to be open half an hour ago. “What an idiot. Ugh!” She slapped herself on the forehead. “Of course she won’t be coming in today, her best friend just died.”
She sat and thought of her next move before deciding against going out to the farm. She’d give the grieving friend one more day or a few more hours at the very least. She made a U-turn and headed back in the opposite direction towards the station house. There was plenty for her to do in the meantime.
She’d called the tech with the passcode while waiting in the car for Mrs. O’Rourke to show up but he’d called back with the news that it hadn’t worked. That got her mind going again. Why would a married woman change her passcode from the date of her wedding anniversary?
Had there been tension in the marriage? A falling out of some kind? Or was she hiding something? It made sense, the lengths she’d gone to. Why go to all that trouble if she didn’t have something to hide?
She pulled into the parking lot outside the ranch style red brick building that housed the police station. There were only five fulltime staffers here, and a handful of volunteers when they were needed.
She’d already been fielding calls from the mayor and knew that if she didn’t have something soon to keep him off her back he’d bring in the state patrol. Something she didn’t want to happen, because she didn’t want to lose her first real case since moving to the small town.
But the way things were looking she didn’t hold out much hope that she’d be left at the helm. Time was of the essence but no amount of time was going to help if she didn’t get a clue as to what was going on. And going over and over the case in her head was only leaving her with more questions than answers. What a mess!
“Morning boss! I’ve already got started on those leads like you said but I don’t think we’re going to find any help there. Two of the places that ordered the acid are commercial cleaners, office buildings, that kinda stuff and the rest are housekeepers.”
“I’ve spoken to a few of them and we can go have a talk with them if you’d like, but they’re all sixty if they’re a day. I don’t see any one of them going into the woods and nailing that freakish clown to a tree and all the rest of it. And I didn’t find a connection between the victim and any of those women.”
“All the same we’ll go talk to all of them. It’s the only lead we have now that we’re getting nowhere with the phone. Did you hear from Andy?” He shook his head and went back to his computer screen.
Detective Sparks went to her own desk to go over her notes one last time before heading out again. There was something niggling at the back of her mind but she couldn’t quite grasp what that something was. Whoever had done this had given it a lot of thought.
At first glance it may seem like an accident, just a string of coincidences that came together to bring forth this one disastrous outcome. But it was too clean, too compact. The clown, the trap, and the acid waiting for the victim to fall into.
If any one of those things were off by just a smidge the whole thing would’ve been avoided. So how did they know that it would work? How had they calculated so precisely? She was sure that whoever it was hadn’t stuck around otherwise old man Doss would’ve seen them or at least heard them running off.
The key was in there somewhere she was sure. She needed to get into that phone, to at least have that thread to tug on before she could move forward, but the phone was a dead-end unless she found the new code and she was certain Niall Davis would be of no help there.
“Let’s go Pete, I want to take a run at those housekeepers but first I think we need to stop by the Davis place on the way. There’re some things I forgot to ask him.” She headed for the coffee pot in the break room and poured some lukewarm coffee in her carry mug after dumping in enough sugar to put her in a coma and a good dollop of cream.
She didn’t miss the look on Pete’s face, it’s a running argument between the two of them, how bad her sugar intake is, but he let her off easy this time with just a shake of his head. “You know people are already speculating as to what really happened.” He mentioned as he held the door open for her.
“Old widow Connors stopped me on my way in this morning to give me her take.”
“And what did she have to say?”
“Witchcraft of course and she knows just who’s responsible.”
“Let me guess, her neighbor Mrs. Ivory.”
“You guessed it. They’ve been at it again; she swears Mrs. Ivory sprayed her hedges with something that’s killing it. She wants us to come out and take a look.” She nodded her head and made a note of it.
This was a once monthly occurrence, them having to go out there to keep the peace and it wouldn’t make a difference to the eighty year old woman or her seventy-eight year old neighbor that they had a murder to solve. Life in a small town sure had its little peccadilloes. But she wouldn’t change it for anything. She’s never once missed her life back in the city, and was now entrenched in this place she now called home.
