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The text message, so brief, lifted his heart and made him feel ten feet taller. Abby was worried about him. He smiled to himself. The one woman in the world who had really good reasons to hate him, was concerned for him. And not only Abby, but Lucy and Hannah as well. His girls. He smiled.
But he had to take care of business before he could contemplate anything else. He phoned Miss Henry.
“I found something,” she said after he’d identified himself. “It’s not much, just a note she was writing to the detective agency, apparently the night she went out on a date with the murderer and never came home,” she said, sadness in her tone. “But the detective agency is in Houston, Texas,” she began.
“Lassiter,” Cody exploded, recalling that a detective by that name had been in Catelow on business.
“Well, yes, how did you know?” Miss Hunter asked.
“The biggest detective agency in Houston is Lassiter’s. It was a leap of logic.”
“A very nice one, Sheriff. This detective is the son of the founder of the agency, judging from what my sister wrote. Is that some help to you?”
“It is, indeed. Please, keep looking. Did she keep a diary?”
There was a faint gasp. “Yes! I haven’t even looked for it. I’m certain that the killer wouldn’t have found it. She had a secret hiding place that only the two of us knew about. I’ll go look there right now. If I find it, I’ll call you back.”
“Please do! And thank you.”
“We’re sort of on the same side,” she replied, and hung up.
Finally, Cody thought, maybe a break in the case. Now if they could just put the gigolo on the defensive and save Mr. Whatley...
He drew in a long breath. No sense in wearing himself out with things that might not even happen. He knew that the law had to proceed one step at a time.
Meanwhile, he had to deal with the reopening of Debby’s death and the doctor’s presence in her life.
He thought Debby was faithful to him. God knew, he’d been faithful to her. A lawman certainly had opportunities to be something less than that. Many a female suspect was willing to do almost anything to get out of a charge that could lead to a stint in jail. Then, too, there were the obsessed women who fell for the uniform and the muscles that filled it out. Cody had never even been tempted. He was crazy about his wife. He was so happy just to be married to her that he overlooked all sorts of red flags that might have led him to the truth years ago.
Now he had to face it and live with it, and he didn’t know how he was going to manage. He’d lived on memories for so long. He and Anyu, who wasn’t even really meant for him at all. He’d lost Debby and Anyu both. He had nothing left of the life he thought he was living; a life full of joy and sorrow that was a sham. Debby had been in love with another man, a man she could never have. The doctor she loved was in the same position.
Cody had been, how had Dr. Stern put it, collateral damage. He was the one who’d been hurt the most, but he hadn’t known. If he’d stayed in Wyoming, if he’d never come here on this case, trying to save Horace Whatley’s life, he’d never have known about Debby and her lover.
He felt the pain like lightning going through his body. He sat down with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. “Why?” he groaned out loud. “For God’s sake, Debby, why didn’t you just tell me?!”
She couldn’t have. He saw that clearly now. She had to keep her marriage in order to protect the man she really loved, a man who was part of a world that Cody didn’t live in.
He felt a cold emptiness inside himself that he’d never known. He understood that he’d need time to process the new reality, to get used to it. He had to have time.
But he couldn’t let his personal problems stand in the way of a murder investigation. If he could, he had to save Mr. Whatley. Because that gigolo was very possibly going to do his best to get rid of the little man, so that he had full access to Miss Whatley’s fortune. If he’d done that, and succeeded, with Miss Henry’s sister, he was more than capable of trying again. It would have given him a sense of invulnerability, to escape a murder charge and start a whole new life in Florida, with a new victim.
That might give Cody and Dade County Police Chief Dan Brady an edge, because they now had information that Bobby Grant didn’t know about. If only Miss Henry could find that diary, he thought. It might solve a world of problems.
But she phoned him back within half an hour.
“She moved it,” Miss Henry said miserably. “I know that was where she kept it. We shared a fondness for hiding places and secrets. She lived with me, of course, so we shared the secrets. I don’t think he could have found it,” she added. “He was never alone long enough to do any real searching, and he had no idea that Candy even kept a diary. But if I can’t find it, there’s no way to know what she put in it.”
“Did she discuss it with you?” he asked.
“Not really.” There was a pause. “I’m afraid I was rather hostile to her. She was vocal about Bobby Grant. She hated him. She wouldn’t even stay in the apartment when he came to get me for a date. Certainly she wouldn’t have told him that she kept a diary. There would have been no reason.”
“Not unless she threatened him with it,” Cody said quietly.
There was a long sigh. “I didn’t think about that,” she replied. “I’m so sorry. I was sure it was in her hiding place. I’ll keep looking,” she added quickly. “I’m not giving up.”
“Did she have a safe-deposit box?” he asked.
“Well, yes, but she only used it for family heirlooms. Diamond jewelry, mostly. I had occasion to go into the box a week ago. The jewels were still there. I had wondered, you see, if he knew about them, if he might have made a copy of the key.”
