Читать книгу The Lawman's Legacy - Shirlee McCoy - Страница 12

THREE

Forty years.

That’s how long it had been since someone had been murdered in Fitzgerald Bay.

Scratch that.

It had been twelve hours since someone had been murdered in Fitzgerald Bay. At least, that was the coroner’s assessment, but Douglas hoped he was wrong. His brother Charles had a foolproof alibi for the morning. He’d left his house at eight, been at their father’s place by eight-fifteen. The entire Fitzgerald clan and a few friends had seen him there.

A good alibi for the wrong time.

Which wasn’t a good alibi at all.

That worried Douglas. Not because he suspected his brother, but because other people might.

A divorced doctor with a pretty young woman living in an apartment attached to his house had given the gossip mongers plenty to talk about. Would romance bloom between the divorced doctor and the Irish nanny? Would they marry and live happily ever after?

Douglas had laughed at the whispered speculations.

He wasn’t laughing now.

As much as he loved the townspeople, he knew that they’d find plenty more to whisper about now that Olivia was gone. Had Charles murdered Olivia in a fit of rage because she’d rejected him? Had there been a lover’s spat? Had the handsome doctor killed the woman who cared for his children?

Olivia had been young and sweet and, seemingly, vulnerable. Where she’d lived, where she’d died, those things were circumstantial evidence that could make people eye Charles with suspicion.

Douglas couldn’t let that happen.

Charles had been through a lot, and it was time for him to have a little peace. Hopefully, Douglas’s visit with Merry would provide evidence, something, that would keep people from whispering and speculating. Evidence that would lead to a killer. That’s what Douglas needed, and it’s what he planned to find.

He pulled up in front of Merry’s house, eyeing the small yellow Cape Cod. White shutters. Small porch. Toys littering the front yard. Nothing unusual about that, but there’d been something in her eyes when she’d seen Keira dusting for prints. Not just grief. Fear. Stark and dark and shimmering in the depth of her chocolate brown eyes.

He opened the gate, walked into the yard. She’d cleaned things up in the year that she’d lived in the house. Cut back shrubs and trimmed the old crab apple tree. Painted the siding and trim.

Made the little house into a warm and cozy home.

But as far as Douglas knew, she never had anyone over to visit. No church socials hosted at the O’Leary place. No playgroups with mothers and kids hanging out in the little yard. Maybe she’d had Olivia over once or twice, but that seemed to be the extent of Merry’s desire to play hostess. As a matter of fact, she’d announced that things weren’t working out between them a few minutes after Douglas had suggested he pick her and Tyler up after work and take them for an evening picnic in the park.

Merry had seemed truly horrified by the idea.

Just as she’d seemed horrified by the idea of Douglas stopping by her place to conduct the interview.

Too bad.

He was about to step into her world, whether she liked it or not.

He knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again.

The door swung open. No strawberry-haired, soft-eyed woman, though. Instead, a dark-haired, black-eyed little boy looked up at him, his deeply tanned skin flushed with excitement.

“You the police?”

“I am, but you should have asked who I was before you opened the door, pal.”

“I’m not Pal. I’m Tyler.”

“Tyler William O’Leary! What have I told you about opening the door without permission?” Merry appeared behind her son, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow, her curls pulled up in a high ponytail.

“Not to.” Tyler shifted from foot to foot, nearly bouncing with energy.

“Then why did you?”

“I saw him out the window, Mommy. He has a cool car. Just like mine. Look.” Tyler held up a toy SUV.

“It doesn’t matter what his car looks like, you shouldn’t have opened the door. Go to your room. I want you to spend some time thinking about what you’ve done.”

“I already thought about it, Mo—”

“Go.” She pointed at a steep staircase to the right of the door, and Tyler dragged his feet as he slowly walked toward it, his gaze still on Douglas.

“Quickly, young man, or you won’t get any of the cookies we made.”

He shot up the stairs after that, racing to the landing and disappearing into a room.

“He’s a cute kid,” Douglas said, more to break the sudden silence than for anything else.

“He is, but he’s a little too smart for his own good.” She brushed what looked like cocoa off her apron. Faded jeans cupped round hips and long legs, and a pink sweater hugged her curves. As always, she looked pretty and soft and very, very lovely.

She also looked scared. Worried. Nervous.

“He’s four, right?”

“Yes. Next year, he’ll be in kindergarten but for now, he just goes to preschool three days a week. Mrs. Sanderson next door has him if I’m working the other two days. He runs her ragged. He’s just so busy, and I’m worried about what will happen when he goes to school. I’m sure…” She blushed. “Sorry. You’re here to talk about Olivia. Not Tyler. I tend to talk too much when I’m nervous.”

“What is there to be nervous about?” he asked, and she hesitated, her dark gaze skittering away.

“Olivia is dead. You said she was probably murdered. Her murderer is still on the loose. Shouldn’t I be nervous?”

Maybe, but not as nervous as she looked.

“More so if you know something about why she was killed.”

“I don’t, but I’m sure you have a lot of questions to ask, anyway. I have coffee going and homemade double-chocolate cookies if you’d like some. Why don’t we go in the kitchen to talk?”

She led him into a small kitchen, and he inhaled chocolate and sugar and a subtle berry scent that he thought might be Merry’s perfume.

He tried to ignore it as he sat at a round Formica table, but the berry scent was as difficult to ignore as the person wearing it.

As impossible to ignore.

He’d been on a year-long hiatus from dating when he’d seen Merry for the first time. Tired of being set up with friends of friends of friends, tired of searching for a woman who would complete him the way his mother had completed his father, tired of the games and the stress that went with every relationship he’d been in.

Tired of it all until he’d looked into Merry’s face, seen her smile. He’d tried to ignore her, because he hadn’t wanted all those things again. The games. The stress.

But ignoring her had been impossible and one lunch together had led to another and would have led to more if she’d let it.

She hadn’t, and maybe that was what her nerves and her tension were about.

“Would you rather someone else conduct the interview?” he asked as she set a plate of cookies on the table.

“Why would I?”

“Because we’re not strangers? Because we were heading toward being more than friends?”

“We went to lunch together. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not to me, but you seem bothered by the fact that I’m here. I thought maybe that was why.” He grabbed a cookie and bit into it, waiting for her response.

It came slowly.

Very slowly.

Maybe even too slowly.

She walked to the counter, grabbed a mug from a cupboard and poured coffee into it, her hands shaking so hard liquid sloshed over her hand.

“I’m not bothered by the fact that you’re here. It’s just been a tough day, and I’m…upset.” She handed him the mug, their fingers touching, heat arching between them, quicksilver and bright. He couldn’t ignore that, either.

He grabbed her hand before she moved away, his thumb running over the rapid pulse in her wrist. “You’re not just upset. You’re nervous. If I’m not causing that, then what is?”

“Everything.” She glanced at the doorway as if she expected someone to walk in and rescue her.

“Care to explain?”

“You’re here to ask me questions about Olivia. What do you want to know?”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“Because I don’t want to explain.” She sat down across from him, grabbed a cookie from the plate.

He could keep pushing against a wall of resistance, or he could change tactics and come at things from a different angle, see if that would give him the answers he wanted.

“You’ve known Olivia for five months?” he asked, and she frowned.

“You know she’s only been in town for three months.”

“Right. I just wondered if you did. Where did you two meet?” He knew the answer to that, too, but the benign questions were doing exactly what he intended.

Merry relaxed, the tension in her face easing.

“We talked for a few minutes after story time at the Reading Nook. A few days later, we saw each other at church. She was a really nice girl. Very easy to spend time with.” She smiled sadly, and the sorrow Douglas had been tamping down since he’d stood over Olivia’s broken body reared up. Made his gut clench and his chest tighten. She’d been too young to die, too sweet to be killed so brutally.

“She was. I know Charles appreciated how good she was with the twins.” He kept his voice steady and his tone light. He needed to push the interview forward, not dwell in the emotions of the day.

“She was great with them. She’d have made a wonderful mother.” Merry swallowed hard and stood again, pacing across the room to stare out a window above the sink.

“How did she seem in the last few days? Happy? Upset? Anxious?”

“She was just her normal self.”

“So, she didn’t mention anything that was bothering her? Didn’t seem to have anything on her mind?” He asked the same question in a different way, hoping for a different answer. Wanting a different answer. They needed something to go on if they were going to find Olivia’s murderer.

Merry stiffened but didn’t turn from the window. “She didn’t mention anything that was bothering her.”

“Then what did she mention?”

“Nothing,” she responded too quickly, her voice tight. If he’d been looking in her eyes, he’d have seen the lie. He knew it, and he wanted to know what she was lying about.

“You’re a poor liar.”

“I’m not—”

“Save us both some time, okay? Don’t deny it. Olivia said something to you. What was it?”

“It was private. I don’t think she wanted me to share it,” Merry hedged, and he put a hand on her shoulder, urged her around so he could look into her face.

“Olivia is dead, Merry. Murdered. Keeping a secret for her can’t change that.”

“I know…it’s just…” She bit her lip.

“What?”

“She made me promise not to mention it to anyone.”

A promise, huh?

That might mean something important.

“I don’t think she would expect you to keep your promise under the circumstances.”

“Maybe not, and it really wasn’t a big deal. At least, it didn’t seem like one. Last week, Olivia brought the twins over. While she was here, she said her sweetheart might come looking for her one day. She’d never mentioned a sweetheart before, so it stuck in my mind.”

“A boyfriend?” His pulse jumped at the news. He’d needed a lead. It looked like he just might have one.

“I guess so, but she didn’t use that term. She just said, ‘sweetheart.’”

“And, you didn’t ask who her sweetheart was? Where he was?”

“Tyler spilled his juice, and I had to clean it up. By the time I finished, the moment had passed.” She shrugged, and he could almost feel her forcing each muscle to relax. The tension was still in her face though, the lie still in her eyes.

What was she hiding?

Why was she hiding it?

“There’s more, and I need you to tell me what it is.”

“I already told you everything she told me.” But there was something in her voice that said different. Something that edged along Douglas’s nerves, made him study her pale face a little more intently.

“I don’t believe you.”

“What you believe doesn’t matter. What matters is the truth, and the truth is I’ve told you everything Olivia said.”

“Then, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Just that I’m exhausted, and I’m ready for this interview to be over.” She offered a half smile, and he had to admit, she looked tired. Dark circles beneath her eyes, pale skin.

“Late night?”

“Nightmares,” she responded, and then frowned, picking at a chipped spot on the tile countertop.

“I’d think tonight would be the night for that.”

“It probably will be. I don’t think I’ll ever forget looking down and…” She shook her head and didn’t continue.

“It’s tough. Really tough. But I have to keep asking questions, Merry. I have to find out what was happening in Olivia’s life in the weeks before she was killed. You know that, right?”

“Yes.”

“So, if there’s anything else you can tell me—”

“There isn’t.”

“You spoke to her on the phone last night, right?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the conversation.”

“I asked if we were still on for today. She said we were. That was it.”

“No hint that she was upset? Nothing that would make you think she was in danger?”

“I already told Keira there was nothing unusual about the conversation. Not that one. Not the one before it. Not any of the conversations Olivia and I had. Our discussions were always about kids and jobs and what we were going to make for dinner. Mundane things that really didn’t matter much.”

“Did she seem happy here?”

“Usually. She loved her job and the twins. Sometimes, though, she seemed a little down. Like maybe she was missing home.”

“It’s not surprising that she’d be homesick sometimes.”

“I guess not, but she left Ireland after her mother died because she wanted a fresh start. Now everything she wanted, all her dreams, they’ve died with her.” Merry blinked rapidly, her eyes filling with tears, and he patted her hand, warmth seeping through him at the contact.

Face-to-face, looking straight into Merry’s deep brown eyes, he knew two things for sure. First, he was as attracted to her now as he’d been the first moment he’d seen her. Second, she hadn’t told him everything she knew.

It was his job to find out what she was hiding, to figure out if it connected to Olivia’s murder. His job. His duty. All part of the same thing, and he wouldn’t let Merry stand in the way of that. No matter how attractive and compelling he found her.

He placed his coffee cup in the deep porcelain sink. “I think that’ll do it for today. I’ll stop by again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” She sounded appalled, her dark eyes wide, her freckles stark against smooth, pale skin.

“Will that be a problem?”

“No. I just…I’ve told you everything I can. What good will another meeting do?”

“Telling me everything you can is a lot different than telling me everything you know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, but the shadows in her eyes said something different.

“You know, Merry—” he stepped close, cupped her jaw, her skin silky smooth beneath his hand “—you’ve lived in Fitzgerald Bay for a year. We’ve been out together, spent a couple of hours talking to each other, but I still don’t know much about you.”

She stiffened, her jaw tightening beneath his palm. “Since we’re not dating, you know enough.”

“That’s what I thought, too. Until you started lying to me.” He stepped back, watching as his meaning settled in and over her.

“I—”

“I have a lot of work to do. I’ll be back tomorrow. Sometime between now and then, you might want to decide whether continuing your lies is worth losing everything.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Withholding information and evidence from the police is a crime you could go to jail for, Merry.”

“You can’t be serious!” Something flashed in her eyes, a terror so deep that Douglas almost regretted the threat.

Almost.

But he had a job to do, a murderer to find. Olivia deserved justice. He planned to get it for her, and he planned to do it quickly.

He couldn’t allow the investigation to go on too long without a suspect. If he did, people might do exactly what he feared and point their fingers at Charles.

The Fitzgerald family motto had been stamped onto his heart before he was old enough to know what it meant. He lived it, breathed it, believed it.

God first.

Family second.

Duty to the community after that.

Olivia’s murder touched on all those things, and he’d push for answers until he found the person who killed her.

Push no matter how uncomfortable pushing might be.

Push no matter the terror he saw in Merry’s eyes.

Push, because he had a feeling she was the key to solving the case.

If she was, there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say that could make him go away.