A Flicker of Doubt - Tim Myers [25]
“Fine. How’s your wife?” I asked curtly. Wanda Klein had accused me of murdering my competition, and her husband had run with the idea until he’d found another suspect. There was no such thing as due process in Micah’s Ridge, at least not when it came to the town newspaper.
“She’s fine as well. Since you’re here, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”
‘Taking a sudden interest in candlemaking, are you?”
He bit his upper lip. “Hardly. I’m more interested in how you found that woman’s body in the river yesterday. She was an old flame of yours, wasn’t she?”
“We hadn’t dated for a while. We woe good friends,’ though.”
Klein said, “I understand she was quite promiscuous. Would you care to comment on that?”
I’m not a man of violence ordinarily, but there was something smug in the editor’s tone, a look of prurient interest that made me want to kill him. I grabbed his shirt, startling us both, and said, “If you do one thing to smear Becka Lane in that rag of yours, you’re going to have to answer to me.”
I saw his gaze dart around the office, no doubt looking for his eighty-year-old security man. It didn’t matter, I’d said what I needed to, so I let him go.
I started for the door when he called out, “You can’t do that I’ll own that candleshop of yours now. You struck me.”
“Where’s your proof? It’s your word against mine.” -
He looked at the secretary who’d taken my money, but she replied meekly, “I’m sorry, Mr. Klein, I was on the phone with a customer.”
There was no one else in the room. I said, “I’d better not see my name mentioned in your paper, either. Do we understand each other?”
“You can’t threaten the free press,” he said.
“I’m not threatening the newspaper,” I said as I stepped closer. He flinched as I approached, but I never laid another finger on him. Instead, I whispered, “I sun threatening you, though.”
He jumped back at my words. “There, did you hear that? Gladys, I’m talking to you.”
She was on the telephone again and held one hand over the mouthpiece, “Sony, I wasn’t listening. Did you need me for something?”
Klein looked exasperated, then stormed back into his office without another word. I noticed Gladys letting a smile slip past her lips before she could rein it back in.
“Thanks,” I said.
She smiled brightly at me and said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re thanking me for.”
“Guess,” I said as I headed for the door.
“Mr. Black,” she called out.
I turned, and she motioned me toward her. When I was close to her, she said softly, “Good for you. He’s too casual about pushing people around.”
“I lost my temper. Believe me, it’s something I would normally never do.”
She said, “Perhaps you should lose it more often then.”
“You might be right,” I said as I walked out of the office with the newspaper tucked under my arm. Confrontations usually left me cold and shaking, but after this one, I felt like I could take on the world. Maybe it was because I’d been fighting for what was left of Becka’s memory and reputation. I meant what I’d told him, too. If Hank Klein said one derogatory thing about Becka Lane, he was going to have to answer to me. I’d been so furious with his interview ambush that something nagged at the back of my mind, something about the conversation we’d just had. It wasn’t so much what he said as it was how he’d said it I’d heard that voice recently, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where.
Then it hit me.
I knew in my heart who Becka’s secret boyfriend had been, the one who’d been trying to get her back.
It was Hank Klein’s voice on her answering machine. I might not be able to prove it without the tape, but I had a new lead to go on, one that I wouldn’t let go until I found out the truth.
I couldn’t wait to get back to River’s Edge before I dug the newspaper out I found a park bench and opened the paper to page 8A, the same sheet Becka had cut. Pulling the folded section from my pocket, I laid it over the paper I’d just bought
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