Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [9]
“Are you still gay?”
He chuckled softly. “’Fraid so.”
“Just checking.”
After hanging up, Chloe resisted the temptation to mix another drink, and returned the glass to the sink. She located a small carton in the bedroom, conspicuously marked with a Magic Marker asterisk. She dug beneath a photo of her parents, a tissue-wrapped pinecone from an exceptionally wonderful back-country campsite at Dolly Sods, and a small stuffed dog so battered it had no fur left around the middle. She finally found a framed snapshot of herself and Ethan, bulging backpacks visible over their shoulders, dirty and sweaty, posed on a rock outcrop in the southern Appalachians.
Chloe set the photo on one of the empty bookshelves in the downstairs bedroom. The only other signs of life in the room were a sleeping bag and pillow on the bed, a suitcase worth’s of clothes in the closet, and a battered paperback copy of Jack Finney’s Time and Again on the nightstand. “I’ll unpack tomorrow,” she promised herself, and got ready for bed.
When Chloe drove to work the next morning her stomach, acknowledged that morning only with coffee, clutched in protest as she turned onto County Trunk S. Aside from the tire tracks left in the vegetation beside the gravel shoulder, there was little to mark the accident scene. No one had left flowers, or banged a hastily constructed cross into the ground.
Did Mrs. Lundquist have a family? Had that young Eagle cop called them with the news? Or did cops still do things like that in person? Chloe wasn’t sure. The policeman who’d questioned her didn’t seem a likely candidate for delicate duty. His uniform had been a solid, grim black, not friendly blue like on TV. And his manner …
Her thoughts trailed away as she pulled into the restoration area lot and saw a patrol car with “Eagle Police” stenciled on the side. The subject of those thoughts appeared around the corner of the pink trailer.
Lovely. Chloe got out of the Pinto. “May I help you …” She checked his name bar. “Officer McKenna?”
“I need to ask you a couple of questions, Ms. Ellefson.”
Chloe had promised to meet Byron at Ed House in ten minutes. Besides, it rattled her to find the policeman waiting. Couldn’t he have called or something? “Sure,” she said.
He pulled his pad free and uncapped a pen with his thumb. “First—”
“Let’s go inside.” Chloe turned away. Anything to get him to take off those damn sunglasses.
She immediately regretted her impulse, for it was unsettling to walk into the tiny galley where she’d last seen Mrs. Lundquist alive. Embarrassing, too, to have more company before she’d had a chance to scrub and air the place. “I just started working here,” she said, propping the door open with a rock.
He leaned against the sink and—thank God—removed his sunglasses. “I’d like you to tell me again what transpired between you and Mrs. Lundquist.”
Chloe rubbed her palms on her trousers. “I told you everything yesterday.”
“I know. But I’d like to hear it again, now that you’re not quite so upset.”
Chloe eyed him, wondering if there was more to the request. Officer McKenna was about her height, five-foot-ten inches. He was perhaps four or five years younger than her own thirty-two, lean, well-muscled. He looked like a recruiting poster for the Marines, with dark hair clipped close to his head, a too-strong jaw, and direct brown eyes. There was something unsettling about his demeanor—a muscular tension, a sense of perpetual watchfulness. His inscrutable gaze made her long for the mirrored shades.
“Is there a problem?” she asked. “Do you know what caused the accident?”
“It was probably a heart attack or stroke. Is this where you met Mrs. Lundquist?”
“Yes.” Chloe stared through the doorway at the pines and replayed the conversation for him.
He made notes in a tight scrawl. “And you have no idea where this particular antique might be?”
Chloe sighed. “As I said, yesterday was my first day on the job. There are thousands of artifacts on this site. Some are on exhibit, in fifty-odd buildings that are open to the public. Some are stored in these trailers,