The Bone House - Brian Freeman [77]
Cab shrugged. 'It's routine.'
'The person you should be talking to is Mark Bradley,' she snapped.
'Mr Bradley isn't talking.' He added, 'It looks like people around here are trying to take matters into their own hands. Someone tried to kill him and his wife.'
'Am I supposed to feel bad about that?'
'If something happens to Mr Bradley, we'll probably never know the truth about Glory's death.'
'People will do what they do. I don't care. That's the sheriff's problem, not mine.'
Delia wore her bitterness like a shroud around her tense shoulders. He knew there was nothing he could do to change how she felt. Her mind was made up. She'd settled on one explanation for her grief, and that explanation was Mark Bradley. He'd become the symbol of every wrong turn in her life.
'Do you work here?' he asked, nodding his head at the bar.
'Yes.'
'You wait tables?'
'That's right. I wait tables, and at home I sell metal jewelry. I scrape by.' She eyed Cab's expensive suit with disdain. 'I guess you don't know what that's like.'
'You're right, I haven't lived that kind of life, but I respect it.'
'I don't need your respect or your pity. Some Door County natives, they do pretty damn well. They bought up land decades ago when it was cheap. My parents weren't able to do that. I was just lucky that they paid off the mortgage on their house, so I have somewhere to live. Then I lost my husband, and he didn't have any life insurance, so it was just me and the girls. Now it's just me and Tresa.'
'How's Tresa holding up?' he asked her.
'Why? Do you want to interrogate her, too? Do you think she killed her own sister?'
'I just wanted to make sure she's OK.'
'That's my business, Detective, not yours. I wish you'd do your job. Instead, you seem to be looking at everyone except the man we both know is guilty. You're badgering Troy, who wouldn't lift a finger against Glory. You're even chasing ghosts.'
'You mean Harris Bone?'
'Yes.'
'I have no reason to think Harris Bone has anything to do with this case, but I can't ignore the possibility.'
Delia shook her head. 'Listen to yourself. You're doing exactly what Mark Bradley and his wife want you to do. You're playing their game. If Harris was in Florida, someone would have recognized him.'
'Maybe someone did,' Cab said gently.
'You mean Glory? If she saw him, she would have called the police. Or she would have called me.'
Cab cocked his head with curiosity. 'She didn't call you, did she?'
'No.'
'But you knew Harris Bone pretty well, right?'
'Of course.'
'I'm a little surprised that you stayed friends with him after the car accident that killed your husband.'
Delia's mouth tightened, and her lips turned white. 'Harris wasn't to blame for what happened any more than the rest of us. We were stupid. It was a tragedy.'
'Were you surprised by what he did to his family?'
'I was sickened. Wherever Harris is, I hope he sees the faces of his family every time he tries to sleep. I hope he sees Glory's face, too. But that doesn't mean I believe he was in Florida.'
'I understand how you feel,' Cab told her. 'Mark Bradley is the prime suspect, but he's not the only suspect, and if I disregarded other theories of the crime, I'd make it easier for him to get an acquittal at trial. I don't want that to happen.'
Delia pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead, as if she was fighting a migraine that throbbed inside her skull. 'I know how it works, Detective. He'll walk away. The people from the city, the ones with money, they hire lawyers, and they get off.'
'Not if I can help it,' Cab said.
'I've heard it before, Detective,' Delia told him wearily, 'so don't waste your breath trying to convince me it will be different this time. I'm not waiting around for justice. The police don't do anything. The prosecutors don't do anything. The guilty walk free.'
She turned and went back inside the bar and slammed the door.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Peter Hoffman parked at the end of Juice Mill Lane, where a rusting metal gate stretched across the old road that led into the forest.