The Heirloom Murders - Kathleen Ernst [83]
“Is there any news about Harriet Van Dyne’s murder?”
“The chief’ll have an update for us tomorrow.”
“Oh. Um … listen, Simon was at Dellyn’s house when I arrived. I mentioned the word ‘funeral’ and he started to cry. Dellyn said his wedding anniversary is coming up.”
“Yeah? When?”
“Thursday.”
Roelke turned that factoid over in his mind.
“When’s your job interview?” Chloe asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh! Wow. Well, good luck.”
The words were right. But the conversation still felt strained. Not what he needed the night before he sat down to face the three members of the Eagle Village Board’s Police Committee. “Thanks,” he said. “I better get back to prepping for it.”
As if there was something I could do to prep, he thought, as he hung up the phone. Finding the person who attacked Chloe—or discovering who had caused him to total his truck—would have looked good to the committee, but that hadn’t happened. Maybe the interviews with him and Skeet were just a formality, anyway. Maybe the Police Committee already knew who they wanted to hire.
Roelke picked up his knife and made a slice that left a gouge in the turtle’s shell. He glared at the botched carving before tossing it in the trashcan. All right, he told himself. Nothing on the job front was formalized yet. Maybe thinking about Bonnie Sabatola would keep him from freaking out about the coming interview.
He flipped the LP on his stereo, set the needle, and sat back down. One thing was clear: being married to rich, handsome Simon Sabatola wasn’t enough to keep Bonnie from calling the EPD and blowing her brains out that day. Maybe that was her husband’s fault. Maybe Bonnie and Simon were both to blame.
He mulled over what Chloe had said. Sabatola was already weeping over his anniversary, eh? His anniversary that happened to fall on a Thursday this year. The one day of the week he routinely got ripped at a blue-collar tavern. Now, that might just come in handy.
Roelke’s fingers curled into fists. He was pretty sure Sabatola was behind the crash. The game had changed when Sabatola decided to come after him. But Roelke knew he’d have to leave the EPD if he didn’t get the permanent job. That meant he was running out of time to figure out what was going on.
Chloe hated Monday morning staff meetings at best, and today she simply couldn’t face the inevitable hashing and rehashing of Harriet Van Dyne’s murder. She dragged her butt out of bed at 6 AM and drove to the administration building.
She’d already written a note for Ralph Petty: “I am sorry to miss this morning’s staff meeting, but I’ll be in Madison to meet with Leila about the audit.” Leila, the division curator, didn’t know that yet. But Chloe planned to get to her before Ralph did. After tossing the note in Ralph’s mailbox, she fled the office and drove west.
Once at the state historical society building, Chloe tracked down Leila and had the obligatory conversation about the audit. “There’s really not much you can do to prepare,” Leila told her. She was a plump woman, friendly but efficient to the point of curtness. A result of having way too much to do, like most historical society employees. “They’ll probably want to see some accession records, stuff like that.”
“I’ll do my best.” Chloe said. It occurred to her that the damn audit might end up providing Ralph Petty more fodder for her permanent file.
“That’s all you can do. Listen, Chloe … ” For the first time Leila hesitated. She picked up a button hook and toyed with it. “I wanted to say how sorry I am about what happened Friday night. What a ghastly thing. You take care of yourself, OK?”
Chloe promised she would. The audit discussion duly complete, she headed to the archives to look up the Eagle Diamond.
It took ninety seconds to find the card catalog listing. She gave the work-study student the call number and waited while the material was retrieved from storage. The student handed over a single gray box, which held a single file. Geez, Chloe thought. Going through this hadn’t taken much time. Maybe