The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [63]
“I think he’s playing us,” he eventually said. “There’re too many angles that don’t add up.”
“The convenient trip to Frankfort, complete with buddies and credit card receipts?” she suggested.
“For instance. But the big one, too—that she died just when he wanted her out of the house.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “And from what I could read between the lines, it sounded like he was super cranked about her doing the son in the sack.”
“God, yeah,” Sam agreed. “Kept calling her a whore. Joe even asked him if he’d made a play, or vice-versa.”
Willy laughed. “Bet that went over well.”
“He blew up.”
“That’s what I mean,” Willy continued. “I think he was jealous, which maybe led to something he can’t cop to now.”
“Meaning her death had nothing to do with the house?” Sam suggested.
Her companion wobbled his hand back and forth equivocally. “It’s possible. With the son out of the way, the old man might’ve seen himself as the perfect replacement. Must’ve driven him nuts that the love nest was his by mortgage only.”
“If that’s true,” Sam reflected, “then he had to have visited her—he wouldn’t’ve leaned on her long-distance. Could be someone saw him. Joe was thinking along those lines, too.”
Willy, to his credit, then argued against his own theory. “Wouldn’t she have mentioned it to the girlfriend, Rubinstein? They were thick, right?”
“Supposedly,” Sam agreed.
“Except that it didn’t come up in Joe’s report of his conversation with Rubinstein. Either he didn’t ask or she didn’t say, or both.”
“She did say she’d never set eyes on the man,” Sam said.
Willy merely grunted, unhappy about the ambiguity. Pointedly, his discontent wasn’t directed at any lapse by Joe. He had too many years on the job not to know that these kinds of holes were endemic to an investigation. Still, it was a gap of knowledge, and he would have liked it filled.
“Maybe someone should reinterview her,” he suggested.
“I think that’s one of the reasons they’re out there. The mother’s being contacted, too. Lester’s driving down to Fall River to talk to her.”
They fell silent for a few moments, each lost in thought. He, however, was pondering what they’d just been discussing, which was why it surprised him yet again when she returned to an earlier topic.
“The nightmares just as bad?” she asked, her voice neutral and her eyes studiously on the road. This was not an area she was comfortable in.
Now he understood her comment about his sleeping habits. Instinctively, he bristled. A war vet, a recovering alcoholic, and a cripple with a lifelong history of poor interactions with his fellow human beings, Willy Kunkle was nothing if not quick to man the barricades.
And yet, he’d allowed this woman inside, if grudgingly—a gesture she repaid with forbearance and patience. He changed the rules according to his moods, opening up or shutting her out almost at whim, often finding her attachment to him more baffling than flattering. But still she hung on.
He knew it wasn’t because of any great encouragement from him. He wouldn’t have said it out loud, but it was in part her balancing this tolerance with her own self-respect that impressed him most—something she often did simply by speaking her mind. Years before, he’d been unhappily married. His wife had eventually left him—not that he blamed her for that—but while they’d been together, she hadn’t known enough to forcefully stand her ground, and in the absence of such limits, he’d ended up diminishing her and forfeiting their marriage.
It wasn’t something he wanted to repeat.
Reluctantly, therefore, almost struggling with the effort, he tried answering openly. “Not as bad,” he admitted. “Is that what woke you up last night?”
“Yeah,” she answered truthfully, “but it wasn’t over the top. You didn’t slug me or anything.” Now she risked a glance at him, privately pleased by his response, which wasn’t always so benign. “The only reason I mentioned it is because they’ve gotten rarer.”
He continued looking straight ahead and made