Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [34]
He shrugged. “Who knows? It’s not our problem.”
“It’s certainly mine, since she tumbled out of the wall onto my basement floor. I can’t believe anyone would kill a teenager for wandering across his yard, and with such viciousness.”
A second later the phone rang. It was Bernie Bradstreet, owner of The Riptide Independent, wanting to know what she could tell him. “I know the sheriff wants to keep a lid on this, but—”
She told him everything, omitting only what Adam Carruthers had found out from the medical examiner’s office. She didn’t think the sheriff would like to be cut out of that particular loop. Then Bernie Bradstreet asked her to dinner, with his wife, he hastened to add when she didn’t say anything. She put him off. When she hung up the phone, Adam said, “Newspaper? You handled it well. Now you need to call the sheriff. Don’t tell him you already know the answers. Encourage him to call the medical examiner’s office. Jarvis told me they’re not ready to release the information yet, but if the sheriff calls, he might be able to pry it out of them. Oh, yeah, when the sheriff comes, tell him I’m your cousin from Baltimore here to visit. Okay?”
“Cousins? We don’t look anything alike.”
He gave her a crooked grin.“Thank heaven for that.”
SHERIFF Gaffney didn’t like the news from Augusta. He liked tidy conclusions, puzzles where all the pieces finally locked cleanly into place, not this: an old skeleton, identity unknown, that had been bricked inside Jacob Marley’s basement wall after her gruesome murder. He didn’t really want Ann McBride to be dead, but it would have made things so much cleaner, so nice and straightforward. He glanced at Tyler McBride. The guy looked calm, but relieved? He couldn’t tell. Tyler had always managed to keep what he was feeling close to his vest. He was good at poker, nobody liked to play against him. Funny thing, though, the sheriff would have sworn that Tyler had killed his wife. He still kept his eye on Tyler, hoping to see him do something strange, like visit an unmarked grave or something. Well, he’d been wrong before. He guessed maybe he was wrong again. He hated it, it wasn’t pleasant, but sometimes it happened, even to a man like him.
Sheriff Gaffney looked over at Ms. Powell’s cousin, a big, tough-looking guy who looked like he could take care of himself. His body was hard and in good shape. He seemed like a man who could be patient, as if he was used to waiting in the shadows, like a predator stalking its prey. Gaffney shook his head. He had to stop reading those suspense novels he liked so much.
He looked at Becca Powell, a nice young woman who wasn’t so pale now, or on the verge of hysteria. Hopefully her cousin would keep her that way. After finding that skeleton, maybe she would be glad to have him around for a while. He found himself studying Carruthers again. The guy was dark, from his black hair—too long, in the sheriff’s opinion—to his eyes, nearly black in the dim late-afternoon light in Jacob Marley’s living room. He had big feet in scuffed black boots, soft-looking boots that looked like he’d worn them for a good long time and waited in the shadows with those boots on his feet, not making a whisper of a sound. He wondered what the man did for a living. Nothing normal and expected, he’d bet his next meal on that. Maybe he didn’t want to know.
The sheriff looked around the living room. The place looked like a museum or a tomb. It felt old and musty, although it smelled like lemons, just like at home.
He knew, of course, that everyone was looking at him, waiting. He liked that. It built suspense. He was holding them in the palm of his hand. Only thing was, they didn’t look all that scared or worried or ready to gnaw off their fingernails. A real cool bunch.
Becca said finally, “Sheriff, won’t you be seated? Now, you have news for us?”
He took the old chair she was waving at, eased down slowly, then cleared his throat. He was ready to make his big announcement. “Well now, it does appear that this skeleton isn’t your wife, Tyler.”
There