Marcia Talley - A Quiet Death

‘My, my, my…’

We sat silently for a moment, watching the sun sink behind the wall that surrounds our garden. ‘When’s Hoffner’s trial?’ Paul wanted to know.

‘It’s scheduled to start in January.’

‘What about Nick?’

‘For once, he listened to his mother and hired a decent attorney, somebody who doesn’t have to advertise in the Yellow Pages . The DA tried charging Nick with blackmail, but couldn’t make it stick. The blackmail was Hoffner’s idea, not Nick’s. Nick just wanted Chandler to man up, admit to being his father.

‘As for obstruction of justice, what did Nick know? He was hovering near death in intensive care when Hoffner murdered Meredith. If you’d seen Nick after the accident, Paul.’ I shuddered. ‘Pass his picture around to the jury and – doink-doink – case dismissed. Nick’s testifying against Hoffner, though.’

‘One thing I’m curious about. Did Hoffner attack those other two girls?’

‘No, just Meredith Logan.’

Paul finished his Bloody Mary, then flipped his celery stalk into the shrubbery. ‘I thought the police were looking for a serial killer.’

‘That’s what the media said, not the police. The police knew all along that Meredith’s murder was the work of a different killer.’

‘And you know this, how?’

‘Dennis told me.’

Paul snorted. ‘I should have known. Can you be more specific?’

‘Nope. Dennis told me to hold my horses. It would all come out in the trial.’

Paul reached out and captured my hand. He squeezed it three times:

I

Love

You.

Still holding my hand, he asked, ‘Would you ever leave me for a tennis pro?’

‘You’re forgetting, Mr Ives. I don’t play tennis.’

‘So I’m safe.’

‘Perfectly.’ And I squeezed his hand three times, too.

Marcia Talley is an award-winning mystery novelist, author of the Hannah Ives mystery series, two collaborative novels, and numerous short stories. A former librarian, she took early retirement in 2000 to write full-time. She divides her time between Annapolis, MD and an antique sailboat in the Bahamas.