Julia Spencer-Fleming - One Was a Soldier

“Eric’s right.” The chief rubbed a finger over his lips. “If McNabb had a car waiting for him, he could have done her, walked to Saber Drive, and been five miles down the road before the FR arrived.”

Hadley, who had been the first responder, nodded. “I got there eleven minutes after logging the call.”

“Of course, now you’re talking conspiracy to murder, with at least one accessory.” Lyle tapped the tip of his marker against the board. “That’s awfully complicated, for something that looks like suicide to begin with.”

“I agree. Eric. What did you get from the electronic trail?”

Eric set his coffee on the floor and flipped his notepad back several pages. “No travel arrangements. No e-mails that seemed significant.” He looked over the edge of his pad. “She shared the account with McNabb, though, so if she was still swapping love notes with the MP boyfriend, she might have had some Web-based mail service. She had a Facebook page that hadn’t been updated in five months.”

“That’s it?”

“I’m not any sort of computer whiz, Chief. If you want the guts vacuumed out, you’ll have to get the state cybercrime unit to do it.”

The chief shook his head. “That’ll be a last-resort item. Lyle?”

“She was a bookkeeper for BWI Opperman. Hired this past August, a few months after she got back. Wyler McNabb works there as well; he may have gotten her an in with the job. The company has a construction contract in Iraq. He’s worked over there, and she’s had”-he looked at his notebook-“two tours of duty, so it was a good fit. Our girl was scheduled to return to Iraq as part of the team’s administrative support.” He looked at McCrea. “Maybe she didn’t like that idea.”

McCrea picked up his tall cardboard cup. “Are you asking me my opinion? It’s no tropical vacation paradise, but I wouldn’t eat my gun to avoid going back.”

Hadley glanced at Flynn, but he was busy writing notes. MacAuley continued. “The HR director described her as reliable, skilled, no problems with anyone she worked with.” He shot the chief a meaningful glance. “At home, she kept their financial records real neat, like you’d expect. There might have been money stress-most of those fancy SUVs and stuff were less’n a year old, and they didn’t have very much in checking or savings, according to her most recent statement, which is the only one I could find. There were some receipts for winnings and expenses from several casinos in an accordion file marked TAXES, so the gambling was not a one-off. There’s a single mortgage on the house, payments current. The only thing that I flagged was his life insurance policy. It was underwritten by his employer to the tune of a cool half mil.”

Hadley couldn’t help it; she whistled.

“That’s a helluva lot for a construction worker with no dependents,” the chief said.

“Judging by the tax returns I saw, he was the big earner, not her. Which means if he was about to pull the plug on the relationship, she’d be pretty much left out in the cold, as far as money went.” He made a gesture toward the chief. “You know, your first thought mighta been the right one.”

“Murder-suicide?”

“Could be the reason McNabb hasn’t turned up yet is that she did him somewhere else and hid the body.”

“Then came back home to top herself? Maybe.”

“I disagree. I think we’re going to find the husband.” Eric crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his chair back. “I think he did her.”

The chief raised his eyebrows. “Based on…?”

“I can’t see her killing herself. She’s got relationship problems, and job problems, but let’s face it, there was obviously a lot of marital property to go around even if they did split up. And how hard can it be for a good bookkeeper to find employment?” Eric let his chair drop to the floor again. “I’m betting they had a roaring fight, he did her, and then dropped her in the pool.”

The chief dropped the folder back onto the table. “We can all agree that finding Wyler McNabb is the top priority. Once we’ve got him, we’ll be able to pin this thing down.” He glanced around the squad room. “Any other questions? No? Okay, then. Lyle, Eric, with me.”

Hadley glanced at Flynn, and then toward McCrea, who was following the chief and MacAuley out the door.

Flynn paused in the act of tucking his notebook away. “What?”

“She was a veteran.”

“Yeah?”

She dropped her voice. “Eric was awfully insistent on her death being a homicide. Do you think it’s a warning sign? Like he couldn’t stand the idea that another veteran might have killed herself?”

“She might not have.” Flynn collected his hat and handed Hadley hers. “Sure, it looks a lot like suicide, but she’s got a missing husband who likes to throw money around like rice at a wedding. An Escalade. A plasma-screen TV. An in-ground swimming pool, for chrissakes.”

She couldn’t stop her grin. He sounded so outraged. “Flynn, I had an in-ground pool in California.”

He stood to one side and let her precede him out the squad room door. “It makes sense out there. Here, where you can only use it a few months out of the year?” He shook his head. “It’s just a big concrete sign that reads Money means nothing to me. They could have stapled twenties on the front of the house and sent the same message. At least that way, they wouldn’t have had to keep the thing clean and chlorinated.”

They walked down the hall side by side. Money means nothing to me. She bit her lip.

“What?” He opened the station house door.

Hadley zipped her jacket against the cool breeze. “What do you mean, what?”

“You thought of something. You always bite your lip like that when you’re thinking.” Flynn clattered down the steps toward the parking lot, a small smile on his face.

She forced herself not to bite her lip again as she followed him. “Of all the stuff they have at the McNabbs’ house, what do you think cost the most?”

“The pool.”

“Really? More than the cars?”

“Yeah. You have to dig them out crazy deep and wide, and surround them with layers and layers of crushed gravel and stuff to keep them from cracking when everything freezes. It’s a huge job.”

She paused by her cruiser. “I wonder… Eric and MacAuley didn’t turn up a note.”

He looked at her intently. “No.”

“Maybe where she did it was her note. She kills herself in the most expensive, wasteful thing they own.”

“What’s her message? F-you?”

“No.” Hadley opened the car door and tossed her lid and notebook in. “‘Money means nothing to me.’”

Hadley had been on patrol for three hours when she got the call to respond to army personnel trying to get into the McNabb house.

“Are you sure?” she asked Harlene.

The dispatcher’s voice was tart. “That’s what the neighbor said. If you go over there in your unit, you can find out for yourself.”

Hadley was extra polite when she signed off. She was pretty sure Harlene liked her, but Hadley’s position as low man on the totem pole meant she got the least amount of slack.

Quentan Nichols, she thought. Back for another shot at love. Boy, was he in for an unpleasant surprise. The surprise, however, was on Hadley, when she pulled in behind an anonymous government-issued car and found a tall white woman standing in the front yard, talking on a cell phone.

The woman hung up as Hadley opened the driver’s side door. She was dressed in a green suit instead of those blurry camouflage outfits soldiers wore, with a lot of ribbons and stuff pinned to a jacket that must have been tailored but still didn’t fit quite right. Hadley, whose uniforms came in any size as long as it was men’s, recognized the look.