Shirlee McCoy - The Lawman's Legacy

Maybe, but not as nervous as she looked.

“More so if you know something about why she was killed.”

“I don’t, but I’m sure you have a lot of questions to ask, anyway. I have coffee going and homemade double-chocolate cookies if you’d like some. Why don’t we go in the kitchen to talk?”

She led him into a small kitchen, and he inhaled chocolate and sugar and a subtle berry scent that he thought might be Merry’s perfume.

He tried to ignore it as he sat at a round Formica table, but the berry scent was as difficult to ignore as the person wearing it.

As impossible to ignore.

He’d been on a year-long hiatus from dating when he’d seen Merry for the first time. Tired of being set up with friends of friends of friends, tired of searching for a woman who would complete him the way his mother had completed his father, tired of the games and the stress that went with every relationship he’d been in.

Tired of it all until he’d looked into Merry’s face, seen her smile. He’d tried to ignore her, because he hadn’t wanted all those things again. The games. The stress.

But ignoring her had been impossible and one lunch together had led to another and would have led to more if she’d let it.

She hadn’t, and maybe that was what her nerves and her tension were about.

“Would you rather someone else conduct the interview?” he asked as she set a plate of cookies on the table.

“Why would I?”

“Because we’re not strangers? Because we were heading toward being more than friends?”

“We went to lunch together. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not to me, but you seem bothered by the fact that I’m here. I thought maybe that was why.” He grabbed a cookie and bit into it, waiting for her response.

It came slowly.

Very slowly.

Maybe even too slowly.

She walked to the counter, grabbed a mug from a cupboard and poured coffee into it, her hands shaking so hard liquid sloshed over her hand.

“I’m not bothered by the fact that you’re here. It’s just been a tough day, and I’m…upset.” She handed him the mug, their fingers touching, heat arching between them, quicksilver and bright. He couldn’t ignore that, either.

He grabbed her hand before she moved away, his thumb running over the rapid pulse in her wrist. “You’re not just upset. You’re nervous. If I’m not causing that, then what is?”

“Everything.” She glanced at the doorway as if she expected someone to walk in and rescue her.

“Care to explain?”

“You’re here to ask me questions about Olivia. What do you want to know?”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“Because I don’t want to explain.” She sat down across from him, grabbed a cookie from the plate.

He could keep pushing against a wall of resistance, or he could change tactics and come at things from a different angle, see if that would give him the answers he wanted.

“You’ve known Olivia for five months?” he asked, and she frowned.

“You know she’s only been in town for three months.”

“Right. I just wondered if you did. Where did you two meet?” He knew the answer to that, too, but the benign questions were doing exactly what he intended.

Merry relaxed, the tension in her face easing.

“We talked for a few minutes after story time at the Reading Nook. A few days later, we saw each other at church. She was a really nice girl. Very easy to spend time with.” She smiled sadly, and the sorrow Douglas had been tamping down since he’d stood over Olivia’s broken body reared up. Made his gut clench and his chest tighten. She’d been too young to die, too sweet to be killed so brutally.

“She was. I know Charles appreciated how good she was with the twins.” He kept his voice steady and his tone light. He needed to push the interview forward, not dwell in the emotions of the day.

“She was great with them. She’d have made a wonderful mother.” Merry swallowed hard and stood again, pacing across the room to stare out a window above the sink.

“How did she seem in the last few days? Happy? Upset? Anxious?”

“She was just her normal self.”

“So, she didn’t mention anything that was bothering her? Didn’t seem to have anything on her mind?” He asked the same question in a different way, hoping for a different answer. Wanting a different answer. They needed something to go on if they were going to find Olivia’s murderer.

Merry stiffened but didn’t turn from the window. “She didn’t mention anything that was bothering her.”

“Then what did she mention?”

“Nothing,” she responded too quickly, her voice tight. If he’d been looking in her eyes, he’d have seen the lie. He knew it, and he wanted to know what she was lying about.

“You’re a poor liar.”

“I’m not—”

“Save us both some time, okay? Don’t deny it. Olivia said something to you. What was it?”

“It was private. I don’t think she wanted me to share it,” Merry hedged, and he put a hand on her shoulder, urged her around so he could look into her face.

“Olivia is dead, Merry. Murdered. Keeping a secret for her can’t change that.”

“I know…it’s just…” She bit her lip.

“What?”

“She made me promise not to mention it to anyone.”

A promise, huh?

That might mean something important.

“I don’t think she would expect you to keep your promise under the circumstances.”

“Maybe not, and it really wasn’t a big deal. At least, it didn’t seem like one. Last week, Olivia brought the twins over. While she was here, she said her sweetheart might come looking for her one day. She’d never mentioned a sweetheart before, so it stuck in my mind.”

“A boyfriend?” His pulse jumped at the news. He’d needed a lead. It looked like he just might have one.

“I guess so, but she didn’t use that term. She just said, ‘sweetheart.’”

“And, you didn’t ask who her sweetheart was? Where he was?”

“Tyler spilled his juice, and I had to clean it up. By the time I finished, the moment had passed.” She shrugged, and he could almost feel her forcing each muscle to relax. The tension was still in her face though, the lie still in her eyes.

What was she hiding?

Why was she hiding it?

“There’s more, and I need you to tell me what it is.”

“I already told you everything she told me.” But there was something in her voice that said different. Something that edged along Douglas’s nerves, made him study her pale face a little more intently.

“I don’t believe you.”

“What you believe doesn’t matter. What matters is the truth, and the truth is I’ve told you everything Olivia said.”

“Then, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Just that I’m exhausted, and I’m ready for this interview to be over.” She offered a half smile, and he had to admit, she looked tired. Dark circles beneath her eyes, pale skin.

“Late night?”

“Nightmares,” she responded, and then frowned, picking at a chipped spot on the tile countertop.

“I’d think tonight would be the night for that.”

“It probably will be. I don’t think I’ll ever forget looking down and…” She shook her head and didn’t continue.

“It’s tough. Really tough. But I have to keep asking questions, Merry. I have to find out what was happening in Olivia’s life in the weeks before she was killed. You know that, right?”

“Yes.”

“So, if there’s anything else you can tell me—”

“There isn’t.”

“You spoke to her on the phone last night, right?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the conversation.”

“I asked if we were still on for today. She said we were. That was it.”