Sharon Mignerey - The Good Neighbor

Three things stood out, and they were biggies. First, she had close to two hundred thousand dollars in savings—a lot of money for anyone, but a huge amount for someone on her wages. Second, she had changed her last name from Norris to Burke shortly after turning twenty-one. And third, she had been arrested and charged with assault and attempted murder.

He closed the file and stared down the hallway that led to the restrooms. He had been so sure she was one of the innocent ones. That, after telling Egan he didn’t make assumptions.

Expelling a harsh breath of irritation at himself, he put everything inside a folder and waited for her return. One minute turned into two, and with each passing one, his level of irritation with himself and her grew. When she finally came down the hallway, the five minutes had felt like an hour. Her hair was once more in a ponytail, her expression more composed than it had been a few minutes earlier. He followed her into the conference room. She sat down, folding her hands neatly on the table, her gaze not quite meeting his. For some reason, that pierced his control.

He let the door slam behind him when he came into the room. She jumped slightly, but nothing in her expression changed when he sat down across from her.

“Tell me about Megan Norris,” he said. “Tell me about your arrest.”

She blinked, then something in her expression dissolved. There was simply no other word for it. In a matter seconds, color drained out of her face, leaving a white line around her mouth and making the freckles sprinkled over her nose stand out. She stared at him without speaking, but the expression in her eyes was so devastated that he imagined he was looking at a person in shock. He’d interviewed enough witnesses, suspects and victims over the last fifteen years to know when a reaction was faked, and when one wasn’t. This was as real as it got.

The tug of sympathy pulled at his chest once more while he reminded himself he had a job to do. Collect the facts, build a case. Forget that he wanted to like this woman. That he already did like her.

“Did you read the whole report?” she asked, her voice surprisingly calm. “Or did you simply stop when you saw that I had been arrested?”

The fact that she seemed to know that further irritated him. “I want you to tell me about it.”

She lifted her chin slightly. “We don’t always get what we want, Detective. If you want the story…” Her voice trailed off and she swallowed, all the time holding his gaze as though he had somehow betrayed her. “Read the rest of the report.”

“And then you’ll talk to me about it.”

She nodded, the reluctance in the gesture as obvious as her tightly clasped hands.

“Fair enough. Tell me about your relationship with Mrs. Russell,” he said.

She did, her color improving little by little. They were neighbors and friends. Everything she told him echoed what Helen Russell had told him when they had talked. Mrs. Russell had described how Megan watched out for her, shoveling the snow in winter, taking her to church and the grocery store. She’d never asked for anything, which contradicted the chief’s theory that she was a gold digger. Megan’s tone of voice and demeanor suggested that she genuinely liked her neighbor. But the knowledge that she had been arrested for attempted murder colored his perceptions, as unprofessional as that was. The cynic in him kept searching for motive in everything she relayed, but the side of him that wasn’t a cop kept wanting to take what she said at face value.

When Megan fell silent, he said, “But you didn’t like her grandson.”

“I didn’t,” she agreed without any defensiveness in her voice. “Helen raised him, you know. So, I think it hurt her that he didn’t visit very often. When he showed up a couple of weeks ago needing a place to stay, she was surprised.”

Megan paused while she continued to study the detective. Common sense urged her not to volunteer anything. And the promise that she’d made to herself to live an open life after her father died last year was right there at the surface, too. Was it better, she wondered, to tell everything she suspected about Robby? Or was it better to operate the way she knew a lawyer would advise—keep her mouth shut. And if she did, would that make finding Robby’s killer harder? And if she spoke up, would Detective Prescott assume he could—and should—build a case against her?

And then she remembered a verse from her Bible-study group a couple of weeks ago. You will come to know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. It had been true for her all those years ago when the finger of suspicion had been pointed at her. It had to apply now.

“I need to tell you about two different things that happened.”

“Either of these come under the heading of your needing a lawyer?”

The question surprised her since her impression was that cops wanted information any way they could get it. Once more reminding herself that the truth couldn’t hurt her, she said, “I’ll take my chances. The first has to do with a strange thing that started about a month ago after a visit to the bank.”

“Was that before or after Russell came to town?”

“Before, by a week or so,” she replied. “Helen has this huge collection of old coins that she decided to have appraised. They were in a safety-deposit box at the bank, and she wanted help carrying them home.”

“They were that heavy?” His soft question was interested, the kind friends asked when they were getting acquainted.

Ignoring the warning in her head that this man wasn’t a friend, couldn’t be a friend, she said, “You have no idea. She kept them in a washtub.” Visualizing the plastic container, she motioned with her hands. “You know, like you’d set in the bottom of a sink. Anyway, we got them home, and she asked me to put them away on a shelf in the closet of her spare bedroom. A couple of days ago, she told me that the appraiser was finally coming to see her and asked me to get them down. At least a quarter of them were gone.” She paused, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach from that day back now.

“These coins…just how old are we talking?” Wade asked.

“Pre-civil war for a lot of the collection.”

“And Mrs. Russell showed them to you.”

“She did,” Megan said. “Her father had begun the collection, and she had a story to go with many of the coins.”

“And you think this has something to do with Robby’s death?”

She met his gaze. “I don’t know. It just seems strange, you know?” She sighed. “The second part of this…Robby accused me of stealing from her.”

“Were you?” The question so calm, so much still like two friends talking. Even so, her heart pounded.

“No. I wouldn’t do that.” She clasped her hands on top of the table, mentally repeating, the truth will set you free.

“So, you’re telling me you’re not a gold digger.”

“Good grief, what do you take me for?” She stared at him, seeing an attractive man with penetrating brown eyes and a half smile. His posture was relaxed, an ankle drawn over the opposite knee, everything in his demeanor open. Friendly. Not at all like his stern-faced boss.

And yet, there was the accusation. The motive they thought she had, she realized. Swallowing, she looked away from the eyes that she had taken for kind.

“What’s the second thing?” he asked. She must have given him a blank look because he tacked on, “You said you had two things to tell me. Missing coins and…”

“When Robby showed up a couple of weeks ago, he complained about being broke. Then, a few days after he got here, he wasn’t, and he flaunted it.”

“And?”

“I think he was stealing from Helen.” She paused and looked away for a second, too aware of Wade’s focused energy directed at her. “Helen mentioned that she had misplaced a bracelet she often wore—a gold bangle. I’m talking real gold, not some piece of costume jewelry.”