Carolyn McSparren - His Only Defense

“I think she had arranged for somebody to pick her up, and left her car that way so we’d think she’d been abducted, and would stop looking for her quicker.” He raised his eyes. “It worked.”

“We couldn’t find evidence of a pickup by any of the rental-car agencies or taxis, even the ones that will drive that far out,” Liz responded. “With all the publicity at the time, surely any taxi or rental-car company would have come forward.” She shrugged. “The alternative is a colleague, a friend or a lover. No evidence was ever found for any of those.”

He started to say something, then stopped.

“If you know of any lover, or even a possible lover, I’d suggest you give me a name.”

“I don’t. To the best of my knowledge, Sylvia was not having an affair at the time she disappeared.”

“Were you?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“But you’ve had affairs since she disappeared.” Liz made her comment a statement, not a question. She didn’t know whether he’d slept around or not, but he would assume she’d traced his lovers. Or she hoped he would.

The man actually blushed. With shame or guilt?

“Lady, it’s been seven years since my wife disappeared. What do you think?”

“I’d like to talk to the ladies.”

“You find them, you talk to them. I’m not giving you any names. Believe me, there are damn few of them to find. What difference does it make, anyway? I was a completely faithful husband until long after Sylvia disappeared.”

It made a great deal of difference to Liz. She’d find those women and interview them—no, interrogate them, until they admitted their liaisons with Jud. Who knew what he might have let slip to a lover? “I don’t need no stinkin’ divorce,” for example. She pushed her empty plate away. Jud pushed his plate back, as well, although most of his farmer’s breakfast lay congealing on it.

So she’d rattled him.

“You’re telling me you had a good marriage?”

“About average.”

This time he did look down and to his right. He was lying.

“Money troubles?”

He dropped his fists onto the table on either side of his plate. Not exactly a slam, but close.

Good, he was losing his cool.

“Lady—uh, Liz, we moved into the new house in July, before she disappeared in November. Five months is not a long time to get the kinks out of a new house, not even one I designed and built. Colleen had just started second grade at her private school, with much longer travel time, plus after-school care until either I or her grandmother could pick her up.

“Sylvia had made vice president a year earlier and was working sixty hours a week or more. So was I, trying to get my construction business on a solid footing. We were all under a lot of stress. Sure, there were strains on the marriage, but I swear to God I never picked up on any signals that Sylvia was going to run away.”

“I thought your business was having money problems.”

“Half the time we’re having short-term money problems. Trip and I knew we could weather them. We did, as you could see yesterday. We’re going great guns. We were a little overextended, that’s all.”

“Nothing a million dollars wouldn’t have cured,” Liz said.

Without warning, he was furious. His skin grew mottled, his jaw set and his shoulders hunched. So he did have a temper. Not altogether Good Neighbor Sam, Mr. Easygoing.

“Miz Gibson, if I killed my wife for a million dollars, don’t you think I would have arranged to have her body found so I could collect?”

“You’re going to collect now.”

He slid out of the booth and stood. He loomed over Liz, and for a moment she thought he might actually hit her with one of those huge fists.

He took a deep breath, however, and loosened both his shoulders and his hands. He sat back down and waggled a finger at Bella, who was watching them from behind the counter, for another cup of coffee. He pointed at Liz’s tea. She shook her head.

Drat! Waiting for his coffee to be poured and for Bella to move out of earshot again gave him the breathing space he needed to get himself under control.

“Sorry. Sometimes all the suspicion gets to me.” Good Neighbor Sam was back. He grinned at her sheepishly, and her heart turned over and went into overdrive. Uh-oh.

“Look, Liz, I’m going to say this one more time. I did not kill my wife. I did not hide her body. I do not know what happened that night. I would never have risked my own neck, my freedom and my daughter’s happiness by depriving her of one parent, much less two. I won’t help you railroad me into jail for a crime I didn’t commit.”

Liz nodded. “Okay. Now, let me give you my response.” She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but he hadn’t heard it recently. Might shake him up a bit. “Sherman and Lee, the two original detectives on the case, firmly believed that you killed your wife and hid her body somewhere.”

He started to speak, but she held up a finger to stop him. “I am not Sherman and Lee. I am starting from scratch. For every mystery murder case, there are ninety-nine straightforward killings where we know immediately who did what to whom.

“Our homicide squad had a solve rate of over ninety percent before all the stranger-on-stranger and gangbanger killings started. It’s now down around eighty-four percent, which is better than most counties our size. Some cops just want to close the file, put somebody on trial whether they are convicted or not. I’m not like that, and I doubt Sherman and Lee were, either. If you are innocent, I’ll prove that, if possible, and find the real bad guy.

“If you are guilty, however, I am your worst junkyard-dog nightmare. It doesn’t matter that I like you and want to believe you. I won’t feel a bit guilty if I decide to arrest you and deprive your daughter of her one remaining parent. You did that, not me.”

He stared at her silently for a long moment, then he nodded. “Fair enough.” He leaned forward and smiled that beatific smile that would melt a statue’s heart. “So, you like me?”

Liz laughed so hard Bella came over to see if she needed a thwack on the back.

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