Mayes, Casey - A Deadly Row

I didn’t like my husband’s tone of voice at all, but I couldn’t say anything to him at the moment. That didn’t mean I couldn’t rip into him once we were alone again.

“We were close, but there was someone she’d been seeing over the past month that she wouldn’t talk about. He was older, and Cindy didn’t want to admit it to me.”

“How much older?”

“I couldn’t say. The age wasn’t the only thing, though. The guy had a high profile in Charlotte, I know that much.”

“But you don’t know anything more than that?”

Samantha looked as though she wanted to cry, and I wanted to step in and stop my husband from what looked like bullying to me, but I knew if I did, Zach would never let me tag along with him again.

“Hang on a second,” she said, and Samantha got up and went into the other room.

Here was my chance.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed at him.

“I’m conducting an official police investigation,” he said. “What does it look like?”

“Do you have to be so mean?”

He looked genuinely shocked by the question. “I have to be gruff and abrupt to let them know that I’m not kidding around here. Two people have been murdered, and for all we know, someone else is next on this murderer’s list. I don’t have time for niceties.”

“Does it really take all that much more time to be civil?”

“Savannah, let me handle this my way.”

I didn’t say anything in response, and we sat in silence until Samantha walked back into the room carrying a newspaper with her. She held it as if it were the Holy Grail.

“What’s that?” Zach asked, and I noticed his tone was just a little nicer. Truthfully, maybe it was just my imagination, but I liked to think I was making a difference.

“Nine days before she died, I was over at Cindy’s, and I saw her staring at a newspaper.”

“That one in particular?” Zach asked as he leaned forward.

“Let me tell this, okay?” Good for her. I was proud that she had some snap to her words.

“Sorry,” Zach said, though it was pretty clear the apology was tepid at best.

“Anyway, we were having breakfast in her kitchen, and I saw her looking at a photo in the Charlotte Observer . When I asked her about it, she said wistfully, ‘Isn’t he handsome?’

“Which one, I asked her, since there were two photographs on that particular page. In one of them, two men were standing on some kind of platform shaking hands. The other was a headshot of a businessman, at least that’s what he looked like to me from the suit he was wearing. Cindy suddenly looked at me as though she’d said too much, and before I could get a better look, she folded the paper, and threw it in the trash. Cindy is a . . . was a demon at recycling, and she never would have thrown that away if she hadn’t been hiding something.”

“So, you dug it out of her trash?”

“Don’t be disgusting. I bought a paper the second I left her, and I found the photos she was pointing out.”

“May I see that?” Zach asked.

Samantha nodded, and handed him the paper. I looked over his shoulder when he opened it, and I saw something that shook me to the core. The photo of the two men together showed Grady and Davis. The other photo showed Hank Tristan, and was accompanied by a story on a business he was building in Ballantyne.

Zach appeared too focused on the photo of Davis and Grady, so I tapped the headshot of Hank Tristan. He nodded, brushing me off, but I didn’t let it bother me. If I’d pointed it out to him first, he’d give me full credit for the discovery. There wasn’t an ounce of macho pride in my husband. He’d publicly thank a nine-year-old girl if she helped him solve a case. Results were all Zach cared about, and that was just one more reason why I loved him.

He started to hand the paper back to Samantha when I said, “Hold on a second.”

“What is it?” my husband asked me.

“Let me see that.”

He handed the paper to me, and as I looked at the photo of the two men, I saw another familiar face standing just behind them. I showed it to Zach and pointed it out. “That’s Steve Sanders, isn’t it?”

Zach studied it a second, and then said, “Yeah, but it’s not much of a photo of him.”

“It’s possible though, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. That was a good spot.” He glanced at the paper, and then at Samantha. “May I keep this?”

“If it helps you find out who killed Cindy, you can have everything I own.”

“Just the paper, at least for now,” Zach said, and offered her a gentle smile. Samantha responded to it with a smile of her own, and I wondered if telling my husband to be nicer to his interview subjects had been the best idea, especially when they were prettier, younger, and skinnier than I was.

Zach stood, and to his credit, my dear husband turned to me and asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to ask?”

“No, you covered everything perfectly.”

Samantha led us to the door, and she lingered there as we left. “If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know. I miss her so much.”

“I’m sure you do,” I said, my heart instantly softening to her. After all, who could blame her for returning one of my husband’s smiles? He was a good-looking guy, after all. “We’ll let you know if we think of anything else.”

As we headed back to the car, I said, “She liked you. You know that, don’t you?”

“What can I say? I’m a likeable guy.”

“Come on, you were a detective once upon a time. You had to notice the way she smiled at you.”

“Savannah, don’t be ridiculous. I’m an old married man. No woman in her twenties is going to be interested in me.”

“And if they were?”

“I’d tell them that my heart belongs to another.” Zach surprised me then by picking me up off my feet and hugging me.

“Put me down, you big lug,” I said, laughing with every word.

“Fine, but you know that I never cared about looking like a fool. I love my wife. Arrest me.”

“If they do, they’ll have to arrest me, too.”

He winked. “Maybe if we ask Davis nicely, he’ll put us in the same cell.”

“You’re in an awfully good mood all of a sudden,” I said.

“I know I shouldn’t be; this is serious business. But I can’t let it kill my spirit, can I? We’re narrowing things down, Savannah. I don’t like the direction the investigation’s taking, but I have to admit it; I enjoy it when the puzzle pieces start to fit together.”

“Did I miss something? Which pieces are you talking about?”

“Come on, it’s too big a coincidence that the first murder victim was tied to Hank, Davis, and Grady.”

“And Steve,” I added.

“And Steve,” he agreed. “Let’s play with some possibilities. If Cindy was having an affair with Hank, it could explain why she was murdered, and it would tie the two homicides in together.”

“What if she was seeing Grady before he admitted to dating her? Remember, the photos in the newspaper appeared at least a week before they met, according to Grady. How about Davis? It’s easy to see how he or Steve would be attracted to her. Cindy was a pretty girl.” In one of the photographs I’d seen of her, she’d looked so full of spirit, so alive, that it was hard for me to believe that she was dead.

“Then she could have been killed out of jealousy, and Hank saw something or knew something that got him killed.”

“All of those lives are so tangled together; I don’t know how you’re ever going to straighten it all out. How are you handling all of the things you’re learning?”

Zach frowned. “I hate that three of my friends are involved in this mess, but if one of them is a murderer, I’ll see him hang for it.”