If Onions Could Spring Leeks (21 page)

I woke the next morning refreshed and with an idea re-blossoming in my mind. It was as if a night of not focusing on anything but Cliff helped settle everything else in my mind, and suddenly I wanted to see someone about my idea. Anyone who might substantiate it would do, but I knew where I wanted to begin.

Cliff left early, but I took my time, making a few notes and drinking a few cups of strong coffee. I'd told him I would stop by the post office and check on Gina, another of Derek's ex-wives, but something else gnawed at me. Gina got moved to second place, but another ex-wife took first.

When I felt ready I hopped in the Nova and steered it past downtown, pulling into an empty parking spot in front of Doc's office. It looked like Ridley was already there; her Explorer was next to the building. There were a couple other
cars in the street that might have belonged to patients inside, but it didn't look like the office would be too busy.

“Hi,” I said over the counter. “I don't have an appointment, but Ridley has been helping me with my pain meds. Any chance she has a minute or two?”

“Oh, well, I'll see. We're busy this morning.”

I glanced back at the empty waiting room.

“The patients are all in the back.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Give me a minute.”

She got my name, not acting as though she remembered me, and disappeared down the short hallway that led to the examination rooms. I took a seat and tried to look like I was interested in a magazine.

I didn't think Ridley would want to see me, but since I was here (falsely, of course) in a patient capacity and she couldn't risk letting anyone know that we'd spoken about Lynn during my last visit, she would probably see me and play along, even if she didn't want to.

I imagined the thoughts turning over in her head as she tried to figure out a way to ignore me, but ultimately couldn't come up with one.

A long moment later, she stepped through the doorway.

“Betts, what can I do for you?” she asked.

“Have a minute? I'd like to talk to you about these headaches,” I said as I put my fingertips to my left temple.

Ridley looked around and then said, “Sure, come on back.”

Silently, she led the way back to the same cowboy examination room we'd been in before. She shut the door after I followed her inside and took a seat on the exam table.

“I take it you're not really here for your headaches,” she said.

“Nope,” I said.

My idea had come to me somewhere in the middle of the night, though I wasn't sure exactly when it had sprouted; I'd been too busy with Cliff. It had blossomed with the rising sun, though, and then mellowed with some strong coffee. It was a relatively weak theory, sparked by Grace's visit, and the coffee consciousness made that very clear. However, it still made sense. Kind of.

“So,” I began, “did it really take five wives for Derek to realize he was the problem? He was the one who couldn't father a child, right? It had absolutely nothing to do with the women he'd married.”

I hoped I was dropping a bomb, exposing a big secret, that she'd think I was extra clever. But that wasn't how she reacted. Instead, she steeled her stare and her stance.

“Yes, it took five,” she said plainly, as if she wasn't surprised in the least that someone might have figured out this part of the mystery. But, then again, as she confirmed my suspicion I realized how obvious it had been.

I'd been asking how in the world Derek had chosen to marry five times. That was now clear, but there was still a big piece missing from the puzzle. Why had these women agreed to marry him? That was going to be more difficult to draw out of her, out of anyone, apparently.

“Ridley, I've only met a few of Derek's ex-wives, but every single one of you seems intelligent and savvy. Forgive me for asking this because there is no way to phrase it without being insulting, but why in the world would you all marry him, a sour, unfriendly man? I'm missing something. It makes no sense.”

The corner of her mouth twitched twice. “So, you don't have it all figured out?”

“That's why I'm asking. I think the answer will lead everyone directly to his killer. Am I right?”

“You are one hundred percent correct, but you're still thinking about it the wrong way.”

“Point me the right way.”

This time she laughed out loud. “No, Betts, I'm not going to do that. You might assume that my reasoning for not doing so is because I killed Derek. Here, let me add another glitch to your thinking. I did not kill him, but I did not like him. I never did. Why haven't the police asked me that question—did I even like him? They've asked me where I was that night, and if I thought anyone wanted him dead. No one has asked if I liked him. I'm sure they all assume that we divorced because we ‘fell out of love' or something, but that's not true. I was never in love in the first place.”

“That brings me right back to the question—why did you marry him, then?”

She shrugged, crossed her arms in front of herself, and looked at me.

I forged on. “You got something out of the marriage. Security? No, you're a nurse and you live in Broken Rope. Your living expenses aren't high. Companionship? No, evidently not that. Money? But Derek didn't have money.”

“Still on the wrong track. But we could go round and round all day. I need to get back to work. There are real patients scheduled to come in, you know.”

“Sure,” I said as I scooted off the exam table, hiding my disappointment.

Ridley held the door open and signaled that I should walk through first.

“I'm going to tell Cliff about our conversation,” I said.

“I didn't expect you not to. He's a good guy and a smart police officer, but he hasn't asked about my feelings for Derek either. Again, too many people assumed too many things. Marriage isn't always about love.”

“Did any of Derek's wives marry him for love?”

“You'll have to ask them. Or tell Cliff to ask them.”

“I will.”

“Good luck with the headaches,” she said as a final dismissal.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

I looked at her a long moment, but she was clearly done with our conversation. I walked past her and then past the receptionist out front. There was one patient in the waiting room, but he didn't look all that sick so I didn't feel too guilty. I left the building and walked toward the boardwalk.

I wasn't ready yet to let go of my idea, but first I needed to talk to Cliff.

•   •   •

“Really? We didn't ask her about her feelings for Derek?” Cliff said, truly puzzled.

“She said everyone assumed that she just fell out of love and they got divorced. No one asked if she ever liked him.”

Cliff blinked. “That's either some wordplay on her part, or some less-than-stellar police work on our part,” he said. “We'll take another close look.”

I'd managed to catch Cliff outside the station, just as he was coming back from an official visit with Lynn, the details of which he couldn't share. Jim left as Cliff and I walked into the station together, but Jim didn't tell either of us where he was going. I got the impression that Cliff already knew.

“Cliff,” I said as I repositioned myself in the chair across his desk. “Have you found out any more about Derek's or Lynn's financial situation?”

“Nothing new since yesterday, Betts.”

“I can't let go of it. I can't let go of the idea that the women who married Derek could not have possibly done so without some sort of financial benefit. It's a horrible, rotten thing to say, but I've become obsessed, I think. Nothing else fits.”

Cliff nodded. “We've thought about that too, Betts, but we keep running into dead ends. Lynn doesn't really have any bills; her house is paid for, so she must have spent her money wisely. Nothing looks fishy.”

“What money, Cliff?” I said. “She worked as a retail clerk for many years. How did she have enough money to pay off that house? How deeply have you looked?”

“She inherited the house from her parents.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” I was disappointed in the lack of mystery in that answer. “All right, how about under her mattress?”

Cliff smiled. “We searched the house after Derek was killed. I think we checked the mattress—underneath it at least, maybe not inside it. But, still, if she or Derek had money, Betts, how did they get it? We know for a fact that Derek's bank account was always very low.”

“I'm not surprised.”

Cliff cocked his head and looked at me with his eyebrows
tight together. “You really can't let go of the money angle, can you?”

“What else could it possibly be? What's that Sherlock Holmes saying—when you've eliminated the impossible . . .”

“What remains, no matter how improbable, it must be true. Or something like that,” Cliff said. “Yes, Mr. Holmes is unquestionably an excellent detective, even in his fictional form.”

“It seems impossible that any of the women who married Derek actually liked him,” I said.

Cliff laughed. “Let us dig a little deeper to make sure, but you might be right.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I'm still going to the post office later this morning. I promise.”

My next stop, however, was Lynn's house, but I didn't tell Cliff. After talking to him, I'd become more doubtful about my idea, embarrassed, maybe. What had seemed so possible when I woke up was fading to silliness. However, I still wasn't quite ready to give up on it all the way yet either.

As I turned the corner that led to Lynn's street, I saw another car I thought I recognized parked in front of her house. I pulled in the same semi-hiding spot Gram and I had used and waited only a few minutes for someone to exit the house. It was Bonnie. She didn't hide her furtive glances in every direction as she stood on the front stoop. Was she hiding from someone, hoping no one, or someone in particular, didn't see her?

Or was it something worse? I'd been thinking so hard that perhaps my imagination got shifted up to overdrive, but I wondered about Lynn's safety. I reached for my phone with the idea that I'd ask Cliff to come out and check on her, but
then she appeared. She stepped out of the doorway and she and Bonnie had a brief conversation, Lynn from the porch, Bonnie from halfway down the walkway. The moment wasn't contentious and a second later Lynn went inside and Bonnie hurried to her car.

I put the phone back in my pocket and ducked lower than the dashboard, just like any proper spy, as Bonnie drove by. The Nova was a pretty distinct car, and if she hadn't known it was mine before she'd stopped by my house the other day, she'd probably put the pieces together well enough by now, but I hoped her mind was occupied with whatever she and Lynn had been discussing.

Once the noise from her engine faded away, I scootched back up and stared at the house. It was a nice house, and though property in Broken Rope wasn't too expensive, it wasn't cheap. She'd been fortunate to inherit it from her parents. But there had to be more. There
had
to be.

“Show me the money, Lynn,” I muttered quietly to myself.

My plan had been to talk to Lynn, just casually to see if she could say anything to substantiate my obsession, but Bonnie being there and the mere idea that she might have recognized the Nova made me think again. Maybe I'd come back later.

A trip to the post office and a discussion with Gina might be more fruitful anyway. I turned the car around and headed back to town.

As I waited to turn into the post office parking lot, a truly fortuitous event occurred—there was no other way to describe it. A horse came out of nowhere and ran down the middle of Main Street. Though there had never been any formal training or any sort of declaration that we as citizens of Broken Rope, Missouri, were to stop every runaway horse
we saw, we all did, nonetheless. It was probably written somewhere in some ancient bylaw, but it was most definitely an unspoken code that the tourists and their safety were our number one priorities.

I jumped out of my still-running car and ran toward the street and the horse with the hope I'd get to it before it hurt someone.

But someone beat me to the punch. By the time I made it to the middle of the street, Grant, the barber, had stopped the animal and was holding tight to its reins. A second later, a man dressed as an old-time cowboy ran past me in a bow-legged trot that was befitting of his getup.

“He's mine. Sorry!” the running cowboy said.

No one had gotten hurt.

This time.

Thanks to the runaway horse, the idea I'd had that had all but disappeared sprung wings and legs again. As sure as I could see and talk to ghosts, I was sure the runaway horse had been a sign, telling me not to give up quite yet. And with the sign came new inspiration. I didn't need to talk to Lynn or any of Derek's ex-wives to get answers. They wouldn't give them to me anyway. I hurried back to the Nova, and I couldn't get to the courthouse fast
enough.