The Winter Widow (10 page)

“I see.”

“For all I know there is no such place as Kansas.” She noticed her voice had gotten rather loud. “You asked me to marry you,” she said accusingly.

“I did that, yes.”

“Did you mean it?” she demanded.

“I never ask beautiful women to marry me unless I mean it.”

“I accept,” she snapped and stared at him, terrified.

He went very still, then pushed himself from the wall and took back the Scotch. He drank it. “Really warms my heart to see you so thrilled about it,” he said mildly.

“I'm scared.”

He nodded profoundly. Silence ticked by.

“What made you decide?” he asked.

She smiled a quick, embarrassed smile. “That bullet came close. I'm thirty-four years old. I love you. I'd like to have a husband, a child, a—” She waved her hands, brushing at confusion. “Oh, Daniel. This is crazy. How is it ever going to work out?”

Catching one hand, he kissed the palm. “We'll just have to see,” he had said.

“Just have to see”: his way of saying “One step at a time.”

She fumbled on the bedside table for the pack of cigarettes, shook one out and struck a match. The bright flare made her squeeze her eyes shut. Daniel was dead, there would be no child, the dreams were all ashes. She blew smoke at the dark ceiling and thought about the row of silver trophies on Helen's bookshelf, Helen's dream of travel, her fierce desire to sell the family farm, her anger and resentments. Did she kill him? She had motive and she certainly had the skill.

*   *   *

AT the police department, Susan said good morning to Hazel and went straight to George Halpern's office. In a dark-brown suit, white shirt and carefully knotted tie, he sat at his desk working on personnel assignments and organizing patrols. He was doing a lot of the work that should have been hers, except she didn't have the knowledge that should go with the title. It was only because he'd agreed to help that she thought she might pull off this charade of being police chief.

She liked George, a genuinely good person, kind and compassionate. He was in his early sixties, with a square face and thin gray hair, bald in back. He'd been born in Hampstead, lived here all his life and spent over forty years with the police department.

He looked up when she walked in, assessing yesterday's effects on her and probably wondering if she was strong enough to stick it out or if she would fold her tent and slink away.

He smiled as she plunked down on the chair in front of his desk. Heavy lines bracketed his generous mouth and radiated more lines that hinted at his quick and quirky sense of humor. Even forty years as a police officer hadn't shaken his faith in the innate goodness of most people, a vast difference from a forty-year veteran of big-city crime.

“Tell me about Helen Wren,” she said.

“What do you want to know?”

“She wants to sell Daniel's farm.”

“It's her farm, too.”

Susan sighed. “I guess now it's partly mine.” It was an unwanted responsibility, this feeling she must do right by Daniel's farm.

“Legally,” George said mildly.

She darted a quick look at him, wondering if he were implying that morally the issue wasn't so clear.

The chair squeaked as George leaned back, rested his elbows on the arms and clasped his fingers across his chest. “Her dreams never came true, and one frustration piled on top of another from the time she was thirteen.”

“What happened?”

“Till then she was an only child with a doting father; then Dan was born and Arthur had a son. All that attention went to him. The mother was never strong. City girl from Atlanta. Kansas and farming just seemed too much for her.”

Susan grinned. “That I understand.”

“Allura needed parties and fancy dresses and people taking care of her. She had a hard time when Dan was born and never seemed to get her strength back. Running the house fell on Helen and every time she tried to get away something happened to keep her here. Usually her mother took sick. One time, bad time, it was Arthur. Tractor ran over him and darn near killed him. Then Helen had to run the farm, too.”

“Uh-huh.” Susan sneezed and grabbed a tissue from the box on the desk. That explained a lot about Helen. She was fifty-eight years old, and for forty-five of those years she'd had one disappointment after another. She would feel the years going by one by one as she stayed, dutifully accepting the responsibilities that fell on her shoulders, and with each year seeing her opportunities get fewer and slipping away to none, anger and frustration and bitterness growing greater. She must have resented Daniel from the day he was born. He usurped her place in the family and then grew up able to lead his own life while she was forced to give up hers.

Susan felt sorry for her. Sell the farm, let Helen have her dream. But not till I'm damn sure her hands weren't on the rifle. “Did she kill Daniel?”

George leaned forward with a squeak, folded his hands on the desk and looked at them for a moment, then realigned the framed photos of his three grandchildren. “She shot a man once.”

“Who?”

“When her father was laid up, she was doing the farming, plus looking after him, plus taking care of Allura who wasn't ever much use. Dan was in the army then and had a wife of his own. Lot of things were going wrong around the Wren place. Livestock injured one way and another. Fences down. Cattle getting at the crops and causing damage. Machinery breaking down.”

“Who did she shoot?”

“Late one night, Arthur's dog was missing and she went looking. She caught Billy Don Kimmell setting fire to the wheat field.”

“Kimmell?” Susan said. “There's a Floyd Kimmell who works at the hardware store. Big man with red hair and the smell of a bully.”

“Billy Don's son. It's not been easy for Floyd around here. Country people have long memories. He feels he's been cheated some way and like he was owed. Comes out of all this past. Back then it didn't look like Arthur was ever going to get well. Billy Don wanted to get the land cheap and was causing all that misery hoping they would sell out.”

“Helen killed him?”

“She did.”

“What happened?”

“This was all over thirty years ago. There was an investigation and talk of bringing charges. Folks all felt sorry for her, felt she had no choice but to do what she did. Most everyone of them would have done the same. Crops are their livelihood. Can't survive without 'em. What it came down to was, authorities decided not to charge her.”

So Floyd Kimmell had a grudge against the Wrens, a thirty-year-old grudge. After all that time, had he decided on revenge? It was Helen who had shot his father, not Daniel. If he was out for revenge, why not shoot Helen?

He might have a motive that had nothing to do with all this past history. She recalled the smirk on his face yesterday morning, and somebody in the crowd teasing him about Lucille. “What kind of relationship does Floyd have with Lucille?”

“If you mean romantic, none that I know of. They know each other, but that's the extent of it.”

“Any word on Lucille?”

“Not yet,” George said with a worried sigh.

“Has anybody questioned Floyd about her?”

“Not specially.” George eyed her, waiting for her to explain.

“Just a feeling,” she admitted.

He nodded, as though that was reason enough.

“Would you send somebody—Parkhurst—to lean on him a little?”

“Osey'd be better. Floyd'd clam up when he saw Ben coming. Osey has a way of just easing information along like a lazy current moving a duckling.”

“Well—” She wasn't sure Osey would recognize information if it was handed to him with a label.

“I'm going to see Lucille's editor. What do you know about him?”

*   *   *

THE
Hampstead Herald,
according to a brass plaque on the front of the building, had been founded in 1886. It was a square brick structure, painted white, directly across the railroad tracks from the depot.

Henry Royce had bought the paper five years ago after a heart attack at age forty-two forced him to retire from one of the Chicago papers. He was an outsider, too, but according to George, more readily accepted than most because nobody wanted to do without the
Herald.
His office was at the rear of the building, and he sat writing copy behind an old oak desk cluttered with file folders, magazines, notes and old newspapers.

White shirtsleeves rolled up, garish red-striped tie loosened, he looked up at her and scowled. It was a scene straight out of
The Front Page.
She wondered why he didn't wear a green eyeshade. The heart attack probably accounted for the absence of a haze of smoke.

He had a heavy face—jowly—sharp black eyes and black hair, mottled with gray, that was overdue for a haircut. Thirty pounds overweight, with an ulcer, he was a short-tempered man who quickly reached a hot rage when things went wrong, which happened with great regularity on a small-town daily.

Tossing down the pencil, he leaned back in the chair. “Well, you must be Chief Wren.” He spoke with a soft Southern accent.

She was getting a little tired of the sarcasm everybody loaded onto
Chief
Wren. “Where is Lucille?”

“If I knew, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this drivel. I'd haul her in and have her doing it.”

“Drivel?”

“My readers are more interested in who got married and what the bride wore than hard news.”

“Surely you knew that before you came.”

“Yeah, well, knowing and experiencing are two different things.”

He crossed his arms, tipped back his head and peered at her with cynical amusement in his beady eyes. “Maybe you know about that. Want to give me an exclusive interview?”

“No.”

“Human interest,” he drawled. “Romantic dreams, biological clock—career woman gives up all, then lands knee-deep in reality.”

She wasn't sure she liked Henry Royce; he seemed to carry antennae that zeroed in on the weak spots. She raised her eyebrows and gave him a supercilious nod in acknowledgment of his accuracy.

Since he made no attempt to provide her a place to sit, she scooped a tottery pile of papers and files from the only chair, swung it around in front of the desk and planted herself on it. “Where do you think she is?”

“Ah, honey, she's young. You know how it goes, most likely a hot-and-heavy love affair with some sweetheart.”

Susan looked at him, wondering if he believed that. She couldn't tell; his face was bland, eyes opaque. “Is she a good reporter?”

“She might be in a few years.” His voice held a fond wistful quality. Nostalgia for his own reporting days? Or fondness for his pretty young reporter?

“She's green and what she's doing isn't what you'd call reporting, but she works hard and she's ambitious. Her instincts are right. That all-important nose for news all us good reporters have,” he said sarcastically.

Reporters weren't the only ones with instincts. Cops had them too, and Susan's instincts told her Lucille was into something “hot and heavy” related to Daniel's death. Victim? Perpetrator? She didn't know, but she was sure Lucille wasn't in the arms of a lover. “For instance?”

He lowered his chin to his chest, narrowed his eyes and said ominously, “Cattle rustling.”

“Lucille thinks that's going on?”

He nodded.

“Is she right?”

He shrugged. “On a big scale, no. On a small scale, she's convinced, yes. Anywhere you have a lot of cattle, the odd bovine can be stolen and slaughtered by somebody who likes beef and doesn't want to pay for it, or likes to make a little money selling it for less than market price.”

“I see. Anything else she was interested in?”

“Toxic waste.”

“What about it?”

He shrugged again. “Lucille has this flea in her ear that somebody is dumping it somewhere in the county.”

“She right about that?”

“I doubt it. On the other hand, there's a lot of that going around lately.”

“Did she talk about Daniel's murder?”

“Of course.” He picked up a pencil, held one end in each hand and rotated it.

“Does she suspect anyone?”

“If she does, she hasn't said so.”

Susan eyed him steadily and waited. When he didn't volunteer anything further, she said, “I assume you're concerned about her, that you'd rather no harm came to her. I'm trying to find her, see she's not in any danger, and I need a little help here.”

He expanded his chest with a large breath and let it out with a gusty sigh. “I think she did suspect somebody.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. She denied it flatly.”

Again Susan waited.

“Honest truth,” he said. “I don't have any idea.”

“What makes you think she suspects somebody?”

His mouth twisted in a crooked smile. “Old firehorse hearing the distant clang of bells.” He tapped the pencil against the back of his hand. “This was her first real crime. A lot different from covering 4-H exhibits. She's never seen a murder victim before.”

She stared at him. “Lucille saw the body?”

His black eyes stared back. “She was there almost as soon as Ben was.”

She hadn't known Lucille had been present at the crime scene. Had Lucille spotted something Parkhurst missed? Picked up something? Thursday night after Susan had seen Daniel's body on an autopsy table, Lucille, agitated, tried to find out what Parkhurst knew. She had stuck her hand in her pocket and very quickly jerked it back.

What was in that pocket? Something that identified the killer? Why not turn it over to Parkhurst? Protecting the killer? Why? Unless she had killed Daniel, was protecting herself and now had lit out for parts unknown.