A Deep and Dark December(41)



The pain hit, stealing her breath. White-hot light filled her head. The last thing she remembered was Deidre screaming out Keith’s name.

*

Graham sat at his parents’ dining table with his dad, waiting for his mom to bring in dinner. She’d insisted on making Sunday dinner for the family. Today had been one of her ‘good days’ so no one told her it was Saturday or that Graham’s brother Adam wasn’t away at camp, but overseas on military assignment. His mother’s spiral into dementia had taken a toll on the whole family, especially Ham, and the stress from it had probably contributed to his heart condition.

At the head of the table, Ham sipped a glass of the Cabernet Graham had brought to go with the pot roast his mother was making. Sweat dotted Ham’s upper lip and despite the chill breeze wafting in from the open window, his face was flushed. He’d already barked at Graham for asking if he was okay, so Graham kept his worried glances to a minimum.

“How’s the case going?” Ham asked. “Any new leads?”

“A few, but nothing conclusive.”

“Save the party line for the mayor and city council.”

The last thing Graham wanted to do was cause his father any more distress. He weighed the options and decided his dad would be more upset about being treated as an invalid than he would by the details of the case. So he updated him on the information he’d gathered so far.

“It could take weeks or months for the lab to cough up the DNA results,” Graham said. “Meanwhile the District Attorney is after us to come up with some kind of evidence that would point to it being something other than the murder/suicide it appears to be. So far we have zilch.”

“Have you considered that it might be just as it appears? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...”

“I have, but my gut tells me it’s not.”

Ham took another sip of wine. “Speaking of the mayor, he paid me a visit this morning.”

Graham sat up a little straighter in his chair. “What did he want?” But he already knew and it pissed him off.

“He’s concerned. And so am I.”

“Don’t start.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve able to piece together about the victims?”

“So you can report back to the mayor?”

Ham narrowed his gaze. “I don’t report to him or anyone.”

“You used to.”

“Not anymore.”

Graham weighed what to divulge and what to share that would placate his father, while maintaining the integrity of the case.

“We know that Deidre was having an affair with a local man. He might have been the father of her baby. From the timeline we’ve been able to put together, she got pregnant after she and Greg split up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Greg wasn’t the father. They could have had a brief reconciliation. Won’t know for sure until the DNA results come back.”

“She was pregnant?”

Graham nodded.

Ham finished off his glass of wine in two gulps. “And the husband?”

“Greg’s been tougher to pin down. He seems to have kept to himself a lot in the months since Deidre left him and he lost his job. His house was foreclosed on and as far as we can tell, he had made plans to move to Arizona. He rented an apartment and found a new job with his cousin’s company near Phoenix. Everything I’ve discovered about him says he was moving on. He was meeting Deidre to sign the final divorce papers and had an appointment with the company that had bought his house to hand over his keys.” Graham shrugged. “None of that suggests to me that he was planning to kill Deidre, then himself.”

“Desperate people do desperate things.”

“From everything I could gather about him before the day of the shooting, Greg wasn’t desperate. He was planning a new life.” And that life had been stolen from him.

“Maybe Greg didn’t plan to kill his wife,” Ham said conversationally. “Maybe it was a spur of the moment kind of thing.”

“The gun was unregistered. Who just happens to bring an unregistered weapon to sign divorce papers and hand over the keys to their house?” Graham shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”

“How local was the man she was having an affair with?”

“Very.”

“You know who it was?”

“Keith Collins.”

Ham wiped his upper lip with a handkerchief. “What’d he have to say when you talked to him?”

“That’s number one on my to-do list tomorrow. Should I go check on Mom?”

“She’s fine,” Ham said. “The mayor’s also concerned that the additional patrols aren’t having the desired results.”

“The mayor can go to h—”

Ham pointed a shaky finger at his son. “Not in my house.”

“We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got.”

“Are you?”

Graham’s mother, Catherine, came into the dining room, balancing a large platter in her thin arms. Her frailty frightened Graham in a way Ham’s heart problem didn’t. She was wasting away, both mentally and physically. Graham leapt up to take the platter from her and set it on the table.

“Wait,” Catherine said. “I need to put something down first. A what’s-it-called.” She put a hand to her forehead. “What is it called?” She spun on her heals and headed back to the kitchen.

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