Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(64)

“Actually, I have,” I told him. “I have reason to believe that someone named Shelley Loveday might have been involved. She’s currently Mrs. Roger Adams the second, but at the time Chris disappeared, and even though Shelley was married to someone else at the time, she and Mr. Adams were involved in a long-standing affair.”

There was another pause on the line. I wondered if I had lost him. “Where are you right now?” he asked a moment later. “Didn’t you say you were here in town?”

“I am,” I told him. “I’m at the Driftwood Inn.”

“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

And he was, too. In the meantime I hustled down to the desk and collected a few more Keurig pods along with some extra containers of whatever passes for hotel-room cream and sugar. Price’s reaction over the phone told me that whatever discussion we were about to have probably shouldn’t be conducted in public. That meant a table in AJ’s or one down in the cozy lobby at the Driftwood were both out of the question.

While I was down in the lobby, I told the desk clerk that I was expecting a visitor, and he sent Lieutenant Price straight up to my room. When I opened the door, the guy I found in the hallway was an all-too-familiar figure—a homicide cop through and through who definitely looked the part, rumpled cheap suit and all. Most likely in his mid-forties, Marvin Price was about my height and a bit on the lean side. He was handsome enough, with dark wavy hair going gray around the temples.

“Mr. Beaumont?” he asked, extending his hand.

“Call me Beau, please,” I told him. “What about you?”

“Marve works, but most people call me Marvin.”

With introductions out of the way, I ushered him into the room. As I did so, I noted the lingering faded groove on the ring finger of his left hand indicating that a long-worn wedding ring was now MIA. That told me Marvin Price used to be married but wasn’t anymore. No wonder he was hanging around his office late on a Saturday night. Back in those days, I would have been hanging out in a bar.

“Have a seat,” I told him. Fortunately, my view room at the Driftwood came with a small pullout sofa and a reasonably comfortable chair. “Coffee?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Straight or decaf?”

“I don’t do decaf.”

“Neither do I. Cream and sugar?”

“Black, please.”

“My kind of guy,” I told him. We both laughed, at that, and I set about getting the Keurig to do its stuff.

“I gave Hank a call on my way over,” Marvin said. “He says that you may be a PI now, but that back in the day you were the real deal.”

I didn’t take offense. From where Marvin stood, I must have looked as old as Methuselah.

“I like to think I still am the real deal,” I replied, “but as Joe Kenda says, ‘Homicide is a young man’s game.’ That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t like keeping my hand in on occasion. When I took this case, I had no idea it would lead me to a possible homicide.”

“Or two,” he added quietly.

The word “two” certainly grabbed my interest. “I could tell by your reaction to the name of Shelley Loveday Adams that it rang a bell with you,” I suggested.

He nodded. “You can say that again, because I’m pretty sure that woman had something to do with her husband’s death. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, she’s going to get away with it.”

Obviously, Hank Frazier really had put in a good word for me. Marvin’s coffee finished brewing. I handed him his cup and started mine.

“So tell me about that Jack Loveday case,” I urged. “Was it yours to begin with?”

Marvin shook his head. “At the time I was still working patrol, and Barry Caldwell was in charge of investigations. When I moved up from patrol to investigations in 2011, he was still there, and he was still pissed about the case. As far as he was concerned, the Loveday case was a screwup from day one.”

“I knew that Shelley’s first husband was dead,” I ventured, “but everyone I’ve spoken to so far seems to be under the impression that he committed suicide.”

“Yes,” Price told me, “that’s the official story, but in my opinion it ain’t necessarily so.”

“Care to tell me about it?”

Marvin stared into his coffee cup for a moment before he answered. “If I tell you this, I’m talking out of school,” he said finally, “and there are any number of people in town—powerful people at that—who aren’t at all interested in having that story rehashed.”

“Like Roger Adams, for instance?” I asked.

Marvin favored me with a wry grin. “Precisely like Roger Adams,” he said.

“So tell me about it,” I said.

“First off,” Marvin said, “you need to know I’m not exactly unbiased here.”

“You’ve got a dog in this fight?”

“I do,” he admitted. “My dad’s best friend growing up was a guy named Larry Earling, whose sister, Lois, happened to be Jack Loveday’s first wife. Dad was invited to their wedding. He and Jack hit it off, and they became good friends as well. Makes sense, of course. They were birds of a feather—both bush pilots and both hard drinkers who loved their tequila. They drank it the old-fashioned way—straight with a dab of salt and a section of lime. My dad sobered up before he died. Obviously, Jack never did.”