Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Duke held the door to Ahab’s open for Ferd as they ducked inside away from the constant beat of rain. Music blared from somewhere in the rafters. Thick wooden beams ran across the room with cowboy hats atop them. A cactus sat, drooping sickly in the dark corner near the bar.
Ferd approached the hostess. “Good evening.”
Duke produced his badge once again.
“We’re here to meet up with a woman who has been seeing Bailey Nosboum. Can you help us find her?” Ferd glanced at her watch. 6:03 P.M. They were late, but not by much.
“Oh, she’s back here. I always put them at a table for two. Sorry. I can move a chair over.” She hurried them back to the end of a section where a table for two sat in a narrow corner. A woman who looked to be in her late thirties sat on one side, looking at the menu lying in front of her.
She’s young for a man Bailey’s age.
She looked up and frowned. “Is something wrong? Where’s Bailey?” She glanced at all three of them individually.
The look of absolute pain on her face didn't seem rehearsed. While she didn’t have the right to cross the woman off the list, she’d have to say something pretty weighty to make Ferd believe she was part of the plot.
“May we sit for a moment?” Duke asked.
The hostess moved a chair and then headed back to her station.
“Yes, please. What’s wrong? Where is Bailey? Are you police officers?”
Nerves tingled over Ferd’s arms. “I’m so sorry. Bailey was found deceased on his boat. He didn’t have a phone with him, and we weren’t sure who to contact. He left a note saying he was going to meet you here today, so we wanted to be here.”
“To question me?” She turned her face to the wall and sobbed. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“Samantha, right? May I call you Sam? Just a few questions. Do you know of any other family he had?” Duke drew a tissue from his pocket and handed it to her.
Samantha took it and dabbed her eyes. “I prefer Samantha, if you don’t mind. He had no family. Except his ex-wife. But he said I didn’t need to worry about her because he was never going back to her.” Her chin trembled as she wiped her tears away.
Ferd leaned forward. “But he considered her family?”
Samantha nodded and blew her nose. “Yes. He cared about her. They’d been married for a long time. He said she took a page out of Gone With the Wind at their divorce hearing, making up a story about him, and it turned the judge against him.”
“What did she say?” Duke asked.
Samantha closed her eyes and made a shoving motion. “She said he’d pushed her down the stairs, so he’d have to pay her alimony. He understood why, though. She wasn’t going to get anything without lying.”
Ferd sat straighter in her seat. They’d heard that story. What else was she lying about?
“Did he ever complain about the amount he paid her?” Duke asked.
She scrunched her face. “No. Not that I recall. He was pretty respectful of her. He didn’t love her, that’s not what I’m saying at all, but I heard him talking to her on the phone and they acted like old friends who bicker occasionally.
I know he loved me though, see . . .” She held out her hand and showed off a delicate engagement band.
“Congratulations, and now I’m even more sorry,” Ferd said.
“So am I. We would’ve stayed together forever. I just know it.” She clenched her jaw, making her trembling even easier to see.
Ferd patted down her own pockets for another tissue, then handed one over. Duke leaned back, and Ferd held in a flinch. That’s what he did when he was about to become the bad guy.
“You were engaged, but no one else in town knew you were even dating except Jonie at the bar. And she was only guessing based on how often you went in there.”
Samantha shook her head and her eyes widened. “We weren’t hiding anything. Well, that’s not true. Bailey let everyone think he was a drunk because that’s the story Monica told everyone about him. Honestly, he drank pretty heavily back then, but he told me he’d sobered up before they divorced.”
“How long ago was that?” Good to check to make sure she knows this stuff and isn’t making up her own timeline.
“Um, that’s way before I met him, but I think they’ve been divorced for almost sixteen years,” Samantha said. “Between Monica and Kelly, the cleaning lady, the story of his drunkenness gets passed around often.”
“Did you drink whatever he ordered then?” Ferd’s stomach rumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since that morning and everything smelled amazing at Ahab’s.
“He drinks water. He only orders alcohol with the guys from work, but doesn’t drink with them.
Both of us are clean. I used to be addicted to a few hard drugs.
I found Jesus and He helped me get clean.
I’d tried before, without faith, without success.
Jesus gave me a reason to commit, and I haven’t touched it since. ”
Duke grinned. “That’s great! Good for you. And I’m sorry the person you found who accepted you is gone. That’s really hard.”
She slowly nodded. “We’d planned to get married in late summer, and we were going to move away from Wyoming.
In fact, he’d just gotten a new navigation system in his boat so we could have his boat flown to the ocean and we could live there for a while.
Go wherever we wanted. He’d already warned Monica he couldn’t guarantee payments anymore so she would have time to look for work and learn a skill.
” Samantha folded her hands together and exhaled deeply.
“How did she respond to that?” Ferd asked.
Samantha snorted. “Not happy. She said she’d never sell her home. Never get a job. Never give up her lawyer. If he didn’t pay, she’d kill him to get the insurance payout.”