CHAPTER SIX #2
Selena let that sit for a moment. “Are you saying she cheated on you?”
“I guess… I don’t know for a fact… But I had it comin’, to be fair to her. I wasn’t always the nicest.”
The TV muttered from the other end of the trailer. Somewhere under the sink, a pipe knocked. Dale scrubbed a hand over his mouth and missed the fact that the gesture made him look more shaken, not less.
“Did you ever hurt her when you were together?” Connor suddenly asked. “I saw in your file you had previous for beating the hell out of a guy in Elmsview twelve years ago.”
“No!” He shook his head as if debating something with himself. “I might not have been the best, but I ain’t ever raised a hand to her.”
Selena saw it clearly now. The hostility was real, but it was also cover. Fear sat underneath it. Not necessarily guilt. Fear of being asked. Fear of what the answers might do to him. Fear that somebody was dead and the dead woman had once mattered enough to leave a mark.
She said, “But it does sound like you and Brenda had a difficult breakup. Let me ask you, even if you didn’t hurt her, was she scared of you?”
His stare hardened. “Who told you that?!”
“Is it true?”
Dale took a step forward. “You know what? I don’t like cops in my home.”
“Then answer quickly and we’ll leave.” Selena stared at him, unwilling to back down.
“You think because you got a badge and a fancy haircut you can walk in here and tell me…”
Connor cut in before the spiral tightened further. His voice stayed calm, carrying just enough local ease to lower the room a degree. “Dale. Nobody’s here to make your day worse than it already is.”
Dale swung toward him. “Bit late for that. Brenda’s dead!”
Connor nodded once. “I know… But I’m trying to sort this clean.
So you can get back to your bottle and whatever you want to do.
And Brenda can rest easy because her killer is behind bars.
Help me do that and we’ll be right out of here.
I’ll even drop a bottle of bourbon ’round to you as a way to say thanks. ”
The trailer went quiet except for the television. Selena now glared at Connor. He was trying to bribe the man. She didn’t like that. It wasn’t how it should have been done.
Dale breathed through his nose. Shoulders rose. Fell.
Connor gestured toward the kitchen table, where two chairs sat under a light fixture that had lost its cover years ago. “Sit down with us?”
For a moment Selena thought Dale might refuse just to keep the illusion of control. Instead, he dragged out a chair and dropped into it. Connor took the one opposite. Selena stayed standing off to the side, notebook in hand, letting the dynamic shift.
Connor leaned his forearms on the table. “Did Brenda have anybody she was close to? We found a cousin in Mercer, but that’s it.”
Dale looked at the water ring on the table rather than at either of them. “Not family. Brenda was like me. Alone, I guess. Maybe that’s why we worked. For a while, at least.”
“Anyone who wasn’t blood that she might have seen lately? A friend or someone she mentioned?” Connor asked, gently.
A long moment passed.
Then Dale said, “She looked after Gus Farley sometimes.”
Selena lifted her pen. “Who’s Gus Farley?”
“Old man lives two roads over from her place. House with the green shutters that need painting. She’d shop for him, help with meds, tidy up some. He paid cash.”
Connor glanced briefly at Selena before returning to Dale. “They were close?”
Dale gave a bitter little laugh that died fast. “Yeah. Too close, if you ask me.”
Selena stepped nearer. “What does that mean?”
Dale rubbed both hands down his face. When he spoke again, anger had drained out of him and left something uglier behind. “It means she told him things she probably shouldn’t.”
“Like what?”
His eyes stayed on the table. “That I’d raised my hand to her once.”
“I thought you said you’d never hurt her?” Selena pressed.
“I… Look… Once. It was just once. And she ran off to the old man blabbing,” Dale said. “That’s how yer reputation gets destroyed.”
Selena and Connor waited for him to elaborate. Give a desperate man enough rope and he’ll hang himself.
Silence held until Dale forced the rest out. “It was one time. One time too many, I know that, so don’t look at me like that. She told Gus, and that old bastard convinced her to get rid of me. I’m sure of it!”
The last words cracked more than he wanted them to.
He put his head in his hands.
“But now,” he said into his palms, “I can’t make up for that.”
The trailer felt smaller then.
Whatever Dale Mitch had done in his life, whatever kind of man he was on his worst days, grief had found him cleanly, like it does everyone.
Selena had seen fake grief plenty of times.
People covering up their hate for lost loved ones, even their own guilt of being culpable.
This did not have the right shape for that.
Too ashamed. Too private. Almost angry at itself for existing in front of witnesses.
But she could never discount a suspect until she had no choice.
She closed the notebook.
“Mr. Mitch,” she said, gentler now, “if anything comes back to you, anything Brenda said, anybody she was worried about, you call me.”
A card came from her pocket. She set it on the table in front of him.
Dale looked at it but did not touch it. “You think I killed her.”
Selena met his eyes. “I know somebody did. That doesn’t mean it was you.”
Connor rose. Selena followed him, leaving the card where it was.
No one spoke as they crossed the trailer and stepped back outside.
Daylight felt sharper after the dim interior. Wind moved through dead grass near the ditch. Connor took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair, then settled it back on.
Selena looked toward the trailer door behind them. “He’s got a prior for violence. We start our list of suspects with him. But he could be clean.”
Connor nodded, but not fully. “We should look into Gus Farley.”
She turned to him. “I agree. If Dale was a danger to Brenda, she might have told him something important.”
Selena considered that for a moment, then gave a small nod. “Lead the way, Sheriff.”