Chapter Twenty
“Detective Russell Tate,” the police officer said by way of introduction when she opened the door. “Is your husband at home?”
“Yes,” Christine said as she stepped aside to let him enter. “Please come in. Jack and I were just finishing up breakfast.” As she led the way, she asked over her shoulder, “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you. I just need to speak with your husband.”
She saw that Jack was still sitting at the breakfast bar, holding a mug of coffee in both hands probably to keep them from shaking, she thought. “What’s this about, Detective?”
“It would probably be best if I spoke to your husband alone, Mrs. Marshall,” the detective said.
Christine looked to Jack. Their gazes met but only for an instant as he quickly looked away. She noticed, too, that he hadn’t asked the detective what this was about. She feared he already knew. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”
“Before you go,” the detective said, “can you tell me what time your husband came home last night?”
She pretended surprise. “It was a little after ten. He’d worked late.”
“He was home the rest of the night?”
“Of course,” she said frowning. “We’re remodeling, and I wanted him to see some of the ideas the designers have come up with that we needed to act on by today.” She noticed that the detective wasn’t looking at her, but at Jack.
“Is that right, Mr. Marshall?” There was an edge to the cop’s voice that she couldn’t ignore. Detective Tate knew it was a lie and probably not the first one her husband had told him.
Jack cleared his voice. He didn’t look at her even though she hadn’t lied, she’d merely repeated what he’d told her. “That’s right.”
“What’s happened?” she asked, since it was clear her husband wasn’t going to for obvious reasons.
“There was a murder last night.” The detective was looking at her again now. “Do you know a man by the name of Robert Baker?” She thought for a moment before she shook her head. “He was killed in the early morning after leaving a downtown bar. Stabbed and robbed.”
Her shocked expression was real. Stabbed and robbed? “Why would you think my husband would know anything about that?” she demanded.
“Because I have reason to believe your husband was being blackmailed by the victim.”
Jack was on his feet so quickly that he knocked over the breakfast bar stool.
“Detective, my wife has told you that I was home last night when this man was murdered. I don’t want to have to call the chief of police to get this cleared up, but I know nothing about blackmail or this man who was killed. ”
Christine knew that her husband’s angry denial was more for her than the detective. Yet she was stunned. For a moment she thought the detective might arrest her husband. He certainly looked as if he wanted to badly enough.
But he didn’t move. He stood waiting, for what, she didn’t know. Then he turned to her, “Sorry to have bothered you.” He tipped his Western hat and saw his way out.
After he left, Jack moved slowly over to the downed stool and picked it up. “That detective has it out for me.”
She wanted to ask why the cop thought Jack was being blackmailed—and for what, but she weighed her options and opted not to ask.
Stabbed and robbed? Obviously, the detective had it wrong.
Jack was guilty of something, but he couldn’t be involved in a murder.
She thought about last night, hearing the guest room shower running past three in the morning.
It had to be a woman who’d kept her husband out so late.
It is best not to know, her mother had told her. People like us live separate lives in a marriage. The husband takes care of his business, the wife takes care of hers and keeps the family together. If you ask, he might tell you, and you don’t want that especially if the law ever gets involved.
She shuddered to think what kind of marriage her mother had endured and told herself she wouldn’t allow that to happen to her own no matter what she had to do.
Amy Sue was shocked when she recived Liz’s phone call about Robert. “I’m so sorry.” Liz told her about the voicemails she’d received from her ex the night before.
Amy Sue couldn’t believe it. “He was planning to blackmail Jack Marshall?”
“The last time I heard from him, he said he’d already sent the blackmail demand and was going to meet up with him. You know Marshall killed him.”
“Oh, Liz, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry Robert was such a loser? I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I knew the kind of man he was.
It’s why I divorced him. He was always out for a fast buck.
I know I must sound heartless, but he was never going to change.
He lost all of our savings time and time again on get-rich-quick schemes that turned into scams. He just never learned. I tried to stop him last night, but…”
“Is Detective Tate investigating the murder?” Amy Sue asked.
“He said it looked like a robbery that went wrong, but I don’t believe it.” Amy Sue didn’t either. “You know Marshall will have an alibi.”
“I’m just worried about you,” she said. If Marshall killed Robert like they suspected, then it felt as if he was out of control and even more dangerous.
“I’m going to the police station this morning to file a missing person’s report on Whitney,” Liz said. “Detective Tate says that’s all we can do for now. He said it might be possible to get the voicemails from Robert off my phone, but that it wouldn’t prove that Jack Marshall killed Robert.”
After warning Liz to be careful, she called Russ’s cell number. “Is it true? Do you think Jack Marshall killed Liz’s ex?”
“I know it looks like that might have been the case given what we know about the blackmail,” he said.
“But Robert had been drinking heavily at the bar. He’d won quite a lot at the pool table and was flashing it around as he left and bragging about how he was going to be rich.
It’s possible someone at the bar followed him planning to rob him and things got violent. ”
“It’s just such a coincidence, isn’t it, if someone else killed him,” she said. “Are you going to bring Marshall in for questioning?”
“I already talked to him. His wife gave him an alibi for last night. If I push it any further it could be the last straw with my boss. It might already be too late if Marshall calls the chief about this. All I can do is lay out what I have to the chief, but I don’t think it is going to be enough to convince him to open an investigation against the man even if we had the voicemails Robert sent Liz. All the evidence is circumstantial.”
“Except that now you think the wife has lied for him.”
“Only if he wasn’t with her last night,” Russ pointed out.
“I had thought about paying her a visit. She should know what’s been going on. I really doubt her husband has told her.”
“She might already know. She could be part of it,” he said. “Things are often not what they seem. I’d steer clear of her if I were you.”
Amy Sue knew the wife might know or at least suspect, but she couldn’t imagine her being involved other than keeping quiet.
“I’ve met her. She had a fit over breaking a nail at the salon.
I can’t see her lugging her husband’s dead lover from a house to the trunk of his car out of the goodness of her heart. ”
“No one knows what goes on in a marriage,” he said, sounding as if he had firsthand knowledge.
They’d never talked about their personal lives, at least not about former relationships.
Had he been married? Was he still married?
The thought surprised her. He might have a wife back at the ranch.
She recalled looking at his left hand. No wedding band.
But that didn’t mean anything. A lot of ranchers didn’t wear a ring because it was dangerous working around equipment.
She thought of those hands of his, his long fingers, the nails clipped short. There was something reassuring about them, but also sensual. She shivered at the thought of those hands on her body, and felt an ache of longing to find out.
“What now?” she asked, dragging her thoughts back to why she was in Billings and not on the farm where she belonged.
“I have to take what I have to the chief.”
She heard the worry in his voice. “He won’t fire you, will he?”
“Maybe he’ll surprise me and open an investigation against Jack Marshall.”
After the detective left, Christine couldn’t look at her husband.
She’d lied for him. It was the first time he’d put her in this position.
She told herself it would be the last. No matter what her mother had put up with, Christine wasn’t going to do this.
It was humiliating. She couldn’t let him drag her name and reputation through the mud.
She had let him “have his cake and eat it, too,” as her mother called it, but something had happened this time that changed everything.
“Christine, I—”
Her cell rang, and she hurriedly reached for her phone, snatching it up and leaving the room to take the call.
It was a fellow board member on the charitable foundation they both had seats on.
Misty wanted to talk, and Christine let her, half listening to the woman go on about one of the other board members, while also listening for Jack to leave for work.
She kept thinking of the look on his face when the detective had arrived.
By the time she got off the call, Jack had left just as she’d hoped.
She felt relieved and yet afraid that he’d want to confess all of his sins and clear his conscience.
She’d never wanted to hear about any of the women he’d had affairs with, let alone whatever he’d done recently that had a homicide detective at their door first thing in the morning.
She needed time to think, but right now she had to get ready for her nail appointment and after that, she had a lunch date. She couldn’t cancel. She needed to pretend that everything was fine—just as Jack had been doing when she’d known he was in trouble.
Later, she would decide what to do about her husband.
Jack had never been much of a drinker, but right now he would have loved to go to a bar and drink himself half blind.
His head ached from lack of sleep and fear, and he was a little hung over from last night.
Nothing had gone as planned, and for a man who usually planned each move painstakingly, he found himself off-kilter and running scared.
After leaving the house to avoid Christine, the first thing he’d done once he was in his vehicle was call the chief of police.
The moment Milt answered, he told him how Detective Tate had come to his house first thing this morning to accuse him of murdering yet another person.
“He has it out for me, that’s all I can think. ”
“I’ll take care of it,” Milt promised, but he didn’t sound as upset as Jack had thought he should have been. “Was this the body that was discovered up on the rims?”
“How should I know?” Jack demanded. “I had no idea what the man was talking about.”
“Okay, okay. Let me handle it.”
Their conversation had ended abruptly, leaving him uneasy.
After he’d disconnected, all he could think about was Christine.
She hadn’t been able to look at him after the detective left, but she’d covered for him.
Even if she knew that he’d lied about coming home around ten thirty last night, she wouldn’t believe that he’d kill some man up on the rims. He couldn’t imagine that she’d even believe that her husband was being blackmailed.
He realized that he was more worried about what Christine believed than the chief of police. Milt would go along with whatever he said, always had, nothing would be different this time, right?
Except this time there was a body. He rubbed a hand over his face as he pulled into his parking spot at the dealership.
He’d really messed up. Last night he’d lost his temper.
The moment he met Robert Baker he knew this bum would bleed him dry.
The thought had made him furious. He’d been glad that he’d thought to bring a knife for protection.
He told himself that he hadn’t planned to kill him, but wondered if it was true. Lately, he’d been so damned angry.
Now he was about to get out of the car when he saw Whitney’s good friend Liz heading toward him across the parking lot.