“Can you tell me who might want him dead?” Conrad pulled out his notebook.
“Probably one of those other two who have burned the divorce papers,” she said.
There was enough venom in her voice that Waylon had to fight the urge to make the sign of a cross over his chest. “You think they might have conspired together to kill him when they found out he was a polygamist?”
“He is not.” Her tone shot up so shrill that it could have cracked glass. “They did something with the papers. I’m his only wife. That rich bitch could have hired someone to kill him, but she wouldn’t get her hands dirty with the job. The other one looked mean enough to me to have done it herself, just like she said. Your job is to find the divorce papers so my baby won’t be a bastard.” She shook her forefinger at him.
“My job, ma’am, is to find who killed him,” Waylon said. “I’ll have more questions later, so don’t leave the state. I’ll need a number where I can reach you.”
She handed him a business card with her cell phone number on the bottom. “When you find out who did this, I want to be the first to know.”
“Thank you for taking time to talk to me and for the cold drink.” He straightened up and extended his hand.
“You will find these people, won’t you?”
“I hope so. I’m retiring before long, and I don’t want to leave an open case on my desk.” He smiled.
“And you will let me know?”
He nodded. “You have my word.”
He would tell them all when he closed the case, starting with Kate, the legal wife, and working his way down to Amanda. After the hysterics from her at the funeral, he’d expected to find her still weeping and whining. Maybe it was all for show and they were in it together after all. If so, he’d see them all behind bars before he left the precinct for good.
CHAPTER FOUR
Fourteen years hadn’t changed the old cabin much. Five mismatched rocking chairs awaited her in a line across the wide front porch. The one on the end with the wide arms sat a little higher than the others, and she’d claimed that as her chair on her honeymoon. Kate would wrap a big quilt around her body and bring her morning coffee out to the porch. There she would listen to the soft laps of the lake as it rolled up on the shore.
Her high-heeled shoes sank into the soft green grass as she pulled two suitcases up onto the porch. She parked them on the porch and sat down in the rocking chair. Nothing happened. No peace, no memories. Just a hot wind, like that on the day of the funeral, blowing across her face and making beads of sweat pop up under her nose. She pushed up out of the chair and found the spare key hidden under the flowerpot shoved up in the corner.
Twenty-nine steps off the deck out back led straight down to the boat shed where the pontoon used to be housed. Conrad had used it in one of his schemes a few years back and bragged about it to her, so now there was just an empty shed down there. She opened the front door and wheeled her suitcase and briefcase inside. She expected the musty scent of a house that had been closed for a long time. But the aroma of something sweet, like a scented candle or potpourri, lingered. Had someone been there recently? Kate parked her suitcases in the middle of the floor and went straight to the thermostat, turning it down from seventy-eight to seventy degrees. And then she eased down on the sofa and covered her eyes with the back of her hand.
Coming to the cabin might have been a bad idea. She could have gone anywhere in the world for a few weeks, and this was the very last place she should be. But after her mother suggested that she get away for a while, all she could think of was the quiet happiness that she’d known sitting in that rocking chair on the porch. And she did need to get all the legal matters settled before her mother retired.
With its log walls and Western decor, the interior of the house was as rustic as the outside. The front door opened right into a great room–living room and country kitchen separated only by an archway. A panoramic view of the lake spread out before her from the sliding glass doors that opened up to the wide deck where Kate had watched beautiful Texas sunsets every evening for a whole week.