Waylon arrived in Wichita Falls right at noon, so he stopped at a pizza place advertising an all-you-can-eat buffet and had lunch. He’d found out this morning that the florist had no idea where Conrad was taking the dozen yellow roses he’d bought that day. He hadn’t signed a card before he was slain. He had only just been in the process of paying for the roses, which he’d had in his hands when the two men in masks burst through the door and shot him.
Mr. Drummond, the florist, let Waylon look at the record of Conrad’s purchases. At least once a week for the past three months, he’d bought yellow roses on Thursday. In the past year, he usually bought flowers right after the first of the month, and that order varied from daisies to orchids. The store owner was too eager to help, which meant he was probably hiding something big. Waylon made a note to call him later or go back to see him in a week or so. Maybe he’d deleted a couple of orders to protect someone?
Waylon couldn’t manage to keep one wife at a time happy. How in the hell did Conrad keep three on the hook and still have time to buy flowers for other women? He had to have had a date book or a calendar somewhere. Waylon made a note to go through all the evidence they’d found in his van. He had to be a smart man, so he would not have kept it in any of the three wives’ houses. The only other place it could be was in his van, with that load of clothing he was peddling across the state. If he didn’t find it in the evidence boxes, he’d tear apart the van, one piece at a time.
He snagged the last parking space in front of Ellie’s Boutique that afternoon. He left his cowboy hat and sunglasses in the car but pasted on a big smile when he opened the door.
“Whew, it’s a hot one. This cool air feels good.” He spotted a lady with two little girls looking at children’s clothing in one area and an older woman flipping through hangers on the other side of the store.
“What can I do for you?” the woman who’d been sitting beside Amanda at the funeral asked. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
“Yes, ma’am, we have. At Conrad Steele’s funeral. I am Detective Waylon Kramer.” He showed her his badge. “I came to talk to Amanda, if she’s available.”
The woman crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s not.”
Amanda rounded the end of a rack of clothing. “I’m right here, and I have questions for you, Detective. Follow me back to the office.” She led the way past the checkout counter and into a small room, where she pointed at an old straight-back wooden chair. “Have a seat right there. Would you like a soft drink or a cup of coffee? We’ve got both.”
“Something cold would be nice.” Waylon sat down in a chair that was more uncomfortable than the sofa in Kate’s fancy office.
Amanda took a Pepsi from a small refrigerator and twisted the lid off before handing it to him. “Did you find out who killed my Conrad?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why are you here?” she asked.
“I need a play-by-play of where you were all day Thursday,” he said.
“Good Lord! I didn’t kill him. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I love him.” She threw a hand over her forehead in a dramatic gesture. “I would never”—her eyes welled up with tears that spilled down over her cheeks—“kill the father of my baby.” She reached for a tissue and dabbed at her face. “And if you do your job, you’ll find that he divorced those other two women.”
“We’ve been looking into that since his death. It appears that there are records of him marrying all three of you, but no divorces on file. Could you please just tell me where you were on Thursday?”
She pointed down at her stomach. “Did either one of those masked people who shot my Conrad have a belly like this?”
“They did not,” he answered.
“Okay, then, take me off the suspect list. How could I? And I have dozens of people who were in and out of this store all day Thursday who will testify that I never left the place. Opened at nine and didn’t close until after five that day. We had a pre–Independence Day sale going on,” she said. “Besides, it’s three hours to Dallas. There’s no way I could have gone there and come back without being missed.”
“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.