“Questions, I’m filled with them. As soon as we can get a photograph of the woman, then my deputies will be crawling all over the subdivision like army ants. I hope she’s local, I really do.”
“It would make your job a whole lot easier,” Quinlan said. “Give me a relative or a husband any day and I’ll find you a dozen motives.”
“Yes, Mr. Quinlan, that’s surely the truth.”
“Nothing like a good mystery to stir a man’s blood.”
“I prefer mine to yours, Mr. Quinlan. Finding two missing people after three years isn’t likely. Well, I’ll be on my way now. A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Brandon.”
He said to Quinlan as they walked to the door, “Now, this murdered woman, I’ll find out who was holding her and then we’ll see what kind of motive we’ve got for a brutal murder. I wonder why they threw her body over the cliff?”
“Instead of burying her?”
“Yeah. You know what I think now? I think someone was furious that she got loose and made a racket. I think someone was so furious he killed her and just threw her away like so much trash. I want to catch him badly.”
“I would too, Sheriff. I think you might just be right.”
“You in town long, Mr. Quinlan?”
“Another week or so.”
“And Ms. Brandon?”
“I don’t know, Sheriff.”
“A shame about the cancer.”
“Yes, a real shame.”
“She gonna be all right?”
“That’s what her doctors believe.”
Sheriff David Mountebank shook Quinlan’s hand, nodded back at Sally-who’d heard everything they said, even though they’d been speaking low-and took his leave.
Sally wondered why her aunt had left before the sheriff came. Amabel had said only, “Why would a sheriff want to talk to me? I don’t know anything.”
“But you heard the screams, Amabel.”
“No, baby, you did. I never did think they were screams. You don’t want me calling you a liar in front of the law, do you?” And with that, she took off.
Sally said now to Quinlan, “The sheriff isn’t dumb.”
“No, he isn’t. But you got him, Sally, with that chemo business. Where is your aunt?”
“I don’t know. She left.”
“But she knew the sheriff would be here.”
“Yes, but she said she didn’t know anything. She said she didn’t hear any screams and didn’t want to make me
look bad if she had to tell him that.”
“You mean like a hysterical girl or a liar?”
“That’s about it. When she does talk to him, she’ll probably lie. She loves me. She wouldn’t want to hurt me.”
But she hadn’t loved her enough to lie for her this time, Quinlan thought. Strange family.
“Any more phone calls?”
Sally shook her head, her eyes going automatically to the telephone, sitting next to a lamp on an end table.
“But someone knows you’re here.”
“Yes, someone.”
He dropped it. He didn’t want to push anymore, at least not right now. She’d been through quite enough for one day. But she hadn’t lost it. She’d hung in there. “I’m proud of you,” he said, without thinking.
She blinked as she looked up at him. He was still standing by the front door, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re proud of me? Why?”
He shrugged and walked over to her. “You’re a civilian, but you didn’t fall apart.”
If only he knew, she thought, as she rubbed where that ring had been, so tight on her finger, paralyzing her.
“Sally, what’s wrong?”
She jumped to her feet. “Nothing, James, nothing at all. It’s lunchtime. You hungry?”
He wasn’t, but she had to be, if that single piece of dry toast was all she’d eaten so far today. “Let’s go back to Thelma’s and see what’s cooking,” he said, and she agreed. She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to be in this house alone.
The old lady was sitting in the dining room slurping minestrone soup, her diary open and facedown in her lap, the old-fashioned fountain pen beside her plate. What the hell did she write in that diary? What could be so bloody interesting? When she saw them, she yelled, “Martha, bring me my teeth. I can’t be a proper hostess without my teeth.”