“Raul said you went to see Amanda yesterday. She was willing to talk to you?”
Sam shrugged. He sipped the hot liquid, grateful for the stall it offered. He knew the truth was that there’d been no need for him to come over here at all. He had absolutely no helpful information to share.
“Briefly. She didn’t say much.”
Melanie closed her eyes for an instant and Sam knew she was fighting for patience. That surprised him, somehow, because his wife had always possessed a rare serenity of spirit. Grimly, Sam wondered how many other things about Melanie he would have to unlearn in the years to come.
“What sort of ‘not much’ did she say? Did she tell you anything about what happened?”
Sam shook his head. “No. And she shouldn’t have, anyway. You know all those visits are recorded. Anything she said could be used against her.”
“That sounds like you think she’s guilty.”
Sam had read the papers since that initial conversation with Rufus Ffaukes. “Is there anyone who doesn’t? She’s the one who called 911. She was the one holding the gun when the cops showed up—the same gun used to shoot and kill Amy. You know, her best friend since forever, the one she was working late with at the shop they owned together? I don’t know that there’s a lot of room for doubt there, Melanie.”
“If there’s one thing I learned from you, Sam, it’s that things aren’t always what they seem.”
Melanie should have won some sort of award, Sam thought, for delivering that little zinger without even a trace of bitterness in her tone—without even the slightest flash of anger in her eyes. Ruthlessly, he pushed down the heat that flared in his own body and concentrated on the subject at hand. He wouldn’t get drawn into a conversation about their own relationship, or lack thereof. That way lay nothing but misery. Any argument presupposed the possibility of some sort of resolution, and hope was his worst enemy these days.
“Well, Amanda doesn’t seem to be fighting against appearances much.”
“That’s exactly what has me worried. Even if something—something inconceivable—happened, Amanda would still talk to her husband. She would still want to see her son. It feels wrong, that she’s locked herself down like this. Why isn’t she at least putting up a fight? There had to have been some sort of reason. Some kind of extenuating circumstances. Amanda would never hurt Amy. Not like this.”
“I’m not so sure,” Sam said slowly. “I mean, if Amanda did do this, she might be too ashamed to face Raul. And I think most moms wouldn’t want their four-year-old coming to the county jail to see them. Amanda is no fool. She knows there are no circumstances that could justify taking the life of her best friend. Unless you’re seriously considering the possibility of self-defense. I mean, did you even know she carried a gun?”
Melanie shook her head. “No, but it’s not the sort of thing that comes up over coffee. And self-defense is a possibility. Even though it’s hard to imagine Amy posing a threat to anyone. She was such a twig.”
“Exactly. Which makes self-defense unlikely. Amanda is not a twig. If they did wind up in some sort of altercation, Amanda could easily have physically overpowered Amy.”
“Maybe. Maybe Amy had the gun. Maybe Amanda wrestled it away from her.”
Sam took another sip and thrummed his fingers on the table. “None of this makes sense. Amy was no more likely to attack Amanda than the reverse seems. Unless…”
Melanie leaned forward. “Unless what?”
“Could one of them have been having an affair? Maybe with the other’s husband?”
Melanie laughed, and the sound pierced Sam to his belly. He wanted to reach for it, to hold her laughter in his hands and keep it safe at any cost. “That’s crazy! Raul is devoted to Amanda. And Clay, well, he’s picky, I guess. I don’t think even Amy ever thought she was quite good enough for him. He wouldn’t consider Amanda up to his standards.” She sniffed.
Sam pictured the two women in his mind: sleek, bleached-blonde Amy with her pastel pantsuits and painted nails, chubby Amanda with her warm smile and messy car. Their friendship had always seemed like a case of opposites attracting and their diverse natures had been part of what made their textile shop such a success. But maybe opposites attracted their husbands, too?
“You never know what’s happening behind closed doors,” Sam said.
Melanie’s mouth twisted. “True. I just can’t see it. She really didn’t say anything helpful to you?”
“Well, she asked if God would ever forgive a murderer.”
Melanie grimaced. “Yeesh. You’re right. That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m sorry.”
Melanie sighed and drained the last of her sugary concoction. “Will you at least talk to Clay and Raul before you make up your mind? Maybe there’s something we’re missing.”
“Melanie, don’t you think they’re sick of talking about this? The cops have to have already questioned them both.”
Melanie’s hands made an abortive gesture and Sam could almost believe she’d been about to reach across the table and touch him. He felt the ache of her not-touch on every inch of his body.
“The cops don’t know them like you do. Please, Sam. I know it might not make a difference. But…please. Just try.”
Sam wasn’t sure how Melanie’s faith in him had survived.
Dani’s words came back to him. Because you’re the murderer-whisperer.
But there was no way he was going to let her down again, not if he had the remotest chance of helping. The worst thing that could happen was that Clay or Raul might slam the door in his face, and he didn’t think that would happen.
Sam forced himself to his feet, forced himself to start moving toward the back door—what used to be his back door—before he could do or say something he would regret.
“I’ll try.”
Chapter Twelve
Sam considered calling before he drove over to Clay Randolph’s house, but rejected the idea. Any chance of gleaning useful information from Amy’s husband would be quashed if the man had the chance to put him off over the phone. Sam wouldn’t have blamed him for trying, either. He couldn’t imagine what Clay must be going through—dealing with the brutal and shocking death of his wife and trying to make sense of it all to their two young daughters. I’d try to put me off, too, he thought. But Sam was doing this for Melanie. No matter how dumb that might be.
When he’d gotten back into his car and pulled away from the curb of his former home, he’d been swamped with relief that the words “I think we should get a divorce” hadn’t burst out of his mouth. He needed more time, he told himself. More time to practice saying the words over and over, till they no longer made him feel like he was bleeding out. Then he’d say them out loud. Then he’d let her go.
Some part of his brain murmured, don’t you think she’d tell you if she wanted you to let her go? She’s a grown woman. She’s been alone a long time now. She doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to be free.
Fiercely he silenced that little voice. Its false promises and false hopes had kept him in this half-life too long already. He needed to do this one more thing for Melanie. That’s all. One more thing. Then he’d find the strength to cut her loose. The idea had as much appeal as cutting loose a tether on a space walk. He pictured himself spinning off endlessly into the darkness and the silence, Melanie spiraling off in the opposite direction. Yay, freedom.
Sam drove the short distance to the Randolph house with no difficulty. He’d been there often enough, for church game nights and the occasional supper. That had all been pre-disgrace, of course. Out of the four hundred plus members of the church, he could count on one hand the number of people who’d proven themselves true friends over the past few months. Not that he blamed anyone. He even figured there were probably some people who still considered him a friend but they just hadn’t known what to say at first, and now too much time had passed for a casual hello.
Anthony Bromiglia—Tony—had be
en the most steadfast, even bringing his taxes over for Sam to file when he’d first put up his shingle as a CPA. Although, Tony’s wife Chelsea hadn’t been nearly as forgiving. Sam half-wished Tony was here now, to make this visit feel a little more like a social call and less like an interrogation. Sam had never had much in common with Clay.
Clay was a salesman—pharmaceutical, Sam thought he remembered. It wasn’t that salesmen couldn’t go to Heaven, he thought wryly, it was just so unlikely.
Immediately, he reprimanded himself for the uncharitable thought. The man had lost his wife in a horrific way. So what if he was a little slick? That didn’t make him irredeemable. Just obnoxious.
Sam didn’t give himself time to sit in the car and second-guess his decision to show up unannounced. He pulled up to the curb, threw the car in park, and stepped out. Another vehicle was parked in front of the Randolphs’ three-car garage, but Sam didn’t know if it was company or not. Plenty of people kept their garages so full of random stuff that they couldn’t park inside.
On the other hand, it could just as easily be a police detective, a friend, or more grieving family members. No matter who was inside, this was going to be uncomfortable. He might as well get it over with. Sam took the front porch steps two at a time and rang the doorbell.
A murmur of voices drifted from behind the door. Sam felt discombobulated for a moment when he found himself staring down at a short black man with gray grizzled hair and an inordinately round stomach.
Rufus Ffaukes laughed at the expression on Sam’s face. “Almost mistook me for Clay, didn’t you?” he asked. Since Clay was a 5’10”, blond-haired, blue-eyed white man at least thirty years younger than Rufus, Sam’s brain informed him that the man was joking even as it scrambled to catch up. “Come on in, young man. We were just having a chat in the living room.”
Sam bit back a sigh. He wasn’t sure he was feeling up to Rufus’ wise old man schtick. But maybe it would take some of the pressure off of himself. Sam wondered if Clay would be more or less likely to speak freely with Rufus around.
The first word that came to mind when Sam saw Clay sitting on the couch, legs splayed and arm stretched over the back cushions, was dissipated. The younger man’s face was swollen, his eyes red, but Sam suspected alcohol and not tears had created the effect. Not that he was judging. Probably the only reason Sam hadn’t sunk into an alcoholic despair himself when he’d lost Melanie was because he’d never developed a taste for the stuff. He liked a beer now and then, but too many of them and he just fell asleep. He’d share a glass of wine with Dani when she needed a drinking buddy, although he only pretended to know if it was any good. At least alcoholism was one vice he’d managed to escape, if through no virtue of his own.
Clay looked blearily up at him. Sam supposed it was a testament to all the man had been through that he didn’t even seem surprised to see Sam.
“Sam,” Clay greeted him heavily. He didn’t get up.
“Clay,” Sam said. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what to say, man.”
Clay waved a hand aimlessly. “I don’t know what to say either. Nobody knows. Not even the police.”
Sam sat down in an overstuffed chair across from the couch. He pulled a couple of designer pillows out from behind him and set them awkwardly on the floor beside the chair.
“Stupid pillows,” Clay said. “I told Amy a million times that nobody likes those things.”
Rufus Ffaukes laughed, an easy-going rumble that somehow didn’t seem out of place. “You can’t keep a woman from buying pillows or shoes. Might as well not even try.”
Sam thought of Melanie. She didn’t have much patience with the frills some women seemed to like, and the only shoes she would be willing to pay real money for would be hiking boots or comfortable walking shoes to wear at work. But Sam could play along with this good ol’ boys routine for a while longer.
“So the police have already been by to interview you?”
“Been by?” Clay’s laugh sounded rustier than Rufus’s. “There was the interview here the night they told me. Then I had to meet them at the station the next morning. Then they came by here again last night. You could say that the police and I are more than passing acquaintances.”
“Well, I know the husband is usually one of the first suspects, but surely this situation is a little different.”
Rufus was leaning back against the arm of the couch opposite from Clay, his fingers crossed over his ample belly. He looked way more comfortable than he had a right to, Sam thought grumpily.
“You’d think,” Clay agreed, waving his hand again with no particular emphasis. “That woman isn’t talking. Not even to her attorney. So the police have no one to talk to but me.”
“So there were no witnesses?”
“Just the one, I suppose,” Clay replied, a cavalier observation that jangled in Sam’s ear. “The police have been pretty tight-lipped. If anyone else saw anything, they haven’t told me. It seems unlikely, though. Who else would have been there? And there were no security cameras in the shop. That’s my fault, too, I guess. But who would have expected a textile shop to be a robbery target?”
Rufus drank from a can of soda, as did Clay. Sam suspected Clay’s can had something a little stronger than sugar-water in it.
Sam decided to change direction. It didn’t sound as if Clay knew anything more than he and Melanie did.
“Where are the girls? They aren’t at school, are they?” He couldn’t remember their names for the life of him. They had to be about six and eight, though. Melanie would remember their names.
“No.” Clay stared off, as if he’d forgotten Sam and Rufus were there before he’d even finished answering the question.
Rufus watched the younger man for a long moment, his Shar-Pei face falling into lines of sympathy and something else that Sam couldn’t read. Finally, he spoke up. “Clay sent them to stay with their grandparents—Amy’s parents.”
Now that did seem odd to Sam. The girls had just lost their mother, and now they were cut adrift from their home and their father, too? But maybe Clay was in no shape to look after them. Maybe the grandparents had insisted. Maybe the girls had been frightened and wanted to go. Sam thought of the two little blondes, sheltered and protected from unpleasantness all their lives, trying to absorb the fact that their suburban mom had been shot to death by their own Sunday school teacher. He didn’t envy Clay that conversation. He wondered how much of that terrible truth Clay had actually decided to tell them.
“Maybe that’s best,” Sam offered inanely. He looked around for some other object of conversation. The house was still the way he knew Amy would have left it—every surface gleaming, carpets vacuumed, knick-knacks and family photographs arranged just so. How long would that last, he mused. How long before all the vestiges of Amy’s presence simply disappeared? He thought of the house where Melanie now lived without him. Did anything of himself remain there? Or had every reminder long since vanished?
He could see onto the kitchen counters from where he sat, every surface covered with some sort of basket or dish. The church ladies, he thought with certainty. They might ghost out in the case of a scandal, but give them a tragedy and there was no one better. Clay would have enough meals to last him for at least a month. And that was assuming he felt the need for something besides liquid nutrition.
“What can I do for you, Clay?” he asked at last. “I’d be destroyed if something like this happened to Melanie.”
Slowly Clay’s eyes refocused on him. “I think I just need some time to myself,” the other man said, carefully enunciating each word. “I have to figure this out.”
Figure this out, thought Sam. Such a hopeless, destructive, inescapable inclination of human nature. Some acts were so horrible, so violent, that no amount of study or reason could ever render them comprehensible. Even after all the brutality exercised throughout eons and eons of time, the human mind had never learned how to compartmentalize the horror and the heartbreak that were
the stuff of mortality. Sam suspected Clay would stay awake, night after night, shuffling and reshuffling events, replaying conversations, in the fruitless effort to rewrite what had been inscribed in permanent ink, to draw meaning from the meaningless.
“I understand,” Sam said aloud, standing and directing a firm look at Rufus. “We’ll give you some time to yourself. But don’t take too much time alone, Clay. You’ll lose yourself in this. Call me, any time. I can listen, or I can come over, or we can go out. This isn’t something you need to carry alone. You still have my number?”
Rufus stood too. Sam was relieved; he’d half-wondered if he’d need a crowbar to pry the man out of that cushion.
“Sam’s right,” Rufus rejoined, clasping both Clay’s hands in his own and looking earnestly into his bleary eyes. “I’ll be praying for you, son. There’s only one way through this, and that’s through Christ.”
Sam knew Rufus was right, but Clay didn’t look in any shape to hear it, much less work out what it meant. That was one of the benefits of getting older as he had observed it, though: old people just said whatever they wanted and the hearer could take it or leave it. Sam wasn’t sure how that fit in with the concept of ensuring your speech should bring grace to the one who hears it, but, oh well.
Rufus clapped Sam on the shoulder as they exited the house. Jolly, thought Sam. He’s a jolly Socrates, no matter how ill-fitting the circumstances. He couldn’t restrain a grin as he considered that the Broad Ripple Community Church had probably gotten in way over their heads with this one.
“I’m starving,” Rufus declared. “Grief makes me hungry. Why don’t you grab a bite with me? My treat.”
Sam wanted to refuse, but he couldn’t come up with a polite way to turn down free food. Also, free food. He wasn’t exactly in a position to turn down anything free these days. Even his gym membership had been a Christmas gift from his sister. He hadn’t been fooled by her generosity, though. He knew she was sick of him mooning around the house, waiting for clients who didn’t show up.
Preacher Sam Page 5