by Blake Pierce
Kate showed her badge and ran through introductions. She noted that when she said “FBI,” he looked slightly alarmed.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Am I…in trouble or something? What’s up?”
“We wanted to ask you a few questions about Marjorie Hix.”
Bauer finished with the stone, wiped his hands on his shorts, and stood up. He looked relieved now, albeit a bit confused. “Marjorie?”
“Yes. We’re told you knew her.”
“Sure I did. She lives a few blocks that way,” he said, pointing behind them. “Or lived, I guess. Pretty terrible about what happened to her.”
“You know anything about what happened to her?” DeMarco asked.
“No. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told the police when they came by asking. It’s terrible that someone killed Marjorie but I don’t like the fact that the delusional husband assumed it was me.”
“Did you have a friendship with Joseph Hix?” Kate asked.
“No. He’s basically hated me ever since I moved into town. And he’s not the only one, really. But Joseph’s thing against me was more of a jealousy thing. I knew her back in college, you see. And we sort of had this unofficial thing.”
“These other men not liking you,” Kate said. “Does that have anything to do with the affair you left behind when you left Chicago?”
“It might. I don’t really know—don’t really care. But someone in the neighborhood heard about it and just because I’m single, it makes me a threat. It’s a little pathetic. If these men wouldn’t spend half their lives in an office, maybe they wouldn’t worry about their wives straying.”
“Did you have an affair with Marjorie Hix after college?” Kate asked bluntly.
“No. And I’d hardly call it an affair in college. We never slept together. Just some flirting and a few nights where things almost happened.”
“So would you explain the day Joseph Hix came home and found you standing in his yard, talking to his wife?”
“Yeah. Again, like I told the cops, I was out for a run. I was passing by their house and Marjorie was out in the yard, doing something with the flowerbeds—weeding, I guess, because she was struggling to get this jug of weed killer open. I asked if she needed some help and she gratefully accepted. I opened it for her and we talked about the best way to weed flowerbeds. We did some reminiscing about college, too. That led to her asking why I had moved to town, and me telling her about this job I had landed in Chicago. It was friendly conversation and nothing more. I just happened to be there, in the yard, when her husband pulled up. And ever since that evening, he’s made a hobby out of dragging my name through the mud.”
“And did you have any conversations with her after that?” DeMarco asked.
“Yeah. And some of them made me uncomfortable. It got to the point where I felt like she had learned my schedule. She knew when I wasn’t working and figured out when I went on my runs—right around four in the afternoon.”
“What made you uncomfortable about the conversations?”
“She’d start griping about how her husband was a workaholic. It was weird, the way she just sort of opened up to me. She didn’t even get that deep when we were back in college. She seemed desperate to talk to someone. I don’t know. If I’m being honest…yeah, I liked the attention. There was no real flirting but…you know…just conversations a married woman should not be having with a single man.”
“And it never got physical?”
“No.”
“Did it get intimate in any way at all?” DeMarco asked.
“No. In fact, there was one day where she asked if I could take down her number, to maybe call when I had a free afternoon. I didn’t do it, though. By then, I knew people had started suspecting me of being this home-wrecking asshole—from what I did in Chicago and from Joseph Bauer making things up.”
“And how did you hear about her murder?” Kate asked.
“We have a neighborhood Facebook page. One of their neighbors posted it, warning everyone to keep their doors locked.”
“Did you reach out to Joseph?”
“Honestly, I thought about it. But I decided in the end that it would probably be a very bad idea.”
“Do you have an alibi for the day she was murdered?”
“I do. I was piloting a flight between Dallas and Seattle. You’re fully welcome to check my flight schedule.”
Kate nodded, this last bit making her feel as if they had wasted their time even coming out here. “By any chance, do you know a woman by the name of Karen Hopkins?”
He thought for a moment and then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Does she live around here, in the neighborhood?”
“No,” DeMarco said. “Mr. Bauer, if necessary, would you willingly allow us to pull up your phone records over the past year or so?”
“Why? To prove I wasn’t sleeping with Marjorie Hix? It would be a pain in my ass, but yes, I’d gladly do it if it would prove that I had nothing to do with her—much less her murder.”
“We may reach out to you for that,” Kate said, though she was fairly certain it would not come to that. If Andrew Bauer had something as solid as a flight itinerary to prove his whereabouts on the day Marjorie Hix was killed, she was quite sure he had nothing to do with it.
They thanked him for his time and headed back for the car. She noted that Bauer had not returned to his work, but instead, had sat down on the front porch steps to rest. He watched them go and gave a small perfunctory wave before looking back to his handiwork.
***
It was nearing four o’clock, when Kate and DeMarco returned to the Frankfield PD. With no suspects or leads, Kate could not help but feel discouraged and maybe even a little defeated as they made their way back to Bannerman’s office. They had not been assigned any certain room yet so Kate assumed Bannerman’s office would serve as their base of operations.
Bannerman was not in his office, but the door was open. A bit awkwardly, they made their way inside and sat in the two chairs on the opposite side of Bannerman’s seat. Kate simply relaxed a bit into the chair while DeMarco started tapping notes into her Notes app on her phone.
“At least we’re starting to see some similarities in the victims,” Kate said.
“Yeah,” DeMarco agreed. “At first, I thought it was that they were in rocky marriages. But I think now, in both cases, it’s safe to say they simply had disinterested husbands. Husbands that put them second below work.”
“Seems like a pretty defined trait for a killer to pinpoint. But I’d take it one step further. Yes, they were both essentially afterthoughts to their husbands, and I think that could be boiled down to one single, more relatable trait.”
“Which is?”
“They were lonely.”
DeMarco considered this for a moment, nodding. “And a lonely middle-aged wife might be a little more prone to having a visitor…someone they might invite inside.”
“But it still gets tripped up when we consider the Hixes’ little doorbell monitor.”
“Yes, and I’m sure there are ways around that monitor.”
“But why would you need a way around it if you weren’t hiding something?”
“You think Marjorie Hix was having an affair?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know. But…at the risk of sounding stereotypical, aren’t affairs a dime a dozen in neighborhoods like these?”
Kate shrugged. It was stereotypical but only because, as far as she had seen in the course of her career, it was backed by some pretty jarring facts and statistics.
In the middle of their brainstorming, Bannerman came walking into the room. DeMarco got up quickly, but Kate remained in her seat—not out of being impolite but because she thought she had Bannerman pegged pretty well. He’d appreciate that they were kicked back so comfortably in his office. It built camaraderie; it let him know that Kate was at ease in his presence. It tended to mean quite a lot to men of the law in their later years.
“Did
I break up a meeting?” he asked with a smile. He sat down behind his desk as if he were programmed to do so. There were many years of experience in just that motion alone.
“Not a very productive one,” Kate said.
“No luck today, I take it?”
“Not really. Hey…did you speak to a guy named Andrew Bauer, at the strong suggestion of Joseph Hix?”
“I did,” he said, frowning. “Shit. I didn’t even bother putting it into the reports. I didn’t think there was anything to it.”
“I don’t think there is,” Kate said. “I think Hix was just looking for something easy to pin the murder on. He needs closure to move in from this.”
“And from more than a bottle of whiskey,” DeMarco added.
“Sheriff, maybe you can help us…three heads are often better than two. The only real trait we have from the two victims that match up is the fact that they had marriages that left them feeling lonely. But there is no strong evidence of an affair. Who would these women so willingly allow into their homes? In the case of the Hix residence, someone who would be allowed in and bypassing their security measures at the front door?”
“That’s where I got hung up,” he admitted. “And I’ll admit…I’ve got a police force that’s about ninety percent male. So assuming there was adultery involved could have made us look…”
“Like jerks?” DeMarco said, though with a bit of a smile.
“Pretty much.”
“But if there was some sort of fooling around or even just hiding a man for the pure conversation and proximity,” Kate said, “it was not Andrew Bauer. I’m pretty sure of that.”
Bannerman nodded his agreement. “Yeah, when we talked to Gerald Hopkins, he was not at all familiar with the name Andrew Bauer. That’s why I dismissed him so easily.”
“When we spoke with Bauer, he indicated that he felt that Marjorie Hix might have had a crush or something similar,” Kate said. “He said he felt she just wanted someone to talk to at first and it was like she was purposefully waiting for him some days. It makes me wonder, if it’s true, if there were more men in her life like that.”
“Like what?” Bannerman asked.
“Men she used simply for the conversation. For a man that would speak to her and maybe look at her in the way her husband wasn’t any longer. Like an emotional affair rather than a physical one.”
“It’s a big neighborhood,” Bannerman said. “I’m sure there could be numerous men that would fit that description.”
“We only singled out Bauer because of Hix’s anger and the fact that he was single,” DeMarco said. “And let’s face it…being married doesn’t always stop people from getting involved with other people that aren’t their spouses.”
It was an interesting thought—one that Kate focused on and tried to pick apart as she sat in Bannerman’s chair. But try as she might, there was one other thing that kept creeping back to the center of her mind.
The missed call from Melissa.
The voicemail that was surely waiting.
Until she checked it, she would not be able to give this case her full attention.
She got to her feet and excused herself for the restroom. Even before she was completely out of Bannerman’s office, she was reaching for her phone.
***
The message from Melissa had not been nearly as bad as Kate had been expecting. It had stung a bit, sure. It had made her feel about three inches tall, yes. But at the end of the day, Kate was glad that she’d checked the message and saw—for the first time in a long time—that her daughter still had some grit to her.
Kate could still hear fragments of it in her head as she sat at the Frankfield Inn’s little bar area. DeMarco was beside her, chatting up the bartender, while Kate sipped on a beer and thought about Melissa and Michelle. Kate tried to distract herself with trying to determine if DeMarco and the rather pretty short-haired female bartender were flirting, but it wasn’t working. There was just too much going on in her head.
“I don’t know how you could be so irresponsible, Mom. Yes, Alan is a great guy and Michelle loves him. But I asked you to do this one thing for me…this one fucking thing…and you dropped it the moment a call came from DC. I don’t know why I’m so surprised… not really. It’s always been this way. Work before me. Work before Dad. So why the hell should I expect any different when it comes to your granddaughter?”
She was torn about how to feel because the truth of the matter was that in one sense, Melissa was right: she had always put career first. But to say that Melissa had never asked much of her was a little out of line. Of course, life had dealt her a shitty hand when her father had died and Kate had caught a lot of the burden of a grieving college student, already pissed at the world and scared about her future. But still…it was unfair for Melissa to claim she’d never done anything for her…
…I asked you to do this one thing for me…this one fucking thing…
It was amazing to find that her daughter could both enrage and sadden her at the same time. It was almost like she was reliving the teenage years all over again.
It also made her think of the two dead women, Karen Hopkins and Marjorie Hix. Women who had been overlooked and underappreciated by those who loved them. While on the surface it might make her appear to be spoiled, Kate could identify. In many ways, Melissa underappreciated her. She took her for granted and only came around or called when she needed something.
“Spill it, Wise.”
Kate snapped out of her thoughts and looked over at DeMarco. She was no longer speaking with the bartender, though the bartender seemed to be keeping an eye on DeMarco. She was quite pretty, in a plain sort of way, with a thin tattoo of some sort of vine trailing down her arm.
“Spill what?”
“I’d hoped you would have realized by now that I’m pretty good at my job. And sometimes I notice a thing or two. You got a call this morning that you ignored right away. You’ve been somewhat distracted today. In Bannerman’s office, you left very quickly and were grabbing for your phone right away. Everything okay at home? With Melissa? With Alan?”
“You are good. And I’m mostly fine. Just realizing that this case is sort of paralleling some of my personal life. Not in the murders, of course, but…I don’t know. These women weren’t appreciated.”
“And you don’t feel like you are either?”
“Only when it comes to Melissa. Which sounds stupid, because really, why would I expect her to show her appreciation all the time?”
“Um, because you’re her mother.”
Kate shrugged and sipped from her beer. “It’s just another one of those things that makes me think this was a mistake—that I should have just stayed retired.”
“Kate…I think a great deal of you. If we were just a little bit closer, I’d go so far as to say I love you. But do you realize that this is a complaint that you’ve had on the last few cases we’ve worked together?”
“Yeah, I know…”
“My own mother was okay and I’m mostly fine speaking to her these days,” DeMarco said. “Moms and daughters don’t always jive, you know? So I say you either just face the shit head on or make the decision that you’re still your own woman—a bad-ass one, I might add—and you want to give your all to this job for the next few years. Then you can finally actually retire and be a grandmother.” She chuckled here and added: “But damn, I hate to even think of you as being a grandma.”
“Yeah…but age gets us all in the end.”
When DeMarco gave her a sympathetic little frown and then turned away, Kate appreciated it. As a good partner, she could tell when Kate did not want to talk about something. And feeling that level of appreciation made Kate then think about Alan and the subtle little ultimatum he had given her. Kate had never been the type of woman to take ultimatums from anyone. So why had she so willingly listened to and accepted Alan’s?
I’m just going to have to start setting better boundaries, she thought. Not just for me and the job
, but for my loved ones and my job, too.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Meredith’s husband had left for work an hour and a half ago, and she knew she had a long day of doing nothing but waiting for him to come back home. She was also excited that he’d be coming home early. Every now and then he’d get a day where there was nothing to do around his office. On those days, David would leave for work late and come home early, just heading in to make sure there were no immediate fires he had to put out. He usually left for work around 6:30 in the morning, but he’d stayed until 7:45 this morning. It had given them time for a quick morning-time romp in the bedroom and then a shower for him while she brewed coffee.
She was enjoying her second cup of coffee when she started to think about the day ahead. She and David were going to her favorite Italian restaurant and then they would go into the city for an art exhibit David was excited about. She sometimes joked with him about how he preferred to live just outside of Chicago rather than in the city, as most of the things he was interested in were there and not in their tired little home of Frankfield. David’s plan was to start their life here, quietly, and have a few kids before moving into the city. They were both aware that most couples did it the other way—starting off a marriage in the city and the moving to the outskirts to raise their kids. But David had never been one for convention, and it was one of the many reasons she loved him.
They’d been married for just a little over a year, managing to land the respectable little home thanks to David finally landing his dream job as a copy editor with a growing publishing house. She was well aware that most twenty-four-year-old women with only a community college associate’s degree were not as lucky to have the life she had, and she cherished it.
She also knew that David, nearly twenty years her senior, got a lot of grief about having robbed the cradle. But they were both fine with it; they had nestled out a pleasant little life for themselves. Yes, Meredith had her secrets that she kept from him, but she was pretty sure he had a few of his own as well.