Along Came Trouble

by Sherryl Woods

  “Thanks for the history lesson, but it doesn’t have much to do with what went on here last night,” Walker pointed out.

  Tucker frowned. “Fine. Ignore the past and concentrate on the evidence. What have you got?”

  “The forensics guys are working in there now. No signs of a struggle. Nothing out of place. We’ll have to ask Mrs. Chandler if anything’s missing, but it looks as if whoever did it had only one thing on his—or her—mind, killing Chandler and getting away.”

  “I strolled around outside. I didn’t spot any signs of forced entry,” Tucker said. “How about you?”

  “None I could see, either.”

  “Then he let the killer in,” Tucker concluded.

  “Or the killer had a key,” Walker suggested with a pointed look outside where Mary Elizabeth remained, shoulders slumped and sunshine glinting on her hair.

  “She had an alibi,” Tucker reminded him.

  “You checked it out?”

  “No, but you will, and it will hold up. I’d bet my badge on it.”

  Walker regarded him evenly. “What hours does the alibi cover?”

  “All day yesterday, till around eleven last night. That’s when she found him.”

  “And after that?”

  “She came straight to my place.”

  “You know that how?” Walker countered. “You were on duty.”

  “She told me,” he began, then faltered, irritated by his own gullibility. “Damn.”

  “Exactly,” Walker said sympathetically. “You don’t know for sure what time she got to your place. You don’t know for sure what time Chandler was shot. There’s a lot of wiggle room in there.”

  Tucker didn’t want to agree with Walker, but he was forced to concede that Mary Elizabeth’s alibi wasn’t as airtight as he’d hoped. Now that he thought about it, even her alibi of being on the river all day long meant nothing. There was a very large dock at the edge of the property. She could have brought the boat around here from the marina, slipped inside, shot her husband and gone back to Colonial Beach without anyone being the wiser. Hell and damn!

  He met Walker’s gaze. “You’re going to need to ask some questions over at the marina at the beach. She said she was out in her boat yesterday. Someone probably gassed it up, saw her on the docks, something that will confirm her story.”

  Walker’s gaze shot to the dock in the distance. “Dammit, Tucker, who’s going to be able to say she didn’t make a beeline straight over here?”

  “Other boaters,” Tucker countered, thankful he’d grasped the same point in time to come up with a plausible counterargument. “This time of year the river’s crawling with them, and not just on the weekends. If you don’t want to take the time to track them down, I will.”

  “You can’t,” Walker shot back. “Anything you come up with will be suspect, and you know it.”

  “Why? She and I have a lot of past history, that’s true, but a lot of it’s bad. Most people around here would believe I have more reasons to want to find her guilty than innocent.”

  “Maybe if you were a different kind of man,” Walker agreed. “But you’re a decent guy, and your feelings for people run deep. If you loved her once, that hasn’t just disappeared.” He leveled a penetrating look straight into Tucker’s eyes. “Has it?”

  “My feelings don’t have a damn thing to do with anything,” he said tightly. “You handle this case by the book. That’s all I’m asking. If Mary Elizabeth is guilty, if the evidence points to her, I won’t stand in your way. But if there’s evidence that exonerates her, I expect you to find that, too.”

  “And you believe she is innocent, don’t you?”

  Tucker hated his slight and very telling hesitation. “I believe in her, yes.”

  “Why? Because you want to?”

  “Partly that,” he conceded, forcing himself to be honest with Walker and with himself. “But mostly because she came to me. Why would she do that if she were guilty?”

  “Who better to have in your corner than the sheriff?” Walker said bluntly.

  Tucker started to argue, but the words died on his lips. Not once since he’d joined the sheriff’s department had anyone had any reason to doubt his credibility or his integrity. Now, in a matter of hours, anything coming out of his mouth regarding this case was going to be considered suspect. Once again, Mary Elizabeth had managed to twist his life inside out.

  “I’m going outside,” he said curtly. “Let me know what’s happening.”

  “I’m going to have to talk to her sooner or later,” Walker reminded him.

  Tucker nodded. “She’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”

  “She got a lawyer?”

  “He’s on his way,” Tucker said, grateful that she’d insisted that Powell drive straight up from Richmond, rather than waiting. On that score, she’d been thinking more clearly than he had. He’d thought it would be enough to have Powell on standby. Tucker hadn’t seriously believed that Mary Elizabeth would be a suspect for much more than a minute, because his own feelings had gotten in the way. He’d wanted to believe that the real murderer would be so obvious that she’d be cleared at once. Was that the first of many errors in judgment he was likely to make? Or was the first not tossing her out on her lovely backside when he’d first found her in his bed?

  Walker nodded. “We’ll talk when he gets here, then. I’m trying to put together some sort of statement for the media. They’re gathering like vultures on the front lawn. You want to look it over?”

  “No.”

  “They’re going to ask why you’re not involved. What should I tell them?”

  “The truth, that Mrs. Chandler and I are old friends and that I wanted this case handled by someone with more objectivity and homicide experience than I have.”

  “We could leave out the issue of objectivity,” Walker said. “It’ll be opening a whole can of worms that might be best left shut tight.”

  “The information is out there. Someone will open it sooner or later,” Tucker replied. “It’ll be better to be up-front about it.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Walker?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t do her any favors, but don’t try to railroad her, either.”

  His deputy regarded him with annoyance. “You didn’t need to tell me that. I know how to do my job.”

  “I didn’t say that to insult you,” Tucker told him. “Under most circumstances, I’d never feel the need to say such a thing, but you’re going to hear a lot of things before this is over with, not all of them favorable to Mary Elizabeth. Daisy and my father hate her guts, and that’s just for starters.”

  “What about Bobby?”

  Tucker gave a rueful chuckle. “You know my brother. He’s a laid-back kind of a guy. It would take a lot of energy for him to hate anybody, so he stays neutral. He takes his cues from me.”

  “And you don’t hate her?”

  Tucker thought about just how complicated his feelings for Liz Chandler were, then sighed. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t hate her.” Far from it.

  “Anybody else in town going to be anxious to start a lynch mob besides your father and my wife?”

  “I’ll have to think about that one. In the meantime, try not to let my involvement muddy the investigative waters.”

  “Just how involved do you intend to be?”

  “After we get through today, I’m hoping I can turn my back and walk away and leave the whole mess in your capable hands.”

  Walker snorted. “Oh, yeah. I’ll be counting on that. Tucker Spencer walking away from a lady in distress.” He shook his head. “Never going to happen, pal.”

  Tucker watched Walker leave the room, then glanced back at the woman waiting for him on the terrace. Her vulnerability reached out and tugged at his heart. He hoped to hell Walker was wrong. He needed to run—not walk—away from this mess as fast as he possibly could.

  Powell Knight hadn’t changed all that much, Liz noted whe
n he walked around the side of the house. He still had the same easy confidence, the same arrogant polish, the same evidence of expensive taste he’d had way back in high school. Only the leather briefcase in his hand and the cell phone plastered to his ear were new additions.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he was muttering as he walked toward her. “Just tell your client that we’re playing hardball and it will be a cold day in hell before he ever sees one single dime of that money.” He snapped the phone shut, then gave Liz a thorough once-over. A smile broke across his face. “Damn, Mary Elizabeth, you’re even prettier than you are in all those pictures I see in the Richmond papers. How did I ever let you get away?”

  He reached for her and twirled her around until she was breathless.

  “Put me down, you idiot,” she said, laughing despite the somber occasion and the trouble that was heading her way in the form of an interrogation with Tucker’s top deputy.

  Powell shot a grin at Tucker. “What’s the deal? You’re not snatching her out of my arms, leaping to her defense? Not that long ago you’d have punched me out by now.”

  “Mary Elizabeth can take care of herself,” Tucker said. “If I were you, I’d get out of range of her knee unless you want to hobble inside looking a little less than your best for this interview with the police.”

  Powell put her down and gingerly stepped away. “No interviews, not until she and I have had a chance to talk.” He shot a pointed look at Tucker. “Alone.”

  “He can stay,” Liz said at once.

  Powell immediately shook his head. “No way, sweetcakes. He’s a cop. And in this instance, until you’re completely in the clear, the cops are not your friends.”

  “It’s okay, Mary Elizabeth. He’s right. I’ll go,” Tucker said. He scowled at Powell. “For the record, though, I’m not handling this investigation. I’ve already taken myself off of it.”

  “Good to know, but I still don’t want her blabbing any secrets to you. You’re liable to get the idea that you’re duty-bound to repeat them to whoever is in charge of the case.”

  Tucker looked as if he might want to argue the point, but he kept his mouth clamped shut and walked away.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Liz told her old friend.

  “Your old lover might not do it, but you never can tell about the sheriff. Since they’re one and the same, I’d rather not take any chances.” Powell tucked a finger under her chin. “You doing okay?”

  “I’ve had better days,” she said truthfully.

  “I can imagine. Tell me what happened,” the attorney said. “Beginning to end.”

  “That could take a long time. I’m not sure how patient Walker Ames is likely to be.”

  “He’ll wait,” Powell said confidently. “He doesn’t have any choice.”

  Even so, Liz gave him the condensed version of her marriage. She wasn’t surprised to see the shock that registered on Powell’s face. She and Larry had done a great job of covering the chasm in their relationship, particularly in Richmond.

  “It all came to a head this week.” She repeated what she’d told Tucker about the fight they’d had, about her retreat to Swan Ridge, about spending the day on her boat, and about going home to find Larry’s body. Powell took copious notes, nodding occasionally but otherwise keeping his expression bland and his own comments to a minimum.

  “I didn’t do it,” she said, because she felt she had to get it on the record with him.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said at once. “They’re not likely to come up with anything more than circumstantial evidence. We can beat it.”

  Liz felt a shudder of revulsion. “You’re not listening to me, Powell—I…did…not…do…it. If you don’t believe that, then I don’t want you to represent me.”

  His gaze shot up then and clashed with hers. Eventually, he nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s make sure that nobody thinks otherwise for a single second. There’s a lot of media out front. I’ll get them around here.”

  “Before I’ve talked to the police?”

  “Preemptive strike,” he said succinctly. “We get our message out before they do.”

  That little chill of dismay ran through her again. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a challenge, a battle of wits,” he conceded with a disturbing glint of anticipation in his eyes.

  “Same thing. I don’t like it.”

  “Sweetcakes, when you’re in this kind of a jam, you need somebody on your side who understands the rules. You don’t have to love me. You don’t even have to like me. You just have to let me do my job. I am very, very good at it.”

  A part of Liz knew he was right. The law and politics had a lot in common. Much of the game was about perception. If she was forthcoming with the public, through the media, she could win the first round. She hated it, but it was a fact of life. And the last few years had taught her to be a pragmatist.

  But, she vowed, once this was over, she would never again compromise her own beliefs for the sake of expediency. She was going to find the decent, caring woman she’d once been and fit back inside that skin.

  Powell regarded her expectantly. “What’s it going to be?”

  “Get the reporters,” she said quietly. “But before you ask, you can forget the fake tears for the benefit of the cameras.”

  “You’ll have more credibility if you come across as a grieving widow.”

  “I’ll have more credibility if I tell the truth,” she said adamantly.

  “Fine. Do it your way. But leave out the stuff about the affairs. That needs to come from somebody else. It’ll make you look more sympathetic.”

  Liz glanced toward the house and spotted Tucker watching her from inside. He was going to be furious about this impromptu news conference Powell was about to call. For a moment, the prospect of his disapproval was almost enough to make her call it off, but she was paying Powell for his expertise. And Tucker himself was the one who’d suggested she call him. Surely he knew what a barracuda Powell was. She had to follow the attorney’s advice, even if the next few minutes tore her apart inside.

  “I know what to do,” she said tightly. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Powell nodded, punched in a number on his cell phone and spoke to someone in a low voice. Within minutes, an entire herd of reporters rounded the side of the house. Tucker had clearly spotted them, because he came charging out the door with a man who had to be Walker Ames right on his heels. Before they could get close enough, Powell had gestured for quiet and began making a statement.

  “This is a very sad occasion for this county, the entire Northern Neck of Virginia and the state,” Powell intoned solemnly. “We have just learned that Delegate Lawrence Chandler has been found dead in his home, the apparent victim of foul play. As I’m sure you can imagine, his wife is in shock, but I have persuaded her to say a few words. There will be no questions at this time, though I am sure that the investigating officer from the sheriff’s office will speak to you when we’re through and fill you in on what they have so far.”

  Liz risked a glance at Walker Ames, saw the barely restrained fury on his face. She could just imagine what he’d have to say when she was finished. She didn’t dare look at Tucker.

  Liz stepped forward, determined that what she would say now would be only the truth, even if only half the truth. She would not be the one to tarnish her husband’s reputation. She summoned her memories of Larry’s best qualities.

  “The people have lost an ardent champion today,” she began softly. “My husband was a dedicated public servant who believed fervently in his ideals. He was a great delegate. He would have made a wonderful governor. This is a senseless tragedy, and I assure all of you that I will not rest until the person responsible has been brought to justice.”

  She allowed her gaze to meet Walker’s, to hold it without blinking. “I am confident that Deputy Ames, who is handling the case, will bring it to a rapid conclusion, for Larry’s sake and for the sake of all of us
who loved him.”

  She turned then and walked directly to the deputy. “I’ll answer your questions now.”

  “You’d better believe it,” he said tersely. “Inside.”

  “You don’t want to make a statement to the media first?” she asked, surprised that he would let the opportunity to counteract her statement pass by.

  He gave her a wry look. “I think the reporters have plenty to chew on for the moment. That was a nice performance. I imagine your lawyer put you up to it.”

  “I make my own decisions, Deputy.”

  Something that might have been respect flickered in his eyes for just an instant. “I’m glad to see that you believe in being accountable for your actions.”

  “Always.”

  He gestured toward a chair at her kitchen table. It was the first time in years Liz had sat there. Larry had frowned on sitting down to eat in the kitchen. He’d said it was common. In so doing, he’d managed to deprive Liz of a habit begun in childhood, when she’d eaten with the housekeeper more evenings than not. She’d been happier in this room than anywhere else in the drafty old house. It had reminded her of the Spencers’ home, where the family tended to congregate in the kitchen, both while Mrs. Spencer was alive and after, when Daisy had been struggling to make everything seem exactly the same despite their terrible loss.

  Liz had been accepted as a part of the family back then. Tucker had seen to that. Even Daisy had liked her, had treated her like a sister.

  Remembering all that, Liz felt sadder, but stronger somehow. She sat at the scarred oak table, then met Deputy Ames’s gaze. “Whenever you’re ready,” she told him just as Powell came charging through the door. Before he could speak, she waved him to a seat in the background. “It’s okay. We’re just getting started.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Chandler, let’s make it simple. Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened here yesterday?”

  For the third time, Liz described the events that had led up to the discovery of her husband’s body. She tried to read the deputy’s expression as she spoke, but he would have been an excellent poker player. His face gave nothing away.