Tucker gathered up all three stacks and tossed them in the trash. “Just do your job. Solve Chandler’s murder, and the rest will take care of itself.”
“If only,” Walker retorted. “Try telling that to the media hounds who have tired of waiting for my calls and started gathering outside.”
“I noticed,” Tucker said with little sympathy. “I had to duck around back to get inside.”
“Somebody’s going to have to talk to them sooner or later. They’re not going away,” Walker lamented.
“Send Michele out,” Tucker suggested. “She’s pretty good at fending off annoying pests.”
Walker finally grinned. “Not a bad idea. I’ll be right back. Sit tight. As long as you’re here, we need to talk.”
Tucker sat in the visitor’s chair, leaving his own seat for Walker. For once he was glad to relinquish it. Despite his refusal to display any overt sympathy for Walker’s plight, he didn’t envy his brother-in-law the position he’d put him in.
Walker came back in, a smile splitting his face. “Michele’s out there now, giving them a bunch of double talk drenched in honey. They’re lapping it up, especially those jaded guys from the papers up in D.C. Won’t be till after she’s back inside that they realize she hasn’t actually given them any news.” He met Tucker’s gaze. “Now, then, why don’t you tell me just how deep you plan to dig in this case?”
“Till I hit pay dirt,” Tucker said.
“Are you going to work with me or make my life hell?” Walker asked bluntly.
Tucker laughed. “Your call.”
“Okay, then. Just don’t tamper with any evidence, share whatever you find and we’ll be okay.”
“You’ll do the same?”
“As much as I can,” Walker agreed. “I won’t keep anything from you unless I feel it could compromise the investigation.”
“In other words, if it involves Mary Elizabeth.”
“Pretty much.”
“Fair enough. What do you have so far?”
Walker flipped open a file. “He was shot at point-blank range. Doc James figures that means whoever shot him was someone he knew and allowed to get right in his face. We’ll see if the medical examiner in Richmond agrees. No sign of a weapon anywhere on the premises. We’ve got about a million sets of fingerprints we’re checking out. Too bad Mrs. Chandler didn’t have the housekeeper clean before she came back to town. It would have made our lives easier. As it is, there are prints there from their last visit, when they apparently threw some sort of fund-raiser. Richard tells me the place was crawling with bigwigs from all over the state. He’s promised to bring over all the pictures he took at the event, but I seriously doubt we’ll find anything that will do us a bit of good.”
“Can I see the crime-scene photos?”
“Sure.” Walker handed him a thick envelope. “Maybe you’ll spot something I missed.”
Tucker sifted through the pictures, most of which showed a room that was as tidy as if nothing untoward had taken place there. Only the photos of the victim himself betrayed any evidence of the violent attack. “Three gunshot wounds?” he asked, startled. Mary Elizabeth had mentioned only one.
“Yes,” Walker confirmed. “Whoever did it wanted to make very sure he was dead. The shot that clipped an artery accounts for all the blood. That’s probably the one that killed him.”
“Does that suggest something to you?” Tucker asked.
“Revenge comes to mind,” Walker conceded. “But so does panic.”
“I like revenge better,” Tucker said grimly. “At least it gives us something to look for. You run across anybody who hated Chandler yet?”
“Not me. You’re in a better position to assemble a list of suspects like that than I am. Mrs. Chandler hasn’t given me that list of names she promised yet. So far all I have are those unsigned letters and anonymous answering machine tapes. Has she been any more forthcoming with you?”
“Just one name so far, a woman who used to work as Chandler’s campaign manager—Cynthia Miles.”
“Why would she want him dead?”
“Mary Elizabeth discovered they were having an affair and had Chandler fire Ms. Miles right after he was elected to office. She also made sure her husband broke off the affair.”
“That gives us motive, assuming she carried a grudge for what, six years or so? It doesn’t give us much else to go on. I’ll track her down, though. She still in Richmond?”
“According to Mary Elizabeth, she is.”
“Anything else?” Walker asked.
“Not so far, but I haven’t really started to dig. The thing I do know is that there’s not even one viable political opponent here in the county who might be desperate to land Chandler’s seat in the house of delegates. He’s had a lock on it since he won that first election. Ken Willis went up against him once and was destroyed by a landslide. Nobody’s wanted to challenge Chandler since that debacle.”
“How about business enemies?”
“I’ll look into that today,” Tucker said. “Walker, you’re the homicide expert. Do you think there’s any chance in hell this could have been a random killing, a robbery that went awry, maybe?”
“It doesn’t look that way to me, not with no signs of forced entry, and Mrs. Chandler hasn’t come up with anything that’s missing.”
“Maybe the killer heard her coming back to the house and took off before he could take anything,” Tucker said. “Is there an estimate yet on the time of death?”
“Sometime between eight o’clock at night and two in the morning. Doc James says the state M.E. might be able to narrow it down a little further than that, but so far that’s his best estimate.”
Unfortunately, Mary Elizabeth had returned to the house right smack in the middle of that range, according to her story that she’d gotten home during the eleven o’clock news. If she was telling the truth, that would narrow the time of death to the hours between eight and eleven.
If she was lying, she could have been there right when her husband was being shot…and she could have been the one pulling the trigger.
Tucker looked up to see Walker regarding him sympathetically.
“Yeah, I know,” his deputy said. “That keeps Mrs. Chandler right at the top of the list of suspects. We know she was there during that time frame, because she’s admitted it. And so far, she’s the only one we know of who had both motive and opportunity.”
Tucker couldn’t deny the obvious. That didn’t mean he had to accept it. “I know in my gut she didn’t do it,” he told Walker. “That may not be good enough for you, but it is for me.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let it be good enough for me,” Walker said. “Tell her to keep that sleazebag attorney’s phone number handy.”
Over the next few hectic days, Tucker kept his conversation with Walker to himself. Unfortunately he couldn’t prevent it from popping into his head every time he looked at Mary Elizabeth. Could she have done it? Could she have changed so much in the last six years that she could have shot her own husband, then coolly walked away and crawled into Tucker’s bed?
Absolutely not, he told himself over and over. But how well did he really know her anymore? She was calm under pressure. He’d seen that for himself when Powell had called that impromptu press conference as a preemptive strike over at Swan Ridge.
Granted, she had little if anything to gain from Chandler’s death. If her goal was to get him out of her life, the divorce she was planning would have accomplished the same thing…unless he’d intended to fight dirty, the way that argument in the restaurant implied. She didn’t need her husband’s money…unless, of course, she had managed to squander her entire inheritance. Much as he hated it, Tucker knew he was going to have to check into all of that.
That could wait, though. The funeral she’d arranged was this morning, and he’d promised to be there, at her side. Frances was planning to accompany them, as well. That ought to make his father’s blood boil. In fact, he had to wonder if Ki
ng would even come to the service, though years of doing his duty as a Spencer would probably compel him to make a pretense of showing respect for the region’s most prominent politician.
Tucker glanced up and found Mary Elizabeth hovering uncertainly in the doorway to the kitchen. She was dressed in black from head to toe. It was not her best color. It drained her already pale complexion and emphasized the increasingly dark circles under her eyes that not even expertly applied makeup could conceal.
“You okay?” he asked quietly. “Sit down and I’ll get you something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said, but she did sit. She regarded him with a plaintive expression. “How am I going to get through this?”
“By remembering who you are and by doing what your grandfather would have expected of you. You can do it. You’re stronger than you realize.”
A faint trace of a smile touched her lips. “Ah, yes, the Swans excel at doing the right thing in the face of adversity. My grandfather never shed one single tear when he buried my parents.”
“Which meant you couldn’t, either,” Tucker guessed. It was something they’d never discussed. The funeral had taken place before they’d even met, and for years she’d never wanted to talk about her parents at all.
She nodded. “Every time it seemed as if I might cry, he’d look at me with that disapproving frown that, I swear, could dry up the entire Atlantic. I knew better than to let one single tear escape. He considered tears a sign of weakness.”
“You were a kid,” Tucker said angrily.
“Didn’t matter. I was a Swan.”
“Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if your parents hadn’t been killed in Switzerland?” he asked.
“I didn’t need to wonder. I knew. It would have been carefree and exciting and filled with interesting people. That’s certainly the way it was for the first nine years of my life.” She regarded him with a wry expression. “Of course, for the most part, I was on the outside looking in. I can remember sitting at the top of the steps in some house we’d rented for the winter, listening to the music and the laughter downstairs, wondering what sort of exotic food they were serving that night and who was there. I used to daydream that a handsome prince—and there was almost always a handsome prince around—would spot me and whisk me downstairs and dance with me.”
“It sounds lonely,” Tucker said.
Mary Elizabeth looked surprised that he had grasped that. “It was. Being here, even under those terrible circumstances, was so much better. Swan Ridge was a real home. My grandfather actually paid attention to me. He could be strict and difficult and undemonstrative, but there was never one single second when I wondered whether or not he knew I was around, not one moment when I doubted that he loved me.”
She regarded Tucker with a sad smile. “And then there was you. I had never had a best friend before. We never stayed any one place long enough. I knew at first that you thought I was a pest, but I was determined to make you like me.”
Tucker grinned. “That explains all those boxes of chocolate-chip cookies I was always finding on the front porch with my name on them.”
“I knew you loved them, because your mom, and later Daisy, were always baking them for you.”
“But theirs weren’t burned crisp at the edges,” he teased, finally earning a full-fledged smile.
“I’m better in the kitchen now. One of these days I’ll whip up a gourmet meal and amaze you.”
“Not necessary,” he said quietly. “You’ve always amazed me.”
Their gazes clashed, and something heavy with longing sizzled in the air. Tucker knew it was wrong, knew it could lead to nothing but trouble, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away.
“Ah, Mary Elizabeth,” he whispered at last.
“I know,” she said, finally breaking the eye contact. “We can’t do this.”
“No,” he said firmly. “We can’t.” He made a point of looking at his watch. “I think we should get over to the church. Frances said she’d meet us in Anna-Louise’s office. We can wait there until it’s time for the service to start.”
In the car, Mary Elizabeth looked over at him. “You don’t have to sit with me. I know it could be awkward.”
His jaw set with grim determination. “I can deal with awkward.”
“You shouldn’t have to. Not on my account.”
“Mary Elizabeth, we’re not having this discussion again. It’s settled. Unless you don’t want me there, I’ll stay with you.”
“Dammit, Tucker, I’m trying to do the right thing. Don’t make it any harder than it already is. Please,” she pleaded. “Your father would be outraged. So would a lot of other people in town. What’s the point?”
“The point is, you need someone,” he said.
“I’ll have Frances. She’s been a godsend the last few days. So has Anna-Louise. I’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“All right, then. I’ll stay at the back of the church. If you need me, all you have to do is look my way.”
“I’m already leaning on you too much. I can get through this on my own.”
“As long as you know you don’t have to,” he said.
“I know.”
He pulled into the lot behind the small, white-steepled brick church that had been built in the late eighteenth century. So far the parking lot was blessedly free of media and mourners. He helped Mary Elizabeth from the car, then escorted her quickly inside just as the first television satellite truck from Richmond pulled onto the street behind the church. He saw the reporter leap out and sprint in their direction, but Tucker very firmly shut the church door in the man’s face and flipped the lock for good measure.
Anna-Louise and Frances met them in the hall. Frances enveloped Mary Elizabeth in a hug.
“She’s in good hands now,” Anna-Louise reassured Tucker as Frances led Mary Elizabeth into the pastor’s office.
“She won’t let herself fall apart,” Tucker said. “I’m not sure that’s healthy.”
“She’s grieving, don’t make any mistake about that,” Anna-Louise said. “I may not know everything that was going on in her marriage, but I’ve gathered there was trouble. She’s facing a lot of conflicting emotions today—grief, guilt, maybe even a twinge of relief. You can’t help her with any of it, Tucker. She has to work through this in her own way. The best thing you can do for her now is to find out who killed her husband.”
He cast one last look after Mary Elizabeth, then nodded. “What did you decide about the TV cameras?”
“They won’t be inside the church or on the cemetery grounds. No other cameras, either. Walker says he’s got that covered. I can’t keep ’em away from the street, so I’m sure they’ll be swarming everywhere out there.”
“And Richard?”
She gave him a rueful look. “Yes, that was a tricky one,” she admitted. “But I told my husband the church was off-limits to his camera, too. He’s outside milling around somewhere, probably muttering about marrying the most hardheaded woman on the face of the earth.”
Tucker chuckled. “I’ll go look for him.”
“Feed him some juicy tidbit about the investigation, if you can. It might make things go better at home tonight.”
An edge in her voice worried him. “You didn’t fight over this, did you?”
“We don’t fight,” she said indignantly, then grinned. “We have noisy discussions and ultimately agree to disagree, especially when it comes to matters related to our careers. When we got married, we accepted the fact that sometimes our ethics were going to bump smack into each other and cause problems. Knowing that in advance relieves some of the tension when it happens.”
“That actually works?” Tucker asked skeptically.
“It has so far,” she said. “By the way, I also saw your father milling around outside earlier. He didn’t look any happier than Richard. Maybe you can pacify him while you’re out there.”
/> Tucker groaned. “You don’t expect much, do you?”
“Only what you’re capable of doing,” she said with an innocently pious expression.
“Yeah, right.”
Tucker left her and slipped out the back door of the church, then wandered around the walkway to the front. King spotted him before he’d taken two steps across the grass.
“Couldn’t you at least have had the good sense to stay away from here today?” his father inquired testily.
“You didn’t,” Tucker pointed out.
“It’s my duty as a Spencer to be here,” King retorted.
“And it’s my duty as Mary Elizabeth’s friend to show my respect for her loss.”
His father snorted. “As if that’s got anything at all to do with you being here.”
“Don’t go there, King. Not here and not now.” He glanced pointedly at the TV cameras aimed their way as well as at Richard, who was approaching with the grim determination of a man on a mission.
“You,” King said with a sniff. “Might have known you’d be poking around here.”
“Ditto,” Richard said without rancor. “Tucker, could I talk to you a minute?”
“He’s got nothing to say,” King snapped.
“I imagine Tucker is capable of answering for himself,” Richard said with a hint of exasperation. “Tucker?”
“Out back,” Tucker said. “Daddy, if you want to wait till I get back, I’ll sit with you.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” his father retorted with a scowl. “You insist on coming inside and making a fool of yourself, steer clear of me.”
Tucker sighed, fully aware that Richard had taken note of every word. The instant they got around the corner, the editor of the Trinity Harbor Weekly studied him with piercing intensity.
“Mind telling me what that was all about?”
“You know King,” Tucker said with a shrug. “His children seldom do what suits him.”
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