Top of the Hour

by Anina Collins

  So that was it. I hadn’t even considered the idea that Jack would logically have to be considered as at least a possible suspect. We didn’t know anything about him or his relationship to his brother, so Alex had a valid point.

  “I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to act that way once I knew who he was.”

  Alex’s hard expression he’d held since Jack had walked away softened into a smile, but I noticed it didn’t go all the way up to his eyes. But he seemed satisfied with my answer and said, “It’s okay, Poppy. I just didn’t want to see you disappointed if he becomes a suspect at some point.”

  “That’s what partners do, right? They look out for each other. Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  I didn’t know why, but he didn’t seem happy with my agreeing with him about Jack. I wasn’t really happy either. The one man who liked me in town and even seemed to be okay with my bizarre running away from him was the one man I shouldn’t want to see again. Sometimes life didn’t seem fair.

  Chapter Five

  The Saturday morning crowd slowly left, emptying out the Madison Diner until the only people left were us and a small family a few tables away. Alex and I hadn’t said much since we finished our breakfasts, other than my awkward apology about how I’d acted with Jack and Alex’s equally as awkward acceptance of it.

  But now that the din around us had calmed down, I wanted to start the day fresh again and forget what had happened. Whatever change I was looking for when I called him that morning hadn’t turned out the way I’d hoped, but I could change that too.

  Candy refilled our coffees and as she walked away sashaying her hips for Alex’s benefit, I joked, “I wonder if that thing she does gets her more tips.”

  He looked over at her for a moment before turning back to look at me. “You mean that touching thing? I bet it does. Many men love that kind of thing.”

  “No, I meant the way she walks so it looks like there are two squirrels under her uniform having a brawl.”

  A slow smile crept into Alex’s expression, and he shook his head. “You really do have a way of putting things sometimes, Poppy. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to look at her the same way again.”

  “Then my job here is done,” I joked, happy to see him finally lighten up. “Now onto our case. How would you sum it up so far?”

  His smile slid into a frown. “Not much. We have no suspects. That’s how I’d sum it up so far.”

  “Well, don’t get down. Let’s just talk it out and then we can decide what our next move is. First up is Jessica, the wife. What do you think of her?”

  “She has an alibi and seems genuine when she says they were blissfully happy.”

  I twisted my face into a dissatisfied grimace. Things weren’t starting off well, but I wasn’t convinced Jessica was one hundred percent innocent. Not yet, at least.

  “I think we can agree she either wasn’t seeing what was going on in her marriage or she was lying. She thought Lee was working late every Thursday, yet we’ve found no evidence that he ever did that. And then there are the red silk panties and the note from Cherise. I’m just not getting a happily married man vibe from all of that, Alex.”

  Alex sat back and threw his arm over the back of his side of the booth. “Okay, I’ll grant you she may not have been seeing her husband as he truly was. So what was our victim doing when he claimed to be working late every Thursday?”

  I grabbed a pen out of my purse and wrote the word CHEATING on a napkin. I slid it across the Formica table toward him and tapped on the word for emphasis. “That’s what he was doing. Trust me. I know about these things.”

  Arching a single eyebrow, he looked at me for a moment before saying, “Cheating with the ex-wife? I don’t know many men who go back to the one they left.”

  “Especially if it was for the woman he’s currently married to,” I thought aloud. “I mentioned this all to my father, and he said the same thing you just said. He didn’t think Lee would go back to his first wife since it seems like he was cheating on his first wife with Jessica.”

  I stopped for a moment to catch my breath as a brief spike of rage tore through me. “But then again, since he was a cheating bastard to begin with, what would make him a stand-up husband the second time around?”

  My words came out with a lot more venom attached than I wanted to show Alex, so I quickly forced a smile on my face. “Then again, who knows, right?”

  After all that, Alex didn’t seem to have anything else to add. “It sounds like you’ve thought about that a lot. Okay, let’s leave what he was doing on the back burner, along with Jessica’s part in this, if there was any, for later. I think we should focus on the first wife for now.”

  Happy for the change in topic, I asked, “What do you have in mind? We don’t even know where she lives.”

  “Detective. I have her address ready to go. Your friend Keri was very helpful when I talked to her yesterday afternoon. She seemed very interested in how you’re doing, though. Any idea why she’s so worried?”

  I knew full well why Keri thought she should be concerned about me. To her and everyone else who knew me when that whole thing with Jared happened, I hadn’t moved on because I hadn’t hooked up with a new man since then. If I knew Keri, she already suspected Alex and I were together, or at least she hoped we would be.

  Brushing off the worry he’d seen from her, I said, “You know how people get sometimes. It’s nothing. I’m glad she was so helpful, though. Where does Mrs. Reynolds number one live?”

  “Just over the border in Pennsylvania in Waynesboro. It’s about an hour away. Up for a road trip this beautiful October morning?”

  At that moment with memories of Jared marching through my mind, the idea of getting out of Sunset Ridge sounded perfect. Grabbing the check, I waved it in front of Alex and said, “Since you’re doing the driving, I’ll get breakfast. Sound good?”

  He drank the last of his black coffee and slid out of the booth to stand next to me. “I think the gentleman in me should have a problem with that, but since I’m getting to perform the manly job of driving, I guess I can live with it.”

  I rolled my eyes at his talk of manly duties. As Candy approached us, I whispered to him, “I’ll meet you at the car. Careful or she might actually touch somewhere that’s not starched.”

  While I paid the check, Alex practiced the fine manly art of avoidance and walked out to the car. I saw Candy pout for a moment as he escaped her clutches, but she wouldn’t be sad for long. There were potential shoulders to touch on the four men who walked through the door as I passed them on my way out, and for women like Candy, one shoulder was as good as another.

  We pulled up to what looked like an abandoned farmhouse nearly an hour later, and the two of us looked at each other with confused expressions. I’d expected something better for the ex-wife of a man who had been rumored to have paid a hefty sum to divorce her.

  “Are you sure this is the right address?” I asked, leaning forward toward the windshield to get a closer look.

  Alex took out his notepad and checked the information Keri had given him. Showing me the address, he said, “That’s what it says. Let’s get out and check around. Maybe she moved since signing the divorce papers.”

  We walked toward the house as a brisk October wind whipped past us. Just an hour north, Waynesboro with its far more open spaces had a distinctly rural feel to it compared to Sunset Ridge. Looking down the road, the closest house to the one we thought was Cherise’s appeared to be at least three hundred yards away.

  The house itself sat back about ten yards off the road like some forgotten place that had meant the world to someone long ago. White paint, faded from years of neglect, peeled back from the wood beneath it, and the black shutters framing each window looked as worn as the paint. The black front door looked newer, though, as did the tiny windows in the door frame that surrounded it. Fireplace chimneys flanked both ends of the house, something I wished I had in my own
home.

  “Two fireplaces,” I remarked as I pointed to the partially intact brick chimneys. “I’d love that.”

  Alex stopped in front of the home and gazed up at it like he was looking at the Taj Mahal. I’d never seen him so in awe of anything, and to see him so struck by this rundown mess surprised me.

  “You okay?” I asked, suddenly wondering if this place brought back memories from his life before coming to Sunset Ridge.

  “I’d love to have a house like this. Something I could fix up and really make it shine,” he answered in a faraway voice.

  I looked at him and then back at the old farmhouse he so longingly stared at. “Really? I had no idea you were handy with this kind of thing. I didn’t peg you for a construction kind of guy.”

  He laughed and held up his hands for me to look at. Strong and big, I could imagine him building something impressive with them.

  “I can make great things with these hands, Poppy. Just need to find the right project.”

  As I began to walk toward the front door, I joked, “Maybe you can take this one on if nobody’s grabbed it yet.”

  He caught up with me and still wearing the smile he’d had as he admired the place knocked on the front door. While we waited for someone to answer, I had to admit his enthusiasm for the right project, as he called it, made me see him in a different light. This was basically how I learned things about Alex. While I told him things about myself, he tended to show who he was through the most random and unplanned actions. It made finding out who he really was a slow process but not an unexciting one.

  To my surprise, the black door opened and in front of us stood a woman with red hair, blue eyes, and alabaster pale skin. Thinner than Jessica Reynolds, she looked to be about the right size for those red silk panties. She wore jeans and a thick cream colored sweater, but she didn’t look like the type of woman who normally dressed in either piece of clothing. Something about her screamed beaded cocktail gown instead of jeans.

  Alex held up his badge and explained who he was, and in return she gave him a big toothy smile. Whoever she was, she didn’t seem unhappy to see us.

  “Officer Montero, what can I do for you today?”

  “Is your name Cherise Reynolds, ma’am?” he asked far more politely than I expected.

  Her smile shrunk a bit and she nodded. “I am, but I can’t imagine I’m that much older than you are for you to call me ma’am. I hope this is a southern gentleman thing since you’re from Maryland.”

  He apologized as I tried to assess just how old she might be. My father hadn’t said anything about her age, but I’d gotten the feeling she was closer to Lee’s forty-something than mine or Alex’s age. As I looked at her now, I guessed her to be on the better end of forty by the wrinkles near the outside corners of her eyes and above her lips. She wore enough makeup that they weren’t obvious, and the makeup was definitely the expensive kind that didn’t settle into the nooks and crannies of her face, but the telltale signs of age were there if someone was looking close enough.

  “Ms. Reynolds, we’d like to speak to you about your ex-husband, Lee Reynolds. May we come in?”

  I sensed the eagerness in Alex’s voice was more about seeing the work Cherise was doing to the farmhouse and less about actually finding out about what she knew, if anything, about our victim’s murder. Not that I blamed him. If a project like this was a dream of his, who was I to say he shouldn’t love seeing one up close and personal, even if it was in the course of doing his duty?

  Cherise stepped back to let us in, and we walked past her into a newly remodeled room that looked like a sitting room. Painted in Wedgewood blue with pristine white crown molding at the ceiling and around the doorway into the kitchen ahead of us, it was a pleasant surprise after seeing the outside of the home. A white couch and navy blue wingback chair sat arranged around a dark wood rectangular coffee table and on top of new cherry wood flooring, all of which gave the effect that Cherise had spent not only a lot of time designing this room but a lot of money too.

  “I only have two rooms and my bedroom with an attached bath done, but let me show you the kitchen,” she said as she waved us on to follow her.

  We walked behind her into the next room as the sound of hammers and saws from the back of the house filtered up toward us. Cherise explained they were working on the rest of the first floor and she hoped they’d be done before the beginning of the year.

  Taking a seat at a kitchen table made of a similar dark wood to the sitting room’s coffee table, we stared in amazement at how impressive her newly remodeled kitchen looked, our heads swiveling left and right to take in all the work. Almost completely white, except for the stainless steel appliances and what looked to be teak floor, the room had a clean look I couldn’t help but love. A bank of windows above the large white farmhouse sink let the mid-morning sun flood in, making the room warm and welcoming despite its almost complete lack of color.

  After letting my mouth hang open for nearly a minute, I said to Cherise, “I can’t get over how beautiful the inside of this house looks compared to the outside. When we drove up, all I saw was a rundown farmhouse, but this is incredible.”

  She beamed her happiness at my compliment. “Thank you. The house is still more than half under construction with the rooms torn down to the studs in a majority of it, but these two rooms are just the beginning. I love how it’s turning out.”

  Alex sat gazing around the room as she offered us coffee, so I told her yes for the two of us and explained, “My partner is in love with projects like this. I think I can see him quitting his job as a cop if he had a house like this to redo.”

  “It’s life altering, but so worth it,” she said as she opened a drawer and took out some pictures to show us. “Take a look at these before and after shots. The change is incredible.”

  We looked through the pictures and saw she hadn’t exaggerated. What had been a dilapidated old house on its last legs was being transformed into a brand new home. Some rooms were still just walls and studs, but others like the one we sat in were show home level. Alex focused on each picture, staring at the details like he’d finally found the roadmap to happiness.

  I pointed at him and chuckled. “See what I mean? He’s in love with your house.”

  “Are you reluctant to let your husband take on a project like a whole house remodel because it’s such a huge job?”

  Another person who thought we were married simply because we were partners. I quickly corrected her. “No, no. We aren’t married. We just work together.”

  Cherise looked at the two of us for a long moment and then smiled. “I’m sorry. I guess I just misunderstood. You look like you’re a couple.”

  Alex put down the stack of pictures in time to hear her say she thought we were together and turned to look at me with the same confused expression I knew I wore. I didn’t know why people kept thinking we were a couple. It wasn’t as if we finished each other’s sentences or either one of us fawned over the other in any way.

  “Well, anyway, a house redo is so worth it, even if it seems like you’re living in a construction zone for ages.”

  Now curious about the remodel, I asked, “Isn’t it a strange time to be redoing a house since it’s going to be the dead of winter soon?”

  Cherise placed the pictures back into the drawer and brought our mugs of coffee to the table. “The entire house had to be remodeled, so at some time they’d be working in the winter. It’s not too bad because they put up plastic like they use in commercial freezers, so when it gets really cold, I’ll be able to keep the heat contained to the part of the house I’m using.”

  Interrupting our discussion of the remodel, Alex cleared his throat and quietly said, “We’re here about your ex-husband’s passing. Did you know Lee had been murdered?”

  His choice of words struck me as intentionally shocking, but then again, maybe that’s what he thought she needed since she’d treated our arrival as more of a personal visit than an official
one. His tone worked, and she turned serious immediately.

  “I did,” she answered, her eyes filling with tears. “I found out yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry. Were you close?” he asked pointedly.

  She sat down across from us and shook her head. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. We weren’t really what I’d call close since the divorce and his remarriage.”

  Alex jotted a few words down in his notes and looked up at her. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  Cherise sighed. “Not in the last year, I don’t think.”

  “You haven’t seen him anytime in the past month at all?”

  She shook her head and answered without a hint of wavering in her voice. “No, I haven’t.”

  One of the construction workers called her name from the far back of the house, so she excused herself and left us alone. While I sipped on my coffee, Alex received a text that made him smile even more than looking at the before and after pictures of Cherise’s house had. Curious at what a single text could have included to make him so happy, I asked, “Get some good news?”

  He looked over at me and put his phone into his pocket just as she returned from talking to the construction worker. No sooner had she sat down he began to ask her more questions.

  “Cherise, did Lee have any enemies that you know of? Anyone who would want to do this to him?”

  Tearing up again, she sniffled and said, “No. I can’t think of anyone who would want to kill him. He just wasn’t that kind of man.”

  I opened my mouth to ask her what kind of man she meant, but Alex asked, “I hate to have to ask, but it’s not uncommon for exes to be suspects in cases like this, so where were you Thursday night.”

  Cherise seemed very understanding and nodded. “I get it. We weren’t close, but we weren’t enemies either. But to answer your question, I was here. The workers stayed until about seven before going home.”

  Alex stood from the table and thanked her for being so cooperative, a clear sign he had no more questions for her at the moment, and although I’d normally ask a few of my own, I was too curious to know what that text had said to make him so happy, so I silently followed him toward the door as Cherise walked with us.