She opened the door and immediately began sobbing. One look at her told me she’d spent the day crying. Her jet black mascara that made her blue eyes stand out sat on the bags under those pretty eyes and her nose looked raw and red. I half expected her to confess right there before we even got inside the house, but she didn’t. Instead, she sobbed almost uncontrollably so neither Alex nor I could understand what she was saying.
“Mrs. Reynolds, has something happened?” Alex asked in his authoritative policeman voice. “Are you okay?”
She mumbled something through her tears and shook her head. Then inexplicably, she began to cry harder, although nothing he’d said warranted the explosion of her emotions. Then again, she was dealing with the sudden death of her husband.
Alex leaned forward to peek inside the house and asked, “May we come in? My partner and I don’t want to leave you here alone like this.”
I saw Jessica’s eyes fly open in terror at Alex’s suggestion. She moved to block his view, and for a moment I didn’t think she’d let us into the house. Alex sensed something was wrong, but he asked again if she was okay and she just nodded.
Reluctantly, she opened the door wider to allow us in and we saw she wasn’t alone. There standing near the large brick fireplace on the far wall of the living room was her brother-in-law and the man who’d sent me flowers that afternoon.
Jack wore black pants and a gunmetal grey dress shirt under a black leather jacket. Looking like he belonged in the townhouse, he casually leaned on his elbow against the fireplace mantle wearing a confident look on his face.
“Jack? What are you doing here?” I asked before my brain could stop my mouth.
He smiled and walked toward me. “I came over to see if Jessica wanted anything in her time of need. We’re both just trying to find a way to deal with the loss of Lee.”
Feeling stupid for asking such an obvious question, I waved away his answer. “Of course. I’m sorry. I should have known that.”
From behind me, Alex said in that same authoritative voice he’d just used on Jessica outside, “Mr. Reynolds, we need to speak to your sister-in-law alone, if you don’t mind.”
I spun around to see him glaring at Jack with a look that could kill in his eyes. For his part, Jack didn’t seem upset about Alex’s order to leave. He took Jessica’s hand and kissed it, telling her to call him if she needed anything before he said to me, “I’ll leave her in your very capable hands then.”
Pleased he was being so good about things, especially since Alex had been so rude, I smiled as he passed. “Thank you. I’m sure you understand. We have to do our job to find your brother’s killer.”
“Of course. I’ll get out of your way. I hope to see you again soon, Poppy.”
Jack thanked me and left without another word as Jessica began sobbing uncontrollably again at my mention of Lee’s murder. I was a little surprised he didn’t stop to comfort her, but since Alex had all but told him to get out, he likely didn’t feel he could stay to help.
Taking her hand in mine, I guided her to the couch to try to make her feel better. The tears continued to come fast and hard, even as I sensed my soothing words were having some good effect.
“We’re here, Jessica. I understand. Both Alex and I do. We’ve both lost people we loved, so we know how hard this is for you.”
She dried her eyes and blew her nose into a tissue she pulled from her pants’ pocket. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. He was the love of my life. My soulmate. What am I supposed to do rambling around in this empty townhouse with all its memories of the good times we shared?”
I nodded my understanding, genuine in my attempts to help her. “I remember when my mother died. My father was inconsolable. He didn’t feel like he could go on. He did, though, but it was hard. He had to take it one day at a time.”
Jessica gave me a tiny smile and wiped her eyes again. “It is hard. Lee and I have been in love since the minute we met. Even his brother saw it.”
As I opened my mouth to ask her exactly when that was, Alex interrupted me with his own question. “The coroner found some strange anomalies when he did Lee’s autopsy, Jessica. I’d like to ask you some questions about that.”
“Autopsy?” She repeated the word in horror and then buried her face in her hands as she began to sob again. “Oh my God! My poor Lee! I can’t bear to think of him laid out on a cold coroner’s table.”
I shot Alex a nasty glance meant to let him know how unfeeling I thought he was being with her. He returned my look with one of disgust I knew meant he thought I was coddling Jessica too much. As I gently rubbed her arm, I whispered, “There, there.” What I really wanted to say was, “My partner is an insensitive jerk, so don’t listen to him.”
While she sat on the couch crying, I excused myself and quickly pulled him into the dining room. Leaning close to him, I whispered, “I have no idea what you’re trying to do here, but being such a heartless ass to a woman who’s just lost her husband isn’t going to get you whatever you think it will.”
His face filled with frustration before it twisted into a grimace. “You can’t see those are crocodile tears? You’re smarter than that, Poppy.”
I had thought her crying was a tad much, but then I remembered back to when my mother died and how my father and I had cried for what seemed like weeks on end. It had only been a couple days since she’d gotten the news that her husband had been murdered, so I thought it was possible the reality of never seeing the man she loved had finally set in.
Not that I wanted to say anything of that to Alex at that moment as he waited for me to answer him about my ability to see someone lying directly to my face. “Of course I can see that. I’m not an idiot. I may not wear a badge, but I can tell when someone’s emotions are forced, Alex. I still don’t think you’re going to get anywhere with her acting like you are.”
“Then what do you suggest?” he asked in that clipped way that told me he was even angrier than his expression indicated.
“Let me talk to her. Just back off a little and let me see if I can get her to answer some questions.”
He thought about my suggestion for a moment and nodded. “Okay, I’ll head off to the bathroom to see if there’s anything that would indicate she was the one poisoning him.”
I looked back at Jessica still sobbing on the couch and then back at him. “We don’t have a warrant, though. Won’t that mean anything you find will be inadmissible in court?”
A look of amusement flashed in his dark eyes. “Now it’s my turn to tell you I’m not an idiot. I didn’t say I was going to do anything but look. I’ll save the touching for when I get a warrant.”
Jessica’s crying grew louder for some unknown reason and I whispered to him as he began to walk back into the living room, “I think our being here is upsetting her.”
He shook his head. “I think she’s playacting, so feel free to ask her any questions you want, and I’ll do what I do best.”
Alex walked past her to stand with his arms folded across his chest in the corner of the living room while I did my part to find out anything I could between her sobs. Taking my place next to her on the couch again, I lightly touched her arm and smiled, hoping she wouldn’t sense I had doubts about her misery.
“Can I get you anything? A glass of water? More tissues?” I offered.
She took a deep breath in and let it out in a shudder that shook her entire body. “No, I’m okay. I don’t mean to be so useless with your investigation. I really don’t. It’s just that I can’t stop thinking of all the things we had planned that aren’t going to happen now.”
Tears welled in her eyes for the future taken from her and her husband. Maybe she wasn’t completely forcing them.
“Mrs. Reynolds, can I use your bathroom?” Alex asked abruptly.
I’d planned to provide him a way to ease into asking, but apparently, he couldn’t wait. I turned to look at him and squinted my eyes in anger. I got that he didn’t think
she was all that broken up about losing her husband, but why did he have to come in like a wrecking ball just as I was getting her calm again?
His request caught her off guard and pointing toward the hallway in front of him, she said, “It’s down there. Third door on the left.”
I saw a flash of something in her eyes when she looked back at me. Was it fear? Guilt? Had she been poisoning her husband and left the proof of it in the bathroom?
“How are you feeling now? A little better?”
She took another deep breath and didn’t shudder when she let it out this time. “A little. Thank you for being so nice. I think I’d be a weeping mess if I had to deal with just your partner.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes at how that partner was acting. “He’s very much a man about things like this. Men don’t understand emotion. I think it’s the testosterone that dulls their ability to truly comprehend sadness.”
“Lee did. He understood when someone was sad and always knew the right thing to say.”
Nodding, I pressed a smile onto my face and wondered if Lee Reynolds could be as wonderful as his wife continued to claim he was. Loving, attentive, and sincere? Did such a man indeed exist, or were her memories tainted by sadness, or even worse, guilt?
As curious as I was about that, I needed to ask her about the case so I gingerly introduced the idea of his work into our conversation. “Jessica, can you think of anyone at Lee’s job who might want to hurt him? We talked to some people there, and either they didn’t know him or they loved him. It’s odd for someone to not have at least one enemy at the workplace. Can you think of anything he might have told you about any problems he had?”
Jessica stopped crying and looked off in the distance toward the picture window that faced out to the street. After a few seconds, she looked back at me and said, “There was someone. Yes. I didn’t think about it the last time you were here, but there was. I remembered him saying something when I was going through some of Lee’s things last night.”
She began to cry again and through the tears said, “I found a picture from our honeymoon to the Bahamas. We looked so happy. Who could know that just a short time later he’d be gone? If I’d known we’d have so little time together…”
As she buried her face in her hands once again, I worried I was losing her to the wash of memories that came when someone realized the one they loved was never coming back. Pressing her to focus, I asked, “What did he say about this co-worker? What problems did they have?”
Sniffling, she dabbed the tissue under her nose. “Lee told me about this one fellow DJ at work who was very jealous. Jay. Maybe his first name began with a J. Or the last name? I don’t know. I wish I could remember.”
“When did this problem first come about? Do you remember?”
She thought about my question and nodded. “I think it was pretty recent because Lee told me about it about a month ago.”
Just then, out of the corner of my eye I saw Alex return to the living room. The happy look on his face said he’d found something in the bathroom, but that would have to wait until we were alone again. For now, I wanted Jessica to tell him about the problem Lee had at work.
“Alex, Jessica remembered an issue her husband had with a fellow employee at the radio station recently. Would you tell him what you told me, Jessica?”
She looked at Alex with fear, probably wondering if he was still going to be doing his best ice man act. His trip to the bathroom appeared to improve his mood a bit, though, and he smiled at her for the first time since we arrived.
“Yes, please do, Jessica. Anything you can remember will be helpful to us solving this case.”
Now there was the Alex who knew how to charm a lady. Why it had taken him so long to let that part of him out was beyond me. I was just glad he’d finally shown up. Any more of his frostiness and I may have started to sob out of frustration.
Jessica responded to his warmth and charm and explained what she remembered about Lee and his problem with the fellow DJ.
“Lee told me one evening at dinner about a month ago that he was having some issue with one of the other DJs. He hadn’t said anything to me, but I knew my husband and that long face he wore when he was worried hadn’t left him for days, so one night I asked him what was wrong and he told me. He said the man was very jealous.”
“Do you remember what he was jealous of?” Alex asked.
Shaking her head, she answered, “No, but now that I’m talking about it I do remember him telling me it was the DJ who did the classical music on the overnight shift. He’d see him in the mornings when they were switching shifts. And one time the DJ threatened Lee as they passed in the hall.”
Before Alex could ask another question, I said, “That’s great, Jessica. Thank you. Do you remember what the man said to him?”
“No. I’m sorry. I just remember Lee saying he wasn’t worried about it. He didn’t take the threat seriously and considered it bluster from a lesser person. Men will be men, you know?”
Alex didn’t respond to her swipe at the male ego, but I knew exactly what she meant. My partner may not have been the typical macho male, but his behavior with Jack told me that part of him did exist somewhere inside him.
Alex finished writing down notes about what she’d said and came around the couch to stand in front of us. For a moment, I thought he was going to arrest her right then and there by the intense look on his face, but whatever he was feeling passed and he simply gave her a gentle smile as he handed her his card.
“Please, if you remember anything else you think might help, don’t hesitate to call. I wrote my personal number on there, so no matter what time day or night, you can find me. Oh, one more thing. Was your husband complaining of headaches or nausea recently?”
She shook her head and said no, but then she seemed to remember something. “He was sick with the flu a few weeks ago, but Lee wasn’t like other men. He didn’t complain when he was sick. He just went to work as usual.”
Jessica and I stood to walk to the door, and as we left, I hugged her. It wasn’t professional and it wasn’t anything a near perfect stranger like myself should do with her, but I did it anyway. As I pulled away, I reminded her that we could come back if she needed us to, and she began to sob again.
This time her tears were clearly forced, though. Why, however, was the question.
She closed the door behind us, and as we walked to the car, Alex nudged my side with his elbow. “Nice touch there.”
“It wasn’t meant as anything phony, but I guess her fake tears sort of ruined whatever I was trying to do to help.”
Alex chuckled. “She’ll be fine. Something tells me she has a tendency to land on her feet no matter what happens. I wonder if Jessica was an actress before she married our victim. She sure can cry on cue.”
Stopping at the car, I opened the passenger side door and leaned against the roof to shoot him another glare. “Back to being the heartless bastard again? She did just lose her husband, Alex.”
We got in and closed the doors as he started the car. “I know, Poppy, and I know how bad it hurts to lose a loved one. You know too. You also know a lot of those tears weren’t real.”
“I wonder why she was doing that,” I thought out loud.
Alex turned to me and grinned like the cat that had just eaten the canary. “Maybe it was the five full bottles of eye drops and two in the garbage she was afraid I’d find when I went into the bathroom.”
“Really?” I asked in amazement. In all the talk about someone poisoning Lee Reynolds, I’d never truly believed his wife had been any part of that.
“Yeah. Maybe that’s why she was turning on the water works so much so she could explain why she’d need that many bottles of eye drops.”
I had to laugh. Even from Alex, that sounded silly. “So just to recap, are we thinking Jessica was trying to kill her husband but for some reason decided to stop waiting for him to die and shot him in the back in the woods outside of town
? I’m not sure what to think of this.”
Alex shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know if we should consider her a suspect in the shooting, but I definitely think she was part of why Donny found the eye drops in Lee’s system. So was she trying to kill him and got impatient? And if so and she didn’t pull the trigger, then who did? And why?”
I sighed in frustration. “Every time we take a step forward in this case, it feels like we take a step back right after,” I said as he pulled away from the curb.
“Two steps is what it feels like to me.”
I heard the frustration in his voice too. How did a guy who so many people said they loved or didn’t even know end up dead with a bullet in his back? Who hated him so much to shoot him and leave him for dead? And why hadn’t we found anyone who even showed a hint of that level of hatred?
“What I don’t understand is what would have been her motive? Are we still thinking he was cheating on her with another woman, maybe his first wife? I’m not feeling that, Alex.”
He pursed his lips and nodded as he stared straight ahead. “I don’t know, Poppy. All I know is I can connect her to the attempted poisoning of her husband. That’s it for now.”
“Are you going to get a warrant for Jessica and Lee’s townhouse?” I asked, figuring it was just a matter of time before he accused her of some part in her husband’s murder.
Alex didn’t answer me while we drove back to town, appearing to be lost in thought. I watched his expression change from his usual placid look he wore when he was around me to one dominated by a frown and didn’t want to ask why.
Was it the case or something that had happened at the Reynolds’ townhouse that weighed so heavily on his mind?
Chapter Eight
My father’s face lit up as I stepped into his bar, a look of surprise in his eyes at seeing me two nights in a row. He hadn’t called me to fill in for an absent bartender tonight, though. No, I was at McGuire’s for purely recreational reasons.
“Poppy! I didn’t think I’d see you again today after you came by for the flowers. Any chance you’re here to say thanks to the sender of those flowers?” my father asked with a twinkle in his eye.
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