“I want to believe you, but you’ve
already admitted you lied to me.”

When Jud turned to her, Liz realized how close he was and how far back she had to tilt her head to look into his face. Uh-oh. Big mistake. Those blue-gray eyes bored into hers and suddenly she felt as though her blood pressure was careening off the charts. He was too close.

And then he was closer. She didn’t remember lacing her fingers behind his neck, but she felt his arms around her waist, his body leaning over her, lifting her as those giant hands moved her against him. She felt open, exposed and, above all, hungry.

He kissed her urgently. Mouth met mouth, tongue met tongue without hesitation or pretense.

She fought to remain rational while waves of unreasoning heat and longing rolled through her.

He killed his wife, he killed his wife, he killed his wife…

The heck he did.

Dear Reader,

Liz Gibson, a trained police negotiator, is nearly killed in a negotiation that goes horribly wrong. Recuperating in the cold case squad, she’s assigned to find evidence against Jud Slaughter, a man the police are certain murdered his wife seven years earlier. He escaped arrest only because no body was ever found.

This is one wife killer who won’t escape Liz.

The more Liz learns about the case and the better she knows Jud Slaughter, however, the less she believes he killed his wife. He’s trying to manage a difficult teenage daughter—who hates Liz on sight—run a business and deal with the cloud of suspicion that hangs over his head.

Against her better judgment and certainly against police policy, she finds herself falling for him, and even enlists his help to discover what really happened to his wife.

Just as Liz and Jud discover that their feelings for one another have grown way beyond attraction, the events of seven years ago come back threatening to destroy them. Liz must use all her skills—not to convict Jud, but to save him.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I love to hear from readers! Write to me at Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, ON M3B 3K9, Canada, or check out my Web site, www.carolynmcsparren.com.

Carolyn McSparren

His only Defense
Carolyn McSparren

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carolyn McSparren lives in the country outside Memphis, Tennessee, with four indoor cats, seven barn cats, an ever-growing family of raccoons and one husband—not necessarily in order of importance. Carolyn, who has a master’s degree in English, has won three Maggie Awards from the Georgia Romance Writers, and was twice a finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award. She has served as president of the River City Romance Writers, the Memphis chapter of Romance Writers of America and is a member of both Sisters in Crime and the Mystery Writers of America. When she’s not writing, she rides dressage (badly) on a half-Clydesdale dressage horse and drives a half-Shire carriage mare.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

“GET YOUR SKINNY BUTT out here right now or I’m gonna start shootin’.”

Liz Gibson snatched the cellular telephone off the table in front of her and spoke soothingly into it. “Relax, Bobby Joe. Everything’s going to work out fine, if we all keep our cool here.”

Four hours ago, when she’d first made contact with him, Bobby Joe Watson had been drunk as a skunk. He was obviously sobering up. Liz prayed he’d be more rational now, but the reality of his situation could hit him, and then…

While she spoke, Captain Leo started buckling the bottom strap on Liz’s Kevlar vest. Next he picked up the black windbreaker with Shelby County Police Negotiator stenciled in white across the back. Liz slipped her free arm into the left sleeve, then switched the telephone to her left hand so she could shrug into the right.

“Now, woman. I been telling you I ain’t lettin’ nobody go until you come out here and get ’em personally.”

“Bobby Joe, I’m just a grunt. I had to do some fast talking to get my captain to let me come this far. He’s only giving permission because you’re an old friend.”

“Friend, my ass. I’m startin’ to lose my temper, Miss High-and-Mighty Senior Class President.” His voice went low and guttural. “You all wouldn’t want me to lose my temper, now, would you?”

Liz’s stomach gave a lurch with the change in his tone. She caught her breath and said quickly, “I’m coming right this minute. Why don’t you walk on out of the house with Sally Jean and Marlene? I promise nobody’s going to hurt you.”

“Yeah? Then how come I see a whole battalion of those TACT bastards poking automatic weapons out from behind half the trees in the front yard? Huh? You tell me that.” His voice rose dangerously.

Liz heard the rising panic in his tone, and glanced at Captain Leo. He nodded. He’d heard it, too.

She forced herself to sound calm and relaxed. “Well, Lord, Bobby Joe, they’re not about to shoot me, now are they? You’ll be safe with me. Just put down your weapon and come on out.”

“Listen, woman, I’m the one in control here. I tell you what to do, you don’t tell me a goddamn thing, you hear? And ain’t no bitch gonna kick me out of my own house what I paid rent on, try to divorce me and take my baby girl away from me, you got that? I have her now, and I ain’t leaving.”

“I know you love Sally Jean, and she loves you….” Liz used the child’s name as often as possible. The little girl had to remain an individual in her father’s eyes, not merely a possession. Liz hadn’t dared mention his wife, Marlene, since their first contact. Her name sent Bobby Joe into paroxysms of cold rage.

“I send Sally Jean out, y’all won’t never let me see her again.”

“Of course you’ll see Sally Jean again, Bobby Joe.” Through bars, if I have my way. The judge who’d granted the man bond after he was arrested for landing both his wife and daughter in the hospital should be impeached.

Liz prayed Bobby Joe didn’t realize how many additional felony charges he’d accrued with this home invasion and kidnapping. She prayed he wouldn’t add murder to the list.

“You’re Sally Jean’s daddy. We have to start thinking what’s best for her. Little girls think their daddies are heroes. Be her hero. You’re a good daddy, Bobby Joe.”

“Damn straight I am!”

In the background, Liz heard the muffled cries of a child, and a moment later, the sound of a palm striking flesh, followed by a howl of pain. “Hush up, Sally Jean,” Bobby Joe snapped. “I’m busy here.”

Some good daddy! This situation was more proof that restraining orders against abusive spouses didn’t work. Men like Bobby Joe believed they owned their families. The most dangerous time came when wives finally broke free and started to turn their lives around. Men like Bobby Joe couldn’t bear that. They wanted their families back under their thumbs. If they couldn’t manage that, then they wanted them dead.

Thank God Marlene’s next-door neighbor in this working-class Memphis neighborhood had seen Bobby Joe invade the little house, and had called the police. If officers had not been on the scene quickly, Bobby Joe might have taken both his wife and daughter at gunpoint and disappeared with them. With a squad car blocking the driveway, however, he had barricaded himself inside with an arsenal.

On some level he must know he couldn’t stay there forever, and that the police would never simply let him walk away with his wife and child.

Liz wanted him to choose surrender rather than family annihilation. At this point, she thought he was considering her offer, and hoped fervently she was reading him right.

She closed her eyes tightly, hearing that slap. Not a sound she’d ever mistake. She’d heard it too many times, when the slap had come from her momma and the howl had risen inside herself. “Bobby Joe? Listen to me. I’ll walk halfway up the driveway—”

“No! You come right up on the front porch. You hold your hands out to the side, away from you with your palms out, so I’ll know you ain’t carrying no gun. You ring the bell, then I’ll open up and let ’em out. You got that?”

Captain Leo growled softly in the background and whispered, “Wants another hostage. He’ll try to drag you inside. Thinks having a cop at his mercy will give him more leverage.”

Liz nodded. That might be a good sign. Bobby Joe wasn’t the first hostage-taker to dream up that one. It meant he still hadn’t decided whether to surrender, or to kill his wife and child—and then himself—rather than allow them a life without him.

She infused her voice with a trace of regret. “They won’t let me do that, Bobby Joe. I’ll have to wait in the driveway.”

“No!”

“Bobby Joe, you got to give me something I can work with to get you out of this mess. A gesture of good faith. If you’d just come on out with them…Nobody’s been hurt yet—”

“Oh, that right?” The man’s laughter sent a chill up Liz’s backbone. The phone went dead.

Liz froze, then turned to Captain Leo. He looked grim.

“I should have yanked you off this negotiation the minute that bastard recognized your voice, Liz. The taker is never supposed to know the negotiator. That’s procedure.”

“Captain, there were three thousand kids in my high school. I don’t even remember Bobby Joe’s face, much less his name. How could I possibly know he’d recognize my voice from way back then?”

“Obviously because you were already running your mouth.” Leo looked closely at her. “You scared?”

For a moment Liz considered lying, then said, “I’m petrified. What if I blow it? There’s an eight-year-old girl and a woman in that house with a control freak who gets his jollies putting them both in the hospital on a regular basis. And from what the neighbor said, he’s got an arsenal.”

“Unless he’s got armor-piercing shells, he’s not going through that Kevlar, Liz.”

“I don’t have any Kevlar between my eyes.”

“You want to give it up?”

“No. I’ve got to try. Maybe he’ll hold up his end of the bargain.”

“If the TACT guys get a clear shot at him…”

“You know I’m not supposed to know that.” She managed a grin and a thumbs-up, and opened the door of the mobile command post that had been set up on the country road at the end of Bobby Joe Watson’s gravel drive. Suddenly that drive looked a million miles long.

The TACT team was in position, with weapons pointed at the silent cottage, its phones and electricity disabled.

The only communication Bobby Joe had with the outside world was through the phone they’d thrown him at the start of the siege. It was keyed to talk only to Liz’s phone. She had no idea what the team’s orders were. Her ignorance was critical. Her voice couldn’t betray what she didn’t know.

But it gave her an additional sense of unease. She could die just as easily from friendly fire as from Bobby Joe Watson’s rifle, if she accidentally “crossed the tube” and walked into the sniper’s line of fire as he pulled the trigger.

She held the phone out in her left hand so Bobby Joe could see it. What he couldn’t see was the microphone in her right ear that relayed instructions from Captain Leo.

Liz’s heart banged against her ribs, and bile threatened to choke her. She badly needed to go to the bathroom. All those Kegel exercises she’d done had better pay off now, because she didn’t have time to drop her drawers in the azalea bushes. Not in front of the TACT team or the television trucks. The latter might be out of range of bullets, but she definitely wasn’t out of range of their long-distance lenses. She fought down a hysterical giggle.

She walked slowly up the drive into the lengthening shadows. She’d been negotiating with Bobby Joe for four hours now, ever since the neighbor had called 911 to report that he had come back home to convince Marlene not to divorce him.

That he’d recognized Liz’s voice from high school had been bad luck, particularly when he’d refused to change negotiators. Personal history could have a deadly effect on a negotiation. Captain Leo had once allowed a taker’s preacher to speak to him. After the minister called down the wrath of God on the guy and said he’d roast in hell for eternity, Captain Leo had physically yanked him away from the microphone. On that occasion, Liz had spent the next twenty-two hours trying to talk the taker into giving up. She had, but it had been close.

Never under ordinary circumstances would a negotiator have walked into plain view, Kevlar or not. She was supposed to be a faceless, nameless voice on a line. The sympathetic everyman, or in this case, everywoman.

But here she was, walking unarmed up a driveway toward an unstable man with a rifle. Liz regularly ran five miles with little effort, yet now she was panting after twenty yards. She could smell her own sweat mingled with the metallic stench of the Kevlar. The vest pressed on her shoulder blades. The steel pad in the center, over her heart, felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds. She shrugged, but didn’t dare put her hands down to adjust the vest.

“Okay, Bobby Joe, I’m here. Send them out,” she called.

For a long moment nothing happened, then the front door opened barely enough for the thin child to slip through. The door shut quickly behind her, but not before the fading light glinted off the barrel of a rifle.

Uncertain, the girl stood on the porch, her eyes on her ragged sneakers. Despite the cold, she wore only a thin T-shirt and grimy jeans two sizes too big. Her dirty face was streaked with tears.

“Come on, Sally Jean, honey,” Liz said softly. “It’s all right, baby girl. Just come on down the steps to Liz.” She held out her arms. The child moved hesitantly down the porch steps.

Where was Marlene? Liz glanced at the door. She hadn’t heard a word from the woman in over an hour.

She had a bad feeling about this. It was imperative that she get the kid to safety, then go back for Marlene. If she was alive.

The child looked up at her with terrified eyes and began to stumble toward her. Liz started to kneel to gather her up when she caught movement from the corner of her eye.

The door opened again. Marlene?

No! God. The rifle. Bobby Joe was going to shoot her. As she stared, openmouthed, the barrel of the gun swung across and down.

He was aiming at Sally Jean! His own daughter! He’d sworn he’d kill her before he’d let her go. Liz had failed. He’d chosen to kill them all rather than surrender.

Liz swept the child into her arms and spun to shield her with her own body.

Sally Jean screamed and fought, arms and legs flailing, as Liz ran crookedly toward the command post.

She felt the first impact in the middle of her back before she heard the soprano ping of the rifle shot.

As she fell forward, two other thuds hit her between the shoulder blades. Worse than a mule kick. Much worse.

No breath. She’d crush the child….

Another ping. Pain seared her hip.

And all hell broke loose. As she went down on top of Sally Jean, she heard the thuds of running boots, the shouts of the TACT squad, a barrage of gunfire.

Hands grabbed her under her armpits, swept the child away from her, dragged her toward the command post, hauled her up the steps and dropped her facedown on the floor.

Captain Leo was talking to someone. She heard his voice through a halo of pain. She managed to turn her head to stare up into the grizzled face of Bill Lansing, head of TACT.

“Is she okay?” Her own voice sounded strangled.

“The kid? Yeah.”

“Am I dying?”

He laughed at her. Actually laughed, the bastard!

“Not unless one of your broken ribs punctured a lung.” Then he was gone and Captain Leo took his place. Her leg felt warm and wet.

“Three in the back of the vest, Liz.”

“I’m bleeding, I can feel it.”

“Oh, yeah. That. Flesh wound. Graze. Couple of inches over and you’d have a brand-new asshole.” He grasped her hand hard. “If you had to act like a goddamn hero, couldn’t you have managed it without getting shot in the butt in front of a dozen television cameras?”

CHAPTER TWO

SIX WEEKS LATER Liz shifted carefully on the wooden chair in the Cold Case interrogation room. Her rear end could still send a shock of pain through her if she moved the wrong way.

“Want to tell me about it?” Liz asked the obviously terrified young man who sat across the beat-up table. She could tell he longed to talk. He was barely out of his teens. He’d been seventeen when he’d shot one of his friends.

He’d been sitting in the “perp seat” for over two hours now. The front two legs had been shortened an inch and a half so that the chair canted slightly forward. Suspects were uncomfortable without knowing precisely why.

Liz kept her voice soft, gentle and understanding. One thing she’d learned from her negotiator’s training was that the key to getting a suspect to confess or a taker to give up was to exude empathy.

She’d left Leroy alone for thirty minutes while he ate his burger and drank his cola. Through the two-way mirror she’d watched him finish the food, lay his head on the table and fall asleep.

“Gotcha!” she’d whispered. Suspects frequently fell asleep the moment they were left alone, as though suddenly released from the tension of trying to get away with whatever crime they’d committed. Now, seated once more on the other side of the table, she leaned forward and regarded him sadly.

His words tumbled out. “Man, I never mean to kill Skag,” Leroy whined. “He my runnin’ buddy. He just be in the way. It was a accident. See, I mean to shoot Marbles.” He raised his eyes. He no longer looked frightened; he looked much put-upon. “Man, I ain’t goin’ to jail for no accident.”

He truly believed that because he’d shot his friend instead of his intended target, he shouldn’t be treated as a killer. Unbelievable.

Twenty minutes later she left Leroy writing out his confession on a yellow legal pad, and stuck her head inside the door of the darkened room with the mirror. “So, Lieutenant Gavigan, how’d I do?” she asked the big man watching Leroy write.

He gave her a thumbs-up. “Not bad for your first solo homicide interrogation.” He motioned her inside. She closed the door behind her.

She leaned her butt against the wall beside the mirror, but caught her breath and stood straight again when pain pierced her hip.

“Still smarts when you do that, huh?” Gavigan said.

“Yeah. It’s been six weeks since I got wounded. When does it stop hurting?”

“Hey, I’ve never been shot. I hear it can take six months to a year. You’ll probably have a groove in your rear end forever.”

“How nice of you to mention that.”

“Cop groupies love scars.”

“They have male cop groupies, do they?” she asked.

“Sure. So, how do you like Cold Cases so far?”

How could she tell her new boss that she had been transferred to the tiny Cold Case squad not so much because she needed to recuperate from her wound, but because she needed time to recover from the entire experience? Waiting for her wound to be tended in the emergency room, she’d been told that Sally Jean had seen Bobby Joe kill her mother at least an hour before he let the child leave the house. Liz’s physical wound was almost healed. The blow to her self-confidence might never heal.

She didn’t think she’d ever get her nerve back. Or be confident that she could talk an armed taker into surrendering. She didn’t trust her ability to read the taker’s mind or voice level or body language correctly.

She’d been grateful the sheriff’s department had basically created a job for her. They’d probably gone out of their way because the media insisted on calling her a hero—which she most definitely was not.

Cold Cases was theoretically a stopgap until she was fully recovered physically and ready to go back to Negotiations. She knew better. She had to make a success of the transfer to keep her career with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department on track.

She suspected Captain Leo had explained her loss of confidence to Lieutenant Gavigan, but he’d never said a word to her. “At least here the crimes were committed a long time ago,” she said. “I’m not waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Like with Marlene.

“So, how’d you find him?” Gavigan hooked a thumb at the interrogation room.

“Did what Jack and Randy told me. Went back and reinterviewed all the witnesses. They were still scared, but not nearly as frightened as they were just after it happened. Several of them talked to me. They knew from the get-go who the shooter was. Once somebody pointed me toward Leroy’s car, it was a piece of cake. The initial investigation never located the vehicle, but I guess after a while Leroy decided it was safe to bring it out of hiding. He was extremely upset when I had it impounded. Would you believe, we found a spent shell casing that matched one from the scene under the dashboard?”

Gavignan laughed. “Proves it pays to have your car detailed on a regular basis.”

“I really think he’s glad to get it off his chest. So, what’s next?”

“Come into my office. This one’s going to take a little explanation.”

On her way to Gavigan’s tiny office in the corner of the bull pen Cold Cases shared with Homicide, Jack Samuels gave her a thumbs-up and Randy Railsback a prurient leer.

She threaded her way between the battered gray desks where the homicide detectives hung out, and glanced at the sign beside Gavigan’s door that said, Bad Cop! No Doughnuts! She liked that better than the one that said Our Day Starts When Yours Ends.

Gavigan settled in the oversize chair behind his equally battered desk and motioned her to the chair in front. She lowered herself into it gingerly.

“Okay. So you cracked your first cold case. Big deal. That one was fairly easy. This is tougher. Give it two weeks. If you don’t come up with a perp we can prosecute, put the box back in the stacks and go on to something else.” He motioned to the credenza behind him. She turned and saw one of the gray cardboard deed boxes used to store everything connected to a case. “Get Jack and Randy to give you advice, but I’d like you to handle this one yourself.”

“How old is this case, and why do I get the feeling I’m being set up?”

“Because you are. Frankly, I think this one has gone as far as it will ever go, but I’ve had a call from upstairs asking us to take another look.” He grimaced. “As a favor to somebody important who shall remain nameless.”

She felt a tingle down her spine. “Political?”

“A friend of the commissioner wants us to look into it. I’m not going to tell you anything else except that it’s seven years old and a Shelby County homicide, or at least we think it’s a homicide.”

“Think? As in not sure?”

“Read the murder book. We had two of the best homicide detectives on it at the time. Both retired. One of them’s dead. It’s the kind of case where they knew in their gut what happened and who the doer was, but couldn’t prove it. Seven years later, someone may be willing to talk, or you may find some forensics that we missed. Frankly, I doubt it, but as the new kid on the block, you’re getting stuck with it. If you get nowhere, at least we can say we tried.”

“I get it. CYA.”

Gavigan grinned. “Right. Cover your ass. Think of this as a reward for finding Leroy.”

“Oscar Wilde said no good deed goes unpunished.”

“Not in this department,” Gavigan said, and waved a hand toward the box, dismissing her.

CHAPTER THREE

JUD SLAUGHTER POURED himself two fingers of Jack Daniel’s Black Label, dropped in a single cube of ice and waited until he’d settled into his elderly leather recliner in front of the fireplace to take a sip. If the November rain didn’t slack off, the construction site would be twenty acres of slop.

Fifteen days from today was the seventh anniversary of Sylvia’s death. It had been raining that night, too.

For seven years he’d held on to the fragile belief that Sylvia might be still alive somewhere, maybe amnesiac, but alive. Colleen swore her mother must be dead, for she would never have deserted her only daughter. Jud knew better. He’d simply never been able to figure out why Sylvia had left when she did.

He couldn’t see her walking away from a hefty divorce settlement, which is what she would have received if they’d gone through with the split. She would have demanded custody of Colleen, too, although he knew damn well having a child underfoot was the last thing she would have wanted.

She’d have used Colleen as leverage, so Jud would give her everything she asked for. Besides, her father, Herb, would never have understood Sylvia’s abandoning his granddaughter. Being Daddy’s girl was important to Sylvia. Herb was probably the only person in the world she actually cared about. She wanted his love, but she also wanted his respect.

Jud was taking a risk having Sylvia declared dead so that he could collect her insurance money. Even now, the cops might still charge him with her murder. Only the lack of a body had kept him from being arrested at the time she went missing.

For seven years he’d dreaded waking up to cops beating on his door, dragging him off in handcuffs in front of Colleen, because some hunter had discovered Sylvia’s bones in the woods.

He was still eighty percent certain his wife had run away to start a new life.

The remaining twenty percent kept him looking over his shoulder.

The cops had never believed in the stranger-killer theory. The homicide detectives were old-school. Anything happens to the wife, the husband probably did it. Jud had had motive, no alibi and the best opportunity to kill her and hide her body. There had been no evidence of anyone else at the scene, and random killers didn’t generally operate at night on a country road in a downpour.

He’d been forced to admit that when he was a boy, he’d hunted in the Putnam Woods Conservation Preserve, across the road from where Sylvia’s car had been found. He’d done so years before the owner died and left it to the state as protected wildlife habitat. Since then the trees had grown, and the undergrowth and marshes had changed the woods, but the fact that he’d once been familiar with it was enough for the detectives. One more nail in his coffin—or hers—as they’d told him repeatedly.

If she’d been dumped by someone unfamiliar with the area, she’d have been found by now, even if buried in a shallow grave. The detectives had warned him that bodies always surfaced sooner or later. They’d quickly declared him the only suspect, and had stopped looking for anyone else.

Jud was so lost in his thoughts, recalling the past, that he jumped when the telephone beside him rang. He cleared his throat and answered it.

“Daddy?”

He smiled, although he knew Colleen couldn’t see him. “You got me, sweetheart.”

“I just called to say good-night. Gran says she’ll pick me up after school tomorrow and take me to soccer, then drop me by your office afterward.”

“Thank her for me.”

“I will. Good night, Daddy. Oh, Gran wants to talk to you.”

He sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation.

“Jud, honey?”

“Why are you whispering, Irene?”

“I don’t want Herb or Colleen to hear me. That man Jenkins from the insurance company came to see me this morning. Thank God Herb wasn’t here. You’re really going ahead with it?”

“Trip’s already started the paperwork to have Sylvia declared dead. It’s time, Irene. I’m sorry if it upsets everyone. I can use the money to send Colleen to a good college. As it is, I barely keep up with her school tuition. An Ivy League college is out of the question, even with a partial scholarship.”

“I know it’s hard for you, but I do not like that Jenkins fellow. He acts as though it’s his own money. He as good as told me he was going to pull some strings and get the police to reopen the case.”

Jud heard the question mark behind that sentence. His mother-in-law was really asking whether he had anything to worry about. She swore she believed him when he told her he’d had nothing to do with Sylvia’s disappearance, but hearing Herb condemn him as a killer for seven years must have eroded her belief in his innocence at least a bit.

“It’s going to be hard on Colleen,” he said. “Everything dragged up all over again. When she was seven, she really didn’t understand what a divorce would have meant to her. If they reopen the case, her schoolmates will probably dredge up the story of the disappearing mother and the murderous father. I wish I could keep her wrapped in cotton, but it’s time to get it finished once and for all.”

“I’ll be here for Colleen, dear. And for you, too. I know what Sylvia was really like, even if Colleen and Herb don’t. I’ll pray for you.”

“Pray for all of us.”

After he hung up, he leaned back in his chair, took a long drink of his bourbon and closed his eyes. He’d lived carefully for seven years. Now he was about to take the biggest risk of his life. Only time would tell whether he’d made the right decision.

LIZ CLIMBED OUT of her Honda in front of the Weichert and Slaughter construction trailer and stepped into a cold mud puddle. She hadn’t seen it, given the late-afternoon shadows.

Great. You’d think a construction company would have enough leftover gravel to keep their parking area dry. Her boots were now covered with mud. Her black slacks were splashed, as well, and the darn things had to be dry-cleaned.

She left muddy footprints on the wooden stairs up to the trailer entrance, where an industrial rubber welcome mat lay. She scraped off as much muck as she could, and opened the door.

After staying up past midnight poring over the murder book, then spending most of today on the evidence box, Liz agreed with the two homicide detectives who had handled the case the first time. Jud Slaughter had gotten away with murder.

So far. That was about to change.

She’d hoped for a picture of Slaughter, but since he’d never been arrested, he hadn’t been photographed. He’d volunteered his prints and DNA at the time, but the only description she had was that he was a big man.

The previous afternoon Randy Railsback had brought her a cup of coffee, plunked his skinny butt down on the chair beside her desk and asked her to dinner. To discuss the case. Right. If Randy Randy continued to hit on her during office hours she was going to hit him upside his expensively coiffed head.

Since Randy had been riding a squad car seven years earlier, he knew no more than she did about the case. Jack Samuels, however, had wandered over when he’d heard them talking. “Slaughter looked like a jock,” he said. “Probably played college football. More than able to carry a hundred-twenty-pound corpse far back into those woods and dig a grave deep enough to keep the coyotes away. By now he’s probably got a beer gut, no hair and an ulcer. Murder’ll do that to you…if you have any conscience at all.”

So Liz expected to find a big man gone to seed. The only person in the trailer had his back to her. Broad back, broad shoulders. He was wearing chinos, muddy work boots and a down jacket, although the room was comfortably warm. She couldn’t tell about the gut.

He heard her come in, turned around and stood. “Hey, can I help you?” he asked.

No paunch! And not the least bit bald! No wonder Sylvia Slaughter had fallen for him. Most women would. He was not just big, he was immense, and good-looking in a craggy way. His nose had obviously been broken more than once. Jack said he’d played football, and Liz would bet he’d been a linebacker or a tackle. Running into him would be like hitting a marble column.

Yeah, he could carry a corpse a long way into the woods and dig a grave without breaking a sweat.

At five feet eleven inches, Liz didn’t look up to many men, but she had to tilt her head way back to stare into his guileless gray eyes. He had more than an adequate amount of sandy hair falling across his forehead. She knew from the file that he’d be thirty-nine. He’d been thirty-two when Sylvia died—disappeared.

Drat the man, he probably looked better now, with his sun-brown face and crinkly eyes, than he had then. Liz made a mental note to check for mistresses and girlfriends. No way this guy would be celibate for seven years.

“Mr. Slaughter, I’m Liz Gibson.” She showed him her shield, then shoved it back into the pocket of her blazer. “I’d like to talk to you about your wife.”

The start of a smile froze on Slaughter’s face. He sucked in a deep breath. “I wasn’t expecting to have somebody like you show up on my doorstep for a couple of weeks.”

“I beg your pardon? Why would you expect the police after seven years?”

He laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “Come on, Miz…Gibson, was it?”

She kept her face carefully blank. “Your wife’s case has never been closed, Mr. Slaughter. We revisit all open, uh, cases from time to time.” She’d nearly said “homicides.” Bad move. She’d have to watch her tongue around this guy.

“So there’s nothing suspicious about the timing? Give me a break.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not with you.”

“Look, Miz Gibson, I’m late for a meeting at the job site. Ride over with me, and we’ll talk.”

No way would she get into a car with this behemoth, be driven God knew where and left there while he met with one of his subcontractors. “This won’t take but a few minutes.”

He closed his eyes, whether in exasperation or acquiescence she couldn’t tell. When he opened them, he reached into his pocket, dialed his cell phone, turned his back on her and spoke quietly to whoever was on the other end, asking to put off the meeting.

He had a pleasant baritone voice. On the surface, he seemed like a nice man. But then most of the people she’d talked down from hostage situations had sounded nice and rational, until they lost it over whatever crime they felt had been perpetrated against them. Then they turned rabid in a nanosecond. This man was as much a wife killer as Bobby Joe Watson. Like Bobby Joe, he had a daughter who needed protection.

This guy wouldn’t get away with it.

He flipped the phone closed, stuck it into his pocket, pointed to an old wooden kitchen chair beside his desk and shucked his jacket.

Oh, definitely no paunch. The front of the guy’s plaid shirt slid straight under the waistband of his chinos, which slid straight down his flat belly until they hit a bulge at the crotch that looked proportional to the size of the man himself. She dragged her eyes back to his face and swallowed hard, then took the chair he offered her. He went around the desk and sat down.

“You can’t tell me this visit isn’t because of my petition to have Sylvia declared dead. I didn’t think the police worked for insurance companies.”

Damn! She’d been blindsided. But maybe Gavigan didn’t know, either. She’d have to find out who had pushed the higher-ups to reopen the case. “After saying for seven years that your wife disappeared, you suddenly want to have her declared dead. What changed your mind? And why now?” No way would she let him know this was the first she’d heard of it.

“Should I call my lawyer?”

Liz smiled her most ingratiating smile. Of course he should call his lawyer before he said another word, but that was the last thing she wanted him to do. “That’s your right, Mr. Slaughter. Do you need one at the moment? We’re just chatting here.”

He narrowed those gray eyes at her. They no longer seemed quite so guileless. In fact, they’d turned cold as glare ice. “Ask your questions. I’ll answer them or not.”

“Absolutely.” She had to remind herself he’d been through hours, days, weeks of interrogation. He knew the way things worked. But he’d been interrogated by a pair of old-line homicide bulls, never by a woman. “So, what did change your mind?”

“The law says that seven years is the legal waiting period to have someone declared dead. I’m sure you hear this a lot, but my family needs closure.”

“That’s the only reason? You have no new information?”

He sighed and rubbed his large tanned hand down his face. “As you know, Sylvia and I both had half-million-dollar whole life policies on one another. In Tennessee, murder kicks in the accidental death double indemnity clause. Meaning, instead of half a million, it pays out a million.”

“You’ve been looking at a million dollars in insurance for seven years?”

“Money I could not in good conscience request, so long as I felt certain Sylvia was alive somewhere. Now that it is legally appropriate to claim it for my family, however, we should be the ones to benefit by investing it. Believe me, the insurance company has been making plenty on it for the last seven years and is no doubt loath to give it up.”

“So you now believe your wife was murdered?”

“Let’s say I’m not certain any longer that she’s alive. None of the homicide investigators ever came up with evidence either way, although they continued to act as though they knew she was dead and I killed her. Sorry to say this, but once you people get an idea in your collective heads, it’s not easy to get it out.”

“Not without evidence to the contrary, it isn’t,” Liz said dryly. “When something bad happens to one spouse, the odds are extremely heavy that the surviving spouse is involved. The statistics would blow your mind.”

“I’m not a statistic and I’m not a murderer. When I started trying to make up my mind whether to petition to have her declared dead, I finally hired my own private detective.”

“Who?” There were a lot of good P.I.s in Memphis, but there were also some bums willing to take a client’s money for precious little labor.

“Frank LaPorte. He’s a retired cop. Handles mostly divorces and insurance claims. My business partner and I have used him to investigate a couple of worker’s comp suits. Both times he’s been able to disprove the disability claim. You shouldn’t be able to mow your lawn or reroof your house when you’re in bed with a bad back.”

“I’ll need to talk to him. What did he find?”

“He didn’t have any better luck. Not surprising after this length of time. He did say it’s not as easy disappearing into a new identity as it used to be before babies were given social security numbers in their first year, and birth certificates were collated with death certificates.”

“Still, it can be done.”

“With long-term planning. There’s no evidence that Sylvia had any intention of leaving when she did, nor that she had created a new identity.”

“Then you truly believe she’s dead?”

“I believe that if she didn’t die at the time she disappeared, she must have died now.”

“And you want that million dollars.”

“Miz Gibson, I build mansions and starter castles for rich folks, but I’m not rich. Contractors live at the whim of the housing market. We have construction loans to service, subcontractors to pay and materials to buy long before a house is built, and we keep paying until the house is sold, hopefully for a profit. When the market tanks, a lot of us go bankrupt. Besides, I have a fourteen-year-old daughter. She should have the benefit of that money, as well as the income it generates. Invested well, it should pay for her college by the time she’s eighteen, without using too much of the principal.”

“You don’t plan to take advantage of that money yourself?”

“If I’m lucky, I can survive without it, but good colleges are expensive and emergencies occur.”

“So you started the process to have your wife declared dead.”

“As I was legally entitled to do.”

“Even if it puts you under suspicion again?”

“Miss Gibson, I was never not under suspicion, as you well know. This just puts me back in your crosshairs. No doubt you’ve seen a copy of the paperwork. Has Jenkins been in touch with the police?”

She sat up. New name. “Jenkins? Should he have been?” Why tell Slaughter she had no idea who Jenkins was?

“My mother-in-law said he’d been to see her, and acted as though that money belonged to him and not the insurance company. He also said he was going to demand that the case be reopened.”

“That information hasn’t filtered down to my level yet,” she said. Nor was it likely to. It seemed a good bet that this Jenkins guy had called in a favor from the higher-ups to get the case reopened, but she’d probably never know for certain.

She was about to launch into questions about the night Sylvia disappeared when the door to the trailer burst open and a girl exploded into the room.

At least Liz assumed it was a girl. She was as tall as Liz and wore an incredibly muddy soccer uniform. Her shoes, face and long blond hair were caked with the stuff. Liz had played soccer in high school, before she discovered she was better at volleyball. This girl looked as though she’d slid face-first across a muddy field not once, but several times. She probably had.

She was long-legged and coltish, with that elegantly slim frame that drove designers to turn thirteen-year-olds into the latest high fashion models. No woman stayed that sleek once she reached eighteen or nineteen. At thirty-two, Liz definitely hadn’t.

“We won!” The girl flew across the room, arms outstretched.

“Whoa!” Slaughter laughed and held her at arm’s length.

This must be Colleen.

“I’m glad you won, sweetheart, but I don’t need half the soccer field all over this shirt.” He grinned at his daughter, his face glowing with delight.

Liz’s heart lurched. Could this guy really be a cold-blooded killer?

Yes indeed, he could. She’d known too many charming, lovable guys who disintegrated into dolts and oafs when the going got rough. Assuming they stuck around, which most of them didn’t.

Still, watching the big man and his tall daughter, Liz found herself praying that he wasn’t a killer, that she wouldn’t take him away from this child, destroy that smile.

But if he was a killer, she’d damn well do what she had to.

At that moment, Colleen realized there was somebody else in the room. “Oh,” she said, and turned to stare at Liz, assessing her from her muddy boots to the top of her head. She seemed to pay a great deal of attention to Liz’s left hand. Looking for a ring? Seeing if Liz was a possible rival for her dad’s attention?

Jud introduced them, but did not mention that Liz was a cop. She didn’t, either, but said to Slaughter, “I can see you’ve got your hands full.” She smiled at Colleen, who did not smile back. “How about we set up an appointment for tomorrow morning? What time would be convenient for you?”

The teen relaxed. She probably thought Liz was a prospective client.

A child who had lost one parent usually clung to the other and often acted as a protector—or a guard. Colleen had been seven when her mother disappeared, and wouldn’t have comprehended that her father was suspected of killing her. At fourteen, however, she must worry constantly that if new evidence surfaced, her father might be snatched away from her, too.

She wouldn’t be able to admit even to herself that she was afraid her father might have murdered her mother. Right now she seemed relaxed and happy, but she must be under an incredible strain. Liz would be willing to bet that both Colleen and her father tiptoed around the subject of Sylvia’s disappearance. All teenagers carried a load of angst, but Colleen must be carrying more than her share. Kids with much less on their plates turned to drugs or alcohol or sex—acting out what they dared not express. Tough on the kid, but equally tough on Slaughter, particularly if he knew he was a killer.

Talk about a dysfunctional family! Liz felt sorry for both of them.

“I start early,” Slaughter said. “I usually stop for breakfast around eight. Could you meet me at Lacy’s Café? We could talk while we eat.”

Actually, that would suit Liz just fine. She readily agreed, left Colleen to tell her father about the soccer game, climbed into her car and drove away.

At some point she’d have to interview the girl. By law Slaughter could elect to be with her during the interview, but kids never told the truth when their parents were listening to them. Was there any way to get her alone for an informal chat? Liz made a mental note to ask Jack Samuels what he’d recommend.

She wondered whether Randy Railsback would have more luck talking to Colleen. Much as she detested his macho-flirty attitude, she knew he could be charming and ingratiating, and might get more from the teen than Liz could. Obviously the girl regarded any female as a threat, not necessarily because of a dysfunctional attachment to her father, but because she considered him still married to her mother, and thus out of bounds.

Liz didn’t have to deal with Colleen today. Better deal with Slaughter first.

She’d also have to get around to that Jenkins guy. Since he didn’t seem anxious to pay Slaughter a flat million bucks, he must be keeping up the illusion that he believed Sylvia was still alive. He might, however, not believe that for a moment. He might even have evidence to support his view. Since a killer couldn’t profit from his crime, Jenkins might be equally happy to see Jud convicted of killing his wife. Liz should find out if the money would go to Colleen if her dad went to prison for murder.

While waiting at a red light, she added the name Jenkins to the list of people in her notebook. She’d also have to talk to the P.I. Frank LaPorte, and the people Sylvia had worked with….

Liz realized suddenly she’d been driving without paying much attention to where she was going. Now, she stepped on the gas. She would have just enough time before the early November dark to check out the crime scene, even though any evidence was seven years gone.

Slaughter was dangerous. Maybe not to everyone, but definitely to her, embodying most of the qualities in a man that attracted her.

Good dark chocolate was equally attractive and just as bad for her.

She would have to get to know Jud Slaughter intimately. But not that intimately. One did not get involved with suspects.

Before she’d seen him, she’d been certain he was a killer. Those gray eyes had not changed her mind.

Had they?

CHAPTER FOUR

JUD LEFT COLLEEN IMMERSED in math homework at the table while he cleaned up the kitchen after dinner.

What would Liz Gibson ask him over breakfast? He found he was actually looking forward to seeing her again. That was crazy, considering their adversarial relationship.

Jud had no idea whether married detectives wore wedding rings on the job or not. He hoped Liz Gibson wasn’t married, although there wasn’t much he could do about that under the present circumstances. It was nice to meet a woman as tall as Liz, who looked cool enough to handle a gorilla on a rampage. He hated being around fragile little women. He was always afraid he’d break them.

That was one of the reasons he’d been attracted to Sylvia. She’d been so sure of herself, so confident. She hadn’t looked or acted breakable.

Nor had she turned out to be. He didn’t think a thermonuclear explosion could have shaken her, but he hadn’t known that when he fell for her.

Seven years was a long time to be celibate. Jud had managed for three before he allowed himself to be swept into an affair with the wife of one of his clients. Separated, but still officially married, as he was. He wasn’t particularly proud of himself, but they’d parted friends, when she went back to her husband.

Since then there’d been a couple of other women. He’d been up-front about the fact he still considered himself married and unavailable for anything except a casual relationship. Some women saw it as a challenge. He knew that on some level he was a catch, even with a teenage daughter as part of the package.

Suspicion of murder, however, was not an added inducement, particularly when the victim was his wife. Having a fling with the police detective who was trying to prove he was a killer was a very bad idea.

He should have petitioned for divorce years ago on the grounds of desertion, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that to Colleen. He and Sylvia might have been dancing around divorce when she disappeared, but their daughter didn’t know that. Once Sylvia vanished, Jud couldn’t add divorce for desertion to the list of problems Colleen had to deal with. Better to wait the requisite seven years to be safe.

Those first years, he’d expected Sylvia to walk back in the front door as casually as though she had never left. That would be just like her.

But seven years? There was probably a reason that period had been chosen by law in the first place.

He watched Colleen poring over her books. Physically, she took after her mother. Her dark gold hair was streaked by the sun, where Sylvia’s had been expensively streaked in a salon. The effect, however, was much the same. Colleen had her mom’s elegant bone structure and natural grace. Not that you could tell after soccer practice.

Her personality wasn’t much like Sylvia’s, thank God. She was basically kind and loving, although at the moment she was going through a bad patch of teenage sulks and temper. His mother-in-law reminded him that these phases would pass, and sooner or later she’d grow into a fine adult. If he lasted that long.

Colleen usually looked and acted normal, but he knew how fragile she was inside. He and Irene worked diligently with her teachers, counselors and coaches to prop up her self-esteem. At age seven, children often fear anything bad that happens was somehow their fault. Colleen believed her mom had left because she herself failed her in some way.

The sad truth was that Sylvia had never wanted children, had wanted to abort the fetus she found she was carrying the year after Jud and she married. Only fear of her own father’s wrath made her carry the child to term.

Maybe if they’d had a boy…

But seeing Colleen at fourteen, Sylvia would have considered the beautiful girl competition. On some level, he supposed, many women felt twinges of jealousy as they watched their daughters grow into young women, no matter how much they loved them. Sylvia would have done everything she could to cut Colleen down to size. That was not normal.

In the countless counseling sessions he’d attended since Sylvia’s disappearance, he’d learned that children, like cats, tended to be most devoted to people who were not attracted to them. They clung to the abusive parent.

Jud knew Colleen loved him, but she’d fought as fiercely as a seven-year-old could fight for her mother’s love. She had to believe Sylvia was dead.

He still believed Sylvia was sitting pretty with a new life and a new identity. Maybe on the Riviera or the Costa Brava. Maybe in Canada or Brazil. He had no doubt she could come up with a stake or a sugar daddy.

The dirty casserole pan wouldn’t fit into the dishwasher, and would never get clean without elbow grease, anyway. He set it in the sink and went to work on it with a scrubbing pad. The meal had turned out rather well for a first attempt at a new recipe. Shrimp and pesto and fettuccine noodles topped with cheese. He’d add it to his arsenal of one-dish recipes.

He’d always done the cooking, even when Sylvia was still with them. In the seven years since, he’d become pretty fair at it. He wished Colleen would show more interest in learning.

“I’ll never be as good as you are, Daddy,” she said whenever he tried to entice her into fixing dinner for them. Teenage shorthand for “I don’t want to.” He let her get away with it.

Shoot, he let her get away with nearly everything. So far she hadn’t pushed him too far, but sooner or later she’d put him in a position where he’d have to lower the boom. He wouldn’t be doing her any favors if he let her get into bad stuff. The world would not make allowances for her.

He prayed she’d stay a good kid, and that Irene would know how to deal with tantrums or boys or drugs or alcohol or tattoos or fast cars or Goths.

Colleen didn’t realize it, but her life was much happier without her mother, just as his was.

But the policewoman could make both of their lives a living hell. He’d have to keep her away from his child.

“HEY, MA’AM, THAT’S NOT a good place to park.”

Liz stood beside her unmarked car and looked around for the source of the voice. She saw an old man standing beside a small brick ranch house set back in the woods on her side of the road. She could barely glimpse the house through the closely planted pines. She leaned on her door and called, “May I park in your driveway? I’d very much like to speak to you if you’ve got a minute.”

“Sure. Better move your car before somebody comes flying around that curve and creams you.”

She moved the car. As she climbed out, the man walked over to her, removing his beat-up John Deere cap with the aplomb of a Victorian gentleman.

“Folks in the country drive twenty miles faster than the road can handle.” He grinned. “Can’t tell you how many accidents I’ve seen on that curve in the forty years I been living out here.”

She stuck out her hand and told him her name and her business.

She could feel the bones in his fingers, but the skin felt like well-tanned leather. His face looked like leather, as did the scalp that showed through his sparse white hair. He shoved his cap back on his head. “Name’s Taylor Waldran, ma’am. Lord, don’t tell me y’all are trying to find that woman’s body again.”

“Again?”

“Every couple of years some cop comes by to talk to me about what happened that night. I tell him the same thing. I have no idea. It was pouring rain. The wife and I stayed inside by the fireplace. Saw nothing, heard nothing. Didn’t find out about the car being abandoned till the next morning.” He waved a hand at his lawn and the pines. “The riders used our front lawn as the staging ground for the hunt.”

“You said riders?”

“Yes’m. There’s a bunch of riders brings their walking horses and hounds whenever somebody disappears in the woods, and Putnam’s over there’s been part of the Wolf River Conservancy for twenty years. At first they thought the woman might have wandered off and died of exposure or drowned in one of them marshes, but they never did find one single trace of her.” He shook his head. “My Vachie kept the cookies coming and the coffeepot hot for three days.”

“Could I speak to her?”

“No, ma’am. Gone these three years.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. Hard to be alone after fifty-three years. My grandkids want to move me to town into some kind of zero-lot-line old folks apartment, but I ain’t havin’ none of it.”

An obese basset hound with a gray muzzle meandered off the front porch and slumped down beside Mr. Waldran’s knee. The dog definitely looked more than seven years old. “That night the woman went missing, did your dog hear anything?”

“Maizie?” He laughed and reached down to scratch the basset’s long ears. “She’s been stone deaf for years and too lazy to hunt a cold biscuit.”

“What about the hounds? Did they find any trace of her?”

“Ma’am, by the time they started looking, the rain had been pourin’ down for hours. Any scent might ’a been there would ’a been long gone. On t’other hand, if he’d buried her, would ’a washed away the soil some, but didn’t find no sign of a grave, either.”

“Could she have walked away and abandoned her car?”

“In that weather? Had to be a mighty good reason to leave a perfectly good car sitting on the side of the road with the motor running, the door open and the dome light on.”

“Could she have stopped to help someone and been abducted?”

“That’s what they thought at first, but that husband o’hers swore she’d never do something that dumb. Besides, she carried a gun in the car. Had a permit and everything. It was still there. If she’d gotten out of the car, she’d ’a took that gun, if she had a lick o’ sense.”

“What did you think of the husband?”

“Seemed like a nice man. Real cut up. My Vachie tried to look after him some. ’Course, those detectives thought from the get-go he killed her.”

“So they were just going through the motions on the search?”

“Oh, no, ma’am. They didn’t let up for three solid days. Had them crime scene folks here, but wadn’t nothing to find after that downpour. After a while I guess they just gave up.”

Liz thanked Mr. Waldran and asked if she could leave her car while she walked across the road to look in the woods. He agreed and went back into his house. Maizie lumbered after him.

Contemplating the curve of the road, Liz was as surprised as Mr. Waldran that someone hadn’t come around the corner and smacked into Sylvia’s car all those years ago, especially since the driver’s-side door had been open.

Though the rain had stopped earlier, mist still hung in the cold air, Liz noted with a shiver. A little more moisture and mud wouldn’t make much difference at this point.

She walked across the road and stood on the narrow grass shoulder to stare down into the water-filled ditch. If Sylvia needed help or refuge, surely she’d have headed up the driveway to the Waldran house. Mr. Waldran and his wife had both been investigated at the time, to make certain they hadn’t kidnapped and done away with Sylvia.

Both had come up clean. He was a deacon of the Camp-belltown Baptist Church. Pillars of the community, they’d raised four children and had a dozen grandchildren. Neither was senile or paranoid. There had been no sign that Sylvia had been in the house or the garage.

The obvious solution was that someone had stopped her on the road somehow, abducted her or killed her and hidden her body too well for it to be found, probably a long way from the scene.

She wouldn’t have braked for someone she didn’t know. She wouldn’t have gotten into a car with a stranger. If she’d been accosted, she’d have used her gun to protect herself.

Her car had not been dented or disabled, proving she hadn’t been rammed by another vehicle, and stopped to check the damage. Who else but her husband would even know she’d be alone on this road at night?

The one person she would have stopped for was big Jud Slaughter.

CHAPTER FIVE

“DADDY,” COLLEEN SAID, “who was that lady, the one you arranged to have breakfast with? She’s not one of your clients.”

Jud turned his truck into the parking lot of Hamilton’s Academy for Young Ladies and joined the line of SUVs, crew-cab pickups and fancy sedans also dropping off girls for school. He debated whether to tell her the truth and let her stew all day, or make up something he’d have to refute later. “How’d you know she’s not a client?”

“Those slacks came from someplace like Target, for one thing. And ladies who can afford your houses always wear gynormous diamond rings and carry Coach handbags for every day. She’s not married.”

He glanced at his daughter in amazement. She was fourteen! How could she possibly identify where the woman’s slacks came from, or be aware of purses and jewelry? “What do you study in that fancy school of yours?” He pulled into the unloading zone, stopped and turned in his seat.

“You always say it pays to know quality,” she said with a cheeky smile. Leaning over, she gave him a kiss, slid out of the car, waved at a couple of other girls with long blond hair and ran up the stairs to the front door.

She’d forgotten to ask him again about Liz Gibson, but she’d remember sooner or later. He’d have to respond, but he’d have a better idea of how much he needed to tell her after breakfast.

When he walked into the diner, Liz was already sitting in a booth. She was reading the morning newspaper and drinking orange juice. He took a moment to assess her from the doorway.

Good-looking. Maybe late twenties, early thirties. Probably divorced, probably children. Well-spoken. He wondered how long she’d been a detective, because she obviously worked out. The homicide detectives who’d ridden roughshod over him seven years ago had not, but they’d been older. One dyed his hair blue-black, the other carried his paunch in front of him like a baby bump. Why were they not the ones reopening the investigation? Did they think he’d respond better to a woman?

In her case, they might be right. He’d liked her forthright hazel eyes, and the brown locks she pulled back in what his daughter called a scrunchie. Made him want to ease if off and find out what she looked like with her hair down. He’d also be willing to give his business partner, Trip Weichert, good odds that there wasn’t a single drop of silicone in what Trip would call her “rack.” Nice rack, too. Just about the right size to fit into the palms of his hands.

Altogether a very beddable specimen. If he were in the market, and if bedding a detective wasn’t about the most dangerous notion he’d ever had.

She must have felt his eyes on her because she looked up, saw him, folded the paper and set it beside her cup. No welcoming smile, however. Very serious lady.

They greeted each other, but she didn’t offer to shake hands. He sat opposite her, and before he spoke, Bella, his regular waitress, put a cup of coffee in front of him. “Morning, Jud. Your usual?” she said.

“Did you order?” he asked Liz.

“Yeah, she did,” Bella answered, and turned back toward the kitchen.

“I don’t think she approves of me,” Liz murmured.

“She doesn’t approve of anybody that hasn’t been eating here for at least ten years.”

Liz took a business card out of her pocket and shoved it across the table. “This is my extension and my cell phone. If you need to speak to me, don’t hesitate to call.”

“You mean if I want to confess?”

“I didn’t say that. You might think of something you didn’t tell the other detectives. So, shall we get down to it while we wait?”

Jud shrugged. “You’ve undoubtedly read the files. I don’t have anything to tell you that wasn’t in them.”

“Humor me. For example, why was your wife driving home by herself at eight o’clock at night?”

“Sylvia was branch vice president of the Marquette National Bank. She usually worked late on Friday nights. The bank stays open until seven on Fridays, then she made certain whatever bankers do after hours got done.”

“You don’t know?”

“Not precisely, no. She liked working alone after everyone left. She wasn’t a morning person, so she didn’t go in to work early. She blamed it on her internal clock.”

“Your daughter wasn’t home?”

“She was spending the night with my in-laws. She frequently does that on Friday and Saturday nights. They live in Germantown.” He grinned. “That means closer to malls and movies.”

“She was only seven?”

“At that age she conned her grandmother into shopping and the latest Disney.”

“I’m speaking to Mrs. Richardson later this morning.”

That sounded vaguely like a threat. “Irene will tell you the same thing, Miz Gibson.” But Herb wouldn’t. She’d get a real earful if he was home.

Bella plopped a big glass of iced tea down in front of the detective and filled Jud’s coffee mug. They waited until she was out of earshot again.

“Listen, do you mind if we switch to first names? Seems more informal,” Liz said.

Jud was a bit surprised. “Sure. I’m Jud.”

“And they call me Liz that do speak of me.”

“Certainly not Liz the cursed?”

She laughed—the first time he’d heard her laugh. He loved it. A Shakespeare-quoting detective with a laugh like warm honey, and a smile that would melt icebergs in the Bering Strait. It definitely melted him, and warmed parts of his body that he’d rather keep dormant, thank you very much. He’d known she was dangerous, but not this dangerous.

“Certainly not the prettiest Liz in Christendom,” she said.

“Who says?”

The silence was deafening, the look lasted too long and the connection was too sudden. She broke eye contact first, stirred two packets of artificial sweetener into her tea, squeezed the lemon and drank greedily. He did the same with his coffee and burned the roof of his mouth.

“Uh, what’d you fix?”

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

“The file says you cooked dinner that night. What’d you fix?”

No one in all those hours of interrogation and interview had asked him that. “It was seven years ago.”

“Come on, Jud, you might not remember what you had for dinner last night, but I’ll bet you remember the menu that night.”

As a matter of fact he did. The other detectives had asked him why he was the one doing the cooking, but not the menu. He took a breath as though trying to remember, then said, “I picked up a roast chicken at the grocery on the way home from the job I was working. And some fresh asparagus.”

“Expensive in November.”

He shrugged. “Sylvia liked it. I poached it in chicken stock until it was just crunchy, and thawed some brown rice in the microwave. I make it in big batches and freeze it in portions. Takes forty-five minutes to an hour to steam from scratch and only ten minutes to heat up in the microwave. That’s it.”

“What about rolls?”

He shook his head. “Two starches at one meal.”

“Dessert?”

Again he shook his head. “Watching our weight. Sylvia never has a problem, but I have to be careful.”

“To drink?”

“We’d opened a bottle of pinot grigio the night before and stashed the rest in the refrigerator. There was enough left for a couple of glasses each. I poured myself one when Sylvia called to tell me she was on her way.”

“Then?”

“There was boxing on Showtime. I sat down to watch it. I’d been out on the site most of the day in the cold rain, so that one glass of wine put me right to sleep. The boxing must have been boring. I really don’t remember who was fighting, but it wasn’t a championship match or anything. When I finally woke up, I realized Sylvia wasn’t home yet. It was nearly midnight.”

“What did you do?”

“Tried her cell phone. No answer. There are a couple of places along that road where you can’t get decent reception, particularly during bad weather. I figured she’d had a flat or something and couldn’t reach me. I dashed some cold water on my face to wake up, grabbed my coat and headed out to find her.”

Bella slapped down two plates in front of them. Jud’s held at least three eggs, bacon and wheat toast. Liz’s held a toasted English muffin.

Jud might worry about his waistline, although Liz couldn’t see that he had any problems in that department. Obviously he wasn’t bothered about cholesterol. She wished she’d indulged in at least an omelet or an order of bacon.

His answers had been interesting. He’d said Sylvia has, not had. Did he really believe she was still alive, or had he coached himself to use the present tense?

Liz would be willing to bet nobody had ever asked him what he’d cooked for dinner. The original detectives, Sherman and Lee, whose names had no doubt given rise to a million jokes during their partnership, were both middle-aged, had probably been horrified to find that Jud did the cooking for his family and had abandoned the subject.

He could have fixed the entire meal in ten minutes, leaving more than enough time to commit the killing and hide the body. The one call that had been logged from Sylvia’s cell phone that night had originated from the tower closest to her office. In his original interview, Jud had said that she called every night as she was leaving to give him her ETA so he could get dinner ready. She had not attempted to phone him again, but that call alone would have told him approximately where her car would be and where he could intercept her.

One of the most damning items against him was that his partner, Trip Weichert, said he’d tried to reach Jud at about ten and had gotten the answering machine. Jud had said in his original statement he must have slept through the call.

Maybe. Liz—who couldn’t bear to let the answering machine pick up even if she knew the caller was from a magazine subscription service—had never slept through the ringing phone. He must really have been dead to the world.

Or simply not there to pick up.

“So, Jud, between us, what do you think happened that night?” She leaned forward and gave him her full attention.

He, on the other hand, leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. She’d been taught to read people’s body language. His signified avoidance, protecting himself, distancing himself. When he spoke, however, he lowered his eyes and took a deep breath, but did not look down and to the right. That was a liar’s look. Dead giveaway. Either he was trying to tell the truth, or he’d practiced so long it had become the truth to him.

“I think she had arranged for somebody to pick her up, and left her car that way so we’d think she’d been abducted, and would stop looking for her quicker.” He raised his eyes. “It worked.”

“We couldn’t find evidence of a pickup by any of the rental-car agencies or taxis, even the ones that will drive that far out,” Liz responded. “With all the publicity at the time, surely any taxi or rental-car company would have come forward.” She shrugged. “The alternative is a colleague, a friend or a lover. No evidence was ever found for any of those.”

He started to say something, then stopped.

“If you know of any lover, or even a possible lover, I’d suggest you give me a name.”

“I don’t. To the best of my knowledge, Sylvia was not having an affair at the time she disappeared.”

“Were you?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“But you’ve had affairs since she disappeared.” Liz made her comment a statement, not a question. She didn’t know whether he’d slept around or not, but he would assume she’d traced his lovers. Or she hoped he would.

The man actually blushed. With shame or guilt?

“Lady, it’s been seven years since my wife disappeared. What do you think?”

“I’d like to talk to the ladies.”

“You find them, you talk to them. I’m not giving you any names. Believe me, there are damn few of them to find. What difference does it make, anyway? I was a completely faithful husband until long after Sylvia disappeared.”

It made a great deal of difference to Liz. She’d find those women and interview them—no, interrogate them, until they admitted their liaisons with Jud. Who knew what he might have let slip to a lover? “I don’t need no stinkin’ divorce,” for example. She pushed her empty plate away. Jud pushed his plate back, as well, although most of his farmer’s breakfast lay congealing on it.

So she’d rattled him.

“You’re telling me you had a good marriage?”

“About average.”

This time he did look down and to his right. He was lying.

“Money troubles?”

He dropped his fists onto the table on either side of his plate. Not exactly a slam, but close.

Good, he was losing his cool.

“Lady—uh, Liz, we moved into the new house in July, before she disappeared in November. Five months is not a long time to get the kinks out of a new house, not even one I designed and built. Colleen had just started second grade at her private school, with much longer travel time, plus after-school care until either I or her grandmother could pick her up.

“Sylvia had made vice president a year earlier and was working sixty hours a week or more. So was I, trying to get my construction business on a solid footing. We were all under a lot of stress. Sure, there were strains on the marriage, but I swear to God I never picked up on any signals that Sylvia was going to run away.”

“I thought your business was having money problems.”

“Half the time we’re having short-term money problems. Trip and I knew we could weather them. We did, as you could see yesterday. We’re going great guns. We were a little overextended, that’s all.”

“Nothing a million dollars wouldn’t have cured,” Liz said.

Without warning, he was furious. His skin grew mottled, his jaw set and his shoulders hunched. So he did have a temper. Not altogether Good Neighbor Sam, Mr. Easygoing.

“Miz Gibson, if I killed my wife for a million dollars, don’t you think I would have arranged to have her body found so I could collect?”

“You’re going to collect now.”

He slid out of the booth and stood. He loomed over Liz, and for a moment she thought he might actually hit her with one of those huge fists.

He took a deep breath, however, and loosened both his shoulders and his hands. He sat back down and waggled a finger at Bella, who was watching them from behind the counter, for another cup of coffee. He pointed at Liz’s tea. She shook her head.

Drat! Waiting for his coffee to be poured and for Bella to move out of earshot again gave him the breathing space he needed to get himself under control.

“Sorry. Sometimes all the suspicion gets to me.” Good Neighbor Sam was back. He grinned at her sheepishly, and her heart turned over and went into overdrive. Uh-oh.

“Look, Liz, I’m going to say this one more time. I did not kill my wife. I did not hide her body. I do not know what happened that night. I would never have risked my own neck, my freedom and my daughter’s happiness by depriving her of one parent, much less two. I won’t help you railroad me into jail for a crime I didn’t commit.”

Liz nodded. “Okay. Now, let me give you my response.” She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but he hadn’t heard it recently. Might shake him up a bit. “Sherman and Lee, the two original detectives on the case, firmly believed that you killed your wife and hid her body somewhere.”

He started to speak, but she held up a finger to stop him. “I am not Sherman and Lee. I am starting from scratch. For every mystery murder case, there are ninety-nine straightforward killings where we know immediately who did what to whom.

“Our homicide squad had a solve rate of over ninety percent before all the stranger-on-stranger and gangbanger killings started. It’s now down around eighty-four percent, which is better than most counties our size. Some cops just want to close the file, put somebody on trial whether they are convicted or not. I’m not like that, and I doubt Sherman and Lee were, either. If you are innocent, I’ll prove that, if possible, and find the real bad guy.

“If you are guilty, however, I am your worst junkyard-dog nightmare. It doesn’t matter that I like you and want to believe you. I won’t feel a bit guilty if I decide to arrest you and deprive your daughter of her one remaining parent. You did that, not me.”

He stared at her silently for a long moment, then he nodded. “Fair enough.” He leaned forward and smiled that beatific smile that would melt a statue’s heart. “So, you like me?”

Liz laughed so hard Bella came over to see if she needed a thwack on the back.

CHAPTER SIX

SYLVIA’S PARENTS, the Richardsons, lived in the less affluent section of Germantown. Their medium-size Georgian-style house was well-kept, but unremarkable.

The garden, however, was anything but unremarkable. Either the couple could afford a full-time gardener, or one of them worked continuously to manicure the lawn and the flower beds. Even in November, great clumps of gold and ochre chrysanthemums hadn’t quite finished blooming, and the pansies glowed.

Interesting. They were planted in strict groups sorted by color. Somebody had a thing for order.

The trees hadn’t been neglected, either. Liz wasn’t very good on horticulture, but even she could identify the glowing red of dogwoods and Japanese maples that still hadn’t lost their leaves. Each tree was carefully surrounded by a mulched circle planted with hostas and dwarf azaleas. There was no crab or orchard grass. Not one dandelion. This was property that would receive the yard of the month award more often than not. The gardener obviously had control issues. Whatever the rest of this person’s life was like, he—or she—could impose his will on this little patch. Shrubs didn’t talk back.

Liz wanted to see whether the backyard was as cultivated and staged, or whether the front yard—the one the neighbors saw—received all the attention.

She was reaching for the doorbell when a voice came over the intercom, startling her. “Miz Gibson?”

A female voice. Not young. “Mrs. Richardson?”

“I’m in my workshop out back. Come on around by the driveway and down the path past the fountain.”

Liz walked around the house. At first glance the backyard looked no different, but then she realized the deep lot was bisected—quadrisected, really. The same precision governed the plantings around the house and deck.

Beyond the section of lawn on the right side was an equally neat vegetable garden. Turnip greens, cabbage, winter squash and cauliflower still remained in the beds.

The left-hand quarter, however, looked as though it belonged to a completely different yard. She’d be willing to bet it belonged to a different gardener.

Although there were neat brick paths, instead of marching straight and intersecting at ninety-degree angles, they curved gently among deep beds of ornamental grasses and now-dying wildflowers. The paths met at an ornamental pond made to look like a natural pool fed by a small, mossy waterfall. When Liz leaned over it, fat, parti-colored koi rose up to see if she had any nibbles for them.

The pool would be cool and shaded in the summer when the big oaks were in full leaf.

At the very back corner stood another building. Not a shed, but a good-size A-frame structure of dark green stained board and batten, with a window wall facing the backyard and up the driveway.

Liz made a mental note to see how long the Richardsons had lived here. This could not have been accomplished in a day or even a year.

“Down here, Miz Gibson.” A tall woman in jeans and a hunter-green sweatshirt stepped from the side portico of the A-frame and motioned to Liz, then stood aside and let her enter ahead of her.

“In case you can’t tell, I’m a weaver.” Irene Richardson waved her hand at the room and laughed.

Diamond-shaped shelves built across the wall beside the door were stuffed with jewel-toned skeins of thick wool. A big bench loom faced the window wall at the front, and several pieces of equipment Liz assumed had to do with making yarn were positioned around the space. There was even an antique spinning wheel.

On the mantelpiece sat about twenty wooden candlesticks with tall ivory tapers in them. “They’re made out of old-fashioned wool spindles,” Irene said. “I collect them.”

A scarred harvest table, several pine chairs and a tiny kitchen unit ran along the back wall. Above hung more shelves overflowing with what looked like craft books. A gas fireplace with fake logs burned cheerily in the far corner. A worn club chair and a Lincoln rocker sat on either side of the hearth.

A number of colorful wool rugs hung on the walls, and bright shawls were tossed casually over the furniture. There were no pictures; the weavings were art enough.

“Incredible room,” Liz said. “Incredible yard, too. I’d love to see it in the spring.”

“Come back in April. Herb is always delighted to show off his handiwork. We’re on several garden tours every spring and summer, although I think it’s even prettier in the fall, when the leaves turn, and before the summer flowers die.”

“So he’s the gardener, you’re the weaver.”

“Not quite. The little bit around the cottage is mine. Takes almost no maintenance, and I can usually con Herb into doing that for me. I loathe gardening, with its dirty fingernails, aching knees and sweat.”

Liz wandered around, peering at the cloud-soft shawls draped over the chairs, and wondering whether Mrs. Richardson sold them. If so, whether she could afford to buy one. It wouldn’t do to ask now, but after the case was closed, she might inquire about price. “When did you start weaving?”

“Six years ago.” Mrs. Richardson sat in the rocker and motioned Liz to the club chair. “I either had to discover something to occupy my mind, or lose it. Simple as that. I took a continuing-education course in weaving, and six years later, this is the result.”

“Herb’s the gardener?”

“He’d always gardened, but he went crazy after—you know. Same reason.”

“So a year after.”

“It took us both a year before we could do anything besides sit and stare at the walls and bug the police.”

“After something like this happens, many couples split up. You’re still together.”

“That’s debatable.” Irene laughed, this time without mirth. Jud had laughed the same way. There wasn’t much comedy in this family. “We have a granddaughter who needs us. Jud needs me, too.”

“Just you?”

Irene sighed. Her shoulders sank, and for the first time, she looked her age. Liz had checked. She was sixty-two, her husband sixty-nine.

“I wanted to speak to you before Herb got hold of you. He’s so angry. He thinks Jud…did something to Sylvia. He’ll tell you a whole bunch of stuff that isn’t true, although I’m sure he believes every word.”

“You’re certain none of it is true?”

“Oh, absolutely. Jud wouldn’t hurt a fly, and believe me, Sylvia gave him plenty of motivation.”

Aha.

“That boy was the best thing that ever happened to Sylvia, and he’s blessed my life and Colleen’s.” Irene waved at the room. “He designed and built this cottage for me completely at his expense. He didn’t even let me pay for the materials, although I’m sure he could have used the money.”

Her attitude surprised Liz. Mothers didn’t generally say negative things about their own children to the police.

“If Jud says he doesn’t know where she is, then he doesn’t know. Period.”

“You think she deliberately disappeared?”

“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea? I keep the electric kettle hot all the time these chilly days.”

“If it’s no trouble.”

“None.” Irene went to the small kitchenette, got a tall mug from the cupboard and turned to Liz. “China or Indian?”

“Indian, please.”

“Lemon or milk?”

“Lemon, please, and one artificial sweetener, if you have it.”

“I have it, all right. I don’t use sugar. I already fight the battle of the old-lady bulge.”

Looking at Irene’s trim, upright figure, Liz figured she was winning that battle. When they were settled on either side of the fire, Liz asked again, “You really think she took off? Weird way to go about it.”

“Sylvia avoided situations she didn’t want to deal with. If she wasn’t doing well in a subject in college, she’d drop it before she could fail. The day she met Jud, she broke her engagement to a young medical student without a word of warning.”

“She must really have fallen for him.” For the first time, Liz felt a kinship with the woman. Jud was easy to fall for.

“You have to admit, he’s pretty spectacular.” Irene laughed. “I thought she’d found someone she could find happiness with, but her discontent came from inside. Even Jud couldn’t keep her satisfied for long. And she certainly made him miserable the last year or so.”

“So he killed her.”

“You think I’d love him the way I do if I thought for a single second that he’d hurt Sylvia?”

“Mrs. Richardson, nobody chooses to disappear that way. Car running on the side of the road, door open, lights on, handbag inside with cash and credit cards…She didn’t even take money out of her checking or savings account. And how did she get away in a driving rainstorm in the middle of the night? That’s not a disappearance. At the very least it’s abduction, and given that nobody’s found any evidence of abduction or any proof that she’s alive, it’s almost certainly murder. In my business we go by who had motive, means and opportunity. Slaughter had all three. So far as we know, he was the only person who did.”

“He took two polygraphs after she disappeared, and passed them both.”

“Polygraphs aren’t admissible in evidence, Mrs. Richardson, because they can be fooled.”

“Jud wouldn’t know how to do that. Why on earth you people continue to hound him I do not know. If she’s dead, somebody else killed her. If she’s alive, why haven’t you found her?”

Because we haven’t really looked. At least, not recently.

An hour later the two women were curled up with mugs of hot tea and had progressed to first names. Liz, however, didn’t know much more than she had before. She was convinced that Irene was not telling her everything she knew or suspected, but Liz couldn’t find any cracks in her story. She was getting ready to start over when the door opened so hard it slammed against the wall.

“Is this her?”

Both women jumped.

“Why didn’t she tell me she was here? I looked out front and saw her car.”

It had to be Herb. His well-worn jeans bore a knife-edge crease. His immaculate button-down oxford cloth shirt was so stiff with starch that Liz didn’t see how he could raise his arms. Control issues. He was a small man with a tonsure of white hair, and the remnants of a gardener’s tan—much darker on the lower half of his face. Liz immediately categorized him as a rooster ready to take on all comers.

She stood and extended her hand. “Liz Gibson, Mr. Richardson. Why don’t you sit down and join us.”

He blinked, narrowed his eyes and scanned her from top to bottom, then glared at his wife. “What crap has Irene been feeding you?” He teetered on the balls of his feet.

I was wrong. Not a rooster. Jimmy Cagney in White Heat.

“Herbert Richardson, do not start,” Irene said. “You are perfectly at liberty to join us, but you will not rant.”

For an instant, it seemed he was going to slap his wife. Liz would have to intervene and arrest him, and she didn’t want to do that. At least not before she’d pumped him dry of all that vitriol.

“Why the hell not? You’re filling the woman’s head with sweetness and light about that murdering monster who killed my child. I deserve equal time.”

“Sit down, Mr. Richardson,” Liz ordered. It came out tough, but it worked. Herb yanked a kitchen chair away from one of the worktables and sat bolt upright in it, with his small feet in their glaring white sneakers flat on the floor in front of him.

“So, what do you think happened to your daughter?” Liz asked.

“He tricked her into stopping on the road, yanked her out of her car, killed her, carried her somewhere and disposed of the body. Period, end of story. Why the hell you people haven’t arrested his murdering ass I do not know.”

“Mr. Richardson, let’s say we arrest him. For that matter, let’s say we’d arrested him seven years ago and put him on trial for murder. Which degree, by the way? Capital murder?”

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