Dead Wrong

“That’s low.”

“Is it?” The phone creaked, he gripped it so hard. “Funny how fast you came to the conclusion that this murder clears Mendoza.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“The hell you didn’t.” He pushed End and slammed the phone onto the counter. Planting both hands there, he bent his head, teeth gritted. Fury and shame and renewed grief swelled in his chest until it hurt.

After a minute, breathing hard, he straightened. He’d been looking for motivation. Guess what. He’d just found it.

He grabbed his parka from the coat tree, checked to be sure he had his car keys, and left the house. If he had to rent a place that stank of cat urine, he’d do it.

Anything, to be out of here by the time his father got home on Sunday.

CHAPTER FOUR

TRINA AND Meg Patton, having failed to catch Doug Jennings at home, drove up to the Juanita Butte ski area on Saturday.

The lieutenant parked in the employee lot, taking a spot right by the slope of packed snow leading up to the lodge. Since her husband was the ski area general manager, she had reason to feel at home here.

Unlike Trina, who stepped out of the Explorer gingerly.

Despite frostbite-inducing cold, the lift lines were long, the slopes busy enough that skiers and boarders must be having to dodge each other. Never having learned to ski, Trina felt out of place here, which made her sulky and reminded her of her teenage resentment of the popular kids. But how could she help it? In contrast to all the tanned, long-legged, bleached-blond athletes heading for the lifts, she was pasty-skinned, dark-haired and compact.

She trailed ten feet behind Lieutenant Patton by the time they reached the A-frame that was, according to the lieutenant, the nerve center of the ski area. Ducking to save her skull from a snowboard carelessly swung by a teenage boy calling to friends above in the lift line, she slipped, knocked into a passing skier who yelled at her and finally righted herself at the foot of the snow-packed stairs leading up into the hut.

Naturally, the information center was staffed by a tanned, Nordic blond beauty.

“Oh, yeah! Doug’s wife! That was such a bummer. I mean, he’s going around with this tragic face.” She sounded awed at his suffering. More practically, she added, “His shift should be ending in a minute, anyway. I can call him down here.”

She got on the radio and his crackling voice agreed that he would rendezvous with the police officers at the ski school hut.

Stamping her feet and shivering, Trina thought about what Lieutenant Patton’s husband had said about Doug Jennings. Enthusiastic, great with the public, no apparent ambitions beyond the next ski season.

“Of course, Scott doesn’t know him well,” she’d added. “Unless the guy had been a major problem, a lift operator is a pretty small cog in Scott’s operation.”

Now, Lieutenant Patton also had the Nordic goddess call the ski school and ask for Travis Booth, Will’s friend who now headed the ski school. “If he could come down in, say, half an hour?”

Yet another crackling voice agreed.

Recognizable from photos in her apartment, Amy Owen’s ex-husband slid to a stop right by the door, as beautiful and Nordic as the goddess inside. Tapping the bindings with the tip of one of his poles, he stepped off the skis and set them inside.

His eyes were actually brown, despite the sun-bleached blond hair. Brown and puppy-dog-like and mournful. “You’re here about Amy?”

“Yes.” Lieutenant Patton nodded toward the lodge. “Can we go inside and talk?”

“Oh. Sure. I guess you’re cold?”

Despite heavy parkas and gloves, the lieutenant and Trina weren’t dressed for sub-zero weather. In just minutes, Trina had lost awareness of her face as a part of her body. When any of them talked, their breath froze in plumes that hung in the air. Trina wanted to say, Gee, you think?

Inside the busy lodge, they stamped snow from their boots. Meg Patton led the way upstairs to what appeared to be offices. A secretary smiled and said, “Scott said to give you the small conference room. Can I bring you coffee?”

“Please,” the lieutenant said.

If she’d turned it down, Trina would have whimpered. She was shivering and trying to hide it. Damn, she thought. Why hadn’t she taken a job somewhere warmer? She didn’t even like snow. The LAPD must have openings on a regular basis. Or maybe San Diego.

In the conference room, Doug Jennings dropped his gloves on the table, stripped off his snow-white hat with the cute pompom and peeled off his form-fitting parka. Very reluctantly, Trina divested herself of her outer layers. Gratefully seizing a mug of the coffee the secretary brought, she sat next to the lieutenant and opened her notebook.

Lieutenant Patton asked, “Mr. Jennings, when did you last see your ex-wife?”

His face crumpled, as if he were about to cry. “Wow. I can’t believe she’s dead. Amy was…” He swallowed. “Um. When did I see her the last time. Maybe Monday?” He pondered. “Yeah. Monday. I ran into her at Safeway. Kind of on purpose. See, I know she shops there, and she usually goes after work. So that’s when I shop.”

“But you are divorced.”

“Yeah, but…” He took a huge breath and let it out in a rush, his beseeching gaze moving from Lieutenant Patton’s to Trina’s and back. “I didn’t want to be! I love Amy! I shouldn’t have let her go.”

“And how did Ms. Owen feel about your pursuit?”

Expression ingenuous, he said, “I think she was coming around.” As if reading doubt on their faces, he added, “Really! We’ve actually kind of gotten together a couple of times lately. You know.”

They knew.

“Had you asked her to marry you again?”

“She said no, but not like she was mad or wanted me to leave her alone. More like…” He frowned. “Like she was teasing. I figured it was just a matter of time.”

“And the issues that led to the divorce in the first place?”

“I told her we could have a baby if she wanted. Kids are okay.”

Trina barely refrained from rolling her eyes at his magnanimity.

Lieutenant Patton’s voice changed. “Mr. Jennings, I have to ask where you were from Wednesday evening until Thursday morning.”

“Where I was?” He gaped at her, and Trina realized he really was naive enough not to have realized why he was being questioned in the first place. Bronwen was right; he was dumb. “You don’t think I…” Wildly searching their faces, he saw that they did indeed think the possibility existed that he had murdered his ex-wife. “I loved Amy!”

“Mr. Jennings, we’re obligated to rule out an ex-husband. If we can verify your whereabouts…”

He relaxed. “Oh, sure. Um…” More deep thinking. “I was here. I worked late shift on Wednesday evening. After the lifts shut down at ten, some of us stopped at the Timberline for drinks.”

The same place Amy had been earlier in the evening.

“You didn’t see Amy there?” Trina asked.

Both the lieutenant and Doug looked startled to hear her speak.

“No. It must have been close to eleven by the time we got there. She gets up early for work. She wouldn’t have still been out…” His Adam’s apple bobbed.

Hastily, before the moistness in his eyes could develop into a deluge, the lieutenant asked, “How late did you stay?”