Along Came Trouble

“Because?”

She scowled at his lack of sensitivity. “Because my husband was dead, Deputy Ames. He’d been murdered. I couldn’t bear seeing him like that. And for all I knew the person who’d done it was still around here somewhere.”

“So you still had feelings for him, even though you intended to divorce him?”

“Of course I did. I had loved Larry Chandler with all my heart. Just because our marriage hadn’t worked didn’t mean that I wanted him dead or even that I didn’t still care about him. In many ways, he was a wonderful man. He just wasn’t a very good husband.”

“Meaning?”

She glanced at Powell and saw his nod. “Meaning that he was unfaithful.”

“He had an affair?”

“There were affairs,” she confirmed. “I lost count.”

“Did they end badly?”

“You’d have to ask the women that.”

“Names?”

“I can give you those I knew about,” she said wearily. “I’ll make a list. I can’t swear it’ll be complete.”

“What about political enemies? Did he have them?”

“Of course.”

“Business problems?”

“None that I’m aware of.”

“Is there anyone you can think of who would have reason to want your husband dead?”

She told him about the veiled, anonymous threats. “I believe the notes and answering machine tapes with the messages are in the safe. I can get them for you.”

Walker nodded. “Let’s do that, then.”

He followed her into the library, watched as she pressed a button and a panel of bookshelves swung away from the wall. Behind it was a safe originally installed by her grandfather. She turned the lock, then stepped aside.

Donning gloves, Walker drew out jewelry boxes, packets of papers, then a box that contained the letters and tapes. He took that, placed it into an evidence bag, then returned everything else.

“Have you had a chance to look around?” he asked. “Did you notice if anything is missing?”

“I only came through the foyer and into this room last night. I went out the same way.”

“Then let’s take a look around. Are there other valuables beyond what’s in the safe?”

“I keep a few pieces of jewelry in my room. There’s silver that’s kept in the pantry.”

Liz led the way upstairs. She knew it would be evident when they walked into her room that she hadn’t shared it with Larry. There were no masculine belongings, just antique perfume bottles and cosmetics on the dressing table, gowns in one closet, her suits and casual clothes in another. The carpet and iron bed were white, the comforter white with sprigs of violets. Gauzy white curtains billowed at the open windows. It was a very feminine room and not nearly as large as the master suite down the hall. It had suited her as a girl, and she had retreated to it when she no longer wanted to share a bed with her unfaithful husband.

Walker surveyed the room without comment, waiting while she checked her jewelry box.

“Everything is here,” she said when she’d counted the few pieces of antique jewelry that had sentimental value to her. The far more expensive treasures, the ones Larry had lavished on her after each affair, were in the safe downstairs. Those, too, had been accounted for—not that she’d cared.

“Let’s see if the silver’s where it’s supposed to be,” Walker said.

“It’ll be closer if we take the back stairway,” Liz told him. It was the way she’d slipped downstairs in the middle of the night for cookies as a girl, the way she’d sneaked outside to meet Tucker as a teenager. Even now she almost expected to find him waiting for her just outside the kitchen door.

He wasn’t.

Every piece of silver, much of it from famed English silvermakers of the eighteenth century and earlier, was exactly where it belonged, gleaming on the padded shelves of a special silver closet in the pantry. As a girl, Liz had been awed by the display. She’d even liked the rainy afternoons when she’d sat at the table helping the housekeeper polish every piece. She’d loved imagining tea being poured from this very service by some distant ancestor in London hundreds of years before. She’d read every book in her grandfather’s library about the gracious way of life from which she was descended.

Dreaming about a bygone era was a far cry, however, from wanting to live in it. She had balked at the old-fashioned constraints her grandfather had placed on her, stolen every opportunity to break free so that she could follow Tucker on his adventures. He had given her back the childhood that the tragic death of her parents had stolen.

Tucker would have given her the world if she’d let him. But Larry had come along with his charm and his prospects. Her grandfather, one of Larry’s staunchest political supporters, had encouraged the two of them to spend time together. He’d believed they shared the same ideals. After several lengthy conversations, Liz had come to believe it, too.

For her, those talks had been intellectually stimulating, nothing more. Spending time with Larry had been the first thing she’d ever done of which her grandfather had totally approved.

Later that had been a huge incentive to say yes when Larry had proposed, that and the promise of the fairy-tale wedding of which every girl dreamed.

“Mrs. Chandler?”

She snapped her attention back to Walker Ames.

“Is all of the silver here?”

She nodded.

“Okay, then, unless you discover something missing, I think we can safely rule out robbery as a motive. I’d appreciate that list of names as soon as possible.”

“I’ll do it this afternoon,” she said.

“Good. Where can I pick it up?”

She was startled by the question. “I can’t stay here?”

“Not for the time being,” he said. “Once we’re sure all the evidence had been gathered, we’ll release it, and you can move back in.”

“Will I be able to take a few of my things?”

“Of course. I’ll wait while you get them, then I can drive you wherever you’d like to go.”

“I came with Tucker. I’m sure he can take me…someplace.”

The deputy looked as though he disapproved, but he said only, “I’ll check with him while you pack. I can have one of the deputies go up with you.”

“That’s not necessary,” she began, but then she saw the look on his face and sighed. “That will be fine.”