LITMIR.BIZ

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long will this take? I’m scheduled to pick up my fiancée and take her to the opening of J. Williams’s new art show.”

      “Probably a half hour.”

      He glanced at his watch. “Could we do this tomorrow, a.m.?”

      Alarm bells went off in Ash’s head. “Yes. But if you have five minutes now, I’d like a walk-through of the house so I can visually put it together.”

      Andrew nodded. “Of course. Follow me.” Andrew walked to the library and showed Ash where the wall safe was located.

      “After the party, I wanted a cappuccino. Catherine didn’t feel well and wanted to go home. So I left her off at the back door.”

      “Did you drive into the garage?”

      “No. There’s a door in the back that leads out to the deck and pool. She went in that way.”

      If what he said was true, then Andrew Reed was, in Ash’s book, a selfish bastard who didn’t bother with anyone but himself. Ash would never let his wife walk into a dark house by herself. But then again, Ash had seen too many evil things.

      “Where did you find her?”

      “Upstairs.” He nodded for Ash to follow. Once on the second-floor landing, Andrew walked to the first doorway. “She was lying just inside the door on the floor, dead.”

      “It was noted that the murder weapon was given back to you after the trial.”

      “Yes, since it was an antique treasure.”

      “Where is it now?” Ash asked.

      “I gave it to the Civil War museum at Rice University.”

      Ash observed the bedroom where Catherine’s body had been found. Obviously, it had been repainted and new carpeting put down. There were no pictures of the dead woman.

      Andrew glanced at his watch. “I have to leave now, Detective.”

      As they walked to the front door, Andrew’s expression seemed too pleasant. “I’ll be sure to block out the time for you tomorrow.”

      “Thanks.”

      As Ash climbed into his car, he glanced back at Andrew Reed. He hadn’t moved from the front door. For a man who needed to get going, he wasn’t moving very fast.

      Ash smiled and nodded at him. Andrew Reed turned and walked into his house. Glancing around the exclusive neighborhood, Ash decided to start interviewing Reed’s neighbors now. He might learn about the Reeds’ marriage. There wasn’t any mention of their relationship in the file and he wanted to know how things stood on that score.

      He got out of the car, closed the door and walked to the next house.

      Kelly rushed into the little burger joint tucked on the edge of downtown. She needed to talk to Ash and had called his office, but had been informed he was at dinner. They had told her where.

      The evening traffic in this place was strictly folks who worked late at the jail, D.A.’s office and city hall. She immediately spotted Ash in a corner. Their corner booth. When they’d been married, they had often come to this little place for a quick meal together. Since the divorce, she’d only been here once. She walked over to the table. In the past two days, she’d visited too many of their old haunts for comfort.

      “Well, Ash, you’ve lived up to your reputation,” she blurted out, not wanting to think about the past.

      He rested his arm on the booth behind him. “Exactly what reputation is that? All-around pain in the butt or the tenacious detective?”

      “I heard you’ve been cutting a wide swath through the upper crust of Houston society these last forty-eight hours.”

      He cocked his head. “Is that what you heard?”

      “From more than one source.” She leaned forward, not wanting everyone in the place to hear her answer. “You simply can’t bludgeon these folks, Ash.” The smell of his hamburger wafted over her and made her stomach growl.

      “Sit down, Kelly. I’d planned on going by your office tomorrow, but since you’re here—” he shrugged “—we can talk about what I’ve discovered these past two days.”

      She didn’t like the tone of his voice or the look in his eyes. She slid into the booth opposite him.

      “I told you that I probably wasn’t the best man for this job. And as I recall, you didn’t object to my directness. You wanted it.”

      She held up her hand. “You’re right. And you gave it to me in spades. I’ve heard from Catherine’s parents about you asking their friends and neighbors ugly and tasteless questions about the status of their daughter’s marriage.”

      Ash grinned, obviously pleased with himself. “Tasteless? But true.”

      She ignored him. “And I’ve heard from Mr. Reed that you weren’t very civil to his fiancée. I think Andrew Reed said you were as cordial as a damn carpet-bagger. I assured him that you were a native Texan and had grown up in Galveston.”

      “What did he say, Kelly?”

      “When I told him you were a native, he wondered why you didn’t have more genteel Southern manners. Then he decided you must’ve come from poor white tr—people.”

      His wicked smile appeared. “What did you tell him?”

      “What I wanted to tell him was he was a snob and to stick his opinion in his ear. But what I said was that if he wanted his wife’s murder solved and Mr. Carlson back in jail, he needed to cooperate with you and not worry about your manners.”

      “What Mr. Reed is upset about is me discovering that he was fooling around with Catherine’s best friend. He’s probably worried that his spotless reputation with his in-laws might be tarnished.”

      She sighed in disgust. “So that’s how the wind was blowing.”

      “Indeed. Convenient that Steve Carlson confessed to the burglary. It prevented a lot of dirty laundry from being aired.”

      “This just gets better and better,” she murmured. Her stomach growled again.

      He handed her one of his fries. “Here, start on this while I order you dinner.” Ash turned to the man behind the counter and yelled, “Mark, I need another burger.”

      “And onion rings and a Coke,” she added.

      A twinkle of mischief sparkled in his eyes. After he yelled out the additional items, he settled back against the booth.

      “All right, Ash, what have you got?”

      He handed her another fry. “Andrew Reed is going to remarry next week.”

      “Why would that be a problem?”

      “He was not a happy camper when I showed up. In that house, there was not a picture of Catherine Reed anywhere to be found.”

      “Reed, it’s been five years.”

      He leaned closer. “I’ve thought about it. But wouldn’t it make sense that some trace, some memento of his dead wife, of their time together would be around? I mean he played the grieving husband to the hilt at the funeral and trial.”

      “Why do you find that so unusual?”

      “When my mother died, my dad kept her pictures all over that house until he passed away three years later.”

      She frowned. “But Andrew’s case is different. Because of the heinousness of the crime, I wouldn’t expect him to have pictures of her around. Just like a divorced couple, I wouldn’t expect either partner to have things around to remind them of their ex.”

      He didn’t respond and Kelly’s nerves were on alert. Had he—? She swallowed hard. “Maybe there’s something there you didn’t know about. A

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