“I haven’t been able to locate her so far. She moved away after a divorce.” Divorce was becoming a theme when Tony looked at the Marshalls’ old friends. Everyone except the banker and his wife—and Keith Reistad and his. “Reistad gave me the forwarding info they had,” he continued, “but she moved again. She doesn’t have a driver’s license in Washington, so I’m guessing she’s gone out of state.”
“Could she really tell you anything useful?”
“Working with the two of them, she might have had a good idea whether they were involved,” he said, hearing the grimness in his voice. Wasn’t it lucky for Reistad that the co-worker most likely to have noticed something going on between him and his pretty, blonde employee hadn’t stayed in town?
They talked for a few more minutes. He told Beth that, right now, he didn’t see any reason he couldn’t get away to pick her up by five-thirty.
“Take your nap,” he said.
Call over, he wondered if any of the ex-wives would open up to him about their marital problems if he contacted them. Had infidelity been the issue? But he’d become more interested in Reistad paradoxically because he was still married to the same woman. Why would a man who ended up divorced in the next couple of years anyway kill Christine because she had threatened his marriage?
Of course, the motive might have been something else altogether, but—what?
Baffled and disliking the feeling, Tony set to tracking the ex-wives of Michael Longley and Alan Schuh.
* * *
FRIDAY BROUGHT NO progress on the investigation. Or should she say either investigation? Beth wondered. None of the neighbors who’d rushed to her rescue had happened to be coming or going at a time they might have seen the assailant. No witnesses to a man dressed in black running away had come forward. Tony believed he’d been parked on the cross street. Once he jumped in his car and yanked off the mask—if he’d been wearing one—he could drive away without drawing any attention.
This morning, Tony had dropped her at her father’s house again. When he picked her up, he said, “I talked to Longley’s ex-wife today. She remembered all of you and said to say hi.”
“At first after Mom disappeared, Mrs. Longley did call and even stopped by the house a couple times, but… I don’t know, Emily and I were still kids, and she was still the school counselor.”
Tony smiled. “I think she understood.”
“Did she tell you why she got the divorce?”
“At first she said her husband was a workaholic, which led them to sharing the house but not much else. When I pressed her on the subject of infidelity, she did finally admit she’d suspected him of an affair. In fact, he remarried in a matter of weeks after the divorce.”
“So he could have had other affairs.”
“Yes. On the other hand, he’s still married to that same woman.”
She thought about it. “He could have had an affair with Mom but not been willing to marry her.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Doesn’t sound like he and Teresa had much of a marriage, though. Would he go so far as to kill a woman because she threatened to tell his wife?”
She studied his profile, noticing his hands flexing on the steering wheel. “You sound…disappointed.”
He glanced at her, his smile wry. “I don’t like him.”
Beth had to laugh.
She didn’t feel like laughing, or even smiling, when Saturday morning, after helping her get dressed, Tony asked if she could spend today, too, with her father or brother.
“I need to finish mowing my lawn, and do two of my sisters’. Maybe some things for them, too,” he explained.
Heaven forbid he should have to introduce her to anyone in his family—or let her see his house.
Of course, trailing around after him all day, making conversation with strangers while he worked outside, didn’t actually sound that appealing.
Beth smiled as if she wasn’t bothered at all. “Sure, no problem. Let me give Matt a call first.”
She was feeling better enough that she and her sister-in-law went shopping. Ashley steered Beth into buying a couple of front-closing bras and a few shirts that would be relatively easy for her to put on without help. She bought a new pair of flip-flops, too, and some clips she could use one-handed to get her hair out of her face.