“Are you all moved into the house?” she asked him. Her phone dinged yet again, but like before, Carmen ignored it.
“More or less.” It was more on the less side of things, but he didn’t want her offering to help him unpack. That was because he wasn’t sure he’d do that just yet. He was renting the guesthouse on Matt’s ranch, and Gabriel didn’t know how long he’d be there.
“And the job?” Carmen went on. “Is that more or less, too, as far as you being settled into it?”
“More,” he admitted. He was still a cop, which meant he was doing the only job he’d ever wanted to do. After he’d gotten injured, he’d thought that carrying another badge would never be an option. But Matt had given him that option, and Gabriel had snapped it up.
“Well, that’s good,” Carmen concluded, and when she shifted to Rosalie, Gabriel thought Carmen might be ready to launch into some chitchat. He was going to have to nip that in the bud.
He took out his phone to show Carmen the photo he’d transferred from Derwin’s phone to his. “This was in Hamish’s grave,” he explained in case Derwin or one of her callers hadn’t spelled it out. “No coffin, just this.”
Carmen plucked her reading glasses from their perch on her head, and she read the inscription aloud. “‘Ha Ha, Carmen. I got the last laugh.’”
Gabriel figured that would cause her to sigh, maybe even get mad. Or hurt. But her reaction surprised him. She smiled. “So, that’s where this ended up. I always wondered.”
Rosalie exchanged a puzzled glance with Gabriel, but he sure as heck couldn’t provide her with any answers.
“You knew about the silver box?” Gabriel pressed.
His great-aunt didn’t hesitate with her confirming nod. “It was a gift from my cousin, one of the few members of my family who didn’t boycott the wedding. It’s an antique, meant to hold trinkets.”
“How’d it end up in the grave?” he asked when Carmen fell silent.
She shrugged and handed Gabriel back his phone. “I’m guessing Hamish put it there when he faked his death and burial. I noticed it was missing shortly after the funeral.”
Rosalie made a soft sound, no doubt one of surprise. Gabriel was right there on the same page with her. “Hamish isn’t dead?” he managed to say.
Another shrug from Carmen. “Maybe. I don’t know for sure one way or the other. But he wasn’t dead when this box went in his grave.”
Gabriel didn’t come out and insist that his great-aunt add a thorough explanation to that statement. He just waited until she’d had a long sip of her beer. Then she motioned for them to move to the small, shaded seating area at the end of the porch. Since it was hot and this conversation might take a while,Gabriel didn’t object. However, he did object—silently, anyway—to how the seating arrangements had worked out.
Carmen took the only chair, leaving the swing seat for Rosalie and him. The very small swing seat that put them shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. That position seemed to please Carmen because she smiled and then appeared to rethink her expression when Gabriel scowled.
“About a year after Hamishdied,” Carmen said, putting the last word in air quotes, “I found a receipt from a jewelry store in San Antonio. I was confused because as you well know Hamish wasn’t the jewelry-buying type. So, I called the store and told the clerk who answered that I was Hamish’s widow and asked about the purchase. Well, it turned out not to be an actual purchase but the receipt for engraving services. The store still had the records, so the clerk read off the inscription.”
“You must have been shocked,” Rosalie said when Carmen fell silent.
“Oh, I was. But then I got to thinking as to what could have happened, and I recalled Hamish’s old drinking buddy, Elroy Merkins. He’s a mortician in San Antonio,” Carmen added, giving him a flat, knowing look.
Gabriel immediately connected the dots. Hamish had died of a heart attack in San Antonio while visiting Elroy. Or rather, he’d seemingly died of a heart attack. Elroy had been the one to call Carmen and deliver the news. Elroy had also been the one to handle all the funeral and burial arrangements.
Well, hell.
Gabriel could see how all of this had played out. Two drinking buddies, one of them a miserable codger who had apparently wanted to get the last ha-ha laugh on his wife by faking his death, and then...what?
Going on to lead another life?
If so, Gabriel wished he could throttle the jerk for making everyone, especially his wife, believe he was dead. It didn’t matter that Carmen was seemingly better off without him. Nope. Didn’t matter. If Hamish had wanted to end his marriage and leave, then he should have done it the old-fashioned way, by telling her the truth and asking for a divorce.
“Did Elroy falsify the death certificate?” Gabriel snapped, ready to go arrest the fellow jerk. Then he remembered the guy would be in his late eighties or maybe not even alive.
Carmen shook her head. “There wasn’t a death certificate. Elroy told me he’d take care of it, and since there wasn’t any life insurance and the Silver Springs Ranch was all in my name, I forgot about it. By then, Hamish and I had been living very separate lives. He had his bank account, and I had mine.”
“Did you ever contact Elroy and ask him what’d happened?” Gabriel pressed. He leaned forward. Not the best idea he’d ever had because his arm brushed across Rosalie’s left breast. He pretended not to notice.
“No,” Carmen said in the same tone she might use if she’d decided not to purchase a particular brand of beer. “I mean, what would be the point? Hamish clearly didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to be with me,” she added, and he heard the change in her tone. The slight hitch in her breath.
“I’m sorry,” Rosalie and he said at the same time. Also at the same time, they reached to pat Carmen’s hand and did a whole lot more inadvertent touching. Rosalie’s thigh rubbed against his. Her elbow caught his chest. Their legs touched.