Body Of Truth by Deirdre Savoy

hadn’t returned the favor. Now, he wished he felt something more than a vague disappointment, but any stronger emotion eluded him.
    As they emerged on the New Jersey side of the tunnel, he pushed thoughts of April from his mind. He had more important concerns than his love life, chief among them watching the road. Hoboken’s one square mile boasted a number of stoplights, but no stop signs. Drivers sped through intersections as if getting there first was some sort of prize.
    Beside him, Mari crooned, “My kind of town, Hoboken is,” parodying one of Sinatra’s songs.
    The woman would never make it as a singer, but at least she didn’t seem to be upset with him anymore.
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    Sheffield was bent over a patch of flowers when they pulled up in front of his house. As they approached, he turned to squint at them over the rims of his glasses.
    â€œBarry Sheffield?” Jonathan asked.
    Sheffield rose to his feet. Six feet tall and almost bald except for a rim of salt-and-pepper hair that ran between his ears, Sheffield wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt that stretched over a broad chest and strained even further over a protruding belly, but his arms were still muscular from a lifetime of physical labor. It was only nine o’clock in the morning, but perspiration stains darkened the fabric beneath his armpits and at the center of his chest.
    Sheffield gave each of them a once over, then wiped his arm across his damp forehead. “I figured you people would show up sooner or later.”
    â€œWhy is that, Mr. Sheffield?”
    He cast them a look as if they had the intelligence of newborn ants. “Because of the letters I wrote her.”
    He cast a look at Mari. At least they were all on the same page. “Is there somewhere that we can talk?”
    With a flick of his arm, Sheffield gestured toward the house. “We can go inside if you want, but don’t expect no air conditioning.” He led the way up the white stone path.
    Inside the house looked like something out of an old-time Sears Roebuck catalog—old home furniture and lots of it—and all of it neat as a pin.
    Sheffield settled on the sofa. Jonathan sat in the wing chair facing him, while Mari prowled around, looking at the furnishings. A photograph of Old Blue Eyes in his heyday hung on the wall above Sheffield’s head. It was the only picture in the room.
    â€œWhy did you write those letters, Mr. Sheffield?”
    â€œWhy shouldn’t I have written them? She was a vulture that one, but she didn’t even wait until the bones were clean to pick them. She got rich, made herself famous, trashing the lives of people she didn’t deserve to be on the same planet with.”
    Jonathan nodded toward the portrait. “Like Sinatra.”
    Sheffield’s fair complexion became mottled with red around his eyes and throat. “Damn right. The man was a musical genius, a philanthropist. He was a good man who didn’t deserve what she or that other one did to him. He was practically on his death bed when she wrote that.” Sheffield’s voice rose in volume and pitch. He brought his fist down on the arm of the sofa. “Who did she ever help but herself? What did she ever do but try to ruin other people’s lives?”
    â€œSo someone needed to end hers?”
    Sheffield lowered his gaze, and the emotion seemed to drain out of him, as well as the color. “Someone, yes, but not me.”
    â€œWhere were you last Friday morning?”
    â€œWhere I always am. My wife, she’s at her sister’s now, she gets dialysis three times a week. You can check with the hospital.”
    â€œWe will.” Jonathan took down information on where he could reach Sheffield’s wife and her doctor. It didn’t take them long to reach either of them and confirm Sheffield’s story. Both he and his wife were at the hospital from six o’clock that morning.
    As they walked to the car