ahead of you.”
“I see. So how often do memberships open up?”
Both men shrugged and Robert said, “I gotta be honest with you, Trevor. That don’t happen very often. Last one was more’n a year ago, back when—when was it Jap Stancil died, Haywood?”
“Been at least two years ago, ain’t it?”
“Tell you what,” Witkowski said as he pulled out a wallet thick with credit cards and greenbacks. “How about I make it worth your while to jump me up to the front of your waiting list?”
Sitting high above him on the tractor, Haywood could see into the small man’s wallet without really trying and he looked with interest at the hundred-dollar bills Witkowski was fingering.
“Well now, we couldn’t put you at the
very
front,” he said, but before he could decide how much it was safe to ask the man for, his brother stiffened and shook his head.
“Sorry, Trevor,” Robert said. He glared at Haywood, who gave a sheepish grin. “Our club president knows every name on that list and he’d have our hides if we took money to jump up a stranger.”
“Tell you what though,” Haywood said to Witkowski. “They’s a hunt club over in Johnston County that might have room for you.”
“But—”
“We’d like to stay and talk, but we got right much plowing to do today,” Robert said firmly.
Haywood pulled his hat back down to shade his eyes and gave the stranger a cheerful wave. “Been real nice talking to you,” he said and turned the key in the tractor’s ignition.
At the house where Candace Bradshaw died, Deputy Detectives Mayleen Richards and Sam Dalton walked through the public rooms, giving them only cursory glances. Everything was coordinated around a color scheme of dark rose and white, with touches of green. Natural light flooded through the many windows and skylights, and the place looked like an illustration out of a magazine, not a home where real people lived and relaxed and littered every surface with newspapers and dirty dishes. Even the kitchen was immaculate.
“She must have dumped her old furniture,” Dalton said. “All of this looks brand-new.”
He was very much aware that his promotion to detective was provisional and he tried not to sound too much of an eager beaver newbie.
Richards nodded. Sam Dalton was about five years younger than the deputy she had partnered most often before he signed up with a civilian company to work in Iraq—and every time a car bomb exploded in Baghdad, she worried until Jack Jamison’s wife dropped a casual mention of something he’d e-mailed her about. But Dalton had the same chunky build and the same willingness to carry his share of the load. Much as she missed Jamison, she had to admit that Dalton was shaping into a competent detective who could be trusted to do a thorough search.
At the master bedroom where the body had been found, she said, “You take this room. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find a diary full of names.”
He gave a lopsided grin. “You think?”
“Nope. But at least it cuts down on what we have to go through. Anything she kept must have significance to her, so keep an eye out for any personal papers.”
At the other end of the house were two more bedrooms, one of which finally had a lived-in look. From the clothes strewn across the unmade bed and on the floor, this had to be the daughter’s. A sloppy daughter’s, thought Richards. Her own mother would never have let her leave her room like this.
Immediately, her mind shied away from thoughts of her mother. Things were so strained between them these days that they had not spoken in weeks. Her family could not accept that she loved a Latino and had given her a him-or-us ultimatum. Mike Diaz kept reassuring her that all would be fine once they were actually married and the babies started coming. “If the president of the USA can accept some ‘little brown ones’ in his family, your family will, too,
mi querida
. You’ll see.”
Reminding herself that Major Bryant
Shawn Grady
Roberta Kray
Ginny Dye
Alissa Johnson
Forever Yours-1
Sandra Dallas
Hayes Farley
Paula Harrison
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