And maybe unearth answers as well.
She took the walkway to the front door and rang the bell. A dark-haired, dimple-cheeked little girl opened the door. Alex recognized her from the picture Max had proudly shown her-the youngest of his three granddaughters.
“Hello,” Alex said. “Is your mommy home?”
The child nodded, stuck her thumb in her mouth and ran off, leaving Alex standing there and the front door wide open.
Uncertain what to do, she poked her head in. “Hello,” she called “Mrs. Wilson, are you home?”
A moment later a woman appeared, daughter in tow. Or rather, it appeared the child had her mother in tow.
Angie Wilson looked like a woman in pain. Grief harshly etched her features, creating a sad clone of the woman Alex had seen in Max’s photograph.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“I’m Alex Clarkson.” She held out the flowers. “I’m so sorry about your dad.”
Angie looked at the basket, then back up at Alex, eyes wet with tears. “Thank you. Come in.”
She took the basket and led Alex inside. The house looked as if a bomb had gone off in it. She supposed in a way, one had.
Angie cleared a space on the couch. Alex sat, then cleared her throat. “Your dad loved you and your girls so much… He told me how God had blessed him.”
Understanding crossed the woman’s face. “You’re from his church.”
When she said she wasn’t, the woman frowned. “Do I know you?”
“No, I… I only met your father once, but he touched me deeply. He was a sweet, sweet man.”
Angie began to cry. The child, who had been at her mother’s feet flipping through a picture book, climbed onto her mother’s lap, expression stricken. “Don’t cry, Mommy. Poppy’s in Heaven.”
“You’re right, sweetie.” She hugged the child. “Could you go get Mommy a tissue?”
The girl scrambled down, then trotted off to do as her mother asked.
Angie looked at Alex. “You’re the one who found him.”
It wasn’t a question; she answered anyway. “Yes.”
“Why were you there?”
“I have a ring… it was my mother’s… he may have designed it.”
She nodded. The girl returned with the tissues. Alex waited as the woman took them, praised the child, then wiped her cheeks and blew her nose.
“Thank you for the flowers. I… If you don’t mind, now’s not a good time.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” She reached across and touched the woman’s hand. “It will get better. Give it time. I understand how your-” Alex drew a deep breath. “My mother died recently. She… took her own life.”
Angie stiffened. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just trying to say, I know how you feel.”
“My dad didn’t kill himself.”
Alex couldn’t hide her shock. “I’m… the police… I-”
“My dad did not commit suicide. He was happy. Content. Even after Mom passed away, he never-”
She stopped and fisted her fingers, as if in frustration. “You saw how frail he was! How do you think he did it?”
Alex blinked. “I don’t know. I just-”
“His hands shook so badly he had trouble picking up his cat. How could he have pulled it off? Set up the stepladder, hung the rope from a beam and tied the slip knot? It’s laughable.”
She hadn’t asked any questions, Alex realized. She had taken the scene at face value. Just as she had her mother’s.
But her mother hadn’t been happy and content. Her mother had attempted suicide before.
Alex cleared her throat. “Had your dad ever attempted this before? Had he ever talked about killing himself?”
She already knew the answer. The man who had trumpeted his blessings to a perfect stranger wouldn’t have hung himself.
Even if he had been physically able to do it. Which was questionable.
As that realization struck, so did another: If Max hadn’t killed himself, then he’d been murdered.
Her hands began to shake; she met Angie’s eyes. “Did you talk to the police? Tell them what you just told me?”
“Of course,” she said bitterly. “They treated me like I was a naive child.”
Alex could see that happening. The cops knew what they knew, and that was it. But in this case, maybe they were wrong?
“You want me to talk to them? I know Detective Reed, maybe if I explain-”
“Why would you do that for me?”
It was a fair question. One she was certain she would have asked if she’d been in Angie Wilson’s shoes.
But she was certain saying she felt somehow responsible wouldn’t go over well. The other reason would.
“I liked your dad. A lot.”
“I already spoke with Detective Reed, he wasn’t too interested in my opinion.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
Alex stood. The woman followed her to her feet. “Thank you.”
She walked her to the door. There, she asked, “Did you ever find out if Dad designed your ring?”
Alex shook her head. “I guess I’ll just have to find out another way.”
“Why does it matter?”
Alex looked away, then back. “She’s gone and I don’t… have anyone else. I hoped that maybe it’d be a clue to her past. That somehow it’d lead me to my father.”
“My dad kept a portfolio of his designs. I’ll look for it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Thursday, March 11
7:40 P.M.
“Hello, Son.”
“Dad.” Reed looked past him, expecting to see his mother or his brothers. His father rarely visited without external prodding of some sort. Make that never. But today the porch behind him was empty.
He returned his gaze to his old man. “This is a surprise.”
“May I come in?”
Reed swung the door wider. “Sure. I was making dinner. Let me go take it off the stove.”
His dad stepped inside. He’d inherited the cottage from his maternal grandmother, a good thing because he’d never have been able to afford it on a cop’s salary. Not that it was large or lavish, but Sonoma County real estate trended toward outrageously pricey.
“You’ve got the place fixed up nice,” his father said, looking around the 1940s Arts and Crafts-style cottage with a scowl.
“A compliment? Wow, I didn’t think I’d live long enough.”
His father didn’t comment. Reed headed to the kitchen, turned off the burner and covered his soup. When he returned to the living room, he found his dad pacing. “Have a seat.”
“No, thanks. What I came to say, I can say standing.” He looked Reed dead in the eye. “I hear you’ve been hounding our friends. Interrupting business, stirring up bad memories.”
Apparently, he’d struck a nerve. Enough of one to send out the infantry, guns blazing. “Hounding, Dad? Funny, I call it doing my job.”
“You know how I feel about your career choice.”
“You’ve never made a secret of it. Though as we both know, how you feel about my job has zero to do with what I need to do.”
“All this over some silly tattoo.”
“That ‘silly tattoo,’ as you call it, is a link between two crimes.”
“I’m going to ask you to drop this.”
“Can’t do it.” Reed held his old man’s gaze. “What’s the significance of the vines and snake?”
“It’s nothing.”
“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t be here. We both know that.”
“I’m here because you’re making our friends uncomfortable.”
“Who called you?” Reed asked. “Treven? Clark? Carter? All the above?”
“I know what you have. This link between crimes, as you call it. Tom’s tattoo and Patsy’s ring.”
“You know about the ring?”
“I do. And I noticed her daughter wearing it.”
He put subtle, caustic emphasis on the word her, making his disdain for Patsy obvious. “What’s the significance, Dad?”
“Not what you think, I’ll tell you that. And certainly not a link to a murder.”
“What do I think?”
“Don’t play games with me, Danny.”