"Glass will pop out in the first big storm. Pop out like what happened to the John Hancock Building in Boston."
"Fred, we haven't even broken ground, why don't you plague someone else? You can't find fault with dirt." Matthew winked at Tazio.
"Yeah, leave my mother alone." Brinkley seconded the motion.
"I can declare the foundation inadequate. Shifting substrata."
"Go ahead. I've got a geologist and an engineer to prove you wrong. Go ahead, Fred, get on the wrong side of UVA. You aren't going to find one thing amiss, you're going to delay construction, cost the university money and, buddy, I wouldn't give a nickel for your social life in this town."
"Scares me." He feigned fear then said with malice, "I know how to cover my ass."
"Is that why Mychelle is dead?" Matthew verbally slipped the knife right between his ribs.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean!" The cords stood out on Fred's thin neck.
"That you were banging her, buddy, and it got too hot. You just did her in."
Face contorted with rage, he spat, "You son of a bitch. Liar."
"You were in love with her. I've got eyes." Matthew had the whip hand now.
Tazio and Brinkley watched with lurid fascination. Stuart, Travis, and the other men stopped what they were doing to watch and listen, too, since Fred hit the screaming register.
"Never! Never. I ought to kill you. I ought to tear your tongue outta your head."
"You're awfully emotional for a man who wasn't in love with a woman. Awfully emotional for someone who says he's innocent." Matthew was unfair, but then Fred had been unfair to him.
Fred placed his feet apart, doubled his fists. "Loved that girl like she was a daughter. You'll turn anything slimy, Matthew. Way your mind works."
"Well, I ask myself, why would someone like Mychelle get killed? Sure can't be anything to do with her job. She was an irritant but not a major problem, and there's nothing she can offer any of us, good or bad, to get herself killed. That leaves a few little things, drugs or some kind of sordid affair. I pick the sordid affair and you are the most likely candidate, although why she'd bother with you is beyond me. Then again, I don't claim to understand women."
"Sick. You're sick."
Tazio quietly said, "Fred, you must have an idea who killed her."
The normal color returned to his face. "No. I don't have any ideas. Sick. Makes me sick. You make me sick." He turned his eyes again to Matthew.
"Sex or drugs," Matthew simply said, his voice almost victorious in tone.
"She didn't do drugs. I'd have known. Can't hide that."
"You can for a while, but I agree, Fred, sooner or later it comes out just like alcoholism leaks out."
Tazio noticed the surveyor's tape flutter as a little wind kicked up.
"She was a good girl!" Fred's eyes looked haunted.
"That leaves sex." Matthew shrugged. "Hey, she wasn't my favorite and neither are you, Fred, but I do hope Sheriff Shaw finds her killer. I'm just glad it wasn't you-if you're telling the truth."
"Never forgive you for this," Fred vowed.
"Do I care? You're as likely a candidate as anyone else. You were around her all the time. You're married. She's not. Younger. You're older. Hey, it's not such a far putt."
"I don't cheat on my wife," Fred, angry still but in control, answered. "You do. Matthew, you're a lying sack of shit. Always was. Always will be." He pointed his finger at Tazio. "He'll be on you like a duck on the fly."
"I resent that." Matthew took a step toward the slighter man.
"Maybe you were the one? Huh?" Fred stuck Matthew right back.
"Not my type."
Fred paused a moment. "That's true. For once you told the truth."
"But I'll tell you who was sleeping with Mychelle. H.H.," Matthew said.
"Know that for a fact?" Fred didn't want to believe that since he hadn't liked H.H., either.
"Two and two make four."
"Prove it," Fred immediately responded.
"She could meet him at his construction sites. Nothing untoward about that. Right? She maybe got inconvenient. He dumps her. She kills him. Anne kills her or maybe Anne killed them both. Justice is served."
"You are so full of it." Fred laughed loudly.
"Okay. Your version then."
"I don't have a version. I don't know." Fred looked at Tazio. "Maybe she told you something. Women talk."
"No, Fred, we don't all talk. I knew her from the job and that was it."
"Yeah," Brinkley supported Tazio. He would have agreed with her no matter what.
Fred waited a few moments. "Matthew, you shut your filthy mouth. Remember that."
As he strode away Matthew chuckled to Tazio, "Buffoon."
28
The pale sunlight illuminated the thin, low clouds, lining the bottoms with gold. Thicker clouds hovered on the horizon, their majestic curling tops hinting at another change in the weather.
Cooper questioned Sharon Cortez at Dr. Shulman's office, but sensitive to the social currents of country life, the two women went back to the operating room. The stainless steel table, the sink, everything shone. The operating table was the color of the low afternoon clouds.
Dr. Shulman's wife, Barbara, took over the reception duties while Sharon was in the back. Apart from a squad car being parked out front, no one need know what was going on and Barbara was quick to point out that Deputy Cooper was a great friend to animals.
The light, changing fast, threw shadows onto the floor.
"Now, Sharon, I have to ask these questions. Everything you tell me I'll tell Rick, as you know, but that's as far as it goes."
"What if there's a trial?" Sharon was no fool.
"I'll give you a heads up. Your question tells me you know why I'm here."
"Good police work." Sharon ruefully smiled.
"Some. Want to tell me about your relationship with H.H.?"
Sharon ran her finger along the rounded lip of the operating table. "Started a year and a half ago. Ended at Easter."
"Were you in love with him?"
"Oh." She hesitated, glanced out the window, then said, "I was. I hate to admit it, but I was."
"He must have been special."
"I guess that was it, Coop, he made me feel special. He didn't mind spending money on a girl, you know what I mean? He'd never see me without bringing flowers or earrings, something. He bought me a gorgeous leather coat, three-quarter length so you know that wasn't cheap, and anything I wanted done around my little house, he did it. Of course, he could fix anything. His business, I guess." She shrugged.
"Were you angry when you broke up?"
"Yes. He broke it off. Said his marriage couldn't take the strain and he loved his daughter."
"You were never tempted to wreck it for him? To call Anne? To take your revenge?"
"Sure. All that ran through my mind. Couldn't do it." Sharon curled her fingers inward, then relaxed them. "It wasn't that I didn't want to hurt him, I did. But you know, I couldn't do that to his kid."
"That speaks well of you."
"Thanks, but if I'd had a grain of sense I'd never have gotten involved with a married man. It's a sucker play."
"I'm not sure that sex and love are amenable to logic." Cooper smiled.
"I think they are. I think it's like alcohol if you're an alcoholic. No one puts a gun to your head and says, 'Take that drink.' Same with attraction. You don't have to give in to it." Sharon put her hands in her pockets. "That's what I think. I was stupid. And you know why I was stupid? Not just because he was married but because I knew he played around."
"Did you know any of the other women?"
"Not well. But, sure. And I suppose you've questioned them, too."
"Yes."
"Any of them look like killers to you?" Sharon sarcastically said.
"Looks are deceiving."
"Ain't that the truth." Sharon looked outside the window again. "Front coming in. See it?"
Cooper walked to the window. "Bet the warm weather will march right out with it, too. Jeez, it's been a hell of a winter and there's three months to go."