“Comes on at four,” Whitley said.
“I wanted to ask him if he saw a Palm Pilot lying around at the scene Friday night.”
“You missing one?”
“Not me. We can’t find Tracy Johnson’s.”
“You know for a fact she had one?”
“That’s what they tell us in Woodall’s office. We haven’t found it yet. Sure will help if she interfaced it with her office computer.” She glanced across the room to the heavier of the uniforms. “Hey, Greene? Weren’t you one of the ROs Friday night?”
Tub Greene looked up from his paperwork. “Got there right behind Castleman.”
“You happen to see her Palm Pilot?”
“Sorry. A bunch of people were milling around, though. We took their names. Y’all contacted all of them yet?”
“Not yet.”
Whitley leaned back in his chair and Richards noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the thick textbook on his desk. Between shift work and college, he was probably carrying a killer schedule.
“What about her house?” he asked. “You check it out to see if she had a computer there?”
“Yeah, but somebody beat us to it. Pulled all the memory.”
“The hell you say!” he said, sitting upright. “When?”
Richards shrugged. “Probably sometime between when she left on Friday morning and when we got there yesterday morning.”
“Denning check it out?” he asked, referring to their crime scene specialist.
She shook her head and described the ease with which the break-in had occurred. “Didn’t seem worth calling him for a full workup.”
Don Whitley jerked his head toward Major Bryant’s office further along the hall. “He know about her computer yet?”
Before she could answer, she heard voices and turned to see Bryant and Jamison. Bryant gestured for her to join them and held the door of his office till she was inside, then took his chair behind the wide desk.
“So what do y’all have?” he asked.
Richards started to speak, but Jamison interrupted her.
“I just got back from Chapel Hill,” he said, his voice urgent with excitement. “The autopsy. She was pregnant, Major. The ME estimates about six weeks.”
CHAPTER 8
Florence Hartley,
I walked out to the car with Cyl a few minutes before eleven. We both hated to say good-bye, but duty’s always out there, isn’t it? Standing with its hands on its hips, yelling at us to get over here right this minute and tend to business? Cyl was due at her grandmother’s church. I was due at Aunt Zell’s. All the same, we lingered for a long moment in the mild December sunshine with clasped hands.
“Next time I see you, you’ll be a married lady,” Cyl said.
“And you won’t be far behind me. Knock ’em dead in Wisconsin, okay?”
“I’ll try. And you be happy, you hear?”
“I hear.”
We hugged again, then she looked at her watch, yelped like the White Rabbit, and was gone.
I walked back into the house, loaded the dishwasher, wiped down the stove and countertops, then went into the bedroom to change into Sundayish clothes—pantyhose, heels, and something with a skirt—which would imply that I’d attended church even if I hadn’t. Not that Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash would care, nor Brix Junior either for that matter. But Jane was a separate case. Even though she’s not particularly religious, Reid’s mother always does the correct thing, and unless one is sick enough for a doctor, that means church on Sunday. I’m cowardly enough not to risk her raised eyebrow by arriving at Aunt Zell’s looking as if I’d obviously skipped.
Instead, I struggled into opaque black tights, a black turtleneck jersey dress with a short skirt that showed off my legs, two-inch heels (ditto), and a red cardigan banded in narrow black velvet. Gold earrings and a thin gold chain. All I needed was a halo of tinsel to look like an ornament on a Sunday School Christmas tree.
By now it was well past twelve and I was running on automatic. I pulled out clothes to wear to court next day and wondered if I would need to get gas before driving back to Makely. My overnight case was nearly packed before I remembered that it was dinner at Jerry’s again, which meant we’d be sleeping here tonight. Hard to keep it all straight.
Only a few days ago, Dwight had said, “You know what’s gonna happen before it’s all over, don’t you? You’re gonna be in my apartment, wondering where the hell I am, and I’m gonna be out here thinking the same thing.”
Ten more days, I told myself, as I returned my toiletries to the bathroom cabinet and my lingerie to the dresser drawer.
