“Excuse me?” The doctor sounded offended. “I won’t have the full report for another day or two, but I can tell you now that the force was such that one of the rings in her trachea was broken. There’s no way she could have garroted herself from behind and then tied on that bag.”
“What about scratch marks on her neck? Or fingernail scrapings?”
“Sorry. Nothing like that. If she fought her attacker, it’s not evident and her wrists don’t seem to have been tied, although there’s some faint bruising on both arms that could indicate she struggled to get out of some sort of soft restraint—maybe a blanket or a sheet?—and there was a fresh bruise on her right knee for whatever that’s worth.”
“What about a TOD?” Dwight asked.
“Find somebody who can say when she ate a spinach salad with hard-boiled eggs,” the doctor said crisply. “She died about two and a half hours after eating it. Lacking that and only judging by the rigor, time of death could be anywhere from mid-afternoon to midnight.”
“Thanks, Doc,” said Bo and leaned over to switch off the speakerphone. “I better go let Doug Woodall know.”
“I’ll call Terry,” said Dwight. “And I’ll get some people to nail down when she ate that salad.”
“Don’t forget you’ve got Creedmore coming in.”
“I haven’t. You want to sit in on it?”
“I might should,” said Bo. “I always feel better myself when I have a witness to any conversations with ol’ Danny.”
Barefooted, Daniel Creedmore probably stood five-seven, the same as Bo Poole. His tooled leather cowboy boots added an extra inch, though, and his waistline looked to be about four inches bigger. On this mild spring day, he wore a black poplin windbreaker and a maroon shirt that was unbuttoned at the top and tucked inside charcoal- gray slacks. Like Bo, he was mid-fifties and had a friendly open face, shrewd blue eyes, and thinning brown hair. Unlike Bo, he was not someone who immediately commanded attention and he did not possess Bo’s innate easygoing nature, despite telling everyone to call him Danny. It was as if his mama had told him he could catch more flies with honey and he had spent his adult life trying to hide the astringent vinegar that lay just beneath a surface of assumed warmth and friendliness.
“Good to see you, Bo,” he said as he entered Bo’s office and took a chair across from him. “Hey, Bryant. How’s it going?”
“Thanks for coming in,” the sheriff said, “and let me offer my condolences on Candace Bradshaw’s death.”
“Thanks,” Creedmore said blandly, pretending to misunderstand. “The county and the party both have suffered a great loss. We were hoping to put her up for a state office this next cycle.”
“Like you did last time?” asked Dwight.
“That’s right,” Bo said, leaning back in his big padded chair. His blue eyes twinkled. “I did hear that Woody Galloway’s throwing his hat in the governor’s ring.”
Woodrow Galloway was a state senator who would have a tough primary fight for the party’s nomination. Unfortunately, his seat in the General Assembly was up for election this time, too. Two years ago, one of the representatives from the county was in the same position. That’s when it was decided to get Candace Bradshaw to file for his seat. After he lost the nomination he had sought, Candace gallantly withdrew her name in his favor, which was how she became chair of the board.
It was an open secret that they hoped to do the same with Galloway’s slot—that Candace would keep his chair warm in case he lost the primary, which most assumed he would.
Creedmore shrugged. “Would’ve been a little harder this time around. Candace didn’t have much name recognition outside the county, but with enough backing, we thought she was up to it.”
“As you say, a real loss,” said Dwight.
“On a personal level as well, right?” Bo added.
Danny Creedmore’s eyes narrowed. “You want to explain that, Sheriff?”
“I think you know where this is headed,” the sheriff said mildly. “Her name’s been linked to yours ever since you and your friends first ran her for the board. It seems to be fairly common knowledge and I suppose we could document times and places if you make us.”
They locked eyes for a long moment, then Creedmore caved with a rueful laugh and a hands-up what-the-hell gesture of locker-room camaraderie. “Shit, Bo, she was a good-looking woman and who doesn’t like a little strange nookie on the side when you’ve been married long as I have?”
Bo gave an encouraging grin and Creedmore obliged with colorful details on just what a hot little number Candy Bradshaw could be. No man ever knows another man completely, thought Dwight, but he’d be willing to bet everything he owned that Bo had never been with another woman while Marnie was alive.
“Why’d she kill herself?” Bo asked as the other man wound down.
“Now that I couldn’t tell you. Surprised the hell out of me. It was like getting a sucker punch in the gut when they told it yesterday. I hear she left a letter? Don’t suppose you can tell me what was in it?”
“Sorry. Any truth to it?”
Creedmore thrust his hands in the pocket of his black jacket and stretched back in his chair with a smile and a shake of his head. “Good try, Bo.”
“When did you last see her?” Dwight asked.
“It’d been at least a week. To be honest with you, it was sorta cooling off between us. Sexually, I mean. I think she was seeing somebody else and—”
“Who?” said Bo.
“Could be almost anybody, I suppose. Thad Hamilton. One of our representatives. Hell, maybe even Woody
