“I understand.” Des was patient with him. The man was blown away. “And what about Donna? Was she seeing someone?”
He looked up at her miserably. “You want to know if she had a boyfriend-the short answer is yes.”
“Who is he, Will?”
“No idea. She never told me. In fact, we never so much as discussed him. But I knew. There were these hang-ups on the phone all the time when I’d answer it. There were the errands she’d run during the afternoon-she’d be gone for an extra hour without any explanation, and be real anxious to take a shower as soon as she got home. I’d notice scratches and bruises on her body that she wasn’t real specific about explaining. She… she acted different, smelled different, was different. I don’t know what else to say, except that when you’ve been married to someone for a while you can just tell.”
“How long had this been going on?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Three, four months.”
“Her not coming home last night,” Des said. “Did it occur to you that-?”
“That she was with him? Sure it did. Except that she never, ever did that to me before. She never just disappeared for a whole night. I mean, she didn’t want me to know about it, okay? Me or anyone else. Dorset’s a small town. Everyone knows you. If you’re sneaking around in this place, you have to be incredibly careful.” Will reached for his half-empty coffee cup. “One other thought did cross my mind,” he admitted, sipping from it. “I thought maybe… that she’d run off with him. Left me for good. Our bank has one of those automated eight-hundred numbers you can call day or night to find out your current balance. I called it to see if she’d withdrawn anything from our joint checking account.”
“Had she?”
“No.”
“You say you kept a joint checking account. Who paid the monthly bills?”
“Me, usually.”
“So you would typically see her credit card statements?”
“I guess,” he replied, frowning. “Why?”
“Will, Donna paid for the bungalow at the Yankee Doodle with her Visa card. Is this something that would have caught your eye when you sat down to pay the bills?”
“Most likely. I mean, yeah. Definitely.”
“What would you have thought when you saw it?”
“Well, I know what sort of a reputation the place has, if that’s what you’re asking me.”
“Maybe she was planning to intercept next month’s statement and pay it herself. Does that seem reasonable?”
“Des, why does any of this matter?”
“Because her behavior last night wasn’t typical, that’s why. Like you said, she’d been so careful to hide this affair from you, and yetshe showed up at the Yankee Doodle at ten o’clock. She had to know she’d get home late enough to set off alarm bells with you. Now, why did she do that? And why didn’t she pay cash?”
“Maybe she was out of cash,” he replied helplessly. “Maybe she was feeling horny and reckless. Who knows, she may have been drunk as a skunk.”
“Did she have a problem with alcohol?”
“No! I’m just trying to…” Will broke off into heavy silence. “I honestly don’t know what she was doing there at that hour, okay?”
“Okay, Will,” Des said gently.
She heard the rumble of an engine outside now and went to the window. Mitch’s old plum-colored pickup truck was bouncing its way up the dirt drive. She went out onto the sagging porch to greet him, her gallant, uncombed love, her pudgy white knight in his frayed oxford button-down and shlumpy khaki shorts.
“How is he?” he asked, giving her a quick bear hug.
“Not so good.”
“God, I am hating this,” he murmured glumly. Then he took a deep breath and went charging in the front door with a smile forced onto his face, Des on his heel. “Whoa, it’s like a meat locker in here, Will,” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. “Your place is just as bad as mine. Zero insulation, am I right?”
Will scarcely seemed to notice Mitch. Just sat slumped there on the loveseat, lost in his grief.
Mitch clomped over to the stove to warm his hands, glancing at his friend uncertainly. “I’m really sorry about Donna.”
The mention of her name seemed to rouse Will. “Thanks, man,” he said hoarsely. “How… was the beach this morning?”
“I didn’t walk,” Mitch replied.
“Yeah, me neither.” Will ran a hand over his face, his eyes filling with tears. “I don’t think I’m going to make it, Mitch. I really don’t.”
Mitch came over and put his hand on Will’s shoulder. “That’s exactly how I felt when I lost Maisie. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, Will, but you’re going to make it. It’ll get a little better every day, I promise you.”
“I can’t even see tomorrow,” Will confessed. “All I can see is that I’m all alone. Donna was my everything… my best friend. My soul mate. My partner.”
Mitch drew back from him, startled.
Des couldn’t imagine why. Perhaps he had once said those very words himself about Maisie. “I’ll be heading out now, Will,” she spoke up.
Will nodded absently, saying nothing to her.
She motioned for Mitch to join her out on the porch.
He did, closing the door softly behind him. “Whew, this is not going to be a lot of fun.”
“Not even close,” she said, putting her big hat back squarely on her head. “Just wanted to let you know I’m heading up to Boston now.”
“You going to talk to Abby?”
“Yeah.”
“Give her my regards. And, hey, if you go through Cambridge on your way back, stop at East Coast Grill and pick up a large quantity of their eastern North Carolina shredded pork, okay? We can have it for dinner when you get home. Trust me, it’s outstanding.”
She cocked her head at him curiously. “Man, how can you think about barbecue at a time like this?”
“I’m not like you. Food is all I think about when I’m upset, remember?”
“That’s not something I forget, believe me.”
“East Coast Grill,” he repeated. “It’s on Cambridge Street, just off of Prospect. Anyone will be able to give you directions. And, please, whatever you do, don’t take that damned Ninety-five the whole way up. Get off at exit seventy-four, take Three-ninety-five through Norwich and then change to the-”
“Mitch, I know how to get to Boston from here.”
“Promise me you won’t take Ninety-five,” he said urgently.
“Why is my route so damned important?”
“Because there’s a fatality on that highway at least three times a week and I love you and I don’t want to lose you.”
She utterly melted. Never had a man made her go gooey the way this one did. She leaned over and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Okay, I promise.”
“I don’t get it, Des,” he said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Why would someone want to kill Donna? What the hell’s going on here?”
“Boyfriend,” she sighed, “I wish I knew.”
As Des steered her cruiser back down Route 156 she gave Yolie a heads-up on her cell phone about Donna’s so-called catering gig and her black leather date book. Des also fed her the name of the Durslags’ late-shift man, Rich Graybill. Yolie agreed that he was definitely someone worth talking to. She said she’d also hook up with his girlfriend, Kimberly Fiore, to see if Kimberly backed up what time Rich got home.
Before Des got onto the highway for Boston she pulled in at the Acar’s minimart and got out to fill up her gas tank.
