“Is that the message you played for Emma at the police station?” Nancy asked. “I heard her tell the chief about it. I got the feeling she was going to bring Marjorie in, but I wonder if the storm has shifted their priorities.”
“It would have to,” Charlie said. “They can’t chase down a murderer when half the town is out of power and buried under snow.”
They were all silent for a moment or two. The house, still without power, creaked and groaned under the onslaught of wind and ice. Even huddled together in the cozy living room, it was impossible not to feel vulnerable.
Heathcliff rose to his feet and did a quick survey of the doors and windows. To Lindsey, it looked as if he were checking the perimeter. He was just a puppy, but she found it incredibly comforting to have him finish his circuit and sit back down at her feet as if assured that all was well.
“If your neighbors didn’t hear a shot, and assuming it wasn’t an accident, then that means it was someone who knows how to use a gun,” Lindsey said. “Does Marjorie have a history with firearms?”
Carrie, Nancy and Charlie all looked at one another. Charlie was the first to raise his hands in defeat.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean everyone knows her elevator doesn’t reach the top floor, but it’s not like she’s Dale Wilcox.”
“True,” Nancy said. “Now there’s one you don’t turn your back on.”
“Who’s Dale Wilcox?” Lindsey asked.
“He’s a local fisherman,” Charlie said. “You see him down at the pier a lot. He runs a charter operation, but he’s as mean as a hornet, and when he’s drunk, he’s mean and crazy. He did time for assault and battery a few years back, and if I remember right, he had a weapon on him at the time of his arrest.”
Carrie fretted her lip. “It wasn’t Dale. I know he has a bad reputation, but he wasn’t always like that. I don’t believe he’d harm anyone.”
“He went to jail for assault!” Charlie argued. “Rumor has it he was going to shoot that guy.”
“As you say, rumors not facts,” Carrie said.
“Wait a minute,” Nancy said. “I just remembered! I was at the grocery store, and I saw Dale and Markus get into a road-rage incident a few weeks ago. Dale thought Markus had cut him off to steal his parking spot, and when he yelled at Markus about it, Markus threatened to call the police. Dale got so mad at that he threatened to back over him.”
“Did Markus call the police?” Lindsey asked. This would be excellent, as it would give the police yet another lead.
“No, Milton Duffy happened by and tried to talk them both into doing some sort of yoga thing together,” Nancy said. “Markus refused because of his back, and Dale just stalked off toward the package store.”
“I never heard about this,” Carrie said, and she began to fret her lower lip with her teeth. “I wonder why no one told me.”
“Probably, so you wouldn’t worry,” Charlie said. “Dale drunk is flat-out scary. Sully won’t even let him on the pier if he smells booze on him.”
An icicle snapped off the side of the house and fell with a thump. They all jumped. Lindsey’s back was hot now, so she scooted off the hearth and sat on the floor beside Heathcliff, who obligingly rolled onto his back to have his belly rubbed.
“Well, this does give us a new direction to look in,” Lindsey said. “Was there anyone else Markus had an altercation with recently?”
“Define altercation,” Carrie said. “He had a row with our handyman, Clyde Perkins, over the tile we hired him to put in our bathroom. Markus refused to pay him when he was done because he said he didn’t like the way the tiles felt under his feet. He thought they were too spongy.”
Nancy shook her head and Charlie blew a breath out between his lips.
“What happened?” Lindsey asked.
“I had to pay Clyde on the sly,” Carrie said. “But, oh, he was so mad at Markus. Apparently, Markus said he did shoddy work and he was going to report him to the Better Business Bureau.”
“Then what happened?”
“I believe Clyde threatened to use his tile cutter on him.”
Nancy clucked. “Clyde is one of the best handymen in town.”
“I know,” Carrie said. “Markus also got into a tiff with Della Navarro, his physical therapist. He said she was nothing more than a gym teacher and should have her therapist license revoked. He was going to file a complaint against her.”
“Della is a big girl,” Charlie said. “I don’t think I’d sass her.”
“Didn’t she rehab Cooper Highsmith after his car accident?” Nancy asked.
“Yes,” Carrie said. “She got him walking again when they said he never would.”
“Wow, I’m surprised she didn’t snap your husband like a twig,” Charlie said.
Carrie sighed. “My husband was not an easy person.”
Nancy and Lindsey glanced swiftly at one another and then away. Not fast enough, however.
“What was that look for?” Carrie asked.
“What look?” Nancy asked.
Lindsey gave her props for sounding so innocent, but she knew they were busted.
“That look that says you think I’m mental,” Carrie said.
“No, that’s not it,” Charlie said. He moved his leg right before the toe of Nancy’s sneaker would have connected with his shin in an attempt to shut him up.
“Oh?” Carrie looked at him. “What is it, then?”
“It’s just that no one in town has ever been able to figure out how such a nice lady like you ended up with such an old, well, stinker,” Charlie said.
“Charlie!” Nancy reprimanded him, but Carrie held up her hand to indicate that it was okay.
“He wasn’t always like that,” she said.
Nancy looked at her with one eyebrow raised in disbelief.
“Oh, all right, he was always like that,” Carrie said with a sigh. “He really thought the world owed him.”
“You think?” Nancy asked. “I mean, I didn’t know him well, but even I knew that he spent his days cooking up one crazy, get-rich-quick scheme after another.”
“Yeah,” Charlie snorted. “He wanted Sully to buy some boat parts from him. He’d gotten them from some guy at the dump and they were crap.”
Carrie nodded, looking pained. “I remember that.”
“He was so mad when Sully said, no, thank you.” Charlie shook his head. “He really thought he was going to make a fortune.”
“Oh, and remember when he wanted the Blue Anchor to carry his signature cookies?” Nancy asked. “Turns out he was buying the nearly expired throw-out cookies from the bakery and palming them off as his own.”
Nancy tsked. Lindsey could tell that this left Nancy with a particularly bad taste in her mouth, not surprising since she was known for baking the best cookies in town.
“He said he always figured he’d be rich and living in a mansion like the Sint estate by the water on the bay,” Carrie said. “But he never wanted to work for it.”
“So, why did you stay with him?” Lindsey asked. She couldn’t imagine what Carrie had seen in such a lazy scam artist.
“I just, well, I made a vow. And when you make a vow, you have to stick to it.”
“Oh.” Charlie nodded. “So, when you made your wedding vows before God, you took them to heart. I get it. That’s really admirable.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Carrie said.
They all looked at her. A wry smile parted her lips.
“I know God would have forgiven me for leaving Markus. He was a miserable person and tended to bring everyone around him right down into the muck with him. Truly, he is…was a complete downer.”
“Then why did you stay?” Lindsey asked.
“His mother, on her deathbed, she made me swear I’d never leave him,” Carrie said. “She was dying. I couldn’t refuse.”
“So you kept your vow to a dying woman,” Charlie said as if it all made sense now. “Wow, that’s
