fists. “You may think you’re in control because you’re on that side of this wall,” he seethes, “but my reach is far greater than you’ll ever know. You better watch your back.”
Though I’m trying to maintain a calm, unaffected front, Dilles’s threat frightens me. My hands start to tremble and I shove them down between my thighs to hide them. Like prey to a predator, I know that showing any sign of weakness to Dilles will only make him strengthen his attack.
“Why do you harbor so much venom toward Detective Hurley?” I ask Dilles. “I heard it was another cop who put you behind bars.”
“Only because Hurley fabricated evidence against me,” Dilles shoots back. “The other cops were just too stupid to see that.”
“Are you saying you didn’t kill your wife?” I ask him.
He smiles at me in a way that makes me want to get up and run. “I’m not sad the stupid bitch is dead,” he says, avoiding a direct answer. “She was a smart-assed know-it-all, kind of like you.” His gaze takes on an intensity that makes it easy for me to imagine him wishing me as dead as his wife.
“That’s enough,” Hurley says. “Come on.” He grabs my arm and pulls me up out of my chair. “We’re out of here.”
The sound of Dilles’s maniacal cackle behind us sends chills down my spine. As we head back to Corning’s office, I can’t resist the urge to keep looking over my shoulder, fearful the man has somehow breached the walls between us.
When we arrive in Corning’s office the man’s expression is grim. “I have a feeling you aren’t going to like what I have to tell you, Steve,” he says, handing him a fax. “From what the guys up in Cook County Jail told me, Dilles has been disowned by his family. It looks like the only visitor he had there was his lawyer, same as here.”
Hurley takes the fax and scans it, sighing heavily when he’s done.
“Sorry,” Corning says. “How did the visit with Dilles go?”
“About how I expected,” Hurley says. “It looks like this lead is a dead end but thanks for your help.”
“No problem,” Corning says. And then much to my relief, he escorts us out of the building.
Chapter 21
“I’m sorry that didn’t pan out,” I tell Hurley when we’re back in the car and leaving the prison grounds.
He shrugs. “I’m sorry I put you through it. Dilles is a total scumbag.”
“I keep thinking back to this Ackerman guy. There was something about him that struck me as slimy.”
“Slimy? You were practically drooling over him.”
“He
“I don’t think this lover’s revenge theory of yours makes sense.” Hurley’s tone borders on the irritable but since I’m pretty sure it isn’t directed at me, I let it slide.
“You’re right. It is kind of flimsy,” I admit. “So try this one on for size. What if he’s the father of Callie’s child? And what if she was asking him for more than he was willing to give? It sounds like his money is all from his wife so a divorce based on his infidelities would likely result in him getting cut off from the purse strings. That gives him motive to kill Callie.”
“Maybe,” Hurley says with a shrug. “But we never actually met or spent any time together. What I know of the man I know from hearing and reading about him in the news.”
“He works with a bunch of investigative reporters so it wouldn’t be that hard for him to research you. And you’re the perfect patsy when it comes to Callie’s murder since you’re the ex-boyfriend. By framing you for her murder as well as Minniver’s, it deflects suspicion away from both Ackerman and his motive.”
“I don’t know. It seems kind of far-fetched,” Hurley says thoughtfully. “And how the hell could we prove it even if it was true?”
“Maybe one of his coworkers knows something,” I suggest, but even as I say it I wonder if it will help. I suspect all the women Ackerman works with are too starstruck by his natural charisma and good looks to think anything bad about him, and even if they did, I’m not sure they’d roll on him. “Or maybe his wife,” I toss out, thinking it might be the better angle.
“Let me think on it,” Hurley says, and with that our discussion ends.
The remainder of our ride back to the Milwaukee airport is quiet but not awkward. I sense Hurley is deep in thought and struggling with his own emotions, so I keep mine to myself and let him be, grateful we have reached a level of comfort with one another that allows for long periods of silence without a compulsion to fill the void. I spend the rest of the ride gazing out my window and thinking. I make a mental note to do some research on Ackerman’s wife and to try to meet and speak with her.
By the time we arrive in front of the Southwest Airlines terminal it’s after three o’clock. I’m starving and briefly consider asking Hurley if we can stop somewhere for lunch, but I sense his need to be alone with his thoughts.
He pulls up to the curb, shifts the car into park, and turns to look at me. His eyes have darkened into deep blue pools of angst and I resist an urge to lean across the seat and hug him. “You okay to drive back home?” he asks.
“I’m fine. What about you?”
“I’ll survive.”
“Are you headed straight home?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve got some things I want to do first and I’m thinking I’ll need to make myself scarce in case Richmond comes looking for me. I’ll give you a call later.”
I nod and open my door to get out, but before I can, Hurley reaches over and grabs my arm. “Thanks for helping me, Mattie,” he says.
“You’re welcome.”
“I mean it. It means a lot to me.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I simply smile.
“I’ll be in touch,” he says, and I take that as my cue to get out of the car. As I shut the door and watch him pull away, I have a strong premonition that neither of our lives will ever be the same again.
Since it’s still early in the day, I decide to head to a nearby mall and do some shopping in order to justify my cover story. But before heading in to the stores, I park, take Callie’s diary out of my purse, and start reading it. Unlike what I would expect to find in most diaries—thoughts, feelings, and long flowing passages of information on daily life—Callie’s diary is all about her work. The entries are short and highly abbreviated, and the latest one, which is dated four days ago—two days before her death—sends chills down my spine.
The initials, I’m certain, stand for Steve Hurley. That would explain what Callie was doing in our neck of the woods when she was killed. I quickly flip through some of the other entries and find similar notes for leads, tips, and story ideas. Others appear to be abandoned ideas or partially fleshed-out thoughts.
I’m curious to see what sorts of entries Callie might have made around the time she found out she was pregnant. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I doubt the book will contain any information about her personal life, but I still want to look. I don’t want to do it here, though, not only because I want privacy when I read it, but because my stomach is rumbling a protest. So I slide the diary and the cell phone that Hurley gave me beneath my seat and head inside the mall.
My first stop is the food court, where I opt for a cheeseburger with all the trimmings and a side of fries. Sated and on a saturated fat high, I then cruise the mall, hitting up a handful of stores and finding several gifts: a pair of silver skull earrings for Erika, who loves all things dark and related to death; a nifty tome on the life cycles of
