“Because you’re personally involved on several levels and I’m not sure you can be objective enough.”
“I can keep an open mind,” I argue. “And I promise you that if Hurley is responsible for any of this, I will personally make sure that he gets what’s coming to him.” This much is true. If I find out Hurley has been playing me all this time, I’ll kill him myself.
Izzy eyes me with a troubled expression. “I don’t know, Mattie.”
“Izzy, I promise you I’ll be as objective as anyone else there. Please don’t leave me out of this.”
He sighs heavily and I know I’ve won. “Okay,” he says, looking like he’s not convinced it’s the right decision. “But I want you to work solely as my assistant. Let me and Richmond direct the handling of any evidence. With all this police corruption paranoia that’s floating around, the last thing we need is to have our evidence compromised in any way, particularly if a cop is involved.”
I start to tell Izzy he has nothing to worry about because I’m certain Hurley is innocent. But I don’t because I realize it would belie the very objectivity I just swore to. I realize that I’ve dug myself in about as deep as I can go at this point by lying to both Izzy and Richmond, and blindly committing myself to Hurley. I pray my faith in Hurley is justified and I’m not just some gullible girl in heat, as desperate as fluffy Antoinette. If it does turn out that Hurley’s been lying to me all this time, I’m done for. I’ll not only lose my job and my best friend, I’ll probably end up in jail, convicted as Hurley’s accomplice. And the last thing I need is to end up in jail. Those horizontal stripes on the jail outfits are extremely unflattering for a figure like mine.
I tell Izzy I need a few minutes to feed and water Hoover before we go, and then head back to the cottage. As soon as I’m inside, I grab my purse from the end table by the couch, dig out the throwaway phone, and dial Hurley’s number. While waiting for his answer, a small warning niggles at the back of my mind, telling me something isn’t right. But I don’t have any time to figure it out because Hurley picks up on the second ring.
“Hurley?” I say before he has a chance to speak.
“Mattie, listen, about last night—”
“Never mind last night. We can talk about that later,” I say, standing by the door and watching for Izzy in case he decides to come over and into the cottage while I’m talking to Hurley. “I don’t have much time and I need to tell you something. Richmond knows about the connections to both Callie and Minniver, and they found the fingerprints on the gas can from my house. He’s obtained a search warrant for your place and Izzy and I are headed there now.”
“Izzy is with you right now?” he says, sounding panicked.
“No, I’m in my cottage but I’m supposed to meet him outside in a sec. I wanted to call you first to give you a heads-up, so I told him I had to feed Hoover.”
That’s when it hits me what’s wrong. Whenever I come home, Hoover always greets me at the door and follows me throughout the house. But this time he didn’t and when I whip around to look for him, I see why. Hoover is in the kitchen snacking on some kind of food. And standing beside him, looking shocked and mad as hell, is David.
Chapter 31
“I have to go,” I say into the phone, and as I hear Hurley start to protest, I hang up.
David, who is smudged from head to toe with soot and ash, is staring at me like I’m evil reincarnated.
“I take it you’ve been over at the house?” I say, trying to act innocent.
“What the hell was that?” he asks, scowling.
“What was what?”
“That phone call.”
“I was just talking to a friend,” I say nonchalantly. After dropping the phone back into my purse, I turn to open the door, planning to leave before he can ask me anything else. The movement makes my back muscles scream in agony but I swallow down the pain, determined to escape.
“Mattie!” The stern tone in his voice freezes me to the spot. “Did I just hear you say they found fingerprints on the gas can that was in our house?”
“I don’t want to discuss this with you, David. In fact, I can’t discuss it with you since it’s part of an ongoing investigation,” I add, thinking it a brilliant rejoinder. “And since you seem to be doing so much better, I’d appreciate it if you would find yourself somewhere else to stay from here on out. Don’t let Hoover out when you leave.”
Before he can say another word, I exit the cottage, closing the door firmly behind me. There’s no sign of Izzy yet and I curse to myself, afraid that David will follow me outside and try to pursue the conversation. If he does so in front of Izzy, the resultant fallout could prove devastating for me.
Fortunately Izzy appears a second later and I wave him over to my car. “I don’t think I can squeeze myself into yours this morning,” I tell him. “So can we take mine instead?”
Izzy shrugs and climbs into the hearse. I get behind the wheel quicker than I thought myself capable of doing and hit the gas.
“Slow down,” Izzy says, fastening his seat belt. Though I’m quite religious about wearing my own, I don’t hook it up now for two reasons. One, I don’t think I can reach it without causing myself undue agony, and two, I don’t want to stay at the cottage a second longer than necessary with David there. As soon as I reach the street, I slow down to a more reasonable speed and Izzy relaxes a little.
It only takes us a few minutes to get to Hurley’s house and when we arrive we find several police cars parked in the drive and on the street out front. To my horror, I see Helen Baxter and Antoinette on the sidewalk a couple of doors away, watching everything with keen interest.
Izzy and I get out of the hearse, and I retrieve my evidence kit from the back. Since Izzy is already headed inside, I look down the street at Helen and after making sure no one is watching me, I put my finger to my lips to indicate to her that she needs to stay away and quiet.
As I enter Hurley’s house, memories of our aborted dinner from a few nights ago come back to me. I swear I can smell the lingering scents of oregano and garlic still hanging in the air.
Most of the activity seems to be in the kitchen and workshop area and I cringe, knowing that the connection to the metal fragments we found in Callie’s hair will soon be made, if it hasn’t been already. I follow Izzy to the workshop, where we find Richmond and a cadre of other police officers, including Junior Feller and Ron Colbert, searching through all the minutiae there.
Richmond sees us enter and gives us a nod. “Well, as you can see, Hurley is into metalwork and I’m betting that if we compare the metal bits found in Callie Dunkirk’s hair to the ones here, we’ll get a match.” He walks over and picks up a plastic bag containing a photo. “And then there’s this,” he says, handing it to us.
I look at the photo which is of Hurley and another man standing behind a picnic table, both decked out in fishing gear. Hurley is holding up a large walleye and grinning from ear to ear. The other man is holding one up, too, though his is a bit smaller. Lying on the table in front of them is a knife: the same one with the carved ivory handle we found buried in Callie Dunkirk’s chest.
Izzy gives me a look that’s half apology, half I-told-you-so. I look at Richmond and say, “So you think Hurley killed Callie?”
Richmond bites his lip and looks skeptical but he says, “The evidence seems to say so.”
“But why would he do that?”
“He dated her for nearly a year when he lived in Chicago. And Callie Dunkirk has a son who was born around eight months after she and Hurley split up.” Richmond shrugs. “Do the math. If Hurley fathered a child by Miss Dunkirk it suggests all sorts of motives. And the fact that we found his prints on the gas can at your house certainly makes it look like he’s the one who set the fire, presumably with the intent to kill your husband. Did Izzy tell you about the altercation David had with Hurley the other day?”
I nod.
“That would seem to suggest that Hurley has issues where the women in his life are concerned.”
“I’m not a woman in Hurley’s life,” I say quickly. “At least not in that way.”
Nobody in the room contradicts me, but the momentary pause in the action and the deafening silence that follows suggest that everyone who heard me is waiting for someone to do so.
“Okay, yes, there was an attraction in the beginning,” I explain, feeling the pressure. “But we’ve moved
