Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

investigate the theft of her mother’s watch. “I live next door to Mrs. Howard here. At 1118 Pecan.”
    “And yours, ma’am?” she asked the blue-haired neighbor.
    “Jane Jessup. I’m at 1115. But Mr. Schulz didn’t have anything to do with it, Chief. Ruby Wilcox’s sister told me Mr. Kirk definitely killed himself. With a gun.” She shook her head in utter disbelief, tears welling up in her eyes. “Such a nice man. Clever, too. Why would he go and do something awful like that? I just don’t understand it.”
    “Maybe it had to do with the divorce, Jane,” another woman said, dropping her voice. She was pudgy, with thick ankles. She was wearing an apron, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of cooking supper.
    Jane Jessup’s eyes got big. “You don’t suppose he killed himself over
that
?” she asked. “Oh, that would be terrible!”
    “Divorce?” Sheila said.
    “The Kirks,” the woman with thick ankles replied. “I just found out about it myself, yesterday morning at our quilting club. Texas Stars. That’sour name. After the pattern, you know.” She scowled. “Seems the wife has a boyfriend.” The scowl deepend. “The monkey business these young people get up to.”
    “Mildred,” Jane said in a warning tone. “It’s not good to gossip.”
    “Your name?” Sheila asked the woman who had mentioned the divorce, and wrote
Divorce, wife’s boyfriend
.
    “Mildred Ewell. I’m 1114.”
    Sheila wrote it down. “Thank you, Ms. Ewell. And Ms. Jessup, too. If we need any additional information, we’ll get in touch.”
    “That’s
Mrs
. Ewell,” the woman said sharply. To Jane, she added, “If anything gets my dander up, Jane, it’s this
Ms
. business. Sounds like bees buzzin’.”
    A couple of kids had come along and were peering into one of the patrol units. The girl looked up and her eyes widened. “Hey, you’re the chief! I saw you on TV the other night.” Her companion wolf-whistled, low, then blushed bright red and ducked his head.
    Sheila put her notebook and pen into her shirt pocket. “It’s okay,” she said to the whistler. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” She lifted her hand to the group, adding, “Thank you all very much. One of our officers will probably be talking with you. If you think of anything else, please mention it.” She was sure Bartlett would assign an officer to conduct a neighborhood canvass, given the identity of the dead man.
    “Don’t forget what I said about ol’ Schulzie,” Green Trousers cautioned. “I’d hate to see that fella get away with murder.”
    Jane Jessup gasped. “Murder! You don’t mean that, Al!”
    “You damn betcha I do,” Green Trousers said grimly.
    Sheila turned away to cross the street. Crime scenes were chaotic. The first person on the scene, even trained first responders, sometimesgot the facts wrong. She had seen cases where the dead man turned out to be a dead woman. A gunshot death might be reported as an accident or suicide, but investigation proved it to be a homicide. A crime scene—and a suicide scene was a crime scene—was always a work in progress, and the investigators were constantly revising, building new theories as new information came in.
    So was Kirk’s death a suicide or something else? Was there a connection between what happened here and the break-in at his business? In spite of herself, she could feel the excitement that always ran like an electrical current through the first phases of any investigation, could feel the adrenaline surging, the questions—already, a great many questions—pushing, nudging, shoving, demanding answers. She checked her watch. By now, George Timms should have showed up at the station to surrender and be booked, but she still hadn’t gotten the word. Why the delay? What was going on here?
    “Chief Dawson! Hi!”
    Sheila looked up. Ruby Wilcox was standing in front of the yellow plastic police tape strung across the driveway. She was wearing one of her outrageous outfits, some sort of gauzy striped top that made her look like a butterfly with wilted wings. China Bayles was with her, dressed in her familiar working clothes: a green Thyme and Seasons T-shirt, jeans, sandals.
    And Ruby’s sister, Ramona Donahue, the woman who—according to the next-door neighbor—had discovered Kirk’s body. Sheila had met Ramona the week before at a picnic that she and Blackie had attended in Ruby’s backyard. She had Ruby’s frizzy red hair and freckles,