Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

uncomfortably. “You know that, don’t you?”
    Did she? Did she know that?
She paused for the space of a couple of breaths, thinking that it was a good thing he wasn’t sitting across the table, where he could read her face. Where he could see how angry she was, and how disappointed she was in his lack of confidence in her ability to make decisions.
    She cleared her throat. “Yeah, sure. I know that.”
Another lie
. “Listen, maybe we’d better just say good night and go to bed. Sounds like we’re both pretty tired, and tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”
    “Right.” He paused, took a breath. “You go get ’em, Sheila.” She knew he was making an effort to smooth out the jaggedness of what had just happened between them. There was a moment’s silence and his voice warmed. “But be careful in this thing. Sounds like it could get dicey.” He paused. “You know I love you.”
    “Yes, I know,” Sheila said, truthfully now. “I love you, too.” And suddenly her anger evaporated. She was thinking about where he was going tomorrow, what he was going to do. She wished he wouldn’t. She wished it urgently. But it wouldn’t do any good to tell him so. She couldn’t come any closer to changing his mind than he could come to changing hers.
    “Stay safe, Blackie,” she added, trying not to sound as urgent as she felt. “Don’t take any chances. Please.”
    She folded the phone and sat there for a moment, struck by the sudden, gut-wrenching thought that it had all been a huge mistake. The coin toss, their decision to marry, the whole thing. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. She loved him beyond words. It was just that their life together was so complicated, so damned difficult, so full of nooks and crannies where bad stuff could hide. And the bad stuff could wreck the good stuff that they had together.
    What was left of her grilled cheese sandwich was cold, but she ate it and the chips and the pickle anyway, deciding that she didn’t have the energy to work with the photographs tonight. She’d have another look in the morning. She got up to fill the automatic coffeemaker and check the timer. Beside her, Rambo whined, and she let him out the back door for his nightly pit stop. She was turning on the porch light when her cell phone rang again. She flipped it open.
    Dana Kirk’s voice was taut, high-pitched. “Chief Dawson, I just turned on my computer. There’s an email from… from my husband. It was sent today, at two-oh-four, I guess just before he—” She gulped, on the edge of hysteria. “Before he shot himself.” The last words were a drawn-out wail.
    “What does the email say, Mrs. Kirk?” Sheila asked quietly and firmly. She knew, of course, but she wanted to steady the woman—and to verify. “Read it to me, please.”
    “It says… it says, ‘Dana, I’m sorry. You can stop worrying about me. I’m tired and I just can’t go through with the divorce. It’s all yours, the house, the business, everything. Have a good life. Love, Larry.’” She was sobbing now. “‘Have a good life.’ How can I have a good life, after this terrible thing he’s done, after—”
    “After what who’s done?” Sheila broke in, going back to the table in the dining nook to get her notebook.
    “Why, Larry, who else? Don’t you see, Chief? This email
proves
that Larry killed himself! I didn’t think he could do it the way he did, but it was probably just quick and simple. He got a gun somewhere, and he—” She broke off, weeping. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk now. He’s completely ruined my life.” The connection broke abruptly.
    “Ruined her life?”
Sheila muttered, closing the phone.
What a self-absorbed, self-centered thing to say!
She opened her notebook and jotted down the time of the call and a brief summary of what Dana Kirk had said. On the surface, the call seemed to eliminate the woman as a suspect, but that wasn’t necessarily true. She could have killed her husband, or witnessed his killing, then written the email to exonerate herself. Reporting that she had received it could be another means of exoneration—especially reporting it in that half-hysterical tone of
voice.
    Sheila was still writing when the phone chirped again. She opened it and saw that it was China.
    “Hey,” she said. She leaned forward, propping both elbows on the table. “What’s up?”
    “I got a call from Ruby a little while ago,” China replied. “She and Ramona have figured out why