The Witness

was barely five years his senior. “It’s getting the motor running.”
    “I’d say
she
got it running.” Kim lifted her chin toward Abigail as she walked into the market on the near corner. “Got looks, anybody can see that, but she’s a strange one. She’s lived here almost a year, and not once has she stepped foot in here, or any of the other restaurants. She’s barely gone into any of the shops or businesses, either. Orders mostly everything online.”
    “So I hear.”
    “Nothing against Internet shopping. I do a bit of it myself. But we’ve got plenty to offer right here in town. And she barely has a word to say. Always polite when she does, but barely a word. Spends nearly every minute of every day up there on her place. All alone.”
    “Quiet, mannerly, keeps to herself. She must be a serial killer.”
    “Brooks.” Kim let out a snort and walked over to her next table, shaking her head.
    He added a little sugar to his coffee, stirred it lazily with his eyes on the market. No reason, he decided, he couldn’t go on over. He knew how to mosey. Maybe pick up some Cokes for the station or … he’d think of something.
    Brooks lifted a hip for his wallet, peeled out some bills, then slid out of the booth.
    “Thanks, Kim. See you, Lindy.”
    The beanpole with the gray braid down to his ass let out a grunt, waved his spatula.
    He strolled out. He had his father’s height, and given Loren’s post–heart attack regimen, they shared the same lanky build. His mother claimed he got his ink-black hair from the Algonquin brave who’d captured his great-great—and possibly one more great—grandmother and made her his wife.
    Then again, his mother was often full of shit, and often on purpose. His changeable hazel eyes could shift from greenish to amber or show hints of blue. His nose listed slightly to the left, the result of a grounder to third, a bad hop and missed timing. Sometimes he told a woman, if she should ask, that he’d gotten it in a fistfight.
    Sometimes he was full of shit, like his mother.
    The high-end market carried fancy foods at fancy prices. He liked the smell of the fresh herbs, the rich colors of the produce, the gleam of bottles filled with specialty oils, even the glint of kitchen tools he’d have no earthly idea how to use.
    To his mind, a man could get along just fine with a couple of good knives, a spatula and a slotted spoon. Anything else was just showing off.
    In any case, when he needed to shop for groceries—a chore he hated like rat poison—he frequented the Piggly Wiggly.
    She was easy to spot as she selected a bottle of the pricy oil, then one of those strange vinegars.
    And though it wasn’t as easy to spot, he registered the fact she had a sidearm under her hooded jacket.
    He continued down the short aisle, considering.
    “Ms. Lowery.”
    She turned her head, and he had a good full-on look at her eyes for the first time. Wide and green, like moss in the shadows of a forest.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m Brooks Gleason. I’m chief of police.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “Why don’t you let me carry that basket for you? It must be heavy.”
    “No, thank you. It’s fine.”
    “I can never figure out what people do with stuff like that. Raspberry vinegar,” he added, tapping the bottle in her basket. “It just doesn’t seem like a workable marriage.”
    At her blank stare, he tried one of his best smiles. “Raspberries,vinegar. They don’t go together in my mind. Who thinks of things like that?”
    “People who cook. If you’ll excuse me, I—”
    “Me, I’m a throw-a-steak-on-the-grill kind of guy.”
    “Then you shouldn’t have any need for raspberry vinegar. Excuse me. I have to pay for my groceries.”
    Though in his experience the smile generally turned the tide with a woman, he refused to be discouraged. He just walked with her to the counter. “How are you doing out at the old Skeeter place?”
    “I do very well, thank you.” She took a slim wallet out of a zippered compartment in her bag.
    Angling it, he noted, so he couldn’t get a peek inside.
    “I grew up here, moved to Little Rock for a spell. I moved back about six months after you got here. What brought you to Bickford?”
    “My car,” she said, and had the clerk smothering a laugh.
    A hard shell, he decided, but he’d cracked tougher nuts. “Nice car, too. I meant what drew you to this part of the Ozarks?”
    She took out cash, handed it to the clerk when he rang up her total. “I