when he’d first shot up to where he was a good bit taller than most of the girls he knew. When he remembered this woman was darn near as tall as he was, he straightened up again. “And was that absolutely the last time you saw him?”
She didn’t answer, but the fire died out of her eyes as he watched, leaving them that dull and lifeless gray.
He persisted, his voice gentle again…persuading. “Mary? Did you see Jason after that? Did he come back a little later on…follow you home, maybe?”
She looked away, still not answering, though he could see her throat working. He stepped closer to her and reached toward but didn’t quite touch the bruise on her jaw. He felt a stab of almost physical pain when she flinched. It was either the pain or the surprise of it that made his voice harden. “Did Jason do this to you?”
She edged away from him and turned…picked up a perfectly clean dish from the countertop and put it in the sink. “No—nobody did it. I—it was just a stupid accident. I tripped on the steps—the porch light was burned out, and I…fell.”
That told him one thing: the lady was a terrible liar.
“A man’s dead, Mary. And lying to me isn’t going to do anything but get you in a whole lot of trouble.” He paused, waited again. And as he waited he thought about moving in on her, crowding her space, closing her in against that sink where she stood with her back to him, using the kind of subtle intimidation tactics he’d have used with any other suspect. But then he got a clear picture in his mind of that swollen lip and the bruise on her face, and of Jason doing the exact same thing but with a whole different purpose in mind, and he went cold and sick with shame at the thought.
He folded his arms across his chest and hitched in a breath. “Something else the coroner found, Mary. Jason had some blood on his shirt sleeve that wasn’t his. Appears it was a woman’s blood. And I’m guessing if I take a sample of your DNA—and I will have to ask you to let me do that—I’m about as certain as I can be it’s going to match that blood.”
Still she didn’t say anything…didn’t move a muscle. He could hear the tension humming inside her, like an overload of electricity. He could see the wisps of brown hair that lay on the back of her neck, escapees from the nondescript arrangement that was neither bun nor ponytail but something halfway between and that had already seen her through a hard day’s work.
He thought how vulnerable that part of her seemed. And that at the same time, oddly graceful, too.
“Mary?” Barely whispering… “Did Jason Holbrook rape you?”
Again her body jerked as if he’d struck her. She turned slowly, and he saw her face, not vulnerable, now, but white and still, like something carved in marble. Her voice was hard, too, and brittle with contempt. “No. He was too drunk. He tried. When he couldn’t, he…hit me instead.”
Roan swore colorfully, but only inside his mind. Aloud, he prompted in the same quiet, implacable way, “And then?”
“Then?” She shrugged, and he saw her scrape her teeth carefully across her swollen lower lip. “He left.” As she turned back to the sink she drew a breath, and it was the only thing that betrayed her body’s trembling.
He waited a moment, steeling himself. Then asked the question he hated to have to ask: “Mary, do you own a gun?”
Chapter 3
He waited patiently in the silence while she puttered around the sink, doing what looked to him were totally unnecessary cleaning chores, and it occurred to him only then how out of place this woman looked in that particular kitchen. He hadn’t known its former owner, Queenie Schultz, all that well, except to say hello to when he’d dropped off Erin or picked her up from her monthly trip to the beauty shop, but he sure did remember her big-toothed smile and big brassy laugh, and the pinkish-tinted platinum blond hair she wore teased up and lacquered into a bouffant the size of a basketball. That, and her short but big-busted shape she liked to squeeze into smocks that were just a wee bit too small, so she always put him in mind of a little strutting pigeon.
Her he could see in this kitchen, with its pink and yellow flowered wallpaper, ruffled curtains, potted sweet potato vine on the windowsill and potholders shaped like kitty-cat faces. Miss Mary Owen didn’t fit, like the one kid who hadn’t gotten the word it was supposed to be dress-up day, and he wondered if that might account for some of her awkwardness.
He felt a strange desire to reassure her…put her at ease. He’d almost forgotten the question he’d asked, when she gave him the answer he didn’t want to hear.
“Yes, I do own a gun.” She threw him a quick defiant look over one shoulder. “I have a license for it, too, in case you’re wondering.” Then she turned and leaned against the sink and folded her arms with an air of weary acceptance as if answering his questions was an unpleasant task she’d decided to get over with as quickly as possible. “I got it several years ago. For protection, since I live alone, and I often work late.”
“Mind if I ask what kind it is?”
“It’s a Ladysmith,” she replied without hesitation. “Thirty-eight caliber.”
Again, it wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for. He lifted his eyebrows. “That’s a lot of gun for a woman. Know how to use it?”
Her lips flirted with a smile that made him aware of how he’d sounded—like a bad John Wayne imitation. “Yes, Sheriff, I do. I practice at a firing range at least once a month.”
“So you’re a pretty good shot?”
Watching him, she hitched one shoulder in a wary shrug. “I usually hit what I’m aiming at.”
“How long’s it been since you went shooting?”
Behind the ugly glasses he saw her eyes kindle again as she countered softly, “I went this last weekend.”
Convenient alibi, Roan thought, in case a weapon turns out to have been fired recently.
“Where’s the gun now? Mind if I take a look at it?” He asked it in a friendly way, smiling. “Take it with me, run a few tests on it?”
The smile she gave him back was a lot less friendly than his. “Don’t you need a warrant for that?”
“I do if you make me get one,” Roan said, still showing his teeth, “or, you could agree to give me the gun of your own free will. Save us both some unpleasantness.”
While he waited for her reply, it struck him that it was an odd sort of conversation to be having with a murder suspect. More like a verbal fencing match than an interrogation—rapid and light in tone, almost playful, but with an underlying tenseness, each of them concentrating with laser-like focus on the other, both of them wary…poised to thrust or parry for real at an instant’s notice.
Excitement raced through him as she lifted her chin and threw at him in direct challenge, “I could…but you’d have to tell me why you want it.”
The tension rose again to a screaming pitch while he pondered his options…while he wondered what kind of a lawman he was to be playing this kind of game with a suspect in a murder investigation. Finally, he drawled, “Oh, I think you know why.”
She sighed and her lips curled,
