“I was sorry to hear about Hal,” he said, remembering his manners. He’d met Meg at law school in Missoula. She’d already been married to Hal by then. Her husband had been older than her, a professor she’d met as an undergraduate.
“I got your card. Thank you. It’s been over a year now.” She settled that blue gaze on him. “You never married.”
He shook his head, rather than say that the right woman had never come along. He suspected she had, but she’d already been married.
“It’s not too late,” she said with a grin as she rose to answer a knock at the door. He laughed. She came back with two cups of coffee, handing him one and settling back into her chair.
“Is that what this is about?” he asked, holding up the envelope. Inside was the note written in her beautiful sweeping script: Remember the promise I made you? That’s all it had said. She’d signed it, Meg.
She laughed softly, for the first time seeming a little unsure of herself. It looked good on her, added color to her cheeks. Nothing dimmed the spark in those blue eyes though. Meg had always been a firecracker, first as a law student, then a lawyer and later as a judge. Anyone who crossed her path never walked away without knowing they’d been in the presence of one exceptional human being.
“I do remember your promise,” he said, remembering what a cocky young man he’d been.
“Do I need to remind you what you said?” she asked, tilting her head mischievously.
He shook his head. Now he was the one feeling off balance and a little embarrassed. “Bold as brass, I remember asking you out only to learn that you were married. Then I said, ‘Well, if you’re ever free, give me a holler.’”
She smiled. “‘What is it you have in mind?’ I said and you responded—”
“‘I’d take you to dinner and then I’d take you dancing.’”
“‘Dancing,’ I said. ‘You’re assuming I dance.’”
“‘It would just be an excuse to hold you in my arms,’ I said.”
She nodded slowly. “I said, ‘William Landusky, I promise that if I’m ever free, I’ll holler.’”
“I’ve been waiting.” He laughed, remembering the bunch of law students who hung out together, studying all hours until they were bleary-eyed and exhausted. Meg would joke around with the best of them, but ultimately she would go home to her husband.
“Hal was the love of my life,” she said.
WT nodded. “You were married a lot of years.”
She looked sad for a moment before she said, “I have a lot of wonderful memories that have helped me through this past year. But life goes on and I don’t want to miss another moment of it. And you, William Landusky. You owe me a dance.”
* * *
AFTER TAILING CHARLIE to her job and making sure she got there without any trouble, Shep decided to follow up on what information he’d been able to get on his phone last night about Lindy Parker’s unsolved murder. A woman who lived in the closest house to the family had been quoted as saying she’d heard the screaming, but hadn’t thought much about it since the two daughters were always arguing.
He looked up her name the old-fashioned way in the phone book and was surprised to find out that she still lived in the same house—just down the way from where the murder had happened. He also wanted to see where Charlie had lived—and Lindy had died. But as he drove by the spot where the old Victorian house should have been, he saw that the lot was now covered with a multi-unit condo complex.
Down the street he found Edna Trenton’s two-story cottage-style house. The sidewalk had been freshly shoveled after last night’s snowstorm. Christmas lights stretched across the front of the porch and a brightly painted wooden Santa sat on the top step.
Shep’s knock at the front door was answered by a woman wearing yoga pants and a matching top. She appeared to be in her late seventies with snow-white hair that looked freshly permed into a halo on her head. Two keen hazel eyes took him in as she opened the door to him. “Yes?”
He introduced himself, making it sound as if he was an investigator rather than a middle school math teacher. He hated that Charlie had made a good point this morning at the door. Even though he’d been military police in the service, he felt out of his league investigating a fifteen-year-old murder. But that had never stopped him before.
It must have worked. She ushered him into her neat-as-a-pin living room and offered him coffee and a chair. He took a seat but declined coffee, noticing the yoga mat on the floor by the window.
“I wanted to ask you a few questions about the night Lindy Parker was killed,” he said. “If you remember—”
“Do I remember?” Edna cried. “If only I could forget.” She perched on the edge of the couch. There was a nervous energy to her. He suspected she’d been working out when he came to the door. “I swear even after all these years, I can still hear that poor girl screaming for help.”
“But you didn’t call the police?”
Edna shook her head sharply. “Those two girls were always going at it—screaming, yelling, arguing. It just sounded like another night over at that house with the parents gone. It always sounded as if they were killing each other.” She realized what she said and blushed to the roots of her white hair. “You know what I mean. How was I to know that the girl was in real trouble?”
He could say the same for Charlie and yet she had blamed herself all these years. “What were the parents like?”
“Busy.” She looked away for a moment before lowering her voice in confidence even though there was no one else to hear. “It was a second marriage, I heard.” She raised an eyebrow as if that said it all. “They were never home. Those girls were just allowed to run wild. I felt sorry for them. No wonder they were always fighting. It was clear that the older one, the blonde? She was always picking on the other one, the dark-haired one.”
He found it interesting that a woman who lived a half block away had noticed but Charlie’s father hadn’t. “Any idea who might have wanted to harm the older one?”
She shook her head. “The police said it was probably just someone coming through town. We’re so near the train tracks in this part of town. It used to be even more industrial out here. Lots of old warehouses standing empty. Could have been some hobo living in one of them.”
Hobo. The word made him smile to himself. “The father was killed that night in a car accident. Did you ever see the mother again?”
Edna nodded. “Came back after she got out of the hospital just long enough to pack up her things. Had some man with her.”