The Hidden by Bill Pronzini

Author:Bill Pronzini
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2010-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

F O U R T E E N

THEY HAD BEEN IN the cottage less than fifteen minutes and Jay was making noises about going out to the lane “to see if the law’s still up there” when the doorbell chimed. He glanced at Shelby, muttered, “What the hell?” and went to open the door on its chain lock.

She saw him stiffen slightly as he looked out. “Yes, what is it?” The quickened beat of the wind blurred the voice outside, but whatever it said convinced him to remove the chain and pull the door wide. Two men came inside, one wearing an unbuttoned overcoat over a suit and tie, the other in a deputy sheriff’s uniform. Both wore grim, tight-lipped expressions. The man in the overcoat saw Shelby, approached her with a leather ID case open in his hand.

“Mrs. Macklin?”

“Hunter,” she said automatically, looking at the badge inside the case. “Shelby Hunter.”

“I understood you and Mr. Macklin were married.”

“We are. I kept my birth name.”

“Oh, I see. Well.” He put the ID case away. “My name is Rhiannon, Lieutenant George Rhiannon. I’m an investigator with the highway patrol. This is Deputy Randall Ferguson, county sheriff’s department.”

She nodded. Jay’s eyes were on the deputy—a big, youngish man with a bristly mustache and flat green eyes, standing in a ruler-backed posture like a soldier at attention.

“You’re the officer who led us out here the other night,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Well … what can we do for you?”

“We won’t take up much of your time,” Rhiannon said. “Just a few questions, if you don’t mind.” He was in his forties, with an ovoid body on short stubby legs and a dark, pointy, long-nosed face. Like a dachshund that had acquired human features and learned how to walk on its hind legs, Shelby thought. But there was nothing comical about the man or his demeanor. His movements, his words had a sharp professional economy.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“I understand you spent some time with your neighbors and their houseguests Sunday night.”

“Just long enough to have a drink with them. We went there to borrow matches when the power went out.”

“Everything seem to be all right with the four of them?”

“They’d been drinking pretty heavily,” Jay said. “We picked up on a lot of tension.”

“Any specific cause?”

“Not that we could tell.”

“Conflict between Eugene Decker and anyone in the party?”

“His wife. They were at each other’s throats.”

“Between Decker and the Lomaxes?”

“There was some sniping. None of them were getting along.”

“Have you seen Mr. Decker since then?”

“No.”

“Any of the others?”

“Mrs. Decker. Yesterday morning, at the store in Seacrest. She was on her way home to Santa Rosa.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Briefly.”

“She tell you why she was leaving, going home?”

Jay related the gist of the conversation.

“Any other contact with any of the four since Monday?” Rhiannon asked.

Shelby said, “I saw Mrs. Lomax—Claire. On the beach yesterday morning. We had a brief conversation.”

“About what?”

“Is that important?”

“She has some facial injuries,” Rhiannon said. “She have them then?”

“Yes.”

“Tell you how she got them?”

What Claire had told her had been in confidence; Rhiannon hadn’t given a reason for her to break it.

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