“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. “Brothers? Sisters?”
She shook her head, paused and looked up at him. “All I have left is an aunt and an uncle. How about you?”
He shook his head. “My folks are long dead. I didn’t have siblings.”
She grimaced. “It’s lonely at holidays,” she said simply.
He nodded.
“That’s why I had Weatherby,” she replied, and fought tears. She turned her head to avoid letting them show.
“It’s why I have Bert,” he told her.
She drew in a steadying breath. “Pets help so much.”
“They do.” He pulled the car onto the road where the body had been found and parked the vehicle near the water line.
As they got out, he threw up a hand and waved at Red, who was overseeing the repair of the line. It had been completed. Now they were filling in the hole with the backhoe.
Red came over. “Did you find out who it was?” he asked.
“Yes,” Gil replied. “It was Marley Douglas.”
“Oh, good Lord, I’d forgotten that he went missing.” He grimaced. “I remember putting in this water line. We came to work in one of the worst storms we’ve ever had. It was pouring rain, but people thought it was dangerous to leave a hole that big open where people or even cars might fall into it. So we filled it with the backhoe. I never thought to look in it, except to check that the line wasn’t leaking. I swear to God, I did not see a body in that hole!”
Gil laid a hand on his shoulder. The man was distraught. “It would probably have had a few shovelfuls of dirt over it, Red. Whoever killed him was anxious to get rid of the corpse. Given the weather, he probably thought nobody would notice Douglas in the hole, especially if he covered up the body.”
“I still feel bad about it. Poor old Marley, I was in the Sunday school class he taught for adults,” he added. “He was such a good man. I was in on all the searches. I hoped so hard that we’d find him, but we never did.”
“Well, we did find him today, Red,” he reminded the other man. “And he’s at peace.”
Red let out a breath. “I guess he is.” He shook his head. “Life is hard.”
“And gets harder every day,” Gil agreed. “Do you know anybody else local who knew him, besides the mayor and Judge Garrett?”
Red frowned and thought for a minute. “The owner of the florist shop, over there. He nodded across the narrow street to a small building with fairy lights around the eaves and the door.
“That’s a big help. Thanks, Red.”
“I hope you find the scalawag who killed him,” Red said. He turned and went back to work.
“This case gets stranger and stranger,” Nemara pointed out.
“Well, it’s certainly not boring,” he agreed. “Let’s have a look around.”
They wandered over near where the body was found. Gil noticed that Red’s eyes followed them. The poor man liked the victim. He hoped they could find out who killed him.
* * *
Since it was autumn, colorful leaves were falling everywhere. Gil bent down on one knee and looked through a pile of them until he pulled out just one and stood up.
“This is the leaf,” he murmured, showing it to Nemara. “Now, I need to identify the tree it comes from.”
She pulled out her phone, opened an app, had Gil hold the leaf in his palm, and aimed the phone toward it. Seconds later, the leaf was identified and the source given.
“Amazing,” he exclaimed.
She grinned. “Isn’t it neat? I love to go walking. I find all sorts of unusual trees. I wanted to know what kind they were, so I got this app. I have one for rocks, too. You can point it at a rock, and it will tell you what sort of rock it is.”
“Is it expensive?” he wondered.
She hesitated. It wouldn’t do to open that can of worms. Especially not now. “Well, not very,” she said, and told him what the subscriptions cost.
He shook his head. “Your job must pay a heck of a lot more than mine,” he commented. “I have to budget like mad. I love my job, but it will never make me a millionaire.” He chuckled.
She flushed. “The thing is to love the work you do, not do it just for money. At least, that’s what I think.”
He studied her for a long moment and smiled. “It’s what I think, too.”
She managed a shaky smile. He was really affecting her. He had a strong face, with soft almost black eyes and blond, blond hair. His hair was thick and straight. His nose had probably been straight, but it had a faintly noticeable dent.
“Are you looking at my nose?” he asked pleasantly.
She laughed. “Sorry. Yes, I am.”
“I had to arrest a man in a bar, who turned out to be a patrolman from a neighboring county. He was harassing the female bartender and making threats. I tried to put the cuffs on him, and he clocked me in the nose.”
“What did you do?”
“I hit him back, of course. We both ended up in the emergency room, and when his superior got the report, he was fired.” His face tautened. “There aren’t many people in law enforcement like that, but they make it difficult for the rest of us when they do such things in public.” He shook his head. “I was glad that his superior had the guts to fire him. The guy was a tough customer. A lot of bosses are too afraid of repercussions to fire anybody.”
“Yes. The loudest voice often makes policy,” she replied. “That’s how government works. You have a committee with several politicians on it, but there’s always one who’s belligerent and loud and people are too afraid of him, or her, not to agree with whatever bill is created. However insane it really is.”
He chuckled. “You could be right,” he conceded. “Well, let’s go talk to Judge Garrett. Then we’ll look for the bigtooth maple trees your app identified.”
She smiled. “Works for me!”
CHAPTER 3
Judge Garrett was a gold mine of information on Benton and its surroundings and, especially, the people who lived there. She hadn’t gone to school with Marley Douglas, but she had been friends with his sister and knew her well.
“Melly was a quiet girl,” Judge Garrett told them as she perched on the side of the desk and faced the chairs where they were seated. “She had a sweet nature. I never knew her to speak ill of anyone.”
“She never married, they say,” Gil remarked.
“That’s true.” She sighed. “It was a sad thing. She was just crazy about Dirk Handley, and then he broke up with her for some reason and married that awful Riley girl, Nita.” She shook her head. “I could have told him she was worthless, but he had to find it out for himself. She wanted what he had, and made it plain that she had no other use for him. No kids, especially. She wasn’t risking her figure.”
“That’s so sad,” Nemara said quietly. “Children are a gift.”
“Are you married?” Judge Garrett asked with a smile.
Nemara shook her head. “But I love children. I used to work part-time for a daycare center. We had kids of all ages. It was such fun!”
Judge Garrett laughed. “I can only imagine. I never married, either. I had my chances, but I liked being by myself. I still do,” she added with a grin.