A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw (top 10 best books of all time txt) 📗

for a cab and wondered why she had never seen him before as he really was.

Mr. Van Eyck, leaving the garage to go deal with the percolator he’d left on the stove, looked toward the car where Ames and Tina were sitting in the front seat. He smiled. Maybe something would come of it. He liked the young sergeant. But Tina had been pretty prickly on the subject of men since before the war. He wondered if he should invite them in to join him for a cup of coffee but then thought he would just let nature take its course.

He would have been disappointed by the course it was taking. The mood in the car was tense.

“Fine,” she said. “You’re right. I didn’t tell you the truth! I had a good reason, okay?”

“Perhaps you’d better tell me what really happened between you and Mr. Watts when he came the other day,” Ames said as clinically as he could manage.

“I told him to go to hell. There. Are you satisfied?” Tina had an elbow up on the passenger side window frame and was resting her head on her hand, looking angrily out the window.

Ames had nothing to say to this. He wasn’t satisfied, but it seemed obvious she hadn’t been planning to run off with Watts. She must have been at the garage while he was meeting his end. Obvious or not, he knew he had to ask. “Were you planning to go away with him?”

“Are you out of your mind? I would drown myself in the lake before I spent one minute with him.”

“But why didn’t you tell me the truth yesterday?”

“You want to know the truth? The truth is that I bet there are a thousand people who would be happy to learn that man is dead. He was a repulsive, manipulating bastard.”

“What people?”

“Anyone who has a daughter, believe me. Brothers, mothers, fathers.”

“Your father too?”

Tina wheeled on him. “Why would you say that, Daniel? Dad knows nothing about it. I never told him.”

Ames sat quietly, his lips pressed together. The use of his first name had stung. She sounded hurt. He was making a hash of this and was now sorry he’d left Terrell behind. He had to keep this professional, but it was getting difficult.

“Never told him what, Miss Van Eyck?”

She held his gaze a moment as if sizing him up. “Look. All you need to know is that we did, yes, have an argument, and I sent him packing. As for yesterday, my dad and I were here most of the time.” This was mostly true, she thought. Her dad had gone off in the afternoon, but she’d been there. “Several people came and went during the day. If you want, I can give you their names, since you don’t seem to believe me. Otherwise you can just leave us the hell alone!”

Tina got out of the car and slammed the door, causing Ames to wince. He saw her father come to the window at the sound. It was too far away to make out his expression.

Sitting outside the Watts cottage, which was looking tranquil and almost cozy with smoke curling out of its chimney and a light in the front window glowing against the rapidly spreading darkness of the inclement winter afternoon, Ames sighed. More complicated questions and another angry woman to deal with.

Once admitted, Ames stood awkwardly on the mat just inside the door.

“I just have to ask a couple of other questions.” Mrs. Watts looked tired, but not particularly sad, which he found surprising. For one thing she smiled at him, an expression that lit up her face and gave a hint at what an attractive woman she must have been before life caught up with her.

“Well, you’d better come in and sit down. I gather you found the bag. Don’t worry. I’m prepared for anything. I know this is going to sound horrible, but I find myself almost relieved when all is said and done. He wasn’t an easy man, and I suspect I stopped loving him even before Sadie was born. He didn’t love me, but I think he loved her, if he was capable at all of love.”

Unable to say anything to this, Ames, now sitting uncomfortably at the table, looked down and then cleared his throat. “We did find the bag, yes. We found not only a couple of changes of clothes for him but also a couple of frocks, some lady’s underwear.” He cleared his throat again. “Blue dress, with flowers and a red one?”

Mrs. Watts’s face darkened. “You don’t say. Well. I’m not surprised somehow. Not my dresses, Sergeant, I can tell you that.” She sat down. “I suppose that explains all his absences.” She made a move as if to shut the door on him. “I want the car back. I called the station this morning. I can’t do a thing without it.”

“Do you have an extra set of keys? We still haven’t found any.”

“No. I don’t think I do. I hadn’t thought about that,” Mrs. Watts said.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve almost finished with it. The trunk lock is broken, but I’ll get it fixed and then have someone drop it back as soon as possible. I can maybe get a locksmith to make another set of keys while I’m at it.” When she did not respond to his offer, he cleared his throat. “We did find traces of black paint in the trunk, and we now suspect that your husband might have used it to deface the door of a local garage.”

Mrs. Watts turned her head away sharply, as if she couldn’t trust what she might say. She finally turned to look at him. “That as well. Where? No. Don’t tell me. Some sordid mess he got himself into behind my back.” Her anger was palpable. “Anything else, Sergeant?”

Ames arrived back at the station in a very unsatisfactory state. He reflected on the almost red-hot anger with