That wasn’t quite the clear invitation I’d intended it to be. In my defense, I wasn’t a night owl. My normal bedtime was hours ago. “What I mean is that you’d be safer staying with me than staying here. My dogs are a great early warning system.”
“I don’t really sleep anyway. I heard your car as soon as you pulled up, and I was already watching you before you ever stepped out.” Isabel slowly rinsed out her mug, then mine, and set them upside down on a dish cloth to dry. “Besides, I can’t put you in that kind of danger. My husband…”
Her gaze shifted to the side, and for an irrational second, I thought she spotted him out the window. She might get more sleep staying with me, but it seemed like I might not. That didn’t mean I was going to retract my offer, though. I couldn’t leave her living in her truck when I had a perfectly good guest room.
Her gaze came back to my face and she licked her lips. “Was Chief McTavish married?”
I nodded.
“My husband would sometimes tell me things he probably shouldn’t have. Chief McTavish might have said something about the corruption investigation to his wife.”
The next morning, on my drive to the McTavish home, my yawns were so large they could be considered distracted driving.
I’d been right about getting less sleep than Isabel if she came to my house. It’d taken me another fifteen minutes of convincing after her suggestion that I talk to Mrs. McTavish, but I’d finally won out when I told her we could park her truck back in my sugar bush. Even if her husband somehow knew about her truck, he’d never see it there, and most cupcake decorators didn’t live with their clients. My house was probably the last place he’d think to look.
She’d still been sleeping when I left. It might be the first good night’s sleep she’d had in months—or longer, depending on when she escaped her husband.
Erik had texted me Chief McTavish’s address this morning. He hadn’t asked why I wanted it. The paranoid part of me wondered if he wanted plausible deniability in case one of the detectives investigating McTavish’s disappearance asked him why I’d want to visit. The truth was probably closer to that he was distracted and hadn’t thought it through far enough to wonder about it.
My GPS took me to what I’d consider a middle-class section of Fair Haven. It was off the lakeshore, but they were single-family homes with yards.
I parked in the driveway and headed for the door. Before I could reach it, Mrs. McTavish came out, dressed in a woolen winter coat and gloves, her purse over her shoulder. No scarf or hat meant she’d likely been born a northerner. Most days when I went out, you could barely see my face with the way I bundled up.
She stopped with one hand on the door knob and a cautious expression that probably came from being a long-time cop’s wife. “May I help you?”
“I’m Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes.”
All Isabel’s talk about not being able to trust the police must be getting to me because an explanation of why I was here stuck in my throat like it was afraid someone might overhear me.
Mrs. McTavish’s gaze swept her street almost as if she also expected someone to be watching us. “You’re investigating?”
Chief McTavish had clearly said something about me to his wife. I nodded.
She held open the door, and I stepped inside. Up close, her eyes and nose had the extra-pink appearance of someone who’d been crying.
The center of my chest twisted. At least I knew where Mark was. I might not like where he was, but I didn’t have to lie awake at night wondering if he was alive or not.
Mrs. McTavish hung up her coat and slid off her shoes, another sign that she was born somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon Line. It was strange that I knew so little about her. We’d only met a couple of times at department events where family was invited. As far as I knew, she didn’t socialize much at all.
I left my coat and shoes by the door as well. I’d been here long enough now that I’d known to wear respectable socks instead of the ones I had with monkeys or kittens on them when I was going to someone else’s house.
She motioned me to a chair but didn’t offer me anything to drink, almost as if she didn’t want any delays. “What can I do to help?”
My conscience wouldn’t let me stretch the truth to her about my role. She should know up front. “My investigation isn’t official.”
“I never thought it was.” She had a sharp way of speaking, almost as if she’d been military or law enforcement herself at some point. Or maybe that just came from years of living around them. “Owen said you’re always sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
Ouch.
“He also said you’re one of the best he’s ever met. He probably didn’t tell you this, but he tried to get permission to hire you as a consultant on the case he was sent here for.”
He hadn’t told me that. I wish it’d been approved. I’d be much further ahead now. Or I’d be dead.
Maybe not being involved up until this point was a blessing in disguise.
I caught her up on the little I did know and why I’d come.
“Owen couldn’t say much, obviously, but he would tell me when he cleared someone. He knew how hard I found it to see the people he worked with and wonder which ones I shouldn’t turn my back on.” She reached a hand out to the end table beside her and felt around. “Let me grab a pen and paper.”
It seemed there were a lot of things I hadn’t known and hadn’t even considered about Chief McTavish—like the effect his job would have on his wife. How could you make friends in a new place when you didn’t know who your husband might uncover as a criminal? What McTavish did was different from simple police work. His wife couldn’t even trust his coworkers because he was only sent to places where corruption was suspected.
She went around the back of her chair and opened a door almost directly behind it. She left it hanging open and disappeared inside. Brown packing boxes lined the far wall, some open but most taped shut.
The skin on the back of my neck did a little shudder-shiver.
Chief McTavish had been here for nearly a year now. There shouldn’t still be boxes from when they’d moved in. And as far as I knew, he hadn’t been close enough to unraveling the corruption situation to be packing to leave already.
So why did his wife look like she was stowing their life up in boxes only days after her husband went missing?
She came back out with the paper and pen and shut the door behind her. She sat back in her chair and jotted names down on the list.
“Were you two thinking of moving to a new place?” I said as casually as I could manage. “I noticed your boxes.”
Her pen stopped, and she looked up.
“Owen was right about you.” Tiny lines showed at the corner of her eyes, but I couldn’t tell if they were because she wanted to narrow her eyes at me or because she was laughing at me inside. “I’m not planning to skip town, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
