Lieutenant Davidson agreed, leaving Tony no further ahead than he’d been.
He’d been resisting the temptation all day to check on Beth, but with it now being midafternoon, he called her.
“Tony?” Answering, she sounded groggy.
Frowning, he said, “You okay?”
“You caught me dozing.”
“A nap is a good idea. You need the extra rest right now.”
Her laugh sounded husky. She couldn’t possibly have intended to arouse him, but, damn it, she had.
“This was nap number two. I slept away a good part of the morning, had lunch and settled down to read. I think I fell asleep mid-page. How’s your day going?”
“Frustrating. I did interview Keith Reistad, your mom’s former boss. He won’t hand over her client list without a warrant.”
“Can he give it to you, legally?”
“It’s not like we’re asking for the client’s confidential financial information,” he grumbled.
“I suspect it wouldn’t look good for him if word got out that he’d given you that information.”
Tony grimaced because she was right. He did understand Reistad’s decision, which didn’t mean he had to like it.
“You didn’t know him well, did you?” He hadn’t asked her as much about Keith Reistad as he should have.
“Hardly at all,” Beth said promptly. “Mom would make a quick stop at the office with at least one of us tagging along when we were younger, but she’d make us sit in the waiting room while she went in back. When we were older, we’d sit in the car. That way we could tell stupid jokes or fight or whatever. I might recognize him if we came face-to-face in the grocery store, but mostly his name is familiar because Mom talked about him.”
“You get a sense of whether she liked working for him, or if they had conflict, or…?”
“She really liked him, I think. I used to—” Beth stopped.
The unexpected silence made him wish he could see her face. Tony waited but, when she didn’t continue, he had to say, “You used to what?”
“Sort of cringe when she started to talk about this amazing coup her boss had pulled off, or how brilliant he was,” she said very softly. “Mom would do it at the dinner table. Dad would just keep eating, but…it must have stung.”
Tony had the passing thought that he might have discounted her father as a suspect too quickly. He had a similar build to the other men Tony was seriously considering, if considerably less athletic.
His gut still said no. Everything else aside, it was a stretch to imagine him swinging a baseball bat at his daughter’s head. Tony would swear John genuinely loved his oldest daughter.
Beth said, “You’re thinking that…he could have been the one?”
“I have to consider him.” Tony shifted gears. “Did she talk about other male friends that way in front of your dad?”
She didn’t answer right away. He liked watching her face when she was thinking, but he had no trouble picturing the little crinkles that would have formed on her high, usually smooth forehead, or the way she’d nibble on her lower lip.
“Maybe not as much,” she said finally, “but I remember her talking about how Mr. Longley had bought his wife a BMW, and how Teresa was probably the only person working at the middle school with a car that nice.”
Ouch.
Had the emphasis on his been conscious, or was she mimicking her mother as she took a jab at her husband for failing as a provider?
“Mom loved the Schuhs’ home. The Sagers’, too. She’d wish we could afford to remodel or even move.”
Tony realized how much he was coming to dislike Beth’s mother. Had she really been that insensitive to her husband’s feelings, or did she just not care? For that matter, she must have been blind to how she was treating Beth, versus petite, blonde Emily.
“And she saw Keith more often,” Beth added. “So it’s not surprising she’d talk about him more.”
“What about other co-workers?”
Silence. Then, “Not as often. Except…she had one friend. I can’t remember her name.”
“Andrea?”
“Yes! That’s it. Have you gotten in touch with her?”