“Why would I do that?” she demanded. “Why would I want Lucas to get shot?”
Lucas, Caitlin noted. Not Dr. De Angelis any longer. That was interesting. “I don’t know. Why did you strangle your husband?”
“I didn’t!”
“Maybe you didn’t. But, let me tell you, I’m one step closer to finding out who did. Dollars to donuts, same man took a shot at our doc. And I think you know who it was.” The sheriff tapped her nail on the top of the manila folder. She was a biter, Tess noticed, the nail chewed down to the quick. Thud. Thud. Thud. “Who do you know around here?”
She didn’t like the direction Sheriff De Angelis’s questions were veering off into. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Big city girl, bet you never figured that the sticks has some fine detectives of its own. I don’t like to leave Hamlet, Mrs. Sullivan. Doesn’t mean that I don’t. In fact, I have friends high up in the county. Look what they got for me.”
De Angelis opened the file on her desk. Inside was a stack of paper close to a half inch thick. A row of numbers ran down the page. There were about four lines highlighted.
She slammed her palm flat on the top of the paper, covering the numbers. “These are your phone records.”
Deep inside her coat pockets, Tess clenched her hands into fists. She kept her expression neutral. “You can’t do that.”
“Can. Did.”
The sheriff offered her a meaningless grin. At least, she bared her teeth. Tess decided it counted. De Angelis looked like she was suddenly enjoying herself.
That made one of them.
“Warrant I got let me go back a year,” De Angelis said. “And you know what I noticed?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“You either loved your husband a great deal, or you were very lonely.” Lifting her hand, she pointed down the row of numbers, skipping over the ones in yellow. “Same two numbers over and over. One was Jack Sullivan’s cell phone, the other his work number. That’s it. Until a couple of weeks ago.”
Thud. Thud. De Angelis tapped on the first highlighted number. She rattled it off.
“That’s a local number,” she said. “No trace on it that I can find, so it must be a burner. In fact, I bet it is. And you know what else? Every Monday, like clockwork, there’s a new number to replace the last one. Same area code, though. So one more time, Mrs. Sullivan: who do you know here?”
Sheriff De Angelis kept repeating herself, just like she did during the other interview. As if she could badger a confession out of Tess. But Tess was prepared this go round.
She fought to relax, reminding herself that she didn’t do anything wrong. And she wasn’t about to let De Angelis bully her into admitting anything that might get her in trouble. With a shrug, she said, “Nobody. Our car got a flat. It was pure chance we ended up in Hamlet.”
The sheriff obviously didn’t buy it. “Who are you talking to?” Thud. Thud. Thud. “Whose number is this?”
“I don’t know. I mean, sometimes my phone gets weird numbers calling it. I don’t know who they are. I might answer them. That’s all. Look, you said it yourself. All the other numbers are the same. Jack’s cell, his work phone. I really don’t know anyone else. He wouldn’t let me.”
De Angelis ran her finger across a different number. She had drawn a large star next to it. “This conversation is from two weeks ago. It lasted more than thirty-four minutes. Who did you talk to?”
Tess thought about it. “Okay. I think I remember that. It was a telemarketer trying to sell me insurance or something. I don’t know. Jack worked long hours. I get lonely sometimes. And, yeah, it might be pathetic, it might be sad, but sometimes I pretend to buy into their speeches just to have someone to talk to.”
“Except, as I said, I already ran these numbers. Not one is registered to any business, insurance or otherwise.”
“I don’t know why!” The denial burst out of Tess. Yanking her hands out of her pockets, she gripped the edge of the sheriff’s desk. She didn’t want De Angelis to see that she was shaking. “All I wanted to do was have a second honeymoon with my husband. Now he’s dead… and everyone thinks I’m responsible.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. Burying her face in her trembling hands, Tess started to weep.
A soft rap at her door. Ready to snarl that she was busy, Caitlin tore her pointed gaze away from the crying woman in time to see that Wilhelmina had already entered the small office. Her hand was still folded loosely in a fist. Willie must have knocked on the inside of the door—and, most likely, overheard everything that had just passed between her and the Sullivan woman.
One look at the disapproval on her
deputy’s face confirmed it. Willie shook her head slowly, pursing her bright red lips as she folded her hands in front of her ample waist.
Caitlin gentled her voice. It wouldn’t fool the older woman, no. She could at least try not to come off like she was attacking the outsider now that she knew her deputy was watching. “Yes?”