He’d said, “I’ll admit that I wondered if she’d had a man in her life before she met me. Maybe she had heard from him and—”
They chorused a swift denial. She hadn’t had a serious beau before him. She wouldn’t have forsaken him or broken her marriage vows, not their Mila. She loved Gabe dearly and wanted desperately to be a mother. He’d coughed a sob and held his head between his hands. “Of course I know that. I do. I’m certain she didn’t leave of her own accord.”
Now, having eaten enough to pacify the aunt, he thanked her for preparing lunch, excused himself from the dining room, and barricaded himself in his office, where he poured himself a bourbon.
He carried the drink over to the sofa, took off his shoes, and reclined, covering his scratchy, burning eyes with his forearm. He hadn’t slept in two nights. His cuffs were loose, his collar button undone, his trousers wrinkled from having been wallowed in.
If he caught a glimpse of himself in a reflective surface, he barely recognized the image. He looked like a bum, bearing scant resemblance to the self-possessed physician who people relied on for healing and succor.
He very much doubted that he would ever regain the high regard and status that he’d had before his wife had gone missing. Even if Mila had abandoned him of her own volition, her mysterious disappearance would leave a stain on him as permanent as a port wine birthmark.
That distressing thought was interrupted when he heard an automobile approaching. Sheriff Amos? That deputy, Scotty, again? Had they found her?
Heart thumping, he drained his bourbon, rolled up off the sofa, and padded over to the bay window. Peeking around the edge of the drapery, he watched a shiny black touring car come to a stop in front of his house. Around town, it was a familiar automobile. As was the driver, whose name was Jimmy Hennessy. He got out and assisted Bernie Croft from the backseat.
The mayor strutted up Gabe’s walkway, chest thrust out like a despot about to watch a parade of his military might.
Hennessy stayed with the car, a daunting, pugnacious presence against the backdrop of Miss Wise’s Victorian house and bright petunia beds.
The doorbell jingled. Mila’s uncle went to answer. Gabe heard him quietly explaining that the doctor was unavailable to visitors and wouldn’t be seeing patients until further notice.
Bernie, of course, was having none of it. He declared that the doctor would see him. Over the uncle’s objections, Bernie came inside. Gabe followed the sound of his footsteps, which stopped outside his office door.
There was hard knocking. “Gabe, it’s Bernie.”
Gabe’s head dropped forward, and he maintained that helpless pose until the door was rapped on again, this time more imperiously.
“Open up.”
Gabe trudged to the door, flipped the lock, and pulled it open. Looking beyond Bernie, Gabe addressed the apologetic uncle. “It’s all right. Mayor Croft is a friend.”
The uncle retreated. Bernie forged in. Gabe closed the door.
Bernie went straight over to the ledge of the bookshelf where he helped himself to the bottle of bourbon, splashing some into a tumbler. When Bernie turned and extended the bottle toward Gabe, he shook his head.
Noticing the empty glass on the end table beside the sofa, Bernie said, “Just as well, I think. Appears you’ve already been imbibing.”
Gabe didn’t reply, but returned to the sofa and slumped against the back cushions. Mila had spent months painstakingly doing the crewelwork on them.
The mayor made himself comfortable in an armchair. “You should open a window, Gabe. You stink. The whole room reeks of you.”
He could smell his sour odor himself. Since having to report Mila missing, he hadn’t washed, hadn’t shaved. With indifference, he’d observed himself becoming more and more disheveled, but had done nothing to stop the deterioration.
“That’s what you came to tell me? That I stink?”
Bernie took a sip of whiskey. “The D.A. has declined to indict Hutton. He’s been released from custody.”
That was hardly surprising, as no evidence had been found to implicate him. But that he’d been eliminated as a suspect wasn’t welcome news, which Gabe supposed was the reason Bernie had come to break it to him personally.
“No other persons of interest?”
“None. Of course they’re continuing the search. But sooner or later the zeal will begin to flag, and, eventually, they’ll stop looking. I’m sure you realize that.”
Gabe nodded morosely.
The mayor crossed one leg over the other and propped his glass of whiskey on his knee.
Alerted by the feigned casualness, Gabe sat up straighter. “What?”