I’m a man of talent, he thought wryly.
Of course, if he hadn’t come back to town, Tess might have been the only witness to Hayes beating Alvarez to death. Would she have been believed? He didn’t like thinking about how much more vulnerable she’d have been to threats if she’d stood alone.
So, unlike Pandora, he’d released some good along with the bad. He seemed to have a brother again. And he had Tess.
Short term, remember?
* * *
“SAM DOYLE,” THE MAN on the porch said, beaming. He held a clipboard tucked under his arm. “We Care Plumbing. Are you Mr. Carter?”
Oh, yeah, this was him. Still handsome and sporting a goatee. Which Mom would like. Dark hair with a little silver at the temples. Lean but solid instead of thin and lanky. Zach’s gaze dropped to the wedding ring on his finger.
“I am.” Zach let him in but didn’t start for the bathroom. “Formerly Zach Murphy. You did a plumbing repair on my parents’ house, if I remember correctly.”
Doyle’s smile fell away and alarm flickered in his gray eyes. He wrinkled his brow, as if searching his memory. “Uh, Murphy. Do they live here in town? I can’t seem to recall...”
“I think you do. I’m betting you remember Gayle Murphy with no trouble at all.”
The guy had the guts to stand his ground. “What’s this about?” he asked.
“This is about my sister’s murder and the fact that you’d been around our house a lot by then. Could be my mother even gave you a key.”
Doyle’s jaw tightened. “No, she didn’t. And the only time I ever remember seeing your sister was when I came out to fix that leak.”
“But you came back, didn’t you?”
To his credit, he held Zach’s gaze. “I’m not proud of it, but, yes, I did.”
“What did she do, ask you to tea?”
“She set me up, just like you did this morning. Called and asked for me, said she and your dad were thinking about adding another bathroom. They’d been impressed with my competence. And then she came on to me.”
Zach stared at him, unblinking.
“I was a twenty-one-year-old kid! Flattered. It scared me a little, thinking she might want to leave your dad for me. I still lived at home,” he said, his mouth twisting at the memory of his own immaturity. “But, Gayle...she was like a fairy princess. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” His voice was heavy.
Zach’s long-held anger deserted him just like that. When he was that age, would he have said no to a beautiful older woman just because she was married? Of course not. Her marriage was her business, he’d have figured. At some point he’d gotten a little more particular, but at twenty-one?
What Mom and Sam Doyle did in bed wasn’t the point here.
“What about Sheila? Did she look like a fairy princess, too?” he asked.
“Your sister? Like I said, the only time I ever saw her was that night when the pipes in your house sprang a leak. If not for what happened, I wouldn’t even be able to picture her. All I remember is that there were some kids and one of ’em had red hair. Guess that wasn’t you.”
“My older brother.”
He nodded, but his eyes were unfocused, as if he wasn’t seeing Zach standing in front of him anymore. “Then I read about what happened to that little girl. I’d, uh, been with your mom only the day before. That made it worse. It got all tangled up in my head. I couldn’t figure out why God would have hurt your sister if it was me and your mom He was mad at.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “She never called me again, you know.”
He was seeing Zach now, pain in his eyes. “I wouldn’t have come if she had,” he concluded with a simple honesty Zach had to believe.
“You’re married?” he asked.
“Yeah. I told Marianne about Gayle and about the worst tragedy this town has ever seen. She’s a good person, Marianne is.” Doyle shook his head. “I’m sorry for what happened to your family, Mr. Carter.”
“Were you aware of whether my mother had other lovers while you were seeing her?” Zach asked.
The man’s cheeks heated. “I was only sleeping with her for a couple weeks. Don’t know when she’d have had time. Most days we, uh, got together during my lunch break.”