He looked past her into the dim coolness of her living room, noticing the way she shifted when he did so. As if she didn’t want him to see inside. Considering he was a good half foot taller than she was, she could shift all she wanted and he’d still see over her head into the pin-neat home.
There was a flowered couch, an armchair, a coffee table with a book on it, and little else to indicate the type of person dwelling there. “You were very cooperative when you came to the station,” he agreed smoothly. “And you’ve been cooperative since then when we’ve spoken. May I come in?”
Her lips were pale, vulnerably nude and soft looking until they drew up all tight the way they invariably did whenever he was around her. “It’s a, um, a terrible mess.”
He considered telling her that she should never bother lying. She was pretty miserable at it. But he was used to people who didn’t want to talk with a cop no matter what the circumstances. She just didn’t know that he wasn’t one to give up on a case.
No matter what the cost.
“We could always talk down at the station,” he said pointedly. “One way or the other, Ms. Brewster, I do intend to talk with you.”
Her lashes swept down, and it looked to him as if she was conducting a mental struggle. “Have a seat,” she said after a moment, “and I’ll bring out some cold lemonade.”
The concession was better than nothing. But he made no move toward the two iron chairs sitting on her railed porch until she’d carefully closed the front door in his face.
Whistling tunelessly, Holt dropped down onto one of the chairs—the one closest to the front door. He tugged loose the top button on his shirt and dragged the brown tie even looser. Who’d have thought he’d have to leave a lifetime in L.A. for a dinky town in Montana to find out just how miserable August heat could be?
He stretched his legs out in front of him and studied the quiet street on which Molly Brewster, librarian, lived. The town park was only a block away, and in the silent afternoon he could hear the occasional shriek or laugh coming from that direction.
He could feel the minutes ticking by as surely as he could feel the sweat creeping down his neck. He twitched his tie again, stretched out his legs a little more and watched an ugly little spider creep across the whitewashed eave. It, at least, seemed oblivious to the heat that had been making even the most even-keeled people in town cranky.
The creak of the door warned him the moment before Molly stepped out onto the porch, carrying two tall, slender glasses. Lemon slices and ice cubes jostled as she carefully stepped past him to set one of the glasses on the small table separating the chairs. Without looking at him, she sat down, cradling her own glass in both hands.
He looked at her. Feet encased in tidy white tennis shoes placed squarely on the wooden porch; the hem of her lightweight blue sundress tugged down as near to her knees as possible.
Shapely knees.
He stifled a sigh and picked up his glass of lemonade. It was tart and refreshing and he barely kept from guzzling it down because of the damned afternoon heat. Because her knees were smooth and way too beckoning. Because she was a decade younger than he was, and he wasn’t there to notice her damned, pretty knees.
He set the lemonade back on the glass-and-iron table with a tad more force than was wise, and was grateful the glass didn’t just crack right then and there. “You found the body a little more than four weeks ago.”
She was staring fixedly ahead of her, but at least there was more color in her face, so he wasn’t concerned she might keel over in a dead faint. “I found Harriet, Deputy.” Her voice was soft, but held a distinct edge.
“You were friends with her.”
“Most people called her the head librarian, considering the small staff we have, but she was actually the director of the public library. My boss,” Molly corrected. “As you well know. She reported directly to the board of trustees for the library.”
“And now you’re the head librarian.”
At that, she seemed to sigh a little. “The library needs to have someone in charge. Rather like the sheriff’s department, I should think.”
He watched her thumb glide back and forth over the moisture condensing on her glass. Her nails were unpainted, neatly groomed, cut short. If she was the type to chew her nails, she hid it well.
His ex-wife had spent a weekly fortune having her nails kept long and viper-red. He watched Molly’s thumb a moment longer. Her unvarnished, natural-looking fingers were a far cry more feminine than Vanessa’s could ever claim to have been. The thought snuck in, out of place and definitely unwanted.
“Why is it that Sheriff Reingard assigned Harriet’s case to you, anyway?”
It was a fair enough question, though he could have done without the challenging attitude underlying her words. “I was a detective in California before I came to Montana.”
Her expression didn’t change. “What was your crime that you were banished all the way from sunny California to our little town?”
“You think Rumor is a destination for those who are banished? Is that why you’re here from…wherever?”
“Sunday afternoons are generally spent with family and friends around here,” she said after a moment, not addressing his question any more than he’d addressed hers. “At the Calico Diner or the Rooftop Café.”
“Pretty hot afternoon to spend at the Rooftop unless you can get a seat inside.” He picked up his glass and drank down another third. But she was right. Rumor was the kind of place where families spent Sunday afternoons together. They had dinner together either at home or at one of the popular places in town, or they had picnics down at the park.
They weren’t sitting on the porches of librarians conducting a murder investigation. That was definitely more Holt’s type of life. Even Dave Reingard was probably bellying up to a pot roast and garden salad with his wife Dee Dee and their five kids.
“Yet, fortunately for me, you’re home on a Sunday afternoon,” he said blandly. “Family and friends give you the day off today or something?”
Her lips tightened a little and he nearly smiled. He knew for a fact that Ms. Molly Brewster was as standoffish as he was. Maybe more. Yet she’d worked with Harriet Martel as the assistant librarian for all of the eighteen months since she’d moved to Rumor from God-knew-where.
“What did you want to know, Deputy? I’d like to get back to what I was doing before you interrupted me.”
He picked up his lemonade once again, casually swirling the liquid in the glass. He wasn’t surprised that it was homemade. She looked the sort to make homemade lemonade on hot August afternoons. Truth be told, she looked the sort to be rocking babies and baking cookies. But it was her secretive nature that nagged at him. “Which was what?”
“None of your business.”
He smiled faintly. “Is it me you don’t like, or men in general?”
“What did you say your reason was for intruding on my afternoon?”
“Don’t you want Harriet’s murderer to be found, Molly?”
Her face paled a little. She carefully set aside her lemonade. “Of course I do.”
“Then help me.”
“Help you what?” She rose to her feet, hugging her arms around her as if it were cold outside, instead of just shy of Hades. “I’ve already told you everything I know. I went to Harriet’s home that Monday because she hadn’t shown up for work. It was completely unlike her, and though I’d called a few times, she didn’t answer. So I drove over to her house because I was concerned. The door was unlocked and she was…was—”
Seated in a chair, a single .22 caliber GSW to the head. The