Mainly Shelley Wagner’s, a woman who operated alone and who appeared to be a good—albeit hovering—mother.
“But—” Aunt Bianca started.
He put his plate in the sink and gave his aunt a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll let you know when and if I need a date, but believe me, I can find my own girl.”
“By the time you go looking,” Aunt Bianca muttered, “you’ll be too old to do more than watch television and complain about your health.”
“You’ve been talking to my mother again,” Oscar accused her.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, he sat at his desk, finishing up his last report when his phone rang.
“Hi, Mom,” he answered, earning a few smirks from other officers in the room.
His mother filled him in on his sister’s latest antics as well as his brothers’ accomplishments. She segued to a funny story about his uncle Rudy’s garage, and finished by saying how excited she was that he had a date this weekend with a neighbor’s granddaughter.
Ah, the phone call was the result of a joint effort between his aunt and his mother.
“I’m at work, Mom, and need to finish up.” Since his return stateside a year ago, his mother had been trying to make up for lost time. She continued a moment more about family matters and then signed off. Oscar had just a few more things to do before he could go. Just as Oscar was closing up the last open file on his computer, thinking about getting to his aunt’s place and sleep, Lucas Stillwater came in, a Snickers bar in hand. On the small Sarasota Falls police roster, he was long-term, having been with the department for over twenty years, and he hadn’t been young when he joined.
Lucas now worked the day desk and no longer patrolled. The most pressing job he had was visiting schools and discussing Stranger Danger. He paused by Oscar’s desk to say, “Hey! Riley just called. We found a DB, and you’ll never guess where.”
Oscar waited. Lucas liked to play guessing games, which Oscar didn’t have time for. Stillwater talked too much and worked too little. It hadn’t always been that way. At least, that was what Oscar had heard. According to Chief Riley, Stillwater’s retirement was merely months away, and his goal was keeping alive and out of trouble. Oscar squinted at the computer screen and responded, “Where?”
“Vine Street. Right down from where you are.”
Oscar’s fingers stilled. His aunt had a few older neighbors. He hoped it wasn’t Abigail Simms from across the street. But...
“That young couple fairly new to the town,” Stillwater continued. “She’s a schoolteacher. Her husband manages Little’s Supermarket.”
Something heavy formed in Oscar’s chest. It moved to his stomach, started to churn. This wasn’t good.
“The last name’s Livingston. She...”
The chair squealed against the floor as Oscar scooted away from his desk. Candace indeed lived three houses down from him and had hung around with his little sister when they were in school. Candace and her husband, Cody, had moved here nine months ago when she secured a teaching job. Cody managed Little’s Supermarket, a chain owned by Candace’s father. Oscar stood, reaching for his badge and touching the sidearm already secure in his holster.
Lucas let out a low whistle and bemoaned, “We still haven’t gotten over the excitement of Larry Wagner and making the national news. Now this. Chief Riley’s not going to be happy.”
Oscar didn’t care.
Candace murdered?
She represented what was good and right in the world.
He had to pause a moment, get his bearings and ask the right questions. “Who reported this?”
“We got a call from Crime Stoppers.”
Anger, white-hot and immediate, sent Oscar to the door.
“Bailey and Riley are already on site.”
Officer Leann Bailey was all the help Oscar needed. Right now Chief Riley thought Oscar was wet behind the ears, good only for traffic stops and petty crimes...but this was different. Personal. Riley might take lead investigator, but Oscar would be alongside him for this, never mind the hours. He’d known Candace most of his life, and she was all of twenty-three and had been married just over a year. Who would take her life? She and her husband, Cody, didn’t seem to own anything of real value. True, her dad was a millionaire a few times over, but Candace and Cody preferred to make it on their own. Before taking the assignment here, he’d even driven up and joined her and her husband for a couple of barbecues in their backyard. Twice she’d tried to fix him up with a coworker. He should have gone, just once, to make her happy. Now...
Oscar paused as he opened the door. “They know time of death?”
“Just that it was yesterday morning,” Stillwater said.
“What was the cause of death?”
“Head trauma. Some sign of a struggle. Husband probably did it. Supposedly he’s out of town. They haven’t been able to—”
It took Oscar ten minutes to drive to his neighborhood. Already police tape cordoned off the house. He parked his motorcycle the next house down from Candace’s and swung one leg over the seat. He couldn’t proceed, though, because suddenly cotton billowed in his throat.
This was little Candace. He’d taken her to her first dance because the boy who’d invited her had backed out at the last minute, and Oscar’s little sister, Anna, had come crying to Oscar. Oh, his brothers had teased, but in the end, Oscar’d had a great time. He and his brothers had waylaid the date-breaker a few days later and made him aware that Candace and Anna were not in his little black book unless he wanted a big black eye.
The memories made it hard to move.
It occurred to Oscar that, except for fellow soldiers, this was the first death he’d be working of someone he loved. And now he was glad his case had sent him to the Sarasota Falls Police Department.
But to make a difference here, he’d have to convince himself to walk past the cordon tape, into Candace’s house, and ask Riley for the facts.
Oscar could see the facts displayed over the front yard. This was a house, cared for by two individuals building a home.
He took off his dark glasses, momentarily blinking at the sudden brightness. When his eyes adjusted, he noted a tiny lizard crawling on top of the gray block fence next to the carport. It was probably hoping for a scent of oranges, maybe the hint of an early spring breeze. No such luck. As if realizing the futility, the lizard scurried off and disappeared into a hole in the dirt.
What had it seen? Heard?
Nothing it was willing to share with law enforcement.
The neighborhood was quiet, as if nature knew there’d been a disturbance and was now withdrawing—like the lizard—leaving them to investigate the disruption.
Next to the front door, two chairs boasted bright blue cushions. They appeared new but had been used. Candace’s tennis shoes were under one of them. She’d obviously been playing in the mud again, pretending to garden. She’d complained last week about “everything dying.”
And now she was dead.
A tiny table was situated between the two chairs. On it, a pair of gardening shears sat with the same black, lumpy mud on its blades as on the bottom of the shoes. Maybe she’d been digging with the shears instead of using a trowel. There was also a pair of flowered gloves that surely were too big for Candace’s small hands. He’d watched her one day, on her knees in the sodden yard. She’d wanted perfection, every rock moved, every weed eliminated. Her fingers had gone through the loose dirt, pushing tiny holes into sections, reinventing space and filling