Jamie winced at the sound of the fierce slap, at the way Cole’s head jerked back from its force. Looking stricken, Cole took a step to the side. “I didn’t kill your sister,” he said in a low voice.
“Tell that to the judge!”
Jamie stifled a sigh. Several passersby had stopped and were staring openmouthed at the commotion. With Cole doing nothing to end the confrontation, Jamie moved between him and Teresa’s sister, softening her tone as she looked at Valerie and said, “This really isn’t the place, ma’am.”
The woman’s jaw dropped. She glanced from Cole to Jamie, then let out a hysterical-sounding laugh. “Already got yourself a new woman, huh, Donovan? You make me sick!”
Cole instinctively moved back, as if expecting another assault, but Valerie just stared at him with daggers in her eyes. She glowered at him for several long moments, before finally storming off.
Jamie watched her go, then turned to Cole. “Not your biggest fan, I see,” she murmured.
He didn’t look amused. “The feeling’s mutual. Valerie Matthews is as nasty as her sister was. In fact, she raised Teresa by herself, so she probably taught her everything she knew about being a terrible person.”
Jamie couldn’t even argue. Valerie hadn’t exactly seemed like the most stable person. She made a mental note to ask Finn about her, and the relationship between the sisters. Had jealousy been a factor there?
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Cole said with a heavy breath, reaching up to rub his red cheek. “As you’ve probably figured out, I’m not the most popular guy in this town at the moment.”
A silence fell over them. Jamie wanted to say a word or two of comfort, but she kept her mouth closed. She wasn’t allowed to reassure this man. She was investigating him, for Pete’s sake.
Evidently taking the lull as a sign of goodbye, Cole cleared his throat. “I should head home and try to fix the generator, in case that storm makes an appearance.”
With an awkward goodbye, he walked off, leaving her standing by the curb. Although she’d promised herself she wasn’t allowed to view Cole Donovan as anything other than a suspect, his parting sentence stayed in her mind. He was going to fix a generator. So he did work with his hands. She found herself wondering what else he did on his own. Was he involved in the actual building of any of his properties?
She shoved the questions aside, a sigh rising in her chest. She really needed to exorcise this ridiculous urge to get to know him.
Fifteen minutes later, Jamie pulled up in front of Joe Gideon’s cabin, her mind on the impending interview. The structure was a far cry from Cole’s luxurious house. It was nothing but a small one-story shack made of logs that seemed to be rotting in several places, with a splintered door, two boarded-up windows and a weathered porch with a gaping hole in it. Jamie carefully climbed the unstable steps and knocked on the ripped screen door, then waited.
A few seconds later, a burly man with a salt-and-pepper beard appeared in the doorway. His too-close-together brown eyes narrowed, thin lips curling into a frown as he barked, “What do you want?”
She pasted on a bright smile. “Mr. Gideon? I’m Special Agent Jamie Crawford. We spoke on the phone this morning.”
“Oh, it’s you. Come in, I guess.”
Not the warmest of welcomes, but Jamie would take it. She followed Gideon into the house, immediately overcome by the odor of stale beer, mothballs and spoiled food. Jeez, Finn hadn’t been kidding when he said Gideon’s life had taken a downward spiral. Just looking at the man, she could tell he was a heavy drinker. A beer gut spilled over the waistband of his jeans and his cheeks boasted a ruddy flush that made her wonder just how much he’d already drunk today.
“You can sit wherever,” he said brusquely as he flopped down into a large recliner with tattered plaid upholstery.
Jamie swallowed down her disgust and finally sat on the stained brown sofa, choosing the end that wasn’t covered with wet newspapers and an empty carton of beer bottles.
“Do you mind if I record this?” she asked pleasantly, already pulling out the mini recorder from her purse.
Suspicion clouded his eyes. “Why?”
“Just so I make sure to get everything right when I type up your statement.”
“Fine,” he grumbled.
Jamie turned on the recorder and placed it on the stained coffee table. “All right, Mr. Gideon, why don’t we start with what you did the morning of July 15.”
As the man recited everything he’d done, throwing the phrase “Had a cold one” after each task he outlined, Jamie finally had to cut him off. “Why don’t you just give me a ballpark amount of the drinks you had?”
“Ten, fifteen.” He shrugged. “I have a high tolerance for the stuff.”
Congratulations, she almost bit out.
“Okay, so after you finished the construction job—”
“Carpentry,” he interrupted impatiently. “I was helping a buddy of mine sand some chairs.”
She fought a wave of impatience of her own. “After you finished that, you came straight home?”
“Sure did.”
“And you were here for the rest of the evening. Didn’t leave the house until the next morning?”
“Didn’t go nowhere,” he muttered.
“So you didn’t run into Cole Donovan about a half a mile from here at around two in the morning?”
“I already said I didn’t go nowhere!”
He was lying. One look at his defensive brown eyes and the now even redder cheeks, and Jamie knew that Gideon was hiding something. She wondered why Finn hadn’t seen it when he’d interviewed the man.
“Why would Mr. Donovan say he saw you?” Jamie asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
Gideon rolled his eyes. “Because he’s a killer, and he needs an alibi.”
“You believe he killed his ex-wife then?”
“Of course he did.”
“Do you have any proof of that, or is it just your own personal belief?”
His brown eyes flashed. “No, I don’t got no proof. But everyone knows he did it. He attacked her outside Sully’s, then followed her home to finish the job.”
Jamie put on an unaffected mask, all the while marveling over how facts could get so distorted in the small-town grapevine. Eyewitnesses had grudgingly admitted to seeing Teresa attack Cole. Now it was the other way around, apparently.
The distrust coursing through her blood made it difficult to keep a professional distance. Gideon was lying—either about his claim that he hadn’t seen Cole that night, or about something else entirely. Either way, the man wasn’t telling her the whole truth.
Don’t push him.
She heeded the advice, relying on the instincts she’d learned to trust after ten years in law enforcement. Gideon wasn’t budging on his story, not today, anyway, and forcing the subject right now would only cause him to clam up. So despite the reluctance seizing her body, she pasted a smile on her face and leaned forward to shut off the tape recorder.
“Okay, then. Thanks for your time, Mr. Gideon.” Rising from the sofa, she extended a hand, trying not to cringe when Gideon’s beefy hand gripped hers, his dirty fingernails digging into her palm.
“So you’re sending the bastard to jail, right?” Gideon