She picked her way along an overgrown path that would have horrified Larry—if he’d ever bothered to walk this far. Fortunately he’d been satisfied to survey his domain from the library windows or the brick terrace. He hadn’t known about Liz’s secret hiding place, little more than a shady patch of grass beneath a giant oak with a weathered swing dangling by thick ropes from a low branch. The river lapped gently at the shore here, glistening in the midmorning sun.
She sat on that swing now and pushed off idly, letting her thoughts wander. If Tucker was right, if someone had witnessed her scene with Larry and used it as a perfect cover for murder, who could it have been? A political enemy? A spurned lover? An outraged husband? There were plenty of each. Larry’s passions tended to draw emotional extremes. He’d fielded his share of threats, but had refused to take any of them seriously. Obviously he’d miscalculated.
There were anonymous letters, though, and tapes of threatening phone messages, all of the sort that many politicians received when they stirred up their constituents. Larry had dismissed them, but he’d been prudent enough to save them just in case one was ever acted on. She could provide them all to the police, which was what she needed to be doing now, not sitting down here hiding out and sulking over the doubts she’d seen in Tucker’s eyes. No one had a higher stake in proving her innocence than she did, not even Tucker.
Slowly she climbed the hill back to the house, aware that Tucker was waiting on the terrace, his expression inscrutable, his eyes shaded by mirrored aviator sunglasses as he watched her approach.
“Feel better?” he asked when she neared.
“Not really. I guess the soothing effects of my hideout don’t extend to murder.” She regarded him curiously. “I’m surprised you didn’t come after me to make sure I wasn’t taking off.”
“The thought never crossed my mind.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He regarded her worriedly. “Mary Elizabeth, this is going to get out of hand really fast. Walker’s had to call the forensics team and get the local medical examiner in here. Once Doc Jones heads out this way, the media won’t be far behind. You ready to face that?”
“Can’t we leave?” She shook her head and resolutely squared her shoulders. “Never mind. Of course we can’t. Can I go inside, put on something more appropriate?”
“No. It’s a crime scene.”
“Then I guess this will have to do,” she said, smoothing down Daisy’s ill-fitting jeans. “Your sister’s going to be thrilled to see her clothes on TV. She’ll probably burn them.”
“Or give them away,” he agreed.
Then, for the first time since she’d awakened to find him staring at her, he took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. The gesture gave her the strength to face whatever was ahead.
“You stay put,” he said. “You should be safe enough out here for a time. I’ll get you something to drink and be right back. Powell ought to be here soon, too.”
She nodded and watched him go. She could do this, she told herself. She’d faced the media a thousand times in the last six years. She was good at it, a natural at spinning a story. She would make Larry proud of her one last time.
An hour later, sheriff’s deputies and media were swarming all over the place. Liz stood by and tried very hard to distance herself from the reason for their presence. She didn’t want to think too much about the scene inside her home, about Larry—a man she had once loved with all her heart—being dead, about the vicious words he’d hurled at her the last time they’d talked. That exchange would live with her forever. It was a side of her husband she’d never seen before, a side that was ruthless and manipulative.
He’d made it seem as if he’d been devastated by her request for a divorce, when nothing could have been further from the truth. They’d both known for a long time that the marriage was a shell of what it should have been. There had been no passion for years now. There were no kids to distract from the fact that they had nothing in common. Larry had wanted her for her name and connections, and for Swan Ridge, second only to King Spencer’s Cedar Hill in terms of a prestigious address in the county.
Even the date of their wedding had been calculated for maximum political benefit, just when the campaign season was heating up. Somehow she had missed that when he’d been courting her with lavish gifts and whispered words of love, when they’d talked far into the night sharing their idealistic dreams for a better world that together they could help to shape. She’d been blinded by his charm and his rhetoric. Somehow she had completely missed the shallowness beneath it.
Her first clue that she’d been conned had been the lover she’d found in his hotel room when she’d unexpectedly joined him on the campaign trail. They’d been married for less than two months at the time. Larry had apologized, said the relationship was over, but the woman hadn’t accepted it yet. He’d sworn it would never happen again, and bought Liz a diamond and amethyst necklace he’d told her reminded him of the sparkle in her eyes. Maybe if he’d exchanged the extravagant necklace for a sincere apology, she would have believed him.
Even so, Liz had been determined to make the marriage work. She’d dutifully appeared by his side at every chicken dinner, every small-town parade, every campaign stop. The year of finishing school her grandfather had insisted on had made her poised. Early years in Europe with parents who had too much money and too many interests to pay attention to a little girl had taught her to fend for herself and never let them see how much their neglect hurt. For the rest of the campaign, she had smiled despite the torment.
And on the day after the hard-won election victory, she had insisted Larry fire the campaign manager he’d slept with, denying the woman the prominent place on his staff she had clearly expected.
“She goes, or I will leave you now and tell the whole world why,” she had threatened him quietly as he savored the headlines in the local paper. She had grown up over the course of the campaign. Now it was time he did the same.
It had been three months before he’d taken another lover. Another six before he traded that one in. Liz had known about most, if not all, of them, but with each one her will to fight had lessened. Her respect for her husband had vanished, and with it, the last remnants of her love. Her hopes and dreams had faded, including the plans for a family. Even if she hadn’t decided against bringing children into such a marriage, Larry’s belatedly announced timetable would have precluded it. He wanted his career on a firm footing before any children kept her from devoting her full attention to him, he had told her when she’d dared to broach the subject of starting the family they’d once talked about.
That coldly calculated timetable of his had been yet another reminder that he wasn’t the man she’d thought him to be. Even so, it had taken her a long time—too long—to admit defeat.
Now, though, as she watched her husband’s shrouded body being removed from their house, she knew the humiliation was finally over.
Or was it? Unless Tucker could find the evidence to save her, even in death Larry Chandler was going to find one more way to rip her life to shreds.
4
T ucker filled a glass with water and ice, then stood staring out the kitchen window at Mary Elizabeth. What had she been through in the last six years? What had driven her to want to put an end to her golden marriage? Had it been bad enough that she’d been driven to take drastic measures? Had she believed, even for an instant, that divorce wouldn’t end whatever hell Chandler was putting her through?
The instant the thought crossed his mind, he banished it. He would not let himself consider for one second the possibility that she was guilty of murder. Every person deserved a presumption of innocence, but it was easier for him to get to that point with Mary Elizabeth. Past history, deep feelings, gut instinct all intertwined to assure that he saw her only in the most positive light.