Page 6 of Hold a Candle

The door banged behind them and Jamie turned to see Pauley. “If ye are finished with us, we are heading out to get some breakfast.”

Pauley nodded. “I just need all of ye to come down to the police station sometime today so we can get fingerprints and statements,” she replied. “For elimination purposes in order to sort through the prints we find,” she added.

“I promise, right after breakfast,” Lucerne replied. “I need to eat something now that the nausea is receding. Those dry crackers in my bag just aren’t killing it.”

“I totally understand.” Pauley shot her a sympathetic smile.

“Xoko’s is just a few blocks away, de ye want to walk or ride?” Jamie asked his daughter.

Darro spoke up firmly. “We’ll be riding. I no want to get halfway there and have Lucerne go into labor or something.”

Jamie chuckled. “Getting edgy lad?”

“Ye bet I am.”

“Must be yer first then,” Pauley remarked. “My ex-husband was edgy with our first too.” A shadow flitted briefly across her face.

“How many do ye have?” Jamie asked curiously, noting the past reference of her husband.

Pauley hesitated and then answered. “Three. Two boys and a girl, Mr. MacNamara.”

“Just call me Jamie, since we’ll be in touch a lot while ye are working our case. It’s less of a mouthful than Mr. MacNamara.”

Before she could answer, Lucerne laid her hand on Pauley’s. “And I’m Lucerne and this is Darro,” she said. “We’re not much on formalities when something like this is going on. I hope ye can find whoever did this, and figure out what happened to that poor man inside.”

Pauley seemed to relax. “Ye can call me Pauley,” she replied to Lucerne’s kind gesture. “And I can’t tell ye any details of the case, but just be assured that thepoor maninside was nae an upstanding citizen. I knew him the minute I saw his photo,” she added. “The real question is how did someone get the best of him? Because it wouldn’t have been easy.”

They were all silent as they pondered the ramifications of her statement, then Darro briskly rubbed his palms together. “Aye...well...we’d best be going. We’ll tend to our statements and fingerprints after breakfast.”

“Thank ye,” Pauley replied with a nod.

Jamie nodded at Pauley with a grin, knowing he was going to ignore her admonition to call her Detective MacBride. “Until later then, Pauley.” He turned and went down the steps to his car. She didn’t answer but he could feel her watching him as he walked away.

Was that a good sign?

On the way to the restaurant, Jamie’s stomach growled. He didn’t eat out often, preferring to fix his own food at home and have leftovers stored a week ahead. Processed food, although very tasty, was expensive and hard on the waistline. He wasn’t inclined to gain weight, but he also didn’t want to risk it either. Walking around town and running now and then on the riverwalk along the Ness River kept him in fairly decent shape. Plus, he had a weight set at home and did a workout with those three mornings a week.

Rhonda, his very American wife, had been gone almost three years now, and he still missed her every day. With her bright red hair, green eyes, and gorgeous figure, she’d been the flame of his life and the light of his existence until cancer had doused her glow and taken her away from him.

In reality, Jamie was probably more introvert than extrovert, which had worked well for him and Rhonda. It enabled him to endure the long, lonely months on his own when she would be in America with her family while he was traveling on business trips around the world. Sometimes he would be in a location unfit for a woman and a child for months at a time, coordinating the movements for large equipment to be used and moved between countries. Their situation had suited Rhonda because she was the real extrovert, and came from a huge family in Louisiana where she loved to spend time when he wasn’t around.

It had been really good money and he’d retired early from globe-trotting with a healthy investment portfolio and a great pension. They had planned on traveling together when they were both retired, but that dream had been painfully put to rest.

His sudden interest in Pauley made him a bit uneasy; it felt disloyal to Rhonda’s memory. Granted, Rhonda would have wanted him to move on. They had talked about the inevitable event that one of them would be left alone one day. He just hadn’t figured it would be him.

***

PAULEY STUDIED THEfilm from the cameras at Happy Housekeepers in disbelief. Hitting replay and reaching for her cup, she sipped her coffee as she watched the desperate young man race up to the back door of the Happy Housekeepers, shove something in between the door and the frame, and then enter the building and slam the door behind him. He was unlucky there wasn’t a deadbolt because it wasn’t ten seconds later that Tommie barreled in right behind him.

Granted, it was night time with no full moon and only a small porchlight on the back of the premises, but she could swear the figure resembled her youngest son, Luca. The thought of that monster cornering her son sent cold chills racing down her spine. She couldn’t be sure it wasn’t Luca, although there was no good reason for it to be him.

The film from the front camera was a little more illuminating, but not by much. As Jamie had said, the lad didn’t so much as glance behind him as he shot out the front door in the early morning dawn and never looked back.

The clothing was just like so many young men these days. Raggedy trousers slung low on the hips, and a black bomber jacket that appeared miles too big for the youth. Luca didn’t own a bomber jacket, nor a pair of ratty black tennis shoes with no markings on them. The kid was particular about his clothes, preferring name brand items that she couldn’t afford. Which was why she’d insisted he get a job, so he could buy the stuff he liked. She would supply him with clothes, but they would be things she could afford on her budget, not jeans that cost 150 pounds a pop.

The kid had no idea of what he wanted to do with his life, although she’d managed to get him into two years of basic schooling at a community college geared towards animal husbandry since he loved animals, but he hadn’t enrolled in a university this year to continue with anything.

Hence her demand that Luca find a job. He wasn’t going to lay around home playing video games and accomplishing nothing just because he wanted a break from school. Not while she was paying for his clothing, anyway.

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