Page 163 of The Woman Left Behind

Because he was home.

With Lilly.

Wherever that would be.

“Maybe,” he muttered, still smiling and shoving oatmeal in his mouth.

“Anyway, you’re busy with important work, so you don’t need to be driving all the way out there and back. You need the extra time to solve cases and keep the peace in Misted Pines,” she declared.

He chuckled around a mouth full of oatmeal but said nothing.

Sure, the extra twenty to thirty minutes worked for him in a big way.

But she wasn’t fooling anybody.

“I’m going to need to do laundry, or you’re going to have to free up more than just a drawer,” he said.

“You’re welcome to use my machines but bring more stuff anyway. Laundry is a drag.”

Harry was so not going home.

He kept smiling.

Lillian kept sipping.

It took her a bit before she said shyly, “I thought we’d decided.”

“We did, honey,” he replied. “I just thought, with this so new, you might want some space for a while.”

“I’ve had space. I’m good,” she told him.

He gave her a soft smile, and she returned the same.

Harry went back to his oatmeal.

Eventually, he took his bowl to the sink, rinsed it, put it in the dishwasher, downed the last of his coffee and put the mug in the dishwasher along with the one Lillian handed him.

He put on his boots. She put on her Adidas. They added the element that had now become another habit since Harry knew the dogs would behave for her, and they put on their leashes.

And then they officially started their day.

That being Harry, Lillian and their pups heading to Aromacobana.

THIRTY-NINE

Jawas

Harry

“So, boiling it down,” Sean was saying to Harry in his office later that morning, “Albert Tremblay is an asshole. None of his neighbors like him. Couldn’t find anyone in the entirety of MP who had much good to say about him. They all think he shot Dinklage. Their dispute went away after Dinklage came home from the hospital in a wheelchair, but everyone thinks that’s not because he felt bad someone did that to Dinklage. Instead, he didn’t want any more attention on their argument because it was motive for shooting the man.”

Harry tapped the back of a pen against the notebook in front of him as he listened to his deputy.

“In other words, in a snit after they had words, he took Dinklage’s legs then he gave up on the property dispute,” Sean concluded. “But I couldn’t place Tremblay as a bud of Dern, Farrell or Abernathy. The gun going missing seems to be about it being available to do Ballard, nothing to do with Dinklage and Tremblay. Apparently, this guy is such a cantankerous dick, he wasn’t even tight with a guy like Dern.”

“What about the gun reported missing just a week before it was used to shoot his neighbor?” Harry asked.

“He’s adamant it was stolen on that day. His wife is adamant it was stolen, also on that day. And by the way, they’re a perfect pair. She’s got an attitude too. Though, they couldn’t quite explain why it was the only thing they reported stolen. I don’t know about the dates, Harry. Maybe he gave Farrell some money to fudge them in the report. Maybe Farrell didn’t get the date correct when he was writing it. The problem with that is, we can’t find Farrell to ask just how dirty or stupid he was.”

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