Page 77 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“It was her left leg, wasn’t it?”
“It was. How did you figure that out?”
“She was still driving.”
What did this mean? Did it mean something? She fell in the shower a month ago. So she’d have been living in the RV on the Campbell compound. Buford seemed annoyed by her being there. Was he annoyed enough to kill her? He said he saw Melanie bring her home, making her a suspect. Did he realize that and then go over and…
“Um, excuse me,” Edward said.
“Oh, sorry.”
“I have to go now. I just want to say… I’m really glad you’re alive. And I’d really like it if you’d stay that way.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He started to walk away from me, then turned around and said, “Okay... yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“We could go out… again. As long as you’re not…”
“I’m not. Honest.”
“Okay then. I’ll give you a call. I find out my schedule in a couple of days.”
I stood in the driveway and watched him leave. As I waved, I kept thinkingGod, he’s so gorgeous.And he cares whether I’m alive or dead. Actually, I shouldn’t put too much stock in the that. It’s sort of baseline for a doctor.
God, he’s so gorgeous.And we’re going out on a date. Soon.And then he was out on M-22 driving away.
When I walked back into the kitchen, I was confronted with the image of my grandmother with her finger in Emerald’smouth and a bottle of whiskey sitting on the table. I took off my boots, and asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“She’s teething. It helps with the pain.”
“It’s whiskey.”
“It’s medicinal.”
I took Emerald out of the car seat, which was probably the actual problem, and bounced her around until I got her smiling.
“See, it’s working,” Nana Cole said.
I just her gave a doubtful look and took Emerald upstairs. I put my phone on the charger, finally, and then took the baby into her room and got her out of the snow suit. She’d be growing out of it in a few weeks, which was fine because it really was a pretty pointless garment. We’d basically spent the morning going from a warm car to warm rooms. You really only needed a snow suit if you were planning to take your baby hunting or ice skating or on an expedition to the north pole. And since I was planning none of those, I’d probably never put it on her again. She’d been sweating most of the time and was going to need a bath later.
In the meantime, I put her in a nice clean onesie. Then brought her into my room, got onto the bed, and opened one of the books I’d bought her.The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The nice thing about reading to a baby Emerald’s age is that you don’t have to pay a lot of attention. Particular when her main interest in the book seemed to be chewing on it. Maybe shewasteething.
Was it possible that Patty Gauthier confessed because she thought Brian Belcher did it? And then Brian confessed, not because he’d done it, but he thought Patty did it and wanted to get her out of trouble? Was it possible that neither of them had done it?
When I felt like I’d waited long enough, I took my phone off the charger and called Ham.
“Hwooo?”
I’d woken him up. What time was it? Crap, it was ten before nine and I’d already had a long day. I was nearly ready for a nap.
“I woke you up. I’m sorry, do you want me to call you back.”
“No, no… it’s okay. I was up late on a case. What’s going on?”
I caught him up on that morning’s events, and he said, “I’ll call Bernie. Sounds like we’re done. I just need to confirm it.”
