Vic Candora walked into the coffee shop on Old Cross Road, just off the town’s main street. Recently retired from the Philadelphia police force as a lead homicide detective, he and his wife Audrey had moved to the tiny Virginia town of Scottsville. “It’s not that far from home, but it’s a peaceful country setting, just like we used to talk about while we sat in that fat Crown Victoria on stakeouts,” he told his former partner. “And Audrey can jump in the car and go home to Philly whenever she wants to see the kids and grandkids.”

“I can’t believe you sold her on that,” his former partner said, laughing at the idea. “It won’t last. Don’t sell your row home.”

 That was six months ago. The couple had quickly learned to love the quiet lifestyle Scottsville offered. The small, southern town, with its mix of farms, small businesses and residential neighborhoods, felt ideal to Vic and Audrey Candora. The retired detective kept busy with Red Cross volunteer work and making the Italian foods he couldn’t get in Scottsville. A big man, who retained his muscular good looks, he was reasonably content.

 The retired detective was fond of rituals. Walking the mile to the coffee shop early most mornings was one of them. He would write letters in longhand to friends and family while he sipped his coffee and ate cinnamon flavored donuts. That morning, when he walked into the coffee shop, he immediately felt something was wrong. There were no other customers in the shop, which wasn’t unusual considering how early it was, but there was no one behind the counter either. His cop instincts made him leery. After all, the cash register had been left unattended. Even in a small town, he knew that was foolish.

 “Good morning,” he said, a bit louder than normal. He walked up to the solid wooden counter and saw the steam coming from the two coffee pots set on the shop’s back wall. There was no response. He walked through the narrow opening that employees used to get behind the counter and peered at the work space. What he saw sickened him. He’d seen worse in his years working homicides, but still, he was shocked. Scottsville, aside from speeding tickets and the occasional car break-in, was mostly a crime free town. He recognized the young woman lying on the floor. Her eyes were wide open and she had what could only be described as a shocked look on her face. The handle of what appeared to be a large hunting knife protruded from Amber Maloney’s chest. The knife blade had penetrated her heart. He touched her body and noted that it wasn’t cold yet. She had been murdered recently. Amber, and her husband, Richard, were the owners of the coffee shop.

 The cash register was open, its drawer empty. Nothing else seemed out of place. No blood trail from the body to the register and the register looked clean.

He and Amber had gotten to know each other during his early morning visits. They’d had brief conversations on several mornings when the shop wasn’t busy. As he surveyed the shop, he thought about their first conversation.

 She had told him she’d grown up in Scottsville, but moved to New York after she married her husband, Richard.  She’d been to some interesting places, including Vietnam and Venezuela, but he’d never gotten around to discussing her travels with her.

He remembered that they’d joked about her being from a small town and how her travels and living in New York hadn’t completely hidden that fact. “I guess you just can’t erase the Scottsville stain sitting on my forehead,” she’d said.

While Candora sipped his coffee, she’d explained that she and her husband had left Brooklyn and opened the coffee shop when she got pregnant on one of their visits home to see her parents. “I loved New York, but I didn’t want to raise my child there,” she’d told him.        

Candora snapped out of his brief reverie, annoyed that he had failed to take action right away. He called the Scottsville Police and secured the place, so no one could enter. He took a quick look through the tiny kitchen door and saw nothing amiss.

Less than five minutes later a patrolman arrived with the chief of police. A murder was very big news. Candora had gotten to know the chief, Allen Compton. They’d had lunch a few times. “What do we have here, Vic?” the chief asked. He adjusted his cap and instructed the patrolman to take notes. Compton had a stocky physique and a bushy mustache.

“Amber Maloney was stabbed to death. Doesn’t look like there was a struggle. She probably knew the assailant.”

“The place empty when you got here?” the chief asked.

“Yes.” 

He walked over to the swinging door that led to the kitchen and peeked through the tiny window. “I assume you didn’t go into the kitchen?” Candora nodded. The crime scene investigation team would do a thorough check.

Compton took a look at the body. He pulled out a pocket Bible and read a verse aloud. When he finished, he said, “Better call Richard.” He picked up his phone and called the man. “Richard, this is Chief Compton. I’m afraid there’s a problem at the coffee shop. Get down here right away.” He listened for a moment. “Yes, it’s Amber, sorry. On second thought, wait there. Chas will pick you up in five minutes.” He called Chas, one of his other patrolmen, and gave him instructions.

“Anything I can do to help, Al?” Candora asked.

“Might be. I need to let the county know about this. They handle homicides. Best of my knowledge, never been one here before.”

It wasn’t long before Richard arrived. He was dressed in torn jeans and an old sweatshirt that said New York Yankees. He demanded to see his wife. “We need to wait on that,” the chief said. “Sorry, this is a crime scene.” He turned to Candora for support. “Right, detective?”

Candora nodded. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Richard. The best thing you can do for Amber now is help us find out what happened.” Instinctively, Candora took over. He was certain Compton wouldn’t object. He guided the young man to one of the shop’s two small booths. Standing 6’ 4” was an advantage at a moment like this. “Amber was stabbed in the heart. Someone must have been very angry with her to do that.” He let that sink in for a moment. “Can you think of anyone who might have been angry with her?” Candora took a seat opposite Richard.

Richard was crying too hard to answer. Candora waited. Finally, Richard said, “We fired a guy last week. He was stealing from us. He denied it, but Amber caught him in the act.”

“What’s his name and where does he live?” Candora was careful to keep an impassive look on his face.

“Stevens Remillard. He lives with his mother in the trailer park off Halsey Street.”

“How long did he work for you?”

Richard thought a moment, his eyes focused on the ceiling. “About six months. He worked the afternoon shift.”

Candora grabbed a guest check pad off the service counter and took notes. The chief stood behind him, watching but not saying anything. “Is there anyone else who might have been holding a grudge?”

Richard dabbed his eyes with paper napkins from the dispenser. “Her ex-husband, but he lives in France.”

“When was the last time you saw Amber?”

“This morning around 5:30 before she left for work.” He put his head in his hands sobbing now.

Candora patted the young man’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you come to work with her this morning?” He had seen Richard and Amber working together most mornings when he came in for breakfast.

“We have a two-year old daughter, you’ve seen her, right? Last week we decided to take turns feeding her and getting her to the babysitter’s apartment. We cut the sitter’s hours to save a few dollars.”

“Who has your daughter now?” Candora, not comfortable having the chief standing behind his back, motioned for him to take a seat next to him. 

“My mother.”

“The cash register was empty. So was the bank bag. How much money do you start your day with?” Candora asked.

Richard thought for a moment. “We start with about $250, give or take maybe $25.”

Bill Davis, the county detective arrived, along with a crime scene investigator. Davis wore a well-trimmed beard, with just enough gray to make him look distinguished. “What do we have here?”

Compton filled him in and introduced him to Vic Candora. “Oh, I’ve heard of you, detective. Welcome to Virginia.” He shook Candora’s hand and grimaced. “So, you discovered the body?”

“That’s right.”

The homicide detective inspected the body and put the crime scene investigator to work. “We’re up to our eyeballs in cases. Seems like the world’s suddenly gone crazy.” An ambulance arrived to take Amber’s body to the morgue. When it was ready, they offered Richard the opportunity to view the body. He declined, saying, “I just can’t bear the thought. Who could do something like this to my angel?” He started crying again, more subdued this time.

Chief Compton had Chas drive him home. “Poor guy. Not an easy guy to get to know, but decent, you know?”

“You mean for a Yankee?” Candora asked smiling. Compton returned the smile.

“You didn’t see anybody else?” Davis asked Candora.

“No.”

“You come here a lot?”

“Four or five times a week.”

“How well did you know the girl?”

Candora laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Detective, can we agree it isn’t likely I would have killed the girl and then called it in?”

“You know as well as I do I have to cover every base.” He made an apologetic hand gesture. “Any thoughts on the husband?”

“Always a possibility. But, if his alibi checks out, assuming his whereabouts can be verified, he’s probably in the clear.”

“Unless he paid somebody to do it,” Compton said.

Davis ignored Compton’s remark. “We might be able to use your help, Candora. Would you be interested? We’re swamped.”

He could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise. He was interested. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the action until that morning. But he didn’t want to be relegated to some simple desk work. “It depends on what you mean by help. I’m used to being lead detective.”

Davis nodded. “I understand. I’ll talk to the prosecutor. Let’s see what we can do. Scottsville’s located about thirty miles from our office. We just don’t have the manpower right now to spend enough time on a case out here.”

The next day, Davis called him and said, “Can you get over to the county courthouse today? The judge will deputize you temporarily. You can take the lead on this case.”

“I’ll be there. What time?”

“Get here this morning, definitely before noon. It’s Friday and the judge likes to play golf on Friday afternoons.”

Candora wasted no time after being sworn in. He was handed a badge, and a logbook to record expenses. The prosecutor instructed him to call in a report to Detective Davis at least once a day. “This isn’t the big city, detective. We do things slow and careful. Most everybody around here knows everybody else, so tread lightly,” the judge said.

Candora nodded agreeably. “I understand.” He asked for phone records for Amber and Richard, as well as their financial records. Then he found an address and phone number for Stevens Remillard. The man lived with his mother, Gwen. He also learned that Remillard, 28, had done a stretch in state prison for armed robbery.

Gwen Remillard lived in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Scottsville. When Candora arrived at her home, a young man was pulling out of the driveway in a faded, red Volkswagen that had a few dents in it. Candora was able to wave him down just as the car’s back wheels reached the street. The man pulled back into his driveway. Candora said, “Are you Stevens Remillard?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m Detective Candora. I’m on special assignment with the Castle County prosecutor’s office. Can I have a word with you, sir?”  He added the sir in deference to the small-town ethos he’d been warned about. In Philly, he wouldn’t have been as polite.

“This about Amber Maloney?” Remillard asked.

“I’m afraid so. You are Stevens, correct?”

Remillard stepped out of his car and leaned against it. “I had nothing to do with her dying. I was home all morning, yesterday. My mother can confirm that.”

“Is she home?”

“Yeah, she’s in the house. Want me to get her?” Remillard asked.

“I’ll do it. Why did Mr. and Mrs. Maloney fire you?”

Remillard pushed himself off his car. “They said I stole from them. They filed charges, but I’m not worried. The whole thing is just dumb if you ask me.”

“Did you steal from them?”

“No, I was putting coffee cans, boxes of tea bags and a few other things in my car because we heard a tornado might happen. I was going to take the stuff home for safekeeping is all.”

“Did you tell them that before you put the goods in your trunk?”

“I tried to tell Amber what I was doing, but right away she got the wrong idea.” Remillard, who was just shy of six feet tall and sported a dirty blond beard, stood up straight, as if he was coming to attention on a parade ground. “Listen, detective, I didn’t kill Amber. I wasn’t there yesterday morning. And that’s the whole story.”

“You did some time for armed robbery, served three years and got paroled, right?”

“What of it?”

“If you get convicted again, you could be looking at a longer sentence.”

“If I get convicted. My lawyer doesn’t think I will,” Remillard said. “We done?”

“One more question,” Candora said. “Who’s your lawyer?”

“Rosemary Park.”

Candora turned to go to the trailer’s front door and saw Mrs. Remillard standing behind the screen door. “Mrs. Remillard, I’m Detective Candora. May I have a word with you?”

“What do you want? My son didn’t do anything.” Gwen Remillard was a very thin woman with stringy hair.

“Can you vouch for your son’s whereabouts yesterday morning?”

“If I have to.”

“It would be very helpful.”

“He was here with me. He was in the bed, sleeping til around noon.”

“Were you here the entire time?” Candora was taking notes.

The woman snorted. “Well, obviously, if I’m telling you he was here, how else would I know that unless I was here too?”

“Of course.” Candora decided not to press her. He assumed she would vouch for her son, but he wanted it on record. “May I come in for a moment? I could sure use a glass of water.. Mrs. Remillard hesitated a moment. She opened the door and let him in. “Excuse the mess. I didn’t get around to cleaning the house yet today.”

Candora looked around. It was obvious that Gwen Remillard hadn’t actually cleaned the house in quite some time. There were empty beer cans, a few pizza boxes and a couple of empty whiskey bottles scattered around. He turned to her and said, “I think I’ll pass on the glass of water. I usually eat a lunch late and I think I’d prefer a cherry limeade at Sonic. Thanks anyway.” He had gotten the glimpse he wanted of the way they lived. It wasn’t entirely a surprise. The furniture was old and well-worn. The only thing that looked relatively new was the wide screen TV. Money was probably an issue for them.

 

 A week later, he received the phone records of the people he wanted to know more about. There was nothing remarkable about them, except for a few calls during the week before Amber’s murder. For some reason, Richard had apparently called Amber’s ex-husband in France. That seemed odd. He drove to the coffee shop that morning and found Richard working behind the counter. He had just reopened that day. “I know what you’re probably thinking, detective. Why did I reopen so soon after Amber’s death?”

Candora just looked at the man. He was tall, good looking and he wore stylish glasses. He had a sophisticated look that seemed somehow out of place in a small town. He noticed too, that the two-year-old girl was sitting peacefully in a playpen. 

“I didn’t really have a choice. The rent has to be paid and so does the mortgage. I need the income.” He glanced over at his daughter and shrugged. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Sure, coffee and two donuts. I have to keep the myth about cops and donuts alive.”

Richard didn’t laugh. He just poured the coffee and put the donuts on a plate. “No charge, detective.”

“Don’t be silly.” He handed Richard a ten-dollar bill and then put the change in the tip jar. “I had a chance to look at your phone records. It appears that you made several calls to Paris the week before Amber was killed. Who were you calling?”

Richard exhaled, annoyed with Candora. “Am I supposed to think you didn’t check to see who I called?”

Of course, Candora had checked. “Maybe it would help us both if you just answered the question.”

“Yeah, I called Amber’s ex. A real jerk. He had this idea that Amber owed him some money. I was trying to reason with him.”

Candora took a bite of his donut. “Twenty-five grand, right?”

Richard smiled. “It was $24,750 to be exact. And she didn’t owe it to him.”

“He told me it was part of their divorce settlement; said he had it in writing,” Candora said.

“If you knew all this, why didn’t you just say so? What’s with the cat and mouse stuff?” Richard asked.

“You know what? I have no idea of what’s involved in running a coffee shop. And you have no idea of how a homicide investigation works,” Candora said. “I don’t suspect you of anything at this point, but it’s possible that you know something helpful and you don’t realize it. I’m sure you want to find out who did this to your wife. Work with me.”

“Amber was my whole world. You’re making me feel like a suspect.”

“Truth? At this point you are a suspect. So is her ex-husband and so is your former employee.” He let that sink in for a moment. “Now, how did you leave it with her ex about the money?”

“I told him we didn’t have the money to pay him and we didn’t think we owed him anything anyway. He said something like, ‘I’ll take that business from you if I have to, but you’ll pay one way or the other.’”

“Did you consider that to be a threat?”

“A financial threat, yes.”

Candora finished his coffee and left. He would have to dig into the nature of the Maloney’s marriage. He decided it was time to visit Amber’s parents. They lived in a nice home in Scottsville’s best neighborhood. They had just finished lunch when he got there, plates filled with salad, pushed aside, barely touched. “I should have called first,” he said, “but I was so close to your house, I decided to see if you were home.”

Tom Lovell and his wife Lois were obviously distraught. “Come in detective,” Mr. Lovell said. “How may we help you?” He led them to their well-appointed living room.

“Do you have any leads?” Mrs. Lovell asked. “You’ll find the man who did this, won’t you?” 

“I have a slim lead or two, but nothing definitive, yet,” Candora said. “Tell me a little about your daughter’s marriages.”

“You think Richard or Pierre might have had something to do with this?” Mrs. Lovell asked. “It’s always the husband, isn’t it?”

“Often it is, I’m afraid, but not always. I’m just looking for some background to help me understand what might have happened.” He paused a moment. “What caused your daughter’s divorce from Pierre?”

The Lovell’s looked at each other.  Mr. Lovell spoke. “Amber didn’t want to live in France anymore. Pierre had a son. If he moved to the United States, he’d rarely see him. Securing custody was not even a remote option.”

“Amber knew that when she married him?”

“No,” Mrs. Lovell said. “Pierre didn’t tell her he had a son until after they married. She was crushed by the news, but tried to make the marriage work. It lasted only a year.”

“Are you familiar with Pierre’s claim that Amber owed him a considerable amount of money?”

Mr. Lovell’s face turned red. “That man gave Amber money to travel to the States to see if a lawyer might be able to find a way to skirt French law so he could bring his son here. It wasn’t a loan.”

“Pierre seems to think it was. He says he has it in writing.”

“What he has is a pre-nuptial agreement that stipulates that should a divorce occur; the parties would be entitled to be made whole in the event that either of them advanced the other money for business purposes. He claims now that she used that money to set up the coffee shop.”

“Did she use the money for that purpose?”

“No, she used the money to fly back and forth between New York and Paris. She consulted with several attorneys. When nobody could help, she decided to file for divorce. She didn’t want to live in France. Apparently, he got very angry. He is a rather wealthy man. He didn’t want the divorce.”

Candora recorded the information. His instincts told him that Pierre was unlikely to solve their differences by murdering his ex-wife. He had spoken to the man. The guy seemed genuinely remorseful to hear that Amber had died, especially in that manner.

“How would you describe her marriage to Richard?”

Mrs. Lovell looked down at the floor. Mr. Lovell looked at his wife. “We didn’t think Richard was right for Amber,” Mrs. Lovell said.

“But that doesn’t mean we didn’t think he wasn’t a decent man,” Mr. Lovell added. He took a deep breath and let out a sigh. He was staring hard at his hands. Candora could see the man was trying to decide whether to say something. “Detective, our daughter was a good girl. But I have suspected for a while now that Amber may have been involved with another man.”

“Did you have someone particular in mind?” Candora asked.

Mrs. Lovell put her hand on her husband’s arm. “You’re wrong, Tom. She would have told me, I’m sure.”

Candora sat quietly for a moment waiting for one of them to say something. The silence lasted a while. Finally, he said, “Mr. Lovell, what gave you the impression your daughter was having a relationship with another man?”

“I saw her one afternoon, talking to Steve Burke, the dentist. They were standing too close; you know what I mean? Anyway, they looked around as they were getting ready to say goodbye. He gave her a quick kiss on the lips.”

“When was that?” Candora asked.

“About a week ago.

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s it,” Tom Lovell said.

They chatted a bit more about Amber’s marriage to Richard. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was, aside from Amber’s possible interest in Steve Burke, a solid marriage. “Would you describe Richard as a man with a hot temper?” Candora asked.

“He could be like that, but not often. He just raised his voice now and then, and he never gave us the impression he would harm Amber,” Mrs. Lovell said.

Candora went to Steve Burke’s office. When the receptionist got up to look for Doctor Burke, Candora checked out the photos on the waiting room wall. Several of them, along with two local newspaper articles, indicated that Burke had been an alderman and the town’s mayor for a while. Since Burke was between patients, he was able to see him immediately. Candora learned that he was at a dental convention in Miami on the day Amber was murdered. Married with four children, Burke sheepishly admitted that he’d been romancing Amber, but swore that their relationship had not yet become physical. “I’m sick over this,” he said. “She was a very bright woman, very alive and very charming.”    

“How would you describe her marriage?”

“Functional, I guess.” Dr. Burke looked at his watch. “I have a patient due any moment. Anything else?”

Candora looked at his notes. “Yeah, have you ever treated Gwen or Stevens Remillard?”

“I have. Both of them nut jobs with bad teeth. Why?”

“What can you tell me about them?”

Burke checked his watch again. “Listen, I have to consider patient confidentiality, but I’m pretty sure that their teeth are bad, especially Gwen’s, due to meth use. Her teeth, black, stained and rotting, show classic signs of it.”

“I see.” Candora decided to take a chance. It was, after all, a small town, and the dentist, a life-long resident and former mayor of Scottsville, was probably well connected to the town’s leaders. “What have you heard about Mrs. Maloney’s murder?”     

Burke offered his best version of a poker face. “Let me show you something.” He led Candora to his private office where he had a display case filled with Jim Bowie knives. “I’m a collector. I showed this once to Stevens. The kid was fascinated. He came by one time after that and showed me one he bought. Said he was going to start a collection.”

Candora pulled out his phone and took a picture of the display case. “Thanks, this might be helpful.” He made a few notes. “How did you know how Amber was killed?”

Burke shrugged. “People who shouldn’t talk, do,” the dentist said.

“Who told you?”

Burke looked at Candora and said, “It’s a small town, detective. It doesn’t matter. I heard it from two different people.” He hesitated a moment, wanting to change the subject. “Is there any reason what we talked about earlier has to come out?”

“As long as you’ve been completely honest with me, I can’t see why it would. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“No sir.”

It was time to talk to Stevens Remillard again. He found Remillard playing a computer war game at the little arcade where young people who weren’t working liked to hang out. “Mr. Remillard, I have a couple of follow-up questions for you.”

“I got nothing to say to you.”

“Okay, I’ll get a search warrant and we’ll take it from there,” Candora said, turning to leave.

“Search warrant? What for?”

“You ready to answer some questions?”

“About what?” Remillard turned away from his computer game and stood up.

“I understand you have a knife collection.”

“I did, but I sold most of them when I got fired.”

“How many do you still have?”

“I don’t remember, why?” The exact cause of Amber’s death had not been released. One of the first things Candora had done when he agreed to take the case was to admonish the chief and everyone else who’d been at the scene of the crime not to reveal how Amber had died, beyond a general statement. The media reported only that she’d been killed in a violent attack. Of course, Steve Burke knew how she died, so there was no telling how many other people, including Stevens Remillard, knew it.

“I need to see your knives.”

“Why?” Candora waited, looking hard at Remillard. “If I show them to you, will you leave me alone?”

“Maybe, where are they?”

“Hidden in my mother’s bedroom. She don’t know I have them. They’re lethal weapons. If they was found, I’d be violating parole.” He stood and looked at the huge clock on the wall. “My mother’s probably still at work. Come on, I’ll show them to you.”

Candora drove them to the trailer. “What’s this got to do with Amber?” Remillard asked.

“Who said it had anything to do with her?” Candora asked. “I’m a collector too. Heard you had a collection. I might be in the market for one.”

“You going to bust me for a parole violation?”

“Not my job, Stevens.”

They went into Gwen’s bedroom. Under the bed there was a briefcase. When Remillard bent down to pull it out, Candora stopped him. He bent down to take a look. He saw a pile of used paper plates, a few old magazines and mix of stray shoes and slippers under the bed. There was also a considerable amount of dust, but there was a dust free path from the briefcase to the edge of the bed. Someone had recently pulled it out from under the bed. There was the outline of a handprint to the right of the briefcase. Candora took several photos of the space. 

He pulled out a cloth handkerchief and nudged it out, touching only the outer edges. He opened it and found two Bowie knives. The look on Remillard’s face made it obvious that something was amiss. “What’s wrong?”

Remillard shrugged, doing his best to recover. “Nothing. You want to buy them?”

“I’ll let you know. I’m going to need to take this case and these knives with me.”

“Why?”

Candora pointed at the interior of the briefcase. “See that indentation? Looks like a knife is missing.”

“Wait! A knife is missing. But it should be there. I swear I didn’t know it was gone until you opened the case.” Remillard was sweating now.

“Why is that a problem?” Candora asked.

“She was stabbed, wasn’t she?”

“Where did you hear that?”

Remillard shrugged. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Small town. Ain’t no secrets here.”

Candora called Compton and asked him to send a patrol car to pick up Remillard. He would need to question him. In the meantime, he had to run over to the prosecutor’s office to verify that the murder weapon fit the indentation in the briefcase. If there was a fit, Remillard would have some explaining to do. As he saw it, the young man had a motive, perhaps thinking that he could escape prosecution if Amber was no longer around to testify. He might have had a secondary motive too. The money in the coffee shop’s cash register. It would certainly come in handy if he needed to buy meth.

As the patrolman was escorting Remillard to the car, Mrs. Remillard pulled into her driveway. She jumped out of the car screaming. “Where are you taking my son? He didn’t do nothing. He paid for his crime and y’all keep harassing him. When’s it gonna stop?”

Candora motioned for the patrolman to get moving. He stood over the diminutive woman and spoke quietly to her. “I have to tell you it looks bad for your son.” He pointed to the briefcase and said, “There are two knives in the case and there should be three. If the third knife is the one used to kill Mrs. Maloney, Stevens will be in a tough spot.”

Mrs. Remillard’s eyes widened. “It wasn’t him. I knew about the knife. I took it and killed that bitch. Leave my boy out of it.”

The patrol car was backing out of the space. Candora signaled him to stop. “I have another passenger for you,” he said.

Candora went to the prosecutor’s office and quickly verified that the murder weapon was a perfect fit for the indentation. As he was driving back to Scottsville, he thought about the case. For some reason, he didn’t like it. Something didn’t feel right. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

When he arrived at the police station, he found Gwen and Stevens sitting together in an interview room, nervously waiting for Candora to get back from the prosecutor’s office. Candora and Compton agreed to talk to Gwen first. The woman insisted she had murdered Amber. “What was Mrs. Maloney wearing that morning?” Candora asked.

“I don’t remember.” She reached for a cigarette. Candora took the pack away from her.

“The register was empty. How much did you take?”

“I can’t remember for sure,” she said.   

“That’s all right. You did take the money, right?”

The woman seemed uncertain, beginning to understand she hadn’t thought this through. “Yeah. There was maybe $80 I guess.”

Candora left her with a patrolman. He returned her cigarette pack. He and Compton walked over to the other room where Stevens was waiting. “Your mother is trying to take the rap for you. Are you going to let her do that?’

Remillard shook his head. “That old drug addict can do whatever she wants. I didn’t kill that girl. Maybe my mother did. I know this much. I ain’t taking the rap for her.”

Compton spoke up. “Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?” He looked over at Candora, hoping he’d said the right thing.

“Yeah, I’ll do it right now, man.”

Candora suggested to the chief that the two of them go to his office. Compton sank into the chair behind his desk and asked, “What do you think?”

“I’d like to know your thoughts, chief.”

“Truth? I don’t think either one of them did it. You know I went to high school with Gwen. We went out a couple of times.” He shrugged. “She’s had a hard life. One foolish choice after another. But she doesn’t seem to know anything about the crime scene, and honestly, I don’t think she could pull it off. She has a motive, I guess. I mean she would want to keep her boy out of jail, mostly because he’s the one who gets the meth for her.” He shrugged again. “I hate to say that. She was a real nice girl, pretty when she was young.”

“What about the kid?”

Compton scratched his head. “I don’t know if Stevens is bright enough to pull it off. I think if he did something like that, he’d leave some telltale evidence behind. But I don’t know. He had a motive, that’s for sure.”  He stood up and stretched. “So, what’s your take?”

Candora scratched his chin and yawned. “If you release them, you think they’ll run?”

Compton laughed. “Where? I’ll let them go and we’ll watch them. Chas has been itching to do a stakeout for years.”  

“We’re missing something,” Candora said.

 

A week went by with very little activity. The Remillards didn’t run. One morning, sitting in the coffee shop going over his notes, Candora noticed something. Richard was very attentive to his little girl. It was obvious that he adored the toddler. “Richard,” he called out.

“More coffee?” Richard asked

“No, I have a question I need to ask you.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s personal. Can you come over here?”

Richard finished serving two customers and walked over to Candora’s table. “Were you aware that Amber may have been having an affair?”

Richard’s expression changed from affable to cold immediately. “No.” He turned and walked away.

Candora left the coffee shop about ten minutes later. He called Compton with a question. The chief told him who to see. Candora drove to the next town over to see a lawyer who handled most of the divorce cases in the area. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. He drove back to town to the dentist’s office. Steve Burke was getting out of his SUV, having just returned from lunch. Candora caught up to him. “Doctor Burke, let’s talk a minute.”

“What’s up detective?”

“You told me that you and Amber never got too far, right?”

“That’s right.” Burke kept walking.

“I assume you know Jay Pearson, the divorce attorney?”

That stopped Burke. “That’s none of your business, detective.”

“Does your wife know you planned to divorce her?”

Burke’s face fell. “What, you’re going to tell her if I don’t play ball?”

“That’s right. Now, we can keep this quiet if you tell me the truth. Either way, I’m going to find out.”

Burke led the detective to his office. They closed the door. “You have to understand, Amber and I fell in love. It wasn’t just fun and games.”

“Did her husband know?”

“I don’t know, really. He might have. She was supposed to tell him she was leaving him the day she died. Obviously, I don’t know whether she did or not.”

“Did you and Amber discuss custody of her daughter?”

“We did. Amber wanted to get full custody. I agreed, but I was worried that her husband would put up a fight.” He grabbed a tissue and blew his nose. “She was adamant, though. She didn’t even want him to have visitation rights.”

“Why?”

“The little girl wasn’t Richard’s. She’s mine.”

“You were having the affair that long?”

Burke looked at Candora, his eyes answering the question. “We had an on and off thing before and after Richard. We tried to break it off, I don’t know how many times. We just couldn’t.” He wiped his eyes again. “Richard doesn’t know she’s mine.”

 

Now, Candora knew what had probably happened. Amber must have informed Richard of her plans to divorce him. She probably told him she would be seeking full custody of their daughter. Somehow, Richard had found out about Remillard’s knife collection. It wouldn’t have been hard for Richard to steal it, given the way the Remillard’s lived. After Remillard was fired and charged with attempted theft, he had a motive for killing Amber. Richard must have seen his opportunity. Proving it, however, was another matter.

He stopped by the Remillard house. Gwen and Stevens were watching TV, high on something. He asked Stevens one question. “Did Richard Maloney know about your knife collection?”

Remillard nodded slowly. “Yeah, I told him about it. Showed them to him one day.”

“Where?”

“Here, about three months ago. I needed a ride to work.”

“You showed him where you kept them?”

“Must have, Sherlock. How else would he know where to look?”

Candora knew that it was unlikely that Richard’s prints would be found in the Remillard house. The place was a mess. And, there were no prints on the knife that was used to stab Amber. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear that Amber had seen a divorce attorney yet, so Richard could claim ignorance, meaning he had no motive for the murder. And, placing him at the scene on the morning Amber was killed wasn’t promising either. He decided to talk to Richard at police headquarters anyway. He had a patrol car pick him up the next morning, an hour after he opened up for business. The baby was with the nanny.

“What’s going on, detective? I have a business to run. What do you want from me?”          

“Everything points to you now, Richard. You knew your wife was divorcing you and taking your daughter.”

“That’s not true.”

“She told you the night before you killed her. That’s what her lover told me,” Candora said, stretching the truth.

“He’s lying.”

“Is he? It had been going on for quite a while. You never noticed?”

Richard’s eyes narrowed. “If I was going to kill someone, it would have been him.”

“Do you know the man?”

“No. Who is it?”

“When Stevens Remillard worked for you, he showed you his knife collection.”

“So what? He didn’t give me one of them.”

“He didn’t have to,” Candora said.

“You’re crazy, detective.”

“Maybe so, but we’re going to find traces of your DNA in the Remillard home and maybe even on the knife.”

“I don’t think so. Can I go now?”

“I want to show you something.” Candora pulled out an enlarged photo of the space under Gwen Remillard’s bed where the briefcase had been. “You see that in the corner? It’s a handprint. You must have placed your hand on the dusty floor when you pulled out the briefcase to take the knife. It’s going to be an exact match.” Candora was bluffing, but he’d had luck with that tactic before.

Richard studied it. He exhaled. Tears formed and began to roll down his cheeks. “She was going to take my daughter away from me.”

That evening, Chief Compton met Candora for a beer at the local pub. “How did you get him to confess? You really had his handprint?”

“I had a handprint. Not saying whose it was,” Candora said. He drank some beer, happy to be feeling again the satisfaction he used to feel when he closed a case. “He wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. It was a crime of passion. I think he was relieved to be caught.”