Flesh And Blood. Caroline Burnes
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“I thought Mary had left the rose, and then when I heard the heavy footsteps upstairs, I rushed into believing the worst.” It was a funny situation, but I wasn’t laughing. “I guess I am desperate. I’ve opened my mind to too many possibilities. Ghosts, robbers…” The tears were inexplicably close. “The fact that my husband may have been deliberately murdered.”
Nathan’s arm around my shoulders was a comforting pressure. “I’m sorry, Emma. It’s a hard thing to accept.”
“It might explain Frank’s…return. But, God, I don’t want to believe it! To lose him by accident is horrible enough. If he was deliberately taken, well, that makes it worse. And it makes me want to strike back.”
Nathan led me to the table and seated me. He took the chair to my right. In the light of the candles, his expression was intense. “Tell me what you found.”
At first it was hard to begin, but once I started, the details spilled out of me. Nathan asked several questions and then returned to my description of the gun.
“An antique…An odd choice. Was there any more information on the type of gun?”
“You mean, the ballistics report?”
Nathan nodded. “What did it say?”
I shook my head. “It was pretty technical. They never found the murder weapon, so there wasn’t a lot to go on.” Against all of my willpower, my voice faltered. “He died instantly.”
Nathan grasped my hand. “We need to find out if those two killers were identified by anyone else in other robberies.”
“I’ve asked Robert to check the neighborhood. There’ve been other robberies, but as far as I know, no one else has been shot in cold blood.”
“That isn’t evidence, but it’s another little thing that stands out. It’s a break in the pattern.”
His grip on my fingers was warm, secure. I knew I should withdraw my hand, but I didn’t. It was such a luxury to listen to Nathan, to accept his generous help.
“Most robbers won’t kill. If they’re making a career out of robbery, they don’t want a murder charge against them. It turns up the heat. People will tolerate being robbed, but they won’t accept being afraid for their lives.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“Either these killers were beyond thinking, or they were not thieves.”
“Robert said they may have been hopped up on something.”
“Hopped up?”
“Taking drugs, high on PCP, crack, amphetamines, or any number of things.”
“Drug abusers, opium addicts, hemp smokers…” Nathan toyed with my knife, “There’s always a drug for each era. I don’t know about these two killers, though. From what you’ve said, they don’t seem to be irrational.”
“I know.” Why hadn’t I thought these things before? If my mind had worked sooner, I might have stood a chance of catching the killers. Now, two years had passed.
As if he read my mind, Nathan spoke softly. “Emma, it’s hard to think of things that are not in your nature. To deliberately kill goes against your grain.”
“I’m not a child, Nathan. It’s just that I can’t imagine who would want to harm him. Or why. We didn’t have a great amount of money.”
“His business?”
“I still own fifty percent of Micro-Tech. Nothing has changed, except the company makes a little more money now than it did before. And Benny, Frank’s partner, said it will begin to earn more and more.”
“What did your husband do?” Nathan leaned back in his chair.
The remainder of my dinner had grown cold and I pushed the plate to the side of the table. “Frank and Benny formed Micro-Tech about eight years ago, just before we married. Frank had the business background. He would go into a business, assess its data base needs, including the idiosyncrasies of each business, and then tell them he could put together a computer system that would increase their efficiency and productivity. The company is successful because Frank could tailor each system on paper, and Benny could make it work on computer.”
I couldn’t suppress my sigh. “They were a great team. Frank knew business inside and out, and he enjoyed working with people. Benny is the typical computer whiz. Glasses, hair on end, nervous around women. Sort of the Clark Kent type, you know. Once you get past the shyness, he’s a very nice man, and with a woman’s advice in wardrobe, he could be very handsome. Frank and I tried again and again to play cupid for Benny. He’s so bright. And he was very attached to Frank.”
Frank’s murder had almost destroyed Benny. He hid it from a lot of people, but Benny had been on the verge of a total collapse. But he’d pulled through it. Micro-Tech had nearly gone under, and it was the precarious situation of the business that had finally gotten Benny out of his depression and working again. I told all of this to Nathan with a minimum of emotion.
“When Frank went into these businesses, did he examine their books?” he asked.
“He had to. The systems were individually created. That’s what made them so special. Frank learned the business and then streamlined it.”
Nathan got up and paced the large dining room. His footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor. “Emma, what if he found something in one of those businesses?”
“Something illegal?”
“Exactly. If he found that something was going on, what would he have done?”
“He’d report it.”
“You’re certain? What if they offered him money?”
I felt my back stiffen at the implication. “You didn’t know Frank. He never did a dishonest thing in his life.” I paused for effect. “Never.”
Nathan returned to the table. He lifted my hand again, but I withdrew it. I knew it was foolish to expect him to understand what kind of man Frank had been. But even the implication of bribery or wrongdoing stung.
“My theory is growing stronger.” He put his hands flat on the table. “What if Frank found something in a company, something illegal? They tried to bribe him to remain silent, and he refused.”
His words seemed to dance in the candlelight. In the last few weeks of his life, Frank had been a little edgy. Maybe disappointed was a better word. I couldn’t remember what accounts he was working on, but he usually enjoyed talking about his day. I remembered that he’d been unusually silent. “Maybe,” I conceded.
“If they couldn’t buy his silence, maybe they had to find a more permanent way of obtaining it.”
“Oh, Nathan! No!” I couldn’t help it. I felt a terrible rage and grief and sense of betrayal. Had someone killed my husband because he was too honest?
“It’s okay, Emma.” In a flash, Nathan was at my side. His hands on my shoulders offered support, friendship. He gave me a reassuring squeeze. “The one good thing about this is that after two years, their guard will be down. They won’t expect us to come hunting for them now.”
“Us?” I couldn’t believe he was so willing to help me. “Why are you doing this, Nathan? Why are you helping me? You don’t even know me.”
He returned to his seat at the table. His eyes were unwavering, but the tension had left his face.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Emma. You deserve to be free of the past. There’s something about you and your story, about your love for Frank, that makes me want to help. It’s as simple as that.”
Looking into his blue eyes, I almost believed him. But as I was learning, things were never that simple. “And nothing else?”
“I