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Asa stood and John followed. Asa handed her his business card. “If you think of anything else, let me know.”
She tucked it in her apron pocket. “Will do. Tell her brother I’m real sorry to hear about her.”
“I will.”
When they finally got the chance to talk to him.
“I’d like to find this Bobby character,” John said as they exited the hotel, the fall wind cutting through his button-down shirt and sports coat. “I’d also like to find this detective.”
“Won’t be too difficult. There’s only two of them. Regis Owsley and Alton Berry. I’m going to bank on the good Regis Owsley, who never seemed to mention he might be related to the victim.”
“Yeah, I’m not liking that.” John plucked a pack of spearmint gum from his coat pocket and held it out for Asa. He snagged a stick, then John unwrapped a piece before pocketing the pack. “I wonder if she was seventeen when she married, if their marriage was even legal?”
“I wondered the same thing.” Asa retrieved his cell phone and hit a button. “Selah, check and see if you can find a marriage license for Atta Atwater and Bobby—no, not McGee. You’ve got to stop spending time with Tiberius. He’s a terrible influence on you.” He paused then chuckled. “It’s Lloyd. Bobby Lloyd. Probably Robert. Yeah, I’ll wait.”
John waited quietly while Asa hung on the line. “Really? Huh. Interesting. Okay, thanks.” He laughed. “Uh, no. But I’ll let Fiona know you think it’s a good idea.” He ended the call and pocketed the phone, humor still playing around the edges of his lips. “Selah thinks Fiona and I should elope out here. In the backwoods of Kentucky.”
“Leaves and mountains are pretty,” John offered. “Where to?”
“The SO.”
John backed out of the parking lot and headed toward Crow’s Creek.
“And Fiona would no more get married while on a crime scene—and definitely not in the woods—than I’d eat glass for dinner. We uh...we never got a real full honeymoon. Long story. She’s looking forward to a whole two weeks of us and the sun and sand. Murders can cease or wait, and the woods could rot for all she cares.”
Murders did neither. “When?”
“I think I’m going to propose on the Fourth of July this year. Rent a boat and pay for fireworks. The good kind. It’s our thing.”
“You gonna use the same ring you did the first go-round?” What did one do when proposing to their ex-wife?
Asa laughed. “I do have it. She threw that bad boy literally into my kisser when I asked for the divorce. Split my lip. She’s got good aim.” He grinned but John glanced over and caught the regret, the remorse from past pain. John could relate on some level. “But no. I’m gonna have the stone added to a new one. ’Cause we did have a lot of good times the first go-round.”
John arched an eyebrow. “You been thinking about it, huh?”
“Since we got back together this past July. We got married on a beach with friends and family the first time, and I have a feeling this time she’ll want to be married in our church or a chapel somewhere by our pastor. We didn’t put much stock in marriage as a covenant before God last time.”
“Callie and I married in a church. Big, with stained-glass windows and a pipe organ. It was pretty.”
“And your marriage?”
That wasn’t as pretty.
“I’m sorry. I get investigative too easy.”
John slowed at a sharp curve rounding the mountain. “Nah, no worries. It was good for a while, but no marriage is perfect.”
“No. No, it’s not.”
“What did your analyst say about Bobby Lloyd and the marriage that was interesting?” Discussing his marriage and the failures weren’t on the top of John’s list today. He wished for a do-over of the night Callie left. Even if things had ended between them, at least he wouldn’t carry the regret of words he’d spoken, lashing out and telling her she wasn’t a good mom, didn’t care about them, didn’t love them. He hadn’t meant those words even though he’d felt them to be true at the time.
“If I’m such a terrible mom and wife, then why do you care if I go undercover or not?” she’d thrown out with venom.
“I don’t! I don’t care if you go. Go, and if something bad happens while you’re gone, then you’ll have to live with it. And if something bad happens to you, then I guess, oh well! That’s what you get!” he’d responded with equal venom. Hated himself for lashing out in anger and hurt, in disappointment.
Something bad had happened. It wasn’t oh well. And she hadn’t deserved it.
Seemed the people you hurt most were the ones you loved most.
