Page 29 of Sadie's Guarded Harbor

“Maybe she didn’t want to show emotions at work. Keep things professional.” Tommy shoved his hands in the warm fleece pockets of his coat.

Sadie turned toward the station and made her way down the sidewalk. “Is Taylor working today?”

Tommy fell into step beside her. “I think so, why?”

“We need to talk to her about Shawn’s accounts. Find out who gets all of the money from the trust with him passing since we didn’t find a will. Getting a chunk of his inheritance would be a good reason to stay married. We haven’t gotten confirmation on who was the holdout for divorce. Maybe Melissa wanted the trust fund and Shawn didn’t care enough to push.”

Tommy nodded. “We should poke around her accounts if possible. Not sure if we’ll be able to secure a subpoena for the county judge. But if she does get the money, we need to make sure she doesn’t have any big-time debt or bad habits.”

Sadie sucked in a breath. “Did we just put Shawn’s wife down on our suspect list?”

A pinch of guilt squeezed his conscience. “Just following the facts.”

“True.” Sadie might have agreed, but weariness vibrated her voice.

He understood her trepidation. Going down any path that pointed a finger at the judge wasn’t one he wanted to travel.

12

Ayawn ripped through Tommy’s mouth, and he stretched his arms above his head. The motion caused the constant discomfort in his side to morph from a dull annoyance to a stabbing pain. He winced and lowered his arms, taking in the mostly empty desks around him in the main hub of the sheriff’s station.

Noises gurgled from his stomach. Lunch had been spent at his desk, eating a sandwich from the vending machine in the waiting room. He’d need to take off soon to make it to Katherine’s in time for dinner. She’d tracked him down earlier and insisted he come over. An offer he gladly accepted. Especially if it meant he didn’t have to scrounge up food after working all day.

Picking up the file on his desk, he tried to train his focus on the myriad of information he’d uncovered about Mitch Parson. He and Sadie decided to each take a suspect. He looked into Mitch’s background. She took Curtis. They’d deal with Melissa Downs together.

He threw the file down. A low buzz fluttered in his brain. He was tired and hungry and there was no way in hell he’d beproductive until he gave his eyes a rest. Besides, he’d have to fill Sadie in on what he’d found. No reason to read the same things over again for his benefit only.

He watched her from across the room—the familiar concentration in her scrunched brow and narrowed eyes. She tapped the tip of a pencil against her desk, her nose wrinkled as she studied her computer screen.

Chuckling, he moved toward her. They hadn’t talked since arriving at the station after speaking with Melissa than splitting up their assignments. She’d wandered into his mind too many times than he cared to admit. “Find anything good?”

She leaned back in her chair. “Curtis’ bar limped along until he started getting money from Shawn. Other than that, the guy’s clean. No record. No arrests. Nothing to point at him being shady.”

“Except him taking money from his friend and employee.”

“Besides that.” She pointed the pencil at him. “I called and set up an interview with Curtis tomorrow to talk about the money he took from Shawn. I asked him to come here. Thought it might shake loose more information.”

Tommy perched on the corner of her desk. “Good plan.”

“I also located Shawn’s college roommate and checked into his files with the school. He definitely hit a rough patch, going from model student to troublemaker almost overnight. I tried to uncover any records pertaining to actual legal issues—not college misdeeds—but I couldn’t find any.”

“Really? My dad remembered him getting into trouble. That should all be documented.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Nothing I found.”

He’d bring it up to Katherine and Owen tonight. See what their take was. “What about the roommate? Did you speak with him?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I left a voicemail. Hopefully he calls back soon. What about you? Find anything to help when we talk with Mitch?”

Crossing his arms, he shrugged. “Plenty to support everything we heard. Has some dings on his record for different physical altercations over the years. A restraining order filed shortly after high school. A girl from college who claimed to date him for a few months, and when she broke things off, he went crazy. Assaulted her and the guy he found her with.”

“Based on personality and past issues, Mitch is the one who fits the profile for Shawn’s killer. Crime of passion. Payback for his wife stepping out on him and humiliating him for sleeping with the town drunk. I’m sure Clara having an affair with Shawn would hit his ego much harder than if she’d chosen anyone else.”

“I agree, but I also don’t see him sitting back and not going after Clara. He has a history of abusing women. Of lashing out and not respecting women. My gut says he wouldn’t let Clara go unpunished.”

Sadie’s eyebrows rose to her hairline. “Unpunished?”

“That’s how he’d see it, not me.” He lifted his palms in surrender.

---