Page 17 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

“Barbara Jean Marx?” Morrisette’s eyebrows puckered together, showing off her most recent silver stud. “I’ve heard the name somewhere.”

“Married to Jerome Marx until recently.” He gritted his teeth at the thought of how easily she’d lied to him and how he’d so willingly believed her. “Marx owns an import/export business downtown. I thought I’d go pay him a visit and give him the news personally.”

“You know him?” Morrisette asked as she scrounged in her purse and dragged out a piece of gum. “Cuz it seems like you do.”

He hesitated. Decided he may as well confide in her. “I knew Bobbi Jean. We were involved.”

“And you’re going to talk to the ex? Isn’t that against department policy?”

“A detective from Lumpkin County—Davis McFee—will be with me.”

Morrisette lifted an eyebrow. “You got yourself your own police escort?”

“Very funny,” he mocked, though the thought rankled. Obviously, Baldwin didn’t trust him. Would you? Come on! Baldwin’s just covering his ass. “I thought maybe you’d want to tag along.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She unwrapped a disfigured stick of gum and popped it into her mouth. “So, fill me in.”

Reed told her everything he remembered, from the chopper ride upstate through the grisly discoveries in the grave to the meeting in which Sheriff Baldwin ‘for the sake of department integrity’ had decided to send McFee to lead the investigation. The fact that he was allowing Reed, an ex-lover of Bobbi Jean’s, to tag along, severely bent

the rules. When he’d finished, Morrisette whistled. “Jesus, Reed, what a mess. You think the note in the coffin is connected with the one delivered here yesterday?”

“Seems like too much of a coincidence not to. And it looks identical. Same paper, same handwriting. The lab is comparing the two as well as checking for prints.”

“We should get so lucky,” Morrisette muttered as the phone rang.

Reed held up a finger, silently asking her to wait, and picked up. Though he was hoping for information on Bobbi and the other woman in the coffin, it was another case in which a couple of kids were playing with their father’s revolver and one ended up dead. A depressing way to start an already bad morning.

While he was on the call, Morrisette’s beeper went off and she grabbed her cell phone from her fringed purse and disappeared out the door. She returned before he hung up, but didn’t slide into the chair again. Instead, she propped her slim butt on the windowsill and waited until he hung up. The door to his office was ajar and he heard voices and footsteps, officers and staff arriving for the day shift.

“So, when are you visiting the deceased’s husband to give him the news?” Morrisette asked as a telephone jangled down the hallway.

“Ex-husband. As soon as the detective from Lumpkin County gets here.”

“What about the autopsy?”

“Done in Atlanta, sometime today, probably. It’s got priority. But first they want someone besides me to ID the body.”

“Who knew you were involved with the woman?”

“Aside from Marx, no one.”

“No one that you knew. She could have spilled the beans to a friend.”

“Or Marx could have.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Six, maybe seven weeks ago.”

“That when you called it off?”

“Yep.”

“Learned that she wasn’t quite divorced.”

“Mmm.”

“When was she reported missing?”

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