I Love You More: A Novel Read Online Free

otherwise well kept.
    “I’m Clara Butterworth,” she said. “My husband and I were first on the scene.” She looked over her shoulder. Mr. Cubs leaned back against the kitchen cabinet, his arms crossed, eyes closedlike he was napping. In addition to the hat, he wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt and just-over-the-knee-length khaki shorts, making him appear shorter and rounder than he probably was. “And before you ask, yes, just like the syrup.” She let out a little laugh, but caught herself. “Oh, I am so sorry. This isn’t any time for jokes, is it?”
    “Detective Kyle Kennedy.” I reached into my breast pocket, took out my notebook, handed her my card, extended one toward the wife (at least I thought it was the wife). “Ma’am?” She didn’t acknowledge me.
    “Oh, she hasn’t said a word since we got here, Detective,” Mrs. Butterworth said.
    “You say you arrived first Mrs.—um—ma’am. How long ago was that?”
    “Fifteen minutes? It was seven forty-five, right Melvin?” Melvin was as unresponsive as the woman on the sofa. “Well, anyway, you could probably verify that. I called 911 the minute we walked through the door.”
    “How do you know the victim?”
    “I don’t, Detective. He was lying there like that”—she pointed at the body—“when we came in. We’re staying down the street. Same place we stay every summer. We’re from Lake Forest.” She looked at me as if she wanted acknowledgment. “Illinois?”
    I walked past her to get a closer look at the vic’s body.
    “He’s dead, Detective,” Mrs. Butterworth said. “I already checked.”
    “You touched the body?” It was always the well-meaning witnesses that contaminated crime scenes.
    “Just his wrist,” she said.
    Since the right arm wasn’t exposed, Mrs. Butterworth would’ve had to walk around the body. I noted her shoes. Gold lamé slides with a short stacked heel. No apparent blood transfer or impressions on the tightly looped carpet.
    “Did you touch anything else?”
    “I don’t think so, Detective. Did we, Melvin?”
    Mack came through the door carrying the crime scene kit that we kept in the trunk of the Buick. “Brass and CSIs are on the way.”
    “How far out?”
    “Depends how backed up the ferries are. Thirty minutes max I should think.”
    “Half an hour?” Mrs. Butterworth asked. “That seems awfully excessive, Detective, don’t you think? Even for here.”
    I stood, cleared my throat. “Detective Jones, this is Clara Butterworth. She and her husband were first on the scene.”
    “Ma’am,” Mack said and nodded, then headed to the body.
    “I’ll need to ask you a few questions if that’s okay, ma’am,” I said. In Detroit, I would have ushered her to a private room and questioned her after the scene was properly secured—body inspected and outlined, evidence bagged, photos taken, site sketched—but this wasn’t Detroit. This was Cooper’s Island where the homicide division boiled down to Mack and me, and proper procedure was a luxury.
    “Of course, Detective.” Before I’d even crossed the room the woman’s tongue launched into motion. She and her husband had just sat down to breakfast when she heard the shot. Quarter after seven, she said. No she didn’t check the time on the clock because she didn’t think much of it. Thought it was fireworks. But she and her husband always ate breakfast at seven fifteen. “My husband is very punctual.”
    “What made you come over if you thought it was just fireworks?”
    “We went to get the paper after breakfast like we always do—the doctor says Melvin needs his exercise—and we saw that the door was open.” She leaned through the doorframe, pointed. “Everyone within a quarter mile of here gets their mail and paper from that same bank of mailboxes across the street. If Melvin hadhis druthers we’d get the paper before breakfast, but it doesn’t get delivered until—”
    I interrupted. “Did you say the door was open?”