The Heirloom Murders Read Online Free

…”
    “Yeah.” Roelke sighed. “Did she say anything about why her sister might have done such a thing?” He’d asked a few perfunctory questions while at the house, but hadn’t wanted to press.
    “She has no idea. She’d been living in Seattle, and only came back after her parents died. Dellyn’s a painter and a gardener. Bonnie was an executive’s wife. I guess they didn’t have much in common anymore.” Chloe lifted one slender hand in a gesture of futility. “But Dellyn was already feeling guilty for not spending more time with her parents before they died. Now she’s thinking the same thing about Bonnie.”
    Roelke pulled an index card from his pocket, and wrote artist/gardener, executive’s wife .
    “Why are you writing that down?” Chloe frowned at him. “Dellyn and Bonnie had drifted apart, that’s all. Since Dellyn got back, she’s had all she could handle with the house and stuff.”
    “I’m going to talk with Bonnie’s husband tomorrow.” Simon Sabatola had been in the resort town of Lake Geneva, near the Illinois border, when his wife died. “Do you think Dellyn was OK to leave alone?”
    “She’s not alone. Libby’s there.”
    “My cousin Libby?” Roelke blinked. “How does Libby know Dellyn?”
    “Dellyn’s in our writing group. She’s working on a children’s book.”
    Roelke digested that unexpected tidbit. “Is that how you know Dellyn, too?” He knew Libby had talked Chloe into attending her writers’ meetings.
    “Dellyn works at Old World. She’s in charge of all the gardens.” Chloe flicked a box elder bug from her jeans. “She’d asked if I’d come over today and look at some antiques her parents left behind.”
    Roelke watched fireflies blinking in the twilight. This was one of his favorite times of day, in one of his favorite times of the year. The air was still. A few bats swooped overhead. “I just need to know you’re OK,” he heard himself say. “I hate that you got caught up in something to do with … you know. This.”
    “A suicide?” Chloe asked. “It’s OK to say the word. And this is about my friend, not me. I’m better now.”
    He wanted to believe her. But he didn’t understand suicide. Never would. And without understanding, he didn’t think he could ever not worry about Chloe. She had been crawling out of a deep depression when he met her. How could he ever be sure she wouldn’t slide back to that dark place?
    “Roelke.” She put one hand on his arm, and he felt an electric tingle. “Are you OK?” she went on, clearly oblivious of the effect she was having on him. “Is this the first time you’ve been called to a suicide scene?”
    “I wish,” he said curtly. His first case had been a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl in Milwaukee who’d lain down on her pink-canopied bed and shot herself in the head. She’d been one of the few dead people he’d seen who did almost look as if she was sleeping, with nothing but a small neat hole in her right temple and a little brain matter spilling onto the pillow to argue against it. His second case had involved a guy in a convertible sports car who drove into a tree at 120 mph. Not much left to find of driver or vehicle after that. Of course, that was still better than the guy who—
    “Roelke?”
    “If you ever feel that way again, for the love of God, don’t use a car. It doesn’t always work, and—”
    “Roelke, stop it!” Chloe jerked away from him. “I said, I’m better . I’m not as fragile as you seem to think.”
    Maybe. Maybe not. “I don’t accept suicide,” he said.
    Her eyebrows rose. “What does that mean?”
    “There’s something about Bonnie Sabatola’s death that just feels … wrong, somehow.”
    She sighed, and sipped her drink again. She looked more sad than she had when Roelke had arrived. Great. Just the effect he’d wanted to have.
    “I imagine that it always feels wrong when someone so young dies,” she said.
    “Yeah, but …” He drummed his