Read Online Designed to Kill by CHESTER D CAMPBELL - Free Book Online Page A

but Tim and the deputy. I guess Marilou would have been with him to unlock the door, but she doesn’t use Shalimar.”
    Marilou Edens was in charge of the condo office. Besides keeping the owners happy, she had a staff that handled rentals.
    “I’ll check with her in the morning,” I said. “Maybe a female deputy came along with the Sergeant.”
    As I unloaded the cart, Jill moved about turning on lamps. The sun was almost gone, leaving the living room in near darkness.
    “Oh, oh.”
    That stopped me in my tracks. Such an observation could only mean she had found something amiss. I walked over to where she stood beside a cushioned rattan chair. “What is it?”
    She held up a woman’s lightweight velvet jacket, a well-tailored red garment with an expensive look. Jill held the collar open to show the label stitched inside. “It’s from The Bodde Shoppe. Isn’t that in the Cordova Mall?”
    “Yeah, I guess.” Expensive ladies shops weren’t high on my list of places to frequent. I moved closer to study the jacket, which bore the familiar scent of Shalimar. “There are some initials marked very small in the corner of the label,” I said. “Appears to be SH .”
    Jill dropped down onto the sofa and patted the cushion. “Sit down, Greg. There’s something I need to tell you. I didn’t want to bring it up while Walt was with us.”
    When she goes into a serious mode like this, I know it’s time to pay attention. I sat down and leaned my arm on the back of the sofa. “Okay, let’s have it.”
    She stared back with a somber expression. “Remember when we were at the funeral home this morning before the service, and I wanted a cup of coffee?”
    “Yeah. I stopped to corner Sam and ask a few questions about Mr. Sturdivant. I could have used some coffee, too, but you didn’t bring me any.”
    She ignored the mild reproach. “Well, Tara followed me back to the kitchen. We were in there alone. I offered her some coffee, but she declined. Obviously, she just wanted to talk. I’m still not really sure why she chose me. Maybe because she was so distraught and felt she needed to tell this to someone, but she didn’t want to go into it with her mother or Wilma.”
    When she paused, I prompted her. “Go into what?”
    “She said she and Tim had been having some problems. At first it stemmed from his determination to spend most of what he was making off The Sand Castle project on improving the business. She insisted they should build a new, larger house. For one thing, she thought the boys needed separate rooms. But then, after he came home from Florida a few months ago, things seemed a bit more complicated. He was terribly preoccupied, distant at times. But she couldn’t get him to talk about why. She was never sure if it was something about the project...or some body .”
    “Another woman?”
    “That was the implication. I don’t think she was really accusing him of anything. It was just a suspicion, but something that obviously had bothered her.”
    I glanced back at the jacket with the initials. “And you think this might be the other woman?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just hope for Tara ’s sake this jacket got here some other way.”
    “I agree. But one thing’s for damned sure. If some woman was here Friday night, we need to talk to her.”

 
     
     
     
    12
     
    Walt Sturdivant showed up just before
nine o’clock
. Opening the door created a draft, letting the breeze rush through toward the balcony, sweeping across the dining room table like a sudden gale. Papers scattered about where I had been scribbling notes for follow-up.
    Jill and I had changed into shorts, but Walt still had on the long-sleeve white shirt and dark trousers he had worn to the funeral and on the drive to Florida . The pipe protruded from his shirt pocket. A newspaper was stuck under his arm. When I invited him in, Jill, ever the perfect hostess, approached him immediately.
    “Would you like some