Read Online Hire a Hangman by Collin Wilcox - Free Book Online Page A

again—“I was mesmerized. That’s all I can say. My whole life was music. It was all I knew. I was a virgin, for God’s sake, when I met Brice. A twenty-four-year-old virgin.”
    “Obviously, though, he was dazzled, too.”
    “I was beautiful.” As she spoke, she looked him full in the face, as if she were confessing to something shameful. “It’s hard to imagine now, I know. But I was beautiful. And I was good at what I did. I was very good. I had a very good, very unique tone. My technique was sound, too. Looking back, I realize that I had class. And Brice could always recognize class, I’ll give him that.”
    “How long were you married?”
    “Almost twenty years. And all that time he was playing around. Always.”
    “Did you call him on it?”
    “No,” she answered. “I never did. Not for a long, long time.” She grimaced. “A lifetime, as it turned out.”
    “Why’d you wait so long?”
    “It was this.” Once more, she did the ballerina turn with her hands. “It was living here, in Pacific Heights. It was never having to think about money. Do you realize what that means, Lieutenant? Not to worry about money, that’s one thing. But not even to have to think about money, that’s something else.”
    “So you kept quiet about his playing around.”
    “I kept quiet about it—and I drank. So, of course, I lost my chair in the symphony. You can’t drink and play cello.”
    “You have one child?”
    As if she were confessing to another shameful secret, she nodded. “Some say—Brice, for one—some say I’ve spoiled John, made him a mama’s boy. And maybe they’re right. That’s one of those things, it’s not for me to say. The more I try to defend myself, the worse it seems.”
    “But you did ask for a divorce. Finally.”
    She smiled bitterly. “He and Barbara Gregg were practically living together. He’d rented a goddamn love nest for them. They started going places together—out to dinner, out to the theater. Finally they went to an opera opening together. There was a picture of them together, on the society page. That’s what did it. I saw that picture and I called a lawyer.”
    “And now Brice is playing around— was playing around—on Barbara. Did you know that?”
    “And Barbara was playing around on him.” This time, smugness softened the bitterness of her smile. “Did you know that?”
    “No,” Hastings answered. “Do you know his name?”
    “His name is Clayton Vance.” The smile widened subtly. “He’s a car salesman. Jaguars, of course, very upscale. Still, I doubt that Brice was pleased, knowing Barbara was involved with a car salesman. He’d consider it a negative reflection on his status.”
    “Do you think he knew his wife was seeing someone?”
    “I’m sure he did. That’s the way Brice liked to play the game. Everything on the table, let the blood spatter where it may.”
    “He drove a Jaguar. Brice, I mean.”
    “He drove three cars. At least.”
    Hastings wrote Clayton Vance in the notebook. When he reinterrogated Barbara Hanchett, he’d drop the name on her, watch for the reaction. Could he dent her composure, shake her up?
    For a long moment Hastings sat silently, his eyes thoughtfully unfocused. In an investigation that was barely twelve hours old, the list of potential murder suspects was impressive. Jason Pfiefer, Carla’s estranged husband, still consumed by love, was a classic suspect. Barbara Hanchett could have been driven by a combination of jealousy and the prospect of gain, also classic motives. Teresa Bell, the woman who’d lost her child when Hanchett’s decision went against her, was still to be interrogated. Could Fiona Hanchett, embittered by her own ruined life, have pulled the trigger? What about their son? How much would John Hanchett inherit at his father’s death?
    Those suspects, and perhaps many more …
    It was time to play the guessing game: pick a suspect. Any suspect.
    “I’ve got to be going, Mrs. Hanchett. But