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right, Detective Hagstrom. And if you need
any help with the legwork, I’ll gladly offer my
services.”
    “ I’ll let you know.” He
glanced at his watch and said, “Why don’t you take your pictures so
we can get the hell out of here. I’m getting thirsty.”
    Sam looked around the room and said,
“Fuck it. Let’s just go.”
    Roger was tempted to rib him, but
decided not to. “Want to hit the tavern and tie one on?”
    It only took Sam a second to think
about it. “Lead the way.”
     
     

CHAPTER 5
     
     
    Ann stood in the doorway staring at her
sleeping daughter and debated whether or not to wake her up. It was
tempting, just to get back at her for coming home so late last
night and worrying her half to death. But she relented when she saw
how peaceful her daughter looked all snuggled up with her head
buried underneath her pillow. She turned and quietly closed the
bedroom door behind her.
    She crept down the stairs and went into
the kitchen, wrote Amy a quick note, then gathered up her things
and headed out the front door. It was noticeably cooler than it had
been the day before and the sun was shining brightly as she got in
her car and started it up. As she was backing out the driveway, it
suddenly dawned on her that she’d forgotten to call Mr. Ogilvy
about fixing the floodlight in the backyard and made a mental note
to call him the moment she got back home. The supermarket wasn’t
far, only a few blocks away, so Ann drove slowly, taking in the
quiet peacefulness of the neighborhood on a Sunday
morning.
    Ann waited for a traffic light to
change then made a right onto High Street. She reached the
supermarket in another three blocks and pulled into the parking
lot, relieved to find that there were only a dozen or so cars
parked outside. Since moving to Columbus, she’d gotten in the habit
of doing her grocery shopping on Sunday mornings since it was
rarely crowded then. Shopping had a certain therapeutic value to
it, she had learned long ago. It helped to get her mind off things
that were troubling her.
    She went inside, grabbed a shopping
cart, then spent the next half hour or so meandering through the
aisles. When she was finished, she headed for the least crowded
checkout line and waited.
    There were only a couple of customers
ahead of her: an elderly woman with a nearly full cart, and the man
standing directly in front of Ann, who had only a few items. She’d
seen the man before, last week in fact, and she remembered him
because he was wearing the exact same thing he’d worn last Sunday—a
gray wool suit and no overcoat. Her hunch was that he had just
gotten out of church and had stopped by to pick up a few things
before going home. He was strikingly handsome, she had to admit;
tall, muscular build, with neatly styled longish blonde hair. His
eyes were green, she recalled. A very dark, rich shade of green as
stunning as it was unusual. He was probably about forty she
guessed, and appeared fit and youthful with his trim, athletic
physique and bronze, tanned skin—no doubt the result of numerous
trips to a tanning salon.
    The elderly woman was unloading her
cart and taking her good old time about it. Ann heard the man in
front of her sigh impatiently. She observed the handful of items
he’d placed on the conveyer: a pound of ground chuck, a package of
hamburger buns, a jar of pickles, a head of lettuce and a six-pack
of Coke. Glancing over at the express lane, she wondered why he
didn’t simply go over to it instead of putting up with the old lady
like this, and then noticed that there were a half dozen people
standing in line there.
    The checkout girl was quickly losing
her patience as she was being forced to wait while the elderly
woman took each item out of her cart, one by one, and set them on
the counter for her to scan. The woman was old, granted, but far
from feeble. Ann deduced that she was the type of ancient hag who
seemed to wear her general contempt for the world on her sleeve and
was