Dead of Winter (Cold Case Psychic #15) - Pandora Pine Page 0,50
my handsome husband is a bonus.”
Ronan felt like a dick. He should have been thinking along those lines as well. “I’m sorry, Cisco. I guess my mojo is in high gear.”
“Rein it in. At least for now.” Cisco gave him the once over and walked into the interview room.
Charles Blake startled, jumping to his feet while his handkerchief dropped to the table.
“I’m Police Chief Cisco Jackson and this is my partner, Detective Ronan O’Mara.” Cisco hooked a thumb back at Ronan. He took a seat across the table from the man, with Ronan taking the seat next to him.
If this were a real interrogation, Ronan and Cisco would have boxed Charles Blake into a corner, making him feel as if there was no escape. For this friendly chat, Cisco had chosen a more relaxed posture.
Charles nodded. “What can you tell me about Jennifer’s murder? How did it happen? Have you arrested any suspects?”
Cisco held a hand up to stop Charles’s interrogation in its tracks. “We’ll get to that, but first, there’s some information we need from you.”
There was a tightening in Ronan’s gut. When it came to murdered wives, there were usually three types of husbands, the one who will try to run the investigation himself, the one who is too devastated to do anything but cry, and the one trying to cover his tracks. Ronan put Charles Blake in the first category, for now. “When was the last time you saw your wife?” He deliberately left off the word “alive.”
“Yesterday morning. I had an early meeting in the office. With Christmas and the charity gala so close, I was trying to wind up all of my business so I’d be free to devote my time to my wife’s crowning achievement.”
“Her crowning achievement?” Cisco asked.
“This is the twentieth anniversary of Jennifer’s Place.” Charles smiled. “When I gave her the money to start the foundation, I didn’t really have a lot of faith that it would go anywhere. My wife was young and beautiful, and I was willing to give her anything she wanted.” Charles swiped at the tears wetting his face. “I’m not exactly Brad Pitt.”
Ronan studied the man. His white hair had receded to a semi-circle around the back and sides of Charles’s liver spotted head. If he had to guess, Ronan would say the spots were from too much sun. Possibly from time on a yacht or in the Caribbean. Not that it mattered. His hands were well-manicured and showed no signs of ever having done an honest day’s work. The navy suit Charles wore was tailored and probably cost him a thousand dollars. The gold Rolex on his left wrist, several thousand. He oozed money the same way his wife had yesterday. “How did the two of you meet?” Ronan figured that was a better question than asking if Jennifer had married him for his money.
A fresh flood of tears cascaded down Charles’s face. “It’s going to sound crazy, but I stopped to help Jennifer when her car broke down on the side of the road.” Charles’s face morphed from sorrow to wistful. “A summer thunderstorm hit while I was driving home from the Salem Country Club, and I came upon this broken-down car with a woman in a skimpy barmaid’s uniform, peering into the open hood while the engine smoked.”
Ronan opened his mouth to say something snarky, but remembered at the last minute that Cisco wanted to treat the man with kid gloves, for now.
“I know what you’re thinking, Detective O’Mara,” Blake said. “Would I have pulled over if she’d been fat? Probably not. I was a dick back then.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Somehow my wife turned me around. She made me a better man.” He paused for a moment. “She made me want to be a better man, for her.”
The ice around Ronan’s cold dead heart cracked. He felt the same way about Tennyson, but he also wasn’t sitting here because his husband had been brutally murdered. “Things moved quickly after that?”
Charles nodded. “We were married that New Year’s Eve. She was nineteen and I was forty-nine. I’d never been married before. I never wanted to be tied down or faithful to just one woman, but God help me, with Jennifer, I did. I never once stepped out on my wife in the thirty years we were married.”
“Tell us about yesterday. When was the last time you saw your wife? When was the last time you communicated by phone or text?” Cisco pulled his