Country Proud (Painted Pony Creek #2) - Linda Lael Miller Page 0,83

at Tiffany but striking, like shrapnel, at all women.

No, he hadn’t confessed to killing her.

But he had wished her dead, her and every other woman who had ever rejected him.

There must have been hundreds of them.

“So you definitely think Freddie murdered Tiffany Ulbridge?” Eli asked, weary to the marrow of his bones.

It was at times like this that he wished he’d chosen another line of work, one that didn’t involve battling the absolute scum of the earth. He’d have made a good carpenter, for instance. He was halfway decent at training horses, though he lacked Cord’s almost supernatural talent. Hell, at the moment, he would have gladly flipped burgers or tended bar.

Trouble with that reasoning was, somebody had to stand in the breach and block the flow of darkness as best they could. As controversial as being an officer of the peace was in this notch of history, as ineffectual as Eli and many other cops felt sometimes, what would the world be like without good cops—and the vast majority of them were good—always ready and willing to fight the common and uncommon evils that would otherwise creep over the whole human race like black mold.

The objective, Eli knew, was overwhelming. Even impossible: a fool’s quest. Don Quixote in an SUV with a badge painted on the side.

And yet, like that crazy knight of old, Eli had to keep tilting at windmills, if only because occasionally—just occasionally—his lance happened to strike down a monster instead.

Whether he liked it or not, that was his calling.

He had no choice but to live it.

“Some of the reports are back from the lab in Kalispell,” Eli said, rallying himself from the mental mire he’d stumbled into, reading Freddie’s ravings and considering the futility of confronting yet more evil.

“Fill me in,” Dan said.

“The gun—the one we found in the barn, on that cot—was definitely used to kill Ms. Ulbridge. Ballistics matched.”

“Okay,” Dan replied. “What about prints?”

“No prints. Freddie must have wiped the thing down.”

“Any gunpowder residue on his hands or clothes?”

Eli shook his head. “According to Sam Wu, over at Alec’s office, before he hanged himself, Freddie took a shower. Dressed himself in clean clothes.”

“Fairly typical for suicides,” Dan affirmed.

“Yeah,” Eli said thoughtfully. “But something about this bothers me, Dan,” he confided. “It’s almost too clear-cut. Last week, when I went to tell Fred, Sr., and Gretchen that their boy was dead, I had this odd sense that I was missing something. And I’m not over that.”

“You going to Freddie’s funeral?”

“Yes,” Eli replied. “But not as a mourner. The Lansings would probably lose it if I showed up for the ceremony, so I’ll be watching from the director’s office, via the security cameras.”

“Any chance I could join you? A second pair of eyes can’t hurt.”

“I would be grateful if you did,” Eli answered.

Dan raised his bulky, muscular self to his feet. “I’ll be there,” he said.

“I’ll be in touch with the details,” said Eli. “We have to use the back way. Like I said, Fred, Sr., and Gretchen would not be pleased to see us there. In their minds, I’m the cause of all Freddie’s problems. If I’d just let him alone, etc., etc.”

Dan’s nod was solemn and sympathetic. “I’ll be waiting,” he said. Then he smiled sadly. “It’ll be good to get out of the house for a while—even if it’s for a funeral.”

“Melba giving you that hard a time?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “She’s being nice to me, at least when the girls are around. I told her she’s not fooling them—they’re smart kids—but she pours it on anyway. When they’re at school, she’s at work, but if we happen to find ourselves in the same room at the same time—and she does her best to avoid that—she treats me like something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.”

Eli sighed, stood up to walk Dan to the outside door.

“This is a standoff,” he said. “Two stubborn people, nose to nose, each of them refusing to give an inch of ground.”

Dan gave him a challenging look. “From what I hear, you speak from experience, my friend.”

Eli shoved a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Exactly what did you hear?”

“That Brynne’s former squeeze turned up at Bailey’s and she had a meltdown. Given your current low mood, I’d say you won’t be winning any prizes for diplomacy in the near future.”

“Holy crap,” Eli breathed. “Is this whole damn town wired for sound?”

Dan laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “The drums started beating when you and Brynne left the restaurant