Evanly Bodies - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,65

breakfast, if he still wanted one. I was probably gone forty-five minutes. Not more than an hour. I came in through the side gate, put down the bags so that I could open the back door. Then as I opened it I saw Terry out of the corner of my eye and then I looked at the wall and there was red on it, and I couldn't think what it was. I thought he'd been throwing jam around . . . and then, and then I realized and I just started screaming and screaming. I couldn't make my fingers push the buttons on the phone." Her voice had been rising as she spoke and suddenly she was racked with great shuddering sobs. "He killed himself, didn't he? He shot himself. He blew his own brains out because he was so depressed. I should have done something. I should have noticed and stopped him."

Evan went over and sat on the bed beside her. "There was nothing you could have done, Mrs. Owens," he said gently, patting her hand.

"And I don't think that your husband shot himself," Bragg added. "It's more probable that somebody shot him from outside the kitchen window."

She took her hands away from her tear-stained face. "What? Who'd want to shoot Terry? That's stupid."

"This is the third such case within a week," Bragg said. "All shot in the same manner. When our forensic team gets here, they can tell us whether the same weapon was used as the other two."

"But why?" she asked. "Why would anyone do that? Is there a madman on the loose?"

"Possibly," Bragg said. "We're still trying to piece the puzzle together. Maybe you can help us. Your husband had been unemployed for how long?"

"Six months."

"And what did he do before that?"

"He worked at an assembly plant near Chester. It closed last year."

"So he hadn't been able to find another job since?" Bragg asked. "He didn't think of taking a job in fast food or something like that?"

"He had his pride, Terry did. He was a trained machinist. Besides, he made as much from the dole as he'd have got serving hamburgers."

"What about you, do you work?"

"I used to," she said. "I was a receptionist at a solicitor's office. It was a nice place to work. I liked it."

"So why did you leave?"

She looked down, studying her hands. "It was bad timing," she said, "but I got pregnant, and I wasn't feeling very well. So Terry said it would be best if I quit." There was a long pause. "Then I had a miscarriage, and I was in hospital," she said. "That was just over a month ago. I told him I'd have to go out looking for a job because one of us needed to be working, but so far I havn't found anything."

Evan looked at her with pity. She looked so young and innocent, and yet she had been through so much recently. "Do you have friends or relatives nearby you can go to?" he asked.

"My mum doesn't live far away," she said.

"That's good, isn't it?" Bragg said. "You can call her to come and get you then."

"I suppose so." She sounded unsure.

"You don't get on well with your mum?" Evan asked.

She shrugged. "She didn't like Terry. There was always a scene when we went over there, so Terry didn't like me going. She thought he was lazy for not getting a job."

"Why didn't she like Terry?" Evan asked.

"They never hit it off from the start. Terry could be-prejudiced, you know. My mum is overweight. He couldn't stand overweight people. He used to say just looking at her made him sick."

"Was Terry prejudiced about other things too?"

"Yeah. He and his mates-they were always bad-mouthing other races, you know. They blamed immigrants for coming here taking jobs away from local men."

"Did he get into any fights about this? He wasn't a skinhead or anything was he?" Bragg asked.

"Oh no, nothing like that. They got into a few shouting matches down the pub, and he got upset when he saw immigrant families moving in around here. He used to tell terrible jokes. When I tried to stop him, he'd say it was only in fun and I had no sense of humor."

"Can you think of anyone who might have been angry enough with your husband to want to kill him?"

"My mum," she said instantly, then laughed. "But she'd never be able to shoot anybody. You should see how crooked she throws darts. And where would she