Evanly Bodies - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,71

machinist run afoul of organized crime, he asked himself? Drugs were the most obvious answer, but there had been no hint of drug use. What they hadn't yet checked was whether any of the victims was in trouble financially. They should also find out whether any of them had borrowed money or had a gambling problem.

Then he had to smile at the absurdity of these thoughts. Missy Rogers would know if her husband took drugs or gambled. So would the other wives. Ridiculous. He felt especially bad about Megan Owens. She'd gone through a lot recently for one so young and frail looking. Poor kid, she had lost a child and a husband within a month of each other. Barely recovered from one before she had to go through this. He hoped her mother was being nice to her. There had been a definite coldness between the two as Evan watched them go off in the mother's car.

Then suddenly he broke off in midthought. "Wait a minute," he said out loud. There was a connection at last. He couldn't see how it might impact the three murders, but it was a connection. He put his foot down and zigzagged in and out of the traffic.

"Listen, I think I've got something," he gasped, out of breath from taking the stairs two at a time. The other men looked up expectantly.

"Megan Owens had a miscarriage a month ago. Missy Rogers went into hospital a month ago. Pamela Alessi had been under the care of a doctor."

"So?" Bragg asked.

"We've been looking for a connection. All three women have been ill. Is it possible they met in hospital?"

"And decided to find a hit man to kill their husbands?" Bragg raised an eyebrow.

"You thought Missy Rogers had killed her husband," Evan pointed out. "You were about to charge her. What's to say the other women didn't do the same? All we have to prove is how the gun was passed from one to the other."

"And the motive?" Bragg asked. "They were all tired of their old men? Not a sound move financially in any of the cases. No big life insurance policies."

"But it is a thought," Wingate agreed. "It's the only possible link so far."

"Go for it then," Bragg shrugged. "Right now I'd believe it if you told me they all took belly-dancing lessons or turned tricks together. Let's find out where and when these women were in hospital. Talk to their doctors. Wingate, you take Rogers, Evans you can take Alessi, and Pritchard, you get Owens."

Evan hurried back to his car. The blinds were drawn at Papa Luigi's, and the sign said CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. But Pamela Alessi answered the door after peeping out from behind one of the blinds.

"Oh, it's you, Constable Evans. Any news?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid, Mrs. Alessi," he said. "So you're still living here then? I thought you might have moved in with a friend or gone to a hotel."

"I don't have any friends living close by that I choose to go to right now," she said, "and hotels cost money. Besides, I'd like to get the restaurant up and running again as soon as the police will release my kitchen from being a crime scene. I need to make money, or I won't be able to pay next month's rent."

"So Luigi didn't leave you well provided for?"

"Luigi wasn't good with money," she said angrily. "If he had it, he spent it. He thought nothing of blowing twenty pounds on drinks for the lads. And those TV sets? Always had to have the biggest and best."

"But didn't Luigi do all the cooking?"

"Yes, but the lads and me can probably muddle through. That's what I'll be doing for a while, I expect, muddling through."

"Have you seen your doctor since it happened?" Evan asked cautiously.

"What would he do-just give me more pills that make me dopey half the time."

"The illness you spoke about," Evan went on. "Is it serious? I know you mentioned something about your nerves, but it isn't a serious condition that put you in the hospital, is it?"

"What are you implying-that I'm a nutter?"

"Of course not. So it's just a case of stress and depression then, is it? The normal difficulties of life?"

"That's about it. The normal difficulties."

"And you haven't been in hospital recently for any condition?"

"What's this about hospitals?" she asked sharply.

"Just following up on something we've heard."

"Hang about. You don't suspect me of murdering Lou, do you? Shooting my husband? What, because I'm really off my