no marriage certificate filed in your name in Tennessee.”
“No.” I held a forkful aloft. “I don’t suppose there is.” Then I filled my mouth with the savory taste of a small victory.
“Which means your name is false, you were never married in Tennessee, or you were never married at all. Which is it, Mrs. Krause?”
“How does any of this help solve the crime that was committed against me?”
“It helps me establish whether there was any crime at all.”
“You know there was.”
“Forgive me, but three days going through records in Nashville makes it difficult to believe you.”
I pointed to my band. “I was married.”
“That answers two of my three theories.”
“Why should I make your job easier?”
“It’s not my job.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I resigned from the force weeks ago. In fact, the night of your adventure? That was my last night on duty.”
“So why are you pestering me?”
He laughed, a sound that began and ended with a great inhalation through his nose. “I was accepted to train with the Bureau of Investigation. I’m due in Washington at the first of May. So, now I’m just entertaining myself.”
“Entertaining?”
“I find you highly entertaining, Mrs. Krause. And it’s an interesting bit to investigate. I asked the police chief if I could keep at it until I left. Keep myself busy.”
I could feel rage threatening to spoil my delicious supper and fought to express it through a superior disdain. “So, I am a hobby?”
“I suppose you could say that. My favorite one at the moment.” Never would I have thought to describe Irvin Carmichael, a solid wall of a man, as boyish, yet there he was, with a grin that could only be described as playful. “I volunteered to work the case in an unofficial capacity. I have eyes on every local pawn shop, ready to answer back on anything matching your description of the missing pieces. Plus”—here his face settled into a more serious expression—“it gives me a reason to see you. To invite you to supper, to give you an update.”
“You could do all of that without going to Tennessee.”
“I’m working with two things, Hedda Krause. My heart and my head. My heart took me to have a conversation with every lowlife crook in this town and tell him to keep his eyes open. Because I want to help you. My head took me to Tennessee.”
He spoke so simply, as if he hadn’t just declared some sort of love for me. I felt the same battle—my heart and my head, though I’d learned well how to discipline both. I stabbed my last potato and ate in silence.
“I know there’s something, Hedda. I don’t have a single bit of authority right now. I’m just a man.”
“And what do you want from me?”
“Answers.”
“You won’t get any. I don’t talk about my past.”
He moved his plate to the edge of the table, mine too, and stacked our forks on top of both. A good son, he was, raised in a family and expected to do his part. With the dishes cleared between us, he reached across the table and took my hands in his. My first instinct was to pull away, but he held them strong. I glanced over at Bert, who offered a small smile of approval before refilling a glass for a patron at the bar. So I gave myself over, and for a stretch of time I could never measure, he held my hands, softly, his thumb stroking the hollow between my thumb and my wrist. Neither of us spoke. It was the same touch I shared with Bert months ago, the first night I heard Sallie White’s voice. Then it had soothed me. Lulled me. Carmichael ignited just the opposite.
“Do you talk about your future, Hedda?”
Any other man, the smattering of suitors and admirers I’d enjoyed since my widowhood, would have received a flirtatious challenge, but my tongue remained still. I could hear my heart beating, the rush of my pulse in my ears.
“All right then.” He took his hands away, and I could have chased them across the table. “Before I go, I have a gift for you.” He reached into the train case on the seat beside him and took out a book. “I realize I never answered your question about whether or not I read. I do, as a matter of fact. But I never cared for Little Dorrit. Too convoluted and sentimental. This is my favorite Dickens.”
I read the title stamped into the cover. “Great Expectations.”