"Oh, my dear sweet Jesus," Mattie whispered in sick dismay. "Timmie, who is that?"

Timmie choked. She tried to suck in a breath and sobbed instead. "Jason. My ex-husband."

Chapter 23

"What am I going to tell Meghan?" Timmie asked no one in particular.

In a room packed to the ceiling with police, evidence technicians, and paramedics, no one thought to answer. So Timmie didn't bother to ask again.

Jason was dead. Jason, who had been the focus and fuel of her life for the last ten years. The man Timmie had attracted, loved, loathed, left, and tried to survive, who had gone from designing her engagement ring to selling it for cocaine. Lying on her floor, his wide blue eyes still seeming to accuse her of her failings, as if she should have been here to prevent this somehow.

His wide blue eyes that had been so perfectly reborn in Meghan. Who didn't know. Who slept at Mattie's, still expecting her father to sweep back into her life and reclaim the family he'd thrown away. Well, he'd sure as hell swept back into their lives.

"Here, baby," Mattie crooned, easing into the chair next to Timmie's. She had a jelly glass in her hand half filled with something amber, the smell of which Timmie could have recognized at forty yards. The two of them had taken up position at the far edge of the dining room, as far away from Jason as they could get while a photographer snapped pictures and the transport crew leaned against the stairs, waiting their turn.

"Where'd you get that?" Timmie asked, not bothering to take the glass.

"At the back of your kitchen cabinet. Come on."

Timmie shook her head. "I thought I'd found all his bottles. Thanks, Mattie, but I don't drink."

"Neither do I," Mattie reminded her. "This is shock medicine. Goes down easier'n Thorazine and don't leave you so fuzzy."

Timmie took it to make Mattie feel better. "What am I gonna tell Meghan?"

Mattie sighed like the mother she was. "I don't know, baby. Let's ask Walter later. Now, drink that."

Timmie just nodded, her attention on the movements of Micklind and his crew where they worked in her living room. They were measuring, comparing, nodding to each other. Pointing to the gun, to the blood-spatter pattern on her wall, to Jason's feet.

Timmie wondered vaguely why Murphy hadn't found his way here yet. Wasn't he the one with the legendary nose for news? Couldn't he see the strobes all the way across town? Didn't he know she needed his good sense right now?

Timmie vaguely noticed a commotion at the door and looked up. It was only Van Adder. Evidently rousted from bed, he hadn't bothered to button his Mobil shirt over his pajama top and jeans. He caught sight of her at about the same time. "You know what this is probably doing to your daddy?"

Timmie damn near laughed. Even if her father had been in mental attendance, he probably wouldn't have thought much more than that it served Jason right. Joe Leary had not had the time of day for Jason Parker.

"So, what's she gotten herself involved in now?" Timmie could hear Van Adder ask Micklind.

Mattie just about bolted to her feet. Timmie held her back. "He's on the board of the hospital," she reminded her friend.

"I don't care if he the only man on earth can give me a job," Mattie declared. "He got no right!"

"Ah, see, that's the funny part," Timmie assured her with a pat to her knee. "I could care less. He's a fat, lazy, white racist who can't tell his putz from a peashooter. We'll get him."

There was another disturbance by the door, and Timmie thought maybe this time it was sure to be Murphy. It wasn't. It was Cindy.

"Timmie?" she yelled, shoving cops out of the way to get to her. "Timmie, are you all right?"

Timmie just sighed. Cindy spotted her and threaded her way through the crowd in the living room. No wonder the cops had stopped her. She was dressed in what looked like cowboy drag tonight. Rhinestones and Lycra and snakeskin boots. Blue eyeliner and earrings that hung almost to her shoulders. She wasted no more than a second reacting to what was on the floor, then headed straight for where Mattie and Timmie sat in the corner.

"My God," she said, crouching at their feet. "What happened?"

"Whatchyou doin' here, girl?" Mattie demanded. "Don't you know it's damn near two in the mornin'?"

"I was on my way home from a date, and saw all the lights over here. God, I thought the house was on fire." She laid a metallic blue-nailed hand on Timmie's knee. "Are you okay?"

Stupid question. "Yeah. Just trying to figure it out."

Cindy just kept patting. Recognizing the anxiety to help in Cindy's eyes, Timmie managed a vague smile. It wasn't Cindy's fault, after all, that she reminded Timmie so much of her less favorite sister.

"You want to tell me?" Cindy asked, her attention straying to where Micklind was regaining his feet after closely inspecting something on the floor.

"It's her ex-husband," Mattie said simply.

Cindy's eyes widened almost comically. "You're kidding. Oh, my God, Timmie, you said he should be next. You didn't..."

Mattie glared. "No, she didn't. He did."

Cindy let her breath out in a rush. "Oh, Timmie, I'm so sorry. You know I'll do anything I can to help. After all, I know... I mean..."

Timmie ignored her. She couldn't quite look away from that gun on her floor. That gun that had been hidden away in her closet behind the fireman's hat. She remembered telling somebody where. She just couldn't remember who.

"What are you going to do?" Cindy asked, pulling over a third chair and planting herself on it. "What can I do to help?"

Timmie shook her head. "I don't know."

She had to call Murphy. Past that one thought, she couldn't come up with a damn thing except the fact that when the sun came up she was going to have to try and explain all this to her daughter.

"What can you tell me?" Micklind asked in a soft voice.

Timmie hadn't even noticed him approach. It seemed that Mattie had lent him her chair, though, and he perched on it like a third-string player on an empty bench.

"I can't tell you much of anything," she admitted. "Do you have a time of death yet?"

He shrugged, doing his best to stay physically between her and Van Adder, who was rattling around her house like a master reminding the rabble of just how the craft was practiced. "Nope. But with rigor and livor, I'd say he's been in the same position about four hours now. He died where he's lying."

"And nobody heard anything?"

"One neighbor did, but she thought it was backfire down the street. She didn't investigate." Micklind paused a second, his attention caught by the flash of Cindy's attire. "You are?"

Leave it to Cindy to already show tears. "Cindy Dunn. I'm a friend of Timmie's, so don't even think I'm going to leave. My husband was a cop, after all."

As if that explained everything.

"Don't go there, girl," Mattie suggested sternly.

Cindy just lifted her eyes heavenward and hushed. Micklind watched her for a second longer, then returned his attention to Timmie.

"What can you tell me?" he asked.

Timmie rubbed at exhausted eyes. "Four hours," she said. "I was chasing the Sheena bobsled team."