Unforgettable. Molly Rice
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Название: Unforgettable
Автор: Molly Rice
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
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“Why should we need charity from the Hunters?”
He could see she was becoming exasperated by his questions. She slapped her eyeglasses on in the way she had always done to show the conversation was at an end as far as she was concerned.
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Why don’t you ask them!”
Once again Derek left the library feeling that his mother was not being wholly truthful with him, and once again he was dismayed by her unaccustomed deceptiveness.
Funny, before Stacy Millman had shown up on the edge of town, he’d had fleeting thoughts that there were undercurrents of something unhealthy happening around him, but he’d always been able to push them away. He’d been a busy lad, never working less than two jobs from the time he was fourteen, and then the college years and three years in the army as a military policeman. When he’d returned home, he’d been hired immediately into the Wabasha County sheriff’s department as a deputy. When Sheriff Townsend had retired, Derek had run for sheriff, and though his election had been a landslide, there’d been plenty of work to occupy his mind with the campaign beforehand.
Now he was being forced to pay more heed to his unease concerning the Hunters, his parents, and some of the other townsfolk.
He glanced at his watch. He had a meeting with Sheriff Job over in Dakota County at two. From the looks of things, the fog was on its way out, and he’d be able to keep the appointment. He had time for a quick trip out to the Hunter estate before lunch. He’d check into the office and if everything was quiet, he’d drive out there.
He wasn’t a kid anymore. Old Mrs. Hunter could no longer intimidate him. He’d get some straight answers from her; she’d never been one to sidestep the truth, it was almost a weapon in her hands.
The Hunter estate, consisting of a huge white stone house with extensive grounds all around, was located just a mile outside of the town proper. Derek eased the car under the portico alongside the kitchen entrance at the side of the house.
He knew the cook, Vera, not only as a neighbor but from his summers of working the grounds. She’d always made it a point to have icy fresh lemonade for him on hot days and she used to add little treats to the lunches she’d been told to provide for the gardening crew.
Vera announced his arrival to Mrs. Hunter from the kitchen intercom and, after a deliberate pause, Derek heard Mrs. Hunter tell Vera to send him into the library.
“You know the way, Derek,” Vera reminded him. “And on your way out you’ll stop and have a slice of fresh cinnamon cake, yes?”
“If I can take it with me, Vera. I’m on my way to lunch from here.”
The library was a large square room, with a fireplace on the south wall and tall windows overlooking the gardens on the north. Bookshelves rose to the ceiling and wooden ladders on a ceiling track made the upper shelves accessible.
Selma Hunter was wrapped in an afghan, sitting in a wing chair in front of a blazing fire. To Derek, who hadn’t seen her up close in quite some time, she seemed more frail than he remembered, but that might have been a trick of the flames reflecting on her face or the gloom from outside that penetrated the room from the windows on the north wall.
“You’re looking well, Mrs. Hunter,” Derek said politely as he approached her.
“As are you, Sheriff. Sit down, please.”
Derek found the heat from the fire oppressive, but he sat in the chair across from the old woman, holding his Stetson on his lap.
“This is a surprise visit, Sheriff. Has one of my employees done something wrong?”
It was like her to assume that he was there regarding one of her help rather than herself and that she keep referring to him by his title rather than his name though she’d known him most of his life and had used to call him Derek before he became sheriff. He knew it was her way of keeping him in his place. Public servants were no more of the elite than the servants who worked on the estate.
“I came to ask a few questions, Mrs. Hunter. First of all, I’m wondering if you’re familiar with any family from around here by the name of Millman.”
Mrs. Hunter’s face was smooth as glass. “No.”
Derek was taken aback. He was beginning to recognize a pattern in that facial expression, the quick way people said no without even having to give it some thought.
“Would have been twenty-five years ago, they lived here, if indeed they did,” Derek prompted. “Maybe you’d like time to think back.”
“No need, Sheriff. I know what I know. Time won’t alter facts. Is that all you wanted?”
“Would you mind telling me why you paid my way through college, Mrs. Hunter?” He could see he’d caught her off guard with this question.
“Why...why...however did you...” She banged her small, freckled fist on the arm of her chair. “I meant the gift to remain anonymous. I will certainly take your mother to task for telling you.”
“But why should you have done it in the first place?”
“Young man, what I do with my money is my own business. You should show a little more gratitude and quit snooping in things that are none of your
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