A Southern Promise. Jennifer Lohmann

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СКАЧАТЬ of them said a word for several seconds. The car’s engine chugged along and the air conditioner puffed, though it couldn’t keep up with the heat from the sun pounding through the windows.

      He needed to finish the interview, get out of the car and away from this woman. Even though she was sitting at the opposite end of the car now, he could still smell her shampoo, as if it had seeped into his nose hairs and he’d never be rid of it.

      “When was the last time you talked with her?” he asked, breaking the buzz of the ambient noise around them and the tension in his head.

      “Yesterday. I talk to her on the phone every day and try to visit her once a week. That’s why I was coming here today. She prefers Wednesday visits.”

      “Did she seem agitated? Upset? Was there anything different about your conversation?” Howie had put his hands on the seat between them, palms up, to invite her to share more. He’d ask her these same questions again, maybe a hundred times over the course of the investigation, pulling at small threads of memory until he knew everything there was to know about Julianne’s relationship with Mrs. Somerset, and everything Julianne knew about Mrs. Somerset’s relationships with everyone else.

      And, because murder investigations crushed the privacy of everyone involved, he would know everything there was to know about Julianne.

      “Aunt Binnie was often agitated.” She stared out the window past him for a moment, the sadness in her eyes touched with something like regret. “She used the internet and papers to keep herself agitated.”

      “Her crime tips.”

      “Yes.” Her fingers twitched around the handkerchief still folded on her leg and her gaze followed the movement. She clenched the fabric until it bunched, then smoothed it back along the bare skin of her knee. When she looked at him again, her face was flat, her emotions under control. “She wrote letters and emails about crime rates. Gun violence. Underfunded or poorly managed crime labs. The wrongly accused. Incarceration rates that were too high, and the privatization of prisons.”

      Howie tried, without success, to control his surprise. Julianne noticed his failure. Though to her credit, she didn’t look away. Instead, she caught his surprise in her gaze and held him there until he regretted every time he’d thought Mrs. Somerset was crazy, even if he’d never said it.

      “She was consistent in her passions,” Howie finally said.

      “She wanted justice for her husband and a world in which murders didn’t go unsolved. It’s not so crazy. In fact, I hope you want the same things.”

      “I do. And you’re right—it’s not so crazy.” The men back at the station would likely continue to think Mrs. Somerset was nuts, and Howie really hadn’t changed his mind about it. But he did have a new layer of respect for the women. The sadness he felt over her death remained; the pity he’d felt over her life was gone. “Was there anything new she’d been upset about?”

      Defending her aunt must have focused her mind because Julianne seemed able to reflect without turning back to his poor handkerchief. “Crime, always crime. There was the mass shooting in Wyoming. She was donating money to the Brady Campaign—she always did after mass shootings. Anyway, her grandson...”

      Howie noted Julianne didn’t say “my cousin” even though she called Mrs. Somerset her aunt.

      “...moved to North Carolina a couple years ago and was always up to something. Investments, politics, I don’t know. He often needed money and Aunt Binnie never wanted to give him any.”

      “You don’t like your cousin.”

      Julianne wrinkled her nose, then sniffed. “No, and it’s hard to think of him as my cousin. He grew up in Virginia but didn’t come down to visit his grandmother often, nor was she invited north. Like most people, the Carries think Aunt Binnie is...was crazy.” Her words shuddered and rolled in the wake of her sobs. “Rupert’s parents encouraged him to come see Aunt Binnie when he was looking at colleges. Hoping she would pay for it, my dad said. Which is probably true. Now that he’s living in Greensboro, he still only visits to ask for money.”

      “And?” Again Howie opened his palms in invitation.

      “And what?”

      “And there’s more to how you feel about Mrs. Somerset’s grandson than that he was a gold-digging relative.” Howie purposely didn’t use the word cousin again. He didn’t want to encourage any familial protectiveness where there hadn’t been any before.

      “Rupert always made me a little uncomfortable, even as kids. Don was better friends with him than I was.”

      Don Somerset would have been the natural person to step in to Somerset Tobacco had the business stayed in the family and in Durham. Instead, he’d gone to North Carolina State University and was doing something at one of the tech firms in Research Triangle Park—no one much cared what.

      Still, Cousin Rupert was a promising thread. Not all cops believed in instincts, but Howie did, especially in the “tingle at the back of the neck” instincts that women had about men.

      “What about him made you uncomfortable?”

      Julianne could play haughty and privileged, but poker would never be her game. Experiences she’d had with Rupert Carrie flickered in her eyes until she settled on one that was especially meaningful. Only, instead of sharing, she shook her head. “He just made me uncomfortable, is all.”

      “There’s more to it, isn’t there?” Howie could still see her rolling the experience over in her mind.

      A dark pink tongue flickered out between light pink lips. “No.”

      She lied with such conviction in her tone—and doubt in her face—that Howie added the question to a mental list to ask again later, and later again if needed. He could approach the question from one hundred different directions if necessary—she’d answer it eventually.

      “It sounds as if your aunt donated a lot of money,” he asked as a distraction. “Was she having money problems? Did she give money to the wrong person? Or borrow money from the wrong person?”

      “No,” Julianne said with conviction. “Aunt Binnie hasn’t had control of her own finances since I came home.”

      Howie raised an eyebrow.

      “When I first moved back to Durham, she was giving money to anyone who knocked on her door and said they could lower the crime rate. Politicians. Nonprofits. Companies seeking investment. Scam artists.” Tendons in her neck appeared when she turned her head to look out the window. When she turned back to face him, her long neck was smooth again, and kissable.

      Shit. She’s a family member—one that might have killed her aunt. He wasn’t supposed to look at Julianne Dawson—of all people—and want to put his lips all over her.

      “Mom didn’t want her giving away any money, so she fought my mom’s attempts to take control. I suggested that I could vet each person, and that we’d agree on a set of nonprofits she could give money to without my signature. That seemed a good compromise.”

      “And your cousin? Were you vetting him, too?”

      She flushed. “Yes. He had something planned, but he wouldn’t СКАЧАТЬ