“Of course. Nora Young and Rachel Cook would never hurt anyone, least of all my father. They idolized him. Imagine Aunt Bea on the Andy Griffith Show and you’ll have some idea of what these ladies are like.”
“You mentioned a stepmother on the phone. Where was your real mother when this occurred?” he asked. When one spouse went missing, the other, or an ex, was frequently to blame. Before he started investigating the stepmom, he needed to rule out the first Mrs. Barker.
But that was easier than he’d expected.
“Dead,” Madeline said.
He watched her closely, trying to gauge her reaction. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She didn’t respond.
“What happened?”
“She shot herself with my father’s gun.”
“When?”
“I was ten.”
He flinched in spite of himself. “Who found her?”
Madeline’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “I did.”
Shit…He didn’t know what to say. She’d been through so much.
But sad as her story was, her pain didn’t have to be his pain, he reminded himself. She didn’t need him to save her. She was just a client—a beautiful client, but a client nonetheless.
“I’d come home from school and wanted to show her my report card,” she went on in a monotone. “My father sent me in to wake her from a nap and—” her voice quavered “—and there she was.”
Distance, remember? “Your father hadn’t heard the shot?” he prompted softly. Maybe it was insensitive to ask, but he had to learn all he could about Madeline Barker and her history. It was the best way to solve her father’s murder, which he intended to do as quickly as possible—before he could find too many things to like about her. Besides her looks, of course.
“No. She did it while he was out working on the farm. He saw me get off the bus and followed me to the house.”
“How long after your mother’s death did your father go missing?” he asked.
“Six years. We managed on our own for three. Then my father met a woman named Irene Montgomery.”
“You didn’t know her?”
The rain pounded harder, but Madeline didn’t slow down. “No. They met at a regional singles dance. She was living in Booneville, which isn’t too far from Stillwater. He was forty-three and she was only thirty-two, but she needed an older man in her life.”
Was it possible she’d needed a few other things, as well? Some creature comforts she could better enjoy without him? “Why older?” he asked.
“She’d dropped out of school, pregnant at sixteen. She married the father of her baby, but after they’d had two more children, he abandoned her. She didn’t have a lot of options, and was looking for some stability.”
“And your father offered that.”
She turned the knob for the windshield wipers until they were swishing back and forth at a frenetic pace. He guessed they were keeping time with her heart. But outwardly she remained calm. “Sure. He had the farm my stepbrother now owns, a good job, modest savings. And he was well-respected in the community.”
Hunter leaned forward to see around the silky fall of her hair. “I thought your stepmother inherited the farm.” He’d made a note of it when they talked on the phone the first time she’d called because the farm might’ve provided the stepmother with a motive for murder.
“She did. But when Molly, my youngest sister, graduated from high school, my stepmother moved to town and my brother took over.”
“Is it a nice piece of property?”
The look she shot him said she’d heard the suspicion in his voice. “Don’t jump to that conclusion.”
“What conclusion? It’s a logical question.”
“I told you on the phone, my stepmother didn’t kill my father.”
“You were with her when your father went missing?”
Her expression grew haunted. “No, I wasn’t home that night. I was staying at a friend’s.”
“Who was at home?”
“Grace and Molly and later, Clay. My mother was there part of the time, but she certainly wouldn’t kill the one person who was putting food on the table for her children. We almost starved after my father went missing. If it wasn’t for my stepbrother, we would’ve gone hungry—or been separated and taken into foster care.”
“What’d he do to save the day?”
“Ran the farm, worked odd jobs in town, anything he had to do, really. That’s why my stepmother turned the farm over to him.”
“Sounds like he was the best-equipped to run it.”
“He was. And five years ago, he paid each of us our portion of what it was worth at the time my father went missing,” she added. “Which was very generous of him,” she added. “I wasn’t expecting any payment. We would’ve faced foreclosure without him.”
“So he’s done well?”
“Well enough that he could lend me a significant amount of money last year when I needed to buy a new printing press.”
Madeline’s reference to a recent loan hardly put Hunter at ease. Would she be able to pay him? There were a lot of things about this case that were making him uneasy. Beginning with the woman behind the wheel. “So Clay’s older?” he asked.
“We were both sixteen when everything fell apart.”
“He took responsibility for the family at sixteen?”
She smiled faintly. “He’s always been very capable.”
Capable of murder? Sixteen was pretty young to kill, but it wouldn’t be the first time a teenager had resorted to deadly violence. Madeline readily admitted that Clay’s abilities had outdistanced his age. And she’d mentioned that there was a gun in the house. “How big is your brother?”
“Well over six feet. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
Her lips formed a grim line.
Hunter leaned forward once again, to see her face more clearly. “What’s wrong?”
“He didn’t kill my father, either.”
“And you know that because he has a foolproof alibi?”
“I know him.” The loyalty and conviction in her voice sounded resolute. But the fact that she hadn’t volunteered any solid proof concerned Hunter. Obviously, there was some question here.
Hunter rubbed his chin while he considered her reaction. “Where was he the night it happened?”