Free Shorts - Sinister Shorts by Perri O'Shaughnessy

downriver. We'll start looking right away.”
    “He'd need transport once he got out,” Tim said. “Bodie, you look hard for a car or motorcycle out there in the trees, too.” He got up. “I'm going to have to go tell Anita. You coming, Bodie?”
     
    The crew came back and searched the banks of the river for three days in pouring rain, but they didn't turn up a thing. Doc Ashland finished the autopsy, saying all he could add was that Roy didn't have any alcohol or drugs in his system. And that the cause of death looked like drowning, though Roy was so beat up from the falls he might have died anyway.
    The fourth day, a man in a gray suit came driving up to the sheriff's substation in a brand-new Jeep Cherokee. Tim came out to meet him. “James Burdick, Gibraltar Insurance,” he said, shaking hands. “I thought you might have some sun this high up.” Burdick was short and solid. He smelled of cigars.
    “It'll be back,” Tim said.
    “I read your report. You sure your men have searched that river high and low for the money?”
    “It's not there.”
    “Because if it doesn't turn up soon, I'm going to have to issue the old man another check. He's hired a lawyer this time and he's making a fearful racket. I don't work directly with the agents, so I didn't know Roy Ballantine. Did you ever think he'd do a thing like this?”
    “I'd heard he was gambling, getting into debt. Maybe I should have paid more attention.”
    “If we do pay that geezer Bayle off again, we're going to try to recover from Ballantine's estate.”
    “Anita's going to need money. I doubt she'll be getting any of the life insurance he was loaded up with.”
    “She can always file bankruptcy,” the Gibraltar man said breezily. “Can we go inside? It's freezing out here.”
     
    Anita came to see him the next day. She had fixed herself up, but the old spark had been replaced by something just old. Events like losing a husband could make a woman cross the line into age in one night. Tim had seen it before.
    “Let's talk frankly, Anita,” he said. Her eyes burned at him for a minute, then extinguished again. “I've been listening to the gossip. I heard some things I need to check out with you.”
    “Like what?”
    “For example, that you were getting ready to leave Roy, take Ginny and Kyle.”
    “So what if I was?” she said. “So you've been listening to the women in this town, stabbing you in the back when your husband's just died…” She started crying, lightly and easily, like the rain falling outside the door. “He'd gambled away our savings. He didn't care about me anymore. Yes, I was thinking about leaving while I still had some self-respect. Of course, he's taken even that away from me now.” But the lift of her chin into the air said, he can take everything else, but he won't take my pride.
    “Did you know he was going to steal the money?”
    “Of course not-”
    “Marriage is an odd state. We let another person come so close, they can read our minds,” Tim said. “I think you knew.”
    “I can't believe you're saying this. You're accusing me of killing him so I could have the money, like I dressed him in a wet suit and tossed him over the bridge? He weighed over two hundred pounds. I don't have to listen to this. I'm going home.”
    “You might want to wait another few minutes,” Tim said.
    “Wh-why?”
    “Because Bodie's out there searching your house and yard. I'm sorry, we have to be sure.” He handed her a copy of the search warrant.
     
    “That woman is so broke all we found was letters to her sister asking for loans,” Bodie said later. “We dug around the backyard, knocked holes in the walls, tossed the garage. Found a family of skunks. There's no money there.”
    “We had to try,” Tim said. “You want to eat over at the hotel restaurant tonight? My treat.”
    “My grampa's in town,” Bodie said. “My mom's making a turkey. You're more than welcome…”
    “No, you go on. I've got my heart set on a