Free A Welcome Grave by Michael Koryta Page A

did it.”
    Her eyes rose, surprised by my description. “How awful.”
    “Hell of a strange thing,” I said, and realized I was echoing exactly what Brewer had said to me the previous night. I’d taken his role now. We’d see if I had any better luck at it.
    Karen didn’t say anything, just sat there, eyes on the base of that floor lamp.
    “Imagine,” I said, “killing yourself just before you inherited a few million. I mean, what the hell, you know? Talk about bad timing. The really crazy part, Karen? He knew his father was dead. Told me that as soon as I saw him, sitting there with a gun in his hand and a bottle of whiskey beside him.”
    She pulled her head back, gave me the wide eyes. “
What?
”
    “Didn’t know that?”
    “No, of course not. How could he possibly have known?”
    I looked at her for a long time. She held my eyes, but she wasn’t comfortable doing it.
    “You must be pretty damn stupid,” I said, “to think I wouldn’t be able to tell when you’re lying to me, Karen. If there’s one thing I remember about you, it’s what you look like when you lie. That’s pretty well ingrained in my memory.”
    She recoiled, pulling back into the couch and releasing her arms from that squeeze she was giving herself. “Excuse me?”
    “Do not lie.” My voice was ice. “I watched someone die who could just as easily have shot me as himself, and maybe was thinking about doing just that. Then I spent a night in jail, and now some Indiana detective wants to throw my ass back in there for good. My temper, Karen, is going to be pretty damn easy to trip. So don’t you dare tell me another lie.”
    She looked like she was about to cry. “Lincoln, I haven’t been—”
    “You knew Alex and his son had been in contact. When I told you the man knew his father was dead, you pretended to be surprised. That was stupid. First of all, because I know when you’re lying, and, second, because the cop that called you would have told you already. He’s a good cop, and he would have been awfully curious about that detail. He would have asked you about it. Asked how the kid might have found out. So why are you lying about it now? Because you already knew they’d been in contact. Yet for some reason you sent me to look for the son, and I’m damn lucky I didn’t end up dead.”
    By the end my voice was rising and she was crying. I sat where I was and let her cry. The hell with her. I could close my eyes and see that gazebo again, see the gun moving in the shadows and hear the sound of the hammer pulling back, and I could
feel
the bullet heading for me, just like I had in that half second before Matthew Jefferson dispatched himself to places unknown. She wanted to cry? Shit.
    My chest was rising and falling, a hit of adrenaline working through me. I sat there, watched her cry, and took deep breaths. Eventually, I spoke.
    “Tell me something that’s true, Karen.”
    She wiped her eyes. “It was all true.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “It was true! They’d been estranged. For years. I had no idea where Matthew lived. None. I didn’t have a phone number for him, or an address.”
    “You knew they’d been in contact recently. Why didn’t you just check the phone records?”
    “All I knew at the time was that he had called Alex. Incoming calls don’t show up on our phone records, only what you pay for.”
    We sat and stared at one another. The room was growing dark, but the pale hardwood floors still glowed with a faint hint of red. A clock ticked on the wall, and a mild breeze scattered leaves out on the deck, but otherwise it was silent.
    “You’re a very rich woman now that your husband and his only other heir are dead,” I said.
    The fear and apprehension went out of her eyes, replaced by anger.
    “What? Surely, Lincoln, you’re not trying to say—”
    “I’m not. But some other people might try to say some things, Karen. The things that people say when a woman becomes rich amidst a pair of mysterious