Free I Love You More: A Novel by Jennifer Murphy Page A

our surprise visit made her uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. I scanned the room. Overstuffed bookcases of various shapes and sizes lined every available wall. The furnishings—sofa, easy chairs, coffee table—were all tones of beige and brown, and had obviously seen better days. She led us to the back of the house and a windowed-in porch that overlooked an unusually large backyard with a well-manicured garden one story below. A territorial view of the town peeked through a row of arborvitaes. The dark, woodsy decor—cedar paneling, creaky unvarnished wood floors, stone fireplace, and leather sofa and chairs so worn that they looked like they’d lived through World War II—played second fiddle to the pungent scents of musty rugs and recently burned wood. I felt like a boy in a tree house.
    “There’s a walkout basement beneath us,” she said. “From the front, you can’t tell the house has two stories because it sits on a hill. Right now the space below is unfinished, but we’d hoped to renovate it one day, make it a large great room that led out to English gardens and perhaps some sort of water feature. We even joked of making a maze out of greenery and setting up a permanent croquet lawn for all the children we planned to have.” She paused, smoothed her skirt. A nervous habit? “This was Oliver’s favorite room in the house. He always said it brought back boyhood memories. You know tree houses and such.” Had she said that with emphasis? “Please have a seat, detectives. I had just turned on the kettle when I heard the door. Would either of you like a cup of black tea or some hot cocoa?”
    “Hot chocolate for me,” Mack said.
    “Tea is good,” I said.
    “Milk or sugar?”
    “Both,” I said.
    I was thinking how perfect a douse of rum or brandy would bewhen Roberta Miles said, “I’ve got some Captain Morgan, Detective.” This time she stared directly at me. There was obviously more to the woman than her outward appearance suggested. Was that what Oliver Lane had seen in her?
    “No thank you, ma’am,” I said. “We’re on duty.”
    “Please, call me Bert, Detective. Ma’am sounds so condescending, don’t you think?” She flashed me a sweet and unexpectedly pretty smile, and left to get our tea and cocoa.
    “I’m sorry for your loss,” Mack said when she returned. She set our cups on the wagon-wheel coffee table in front of us.
    Her blouse fell open as she leaned into the chair, revealing a nicely defined collarbone and round, taut breasts. Her baggy clothing had fooled me into thinking she wasn’t shapely.
    “I haven’t seen one of these since my college days.” I indicated the coffee table.
    “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said. “It was my wedding gift to Oliver. We saw one at a café in town soon after we met, and I told him how my father used to have one just like it, and it was the strangest thing: his father had one too. Do you believe that? It was uncanny how much Oliver and I had in common.”
    “Like what?” Mack asked. Noting her questioning glance, he added, “I’d just like to get a better picture of who your husband was. It may help our investigation.”
    “Of course,” she said. “Well, both of our fathers died from a heart attack, and at the exact same age. Consequently, we both preferred to eat healthy. No meat or poultry other than free-range chicken, fresh-caught fish, organic fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, almond butter. And we’d just started hiking more regularly. We both loved the outdoors. Financially we were perfectly matched; Oliver was very frugal. And reading. Oliver enjoyed reading even more than I.”
    I wanted to say something sarcastic like
What a great guy
, but decided against it. “I understand you have a child, Ms. Miles?”
    “Yes. She’s eleven months old. Her name is Isabelle. She’s napping.”
    “Pretty name,” I said.
    “It was my grandmother’s. Do either of you have children?”
    “Not me,” I said.
    “One