Free Stone Cold by Dean Crawford Page B

running the gallery for over ten years now and has a strong reputation.’
    ‘And a nice life because of it,’ Griffin noted with a friendly smile. ‘Your wife’s a real wheeler dealer, but she’s not in the seven figure range for turnover, right?’
    McKenzie shrugged. ‘She runs her business, and I fly regional for Ventura Air. I don’t have any knowledge of her financial situation.’
    ‘You don’t know how much money your wife earns?’
    McKenzie offered Griffin a tight smile. ‘Our relationship is not about money. Sheila is the big money earner, not me. We are comfortable, financially, which is all that matters to us.’
    Griffin noted McKenzie’s use of the present tense and the use of us when referring to his wife: he believed that she would be found alive and well, and spoke of her naturally as his partner.
    Griffin glanced at his notes once more. ‘Do you think that you’re ten million bucks comfortable?’
    McKenzie blurted out a bitter laugh. ‘If we were, do you think I’d be working weekends and unsociable hours flying a Dash–8 out of Great Falls?’
    ‘Fair point,’ Griffin said, and scribbled a note. ‘So why does this abductor believe that you could raise ten million overnight?’
    McKenzie shook his head. ‘I have no idea, detective. We don’t have anything like that kind of money.’
    ‘What about Sheila’s life insurance?’ Griffin asked.
    McKenzie stared at his coffee for a moment and then looked up into Griffin’s eyes. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
    ‘Your wife has a life insurance program in place worth four million bucks,’ Griffin said. ‘Plus what her business premises is worth. That’s a lot of money.’
    ‘There’s the small matter of her having to die,’ McKenzie replied. ‘You think that I’d do that to her, for money?’
    Griffin said nothing in response, just sat and stared at McKenzie for as long as it took for the pilot to break the silence.
    ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I was at thirty thousand feet and five hundred nautical miles away when my wife disappeared. Who the hell do you think I am, David Blaine?’
    ‘You could be working with somebody else.’
    McKenzie slammed a fist down on the table as he glared at Griffin. ‘Then why the hell would I go through such a charade? If I was insane enough to pull something like this then I’d just kill her, wouldn’t I, and report her missing?’
    Griffin nodded. The assumption that he would have to go through the charade of an abduction told Griffin, along with everything else, that McKenzie almost certainly had not abducted his wife.
    ‘I apologise, Dale, if my line of questioning seems offensive, but it’s just something we have to go through. It’s not to accuse you, but to remove you as a suspect as soon as possible.’
    McKenzie nodded, but now he refused to make eye contact. The unusual contradiction in McKenzie’s behaviour buzzed through Griffin’s mind.
    ‘When was the last time you saw your wife?’ Maietta asked, speaking for the first time since McKenzie had entered the room.
    ‘Yesterday afternoon,’ McKenzie said, ‘before I left for work.’
    ‘And she seemed okay, no problems, no apparent concerns?’
    ‘None, she was fine, really fine.’
    ‘Does she have any family beyond yourself?’
    McKenzie shook his head. ‘No, we’re both orphans.’ He smiled, a little bitterly, and Griffin thought he detected the faintest hint of grief creasing McKenzie’s eyes. ‘We’ve only got each other.’
    Griffin felt any last dregs of doubt over the pilot’s story flutter away. He glanced down at his notes and added a couple of words. Both orphans.

    ‘We spoke to Saira at your wife’s gallery,’ he said. ‘She confided in us that the business was in financial difficulty and that Sheila has made many enemies in the trade over the years. Can you shed any light on that?’
    McKenzie seemed non–plussed. ‘I wouldn’t know about enemies in her trade,’ he said,