Free Widows' Watch by Nancy Herndon Page B

Elena wondered. Maybe both Potemkins were guilty. Or innocent. If innocent, she and Leo would be the first to break the news of his father’s death. Not that she expected Lance to take it hard.
    â€œWhat’s happened to her?” He sounded almost frantic.
    â€œYour father died day before yesterday,” said Leo.
    â€œWhat about my mother?”
    Not What happened to Dad? Elena noticed. “Dimitra’s O.K.” Pity Lance didn’t like women. At a guess, she didn’t think he was that much younger than she.
    â€œBut your father was shot in the head,” said Leo. “Your mother said he had a gun, but it’s missing.”
    â€œWell, he couldn’t have killed himself with his own gun,” said Lance. “I have it.”
    â€œOh?” Leo, who had been leaning against the desk, straightened.
    â€œWe’ll need to take a look at it,” said Elena.
    â€œSure, but it’s at home, and I don’t get off till five, so—”
    â€œWe’re going to have to ask you to come over to headquarters anyway,” Elena interrupted.
    â€œNow? I have to proof the galleys of the literary magazine today.”
    â€œYou’re the editor?”
    â€œAngus McGlenlevie is. He just doesn’t do the work.”
    â€œUh-huh. Well, maybe he’ll have to this time.”
    Lance looked surprised, then laughed, then went back to looking anxious. “I don’t know anything,” he assured them.
    â€œWe still need to question family members.”
    Reluctantly he agreed and excused himself to tell the chairman.
    They could hear through the open door Dr. Mendez’s condolences on the death of Lance’s father, his groan when he realized that he’d need to track down Angus McGlenlevie for the
    proofing of the galleys, his heartfelt plea that Lance get back as soon as possible because the department was falling apart in his absence.
    Elena found this all very interesting. Dr. Raul Mendez was a noted scholar of Hispanic-American literature, according to Elena’s friend Professor Sarah Tolland. Now Elena was getting the impression that Mendez might be the department chair and Gus McGlenlevie the editor of the department’s literary magazine, but Lance Potemkin, the secretary, was doing the work.
    They escorted him to their tan Taurus, confiscated in a drug bust with three million dollars worth of cocaine stashed in the trunk in leaking baggies. Detectives joked about getting high inhaling if they had to change a tire, or vacuuming the trunk and retiring. “Am I a suspect?” Lance asked as he fastened his seat belt.
    â€œAt this point it’s sort of everyone and no one,” Leo replied.
    Looking uneasy, Lance said, “We might as well stop by my place if you want his gun.”
    â€œHow did you come to have it?” asked Elena.
    â€œHe threatened my mother. I took the gun so he couldn’t shoot her.”
    â€œDid your father threaten her often?”
    â€œNot just threats,” said Lance darkly. “But she refused to tell the police.”
    â€œShe was pretty up front about not liking him.”
    â€œIn her place, would you like him?”
    Elena was driving, talking to Lance, while Leo took notes as they pulled up to a prairie-style house, probably designed earlier in the century by Henry Trost, a Frank Lloyd Wright follower. Elena would have loved to own a Trost house, but they were too big and undoubtedly too expensive.
    â€œI have the second floor,” said Lance. They mounted outside wooden steps that must have been added later when the attic was converted to accommodate a renter. Lance had one large room and a bath. There was a Pullman kitchen behind slatted doors and a large couch upholstered in a nubby black fabric. It evidently opened out into a bed. A beautiful reproduction eighteenth-century writing desk and chair stood by the large dormer window, and a glass and wrought-iron dining set