Cold Winter Rain by Steven Gregory Read Free Book Online Page B

Kramer answered the door, looking sleepy, his eyes swollen and unfocused.  Grubbs offered him a business card.  The kid took it and studied as though it were covered in hieroglyphics.
    “I’m Captain Grubbs, Birmingham police department.  This is Slate,” Grubbs said.  “We know this is not a good time, but we need to speak with Mrs. Kramer.  Is she available?”
    The boy looked up from the card at Grubbs, then peered under his hair at me.
    “I’ll see,” he said, and shut the door in Grubbs’ face.
    I had to give the kid credit.  Not many fifteen-year-olds would have closed the door on a police captain, even in mufti.  But the family had been through a rough time, and he was, after all, Kramer’s kid.
    Thirty seconds later, the door was opened again by Susan Kramer.  Today she wore a soft gray pants suit.  She wore her hair up and pinned in back, and she appeared to have applied very little makeup.  Aside from the gold crucifix, still in its place on a heavy gold chain, the only jewelry she wore was a wedding ring.  Her eyes were red-rimmed, but that was the only outward sign of grief.
    “ Captain Grubbs.”
    Grubbs took the proffered hand for a moment and gave her a tiny nod that managed to convey sympathy and respect.
    “I am Susan Kramer.  I apologize for Paul.  We’ve had a difficult night here.  I suppose we should talk.  But the police sergeant and lieutenant were here for several hours.  I really don’t know what else I can say.”
    Grubbs nodded.  “This is Slate,” he said.
    “Mr. Slate,”  she said, extending her hand.  She looked at Grubbs.  “We have met.”
    We shook.  Her hand was warm and dry.
    “That’s all right, Mrs. Kramer,” I said.  “I understand.  We wanted to speak with you if you had a minute.  Just a few questions.”
    I gestured toward the threshold.  “May I?” I asked.
    She stepped aside, and I walked into the foyer and took off my coat.  The boy, Paul, was lurking in the entrance to the living room.
    “ Paul, take Mr. Slate’s coat,” said Mrs. Kramer.
    The boy took my coat without a word and without meeting my eyes and hung it on a coat rack in the foyer.
    Grubbs kept his jacket on, and we both followed Kramer’s widow through the foyer toward a living room on the right.
    Grubbs stopped me at the entrance to the living room.
    “Slate, I need to speak with Mrs. Kramer first,” he said.  “Alone.”
    I had expected Grubbs to insist on a solo interview.  “I’ll wait,” I said.
    “Mr. Slate, why don’t you sit in the library while I speak with the captain?  It’s just across the foyer.”  Susan Kramer pointed to the room to the left of the foyer, where Kramer had introduced me to the two FBI agents, with its floor-to-ceiling books, red silk upholstery, and writing table under the window.
    I nodded.  Grubbs followed the widow into the living room and closed the door behind him.
    Unfilled with people, the library in the Kramer home looked comfortable.  Warm.  Used.  I sat in the big armchair in the corner between the front window and the bookshelves, where Paul Kramer had been sitting while the two FBI agents interviewed him.  One of the shelves across the room was devoted to family photographs:  Don and Susan Kramer and the kids on a beach; a larger framed copy of the picture of Kris that Kramer had given me in my office.
    I studied the room for clues to Kris’s disappearance or Kramer’s murder, but as far as I could tell there were none, so I took out my iPhone and pretended to be checking my email.
     
     
     
    Susan Kramer sat composed and straight-backed across her living room from me.  Grubbs had spent a little over ten minutes with her before he came out to take my place in the library.  Only the right thumb and index finger fidgeting with the ring on her left hand betrayed any emotion.  She smiled a little, but only with her mouth.
    “Tell me again about how Don came to hire you?” she said. 
    I told her about