The Beholder, a Maddie Richards Mystery by David Bishop Read Free Book Online

four other houses on that street,” he began. “The three across from Knight’s were attending a barbeque at the middle house. There’s no neighbor on the uphill side. That was the boy’s perch while they watched Abigail Knight. The house on the downhill side is owned and occupied by Mr. Brent Sternberg and his wife, Ashton. He’s some kinda investments consultant and was out of town when Mrs. Knight was killed. He’ll be back in two or three days. Mrs. Sternberg was also at the barbeque party.”
    “So nobody saw anything.”
    “Afraid so, Sarge. And none of them ever heard of Folami Stowe.”
    “What about Abigail’s husband?”
    “Dr. Knight has moved into his sister’s house in Tempe. He says he won’t ever again sleep in his home. He plans to sell the place as soon as we release it as a crime scene. Figures he’ll take a bath selling it, but says he doesn’t care.”
    “Must be nice not having to care about such things,” Maddie said.
    Jed flipped to the prior page of his spiral notepad. “Dr. Knight claimed he loved his wife and could not think of anyone—yada, yada, yada. The Knights had been married a little more than six years. The husband described his wife as the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He said he wanted her to come with him to San Diego. That he begged her to go.” Jed turned another page. “Here are his exact words, ‘She’d still be alive if she had gone or if I had stayed home. My life ended the night Abby was murdered.’”
    Maddie swallowed the last of her Diet Coke. “How’d he strike you?”
    “He looked like he belonged on one of Rip’s slabs after driving half the night thinking about his dead wife. But he seemed sincere; then again he’s a shrink so he could probably turn my mind inside out without me feeling a thing.”
    “Why,” Maddie asked, “would a beautiful woman with a rich husband stay in Phoenix in the heat of July in a garter belt and stockings rather than go with her husband to La Jolla, California, with its cool ocean breezes, great restaurants, and fancy boutiques?”

Chapter 8
     
    The digital clock on Maddie’s dashboard read six as she pulled into her garage. When she walked out to the mailbox, Gary Packard came out his front door.
    Maddie’s mother’s film collection from what she called the Golden Age of Hollywood included all of the movies with her favorite hunk, Kirk Douglas. Sometimes when Maddie couldn’t sleep, she would go into her mother’s room and the two of them would lie on the bed, eat mixed nuts, watch Kirk Douglas and feign swoons like two giddy bobbysoxers from the 1940s. Maddie had long ago decided that if Kirk were in his prime today he could put his boots under her bed anytime. And her mother was right; with his tight Levis and the dimple in his chin Gary Packard did have that Kirk Douglas look.
    While Maddie walked toward Gary, she briefly fantasized putting him in a police-approved restraining hold, dragging him into his house, and—the polite phrase was—seducing him. The hell with the probing questions, and the coy half-truths that were the grist of the modern dating game, Maddie was ready to enjoy the last chapter first.
    “Hello, Mr. Packard. I’m Maddie Richards.” The words were poor substitutes for what she was thinking, a weakness she blamed on her Catholic upbringing.
    Gary’s grin widened his dimple. “Hello, Maddie, it’s nice to finally meet you.”
    She picked up a sweet smell she thought was baking cinnamon. Wow, she said to herself. He wears tight Levis and bakes. You just don’t meet a man like that every day.
    “I saw you and your son out washing your car last Sunday,” he said.
    Bradley had playfully sprayed her with the hose, drenching the T-shirt she had worn without a bra. Her mind conjured a brief image of Gary washing his pickup in Spandex shorts, but he wasn’t the type. If he were, half the gals from her mother’s coffee klatch would be out front sitting on the edge of their