“It doesn’t fit,” Mattheus grumbled, “Shelly would never be involved with a guy in a band who did drugs. Not of her own free volition. Believe me!”
“Something could have happened to her between the time she left New Orleans and was found down here,” said Cindy.
“What?” Mattheus suddenly barked, at his limit.
“That’s what we want to know,” Rodney stepped right in.
“Let me talk to this guy myself,” Mattheus insisted, his breath coming heavily. “I’ll get you your answers.”
“Okay, okay,” said Rodney. “You talk to him. Grill him good. See what really went on between him and your wife. We’ll set it up right away.”
CHAPTER 8
Anthony was scheduled to be brought over for questioning from the local jail down the road to a room in the back of the police station first thing in the morning. Mattheus got up, showered, shaved and walked to the police station as the sun was coming up. He’d barely slept, couldn’t eat and his heart was pounding as he felt a strange mixture of nausea and excitement.
Finally, he’d be face to face with the guy who killed Shelly. It was something he’d been waiting for, for years. This was different though than he’d anticipated. Now he realized that all those years he’d been searching, she’d been alive down here. Wasn’t even in hiding, just perfectly happy. It made him feel like an idiot, unsure of everything, really. How could he have been so fooled? She had to be aware that people were searching for her, living in hell.
Rodney told Mattheus to get to the Police Station early. When he arrived, the door was open and he walked in, then went straight to Rodney’s office. It was empty, but Mattheus sat down and waited. He felt a little woozy, not having had anything to eat this morning or last night.
Last night, after he and Cindy got back to the hotel, she’d wanted to get a bite in the restaurant, but he'd been sick to his stomach. Food was the last thing on his mind. Also, he didn’t want to sit there, opposite her, look at her incredible face and make small talk. There was no point in pretending everything between them was alright. It wasn’t. The entire situation made his head spin.
All kinds of feelings tossed around inside as Mattheus sat down on the rickety chair, waiting for Rodney. For starters, he felt incredibly humiliated. He’d been cuckolded and ridiculed in the worse kind of way. And it had been worse having all of this come out in front of Cindy. What must she think of him now? It was probably lucky that Shelly was dead, or else he might have wanted to kill her himself now, finding out the truth. She would have deserved it too, he thought. His body starting to tremble with the old, familiar anger he’d lived with for years after she’d disappeared.
Then he stopped himself. This was no good, in the early days Mattheus felt this rage towards Shelly’s murderer, the one he’d hunted obsessively and never found. Mattheus thought the rage had subsided. And it had. But the thought of her living with someone else all these years, was bringing it to the foreground again. How could she have done that, with him not knowing where she was, thinking she was dead, searching? Who does something like that? Not the woman he knew and loved so much.
Of course it was still possible that the body they found wasn’t Shelly’s. A small possibility. Mattheus knew he had to identify the remains himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it yet. He’d looked at some photos the cops showed him of her, and it certainly looked like her. There was no real reason to doubt the identification they had.
Mattheus looked around Rodney’s office now. It was quiet and ordered, ready for a new day. The guys down here did a good job. Mattheus saw no reason not to respect them. He didn’t know how he’d be able to stand face to face with the suspect though, and keep from choking him. Why not do to him what he'd done to Shelly? Why give him a chance to live? The court system would put him away and provide three square meals for life. Shelly wasn’t eating three square meals though, was she? She was cold, flat dead.
Mattheus felt himself break out into a sweat. These sweats came upon him all night long. What the hell was he so upset about? If this was all true, if Shelly’d really taken off and just taken up with someone else, not letting anyone know, she deserved to be dead anyway.
The door opened abruptly then and Rodney walked in. He was drinking a cup of coffee from a paper cup and threw Mattheus a careful glance.
“You’re here nice and early,” Rodney commented.
“I’m ready,” said Mattheus. “Bring him on!”
Rodney sat down opposite him.
“Did you have some breakfast?” he asked slowly.
“No,” said Mattheus. “I’m not hungry. Couldn’t sleep much last night, either.”
“Makes sense,” said Rodney. “How about a cup of coffee? There’s a machine out there.”
“Coffee’s good,” said Mattheus suddenly feeling blurry again.
Rodney got up, went outside to the coffee machine, came back in a few minutes with a cup of coffee and handed it to him.