“Too big, too small?” she prodded.
He stared intently one moment longer. “If you aren’t a killer, Max, then you’re sure as hell going to be the next victim.”
Chapter Thirteen
It had taken Max less than twenty minutes to decide the detective was full of crap. Witt was far more of a threat to Wendy’s killer than she was. He’d simply tried to throw her off balance by appearing to trust her one minute, suspect her the next, then finally claim she was in danger. All that weird tension he generated between them by touching her hands was just another of his tricks.
The man had a hidden agenda, and Wendy’s murder had become a Pandora’s Box. Witt seemed to think she had some sort of key to the whole thing when, in actual fact, she didn’t know where the hell she was leading him. Talk about the blind leading the blind.
Wendy Gregory’s funeral was at ten o’clock on Wednesday, thirty-six hours after Lilah Bloom’s death. Max wore another of her black suits, good for just about any occasion. Attendance was piss poor, the accommodations even worse.
The cemetery Hal Gregory had chosen for Wendy’s interment sported a sign declaring the Everlasting Home of God’s Beloved Sons and Daughters to be an historical landmark and the oldest Protestant graveyard in California. Max thought it was the eeriest, dampest, ugliest plot of land she’d ever seen. Huge oaks and evergreens towered over tumbled headstones, slippery moss covered brick walkways, and a small stream bisected the center. In the rainy season, the waterway probably became a relentless torrent that eroded words from ground-level markers, stole the last testaments of loved ones, and buried the stone beneath layers of moldering leaves and bottom sludge.
This was the place to which Hal Gregory banished his late wife? He must have hated her with all the passion he’d never found in loving her.
Jeez, funerals were a bad scene. It made her remember her mother’s funeral. It made her remember about the years after her mother died.
“Max.”
Obviously accusing her of murder had moved Witt beyond the Miss—or Mrs.—stage. He stood just behind and a tad to the right, close enough for her to feel his disconcerting male heat. He’d made no approaching sounds, simply appeared like a graveyard ghoul. And she was kinda glad since it abruptly cut off her trip down a not-so-pleasant memory lane.
“Fancy meeting you here.” He was tall and had to bend at the waist to get his lips next to her ear. His breath warmed her temple and other regions to the south. Then again, she was so cold in the absence of any sun penetrating the dank foliage that anything with a little life in it would seem warm. Even Detective Long.
“Got an alibi, yet?” he asked.
“My shoe size hasn’t changed, and my hands look exactly the same. I figured I didn’t need one.”
“Evidence can be misleading. So what about that alibi?”
“Nothing. Unless you want to question a cat or a ghost?”
“Guess I’ll ignore that since there’s no time to figure out what the hell you mean. And don’t think I don’t realize you do that on purpose.”
“I’m working on the alibi, okay.” Things couldn’t be too bad; he hadn’t advised her to get a lawyer or psychiatrist...yet. “Would you please shut up? The minister’s started his eulogy.”
Witt didn’t shut up, he whispered once more against her hair. “Care to give me a reason for being here? Can’t say you really knew her well.”
“I was invited.”
He made a throaty noise, one of suspicion, sarcasm, and ridicule, but it still made her tremble just to hear it.
“The bereaved husband?” he murmured.
“Exactly.”
“First her job, then her husband?”
“First her job, then her murderer. And don’t think I don’t realize you’re baiting me, Detective.”
Witt snorted softly. He was getting to her, no doubt about it; all those noises he made, reaching inside to touch her.
Through a space between Theresa’s and Remy’s heads two paces in front of her, Max stared across Wendy’s open grave directly into Hal’s disapproving gaze. She was glad the spot she’d chosen was slightly apart from the rest of the group, so that Witt’s words couldn’t be overheard. Hal stood with hands folded across his groin, pale skin totally devoid of color against his black suit. To his left, stood a shorter, powerfully built, gray-haired man. Wendy’s father. An easy deduction since he stared over the pit they would bury his daughter in. Though he might also have been staring at Theresa’s indecently short, black pleated skirt. Max could feel not an ounce of emotion emanating from the man. His hands, like Hal’s, were folded, left over right.
They bore no scratches. Another strike out.
“You do work fast, Max.”
She glanced sharply at Witt, for any sign of sexual innuendo. It was definitely there in his bright blue eyes. The jerk was laughing at her.