Chapter 8

Niall Davis was just about to call his wife. He'd been in meetings all morning and hadn't had a chance to check in on her and the kids. It's something he never forgets to do and he was sure she'd be wondering what was keeping him.

"Nancy?" He picked up the phone and spoke to his assistant who sat at a desk just outside the doors to his executive office.

"Yes Mr. Davis?"

"Has my wife called?"

"No sir, she hasn't would you like me to call her now? Oh wait a minute sir."

He heard her greet someone who'd walked into the office. "Sir," she came back on the line, "the police are here, they say they need to speak with you." The police? What could they want?

"Send them in." He hung up the phone and got to his feet as they came through the door, led by his assistant. He came around from behind his desk with his hands in his pockets.

"Hello, what can I do for you? That will be all Nancy." He turned his attention to his assistant who nodded in acknowledgement and left, closing the door behind her.

Detective Sparks had made up her mind on the way up in the elevator that there was only one way to do this. No matter how many times you've done it before, each situation was different, but the end result was always the same, someone's life was going to be devastated.

"Mr. Davis, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but there's been an accident." She took a deep breath and forged on at the befuddled look on his face. "Your wife was killed earlier this morning." He looked at her with a sort of bemused look on his face not quite registering her words. "I don't understand, what do you mean?"

Niall was fast losing all the feeling in his limbs and it felt like the blood had drained from his brain, leaving him with a feeling of lightheadedness. It had to be a joke, a very sick one, but a joke nonetheless. "I don't think that's funny."

"I'm sorry sir, but it's not a joke. We found your wife's body in the woods outside of town, near the O'Rourke farm."

"In the woods? You're mistaken my wife doesn't go into the woods. She's at home with our children." He reached for the phone and put that call in to his home.

The housekeeper answered on the second ring. "Hello, Davis residence may I help you?"

"Yes, this is Mr. Davis, put my wife on the phone please."

"I'm sorry Mr. Davis, but your wife's not at home."

"Well where is she?" He looked at the cops as the truth began to dawn. This couldn't be; she must be out shopping, Sonya loves to shop.

"I'm not certain sir, she left a little after eight this morning and haven't returned."

"Why that's impossible, she would've told me if she was going to be away from home that long." He hung up the phone without saying anything more and dropped down into his seat.

There was a buzzing in his ear and his limbs felt weak. This couldn't be happening. "How did ithow did she die? Was there some sort of accident?"

"Well sir, the truth is we think she was murdered." His eyes shot up to the detective's in disbelief.

"Murdered? Why that's preposterous."

"That's the way it looks sir. Now I have to ask, where were you between the hours of eight and nine this morning?"

"You think you can't think that I had anything to do with it."

"We're questioning everyone who knew or was in anyway acquainted with the victim sir." Niall rubbed his hand over his face and tried to get his thoughts in order. "Well I was here of course, same as I always am every morning. I came in at seven thirty on the dot."

"Can anyone vouch for that sir?"

"Well no, I'm always the first one here every morning; no one else gets here until eight thirty."

"Why so early? The bank doesn't open until nine."

"It's the time I've always come in. I like to get a head start on the day."

Detective Sparks took notes while officer Bailey looked around the office. It was a well- appointed room, one of those old world types with the large mahogany desk taking center stage and marble walls and floors.

There was no other decoration in the room except for the huge potted plant in one corner and a silver framed picture of the family on the desk. Father, mother and three kids all under the age of seven by the looks of it.

A beautiful family, though the wife did look a bit younger than the husband. He was having a hard time comparing the beauty in the photo to the thing they'd picked up off the ground in the woods. Who would want to do a thing like that? His mind went to jealousy; but who and why? Was it a man jealous of his wife having an affair? Or a woman jealous that someone else was having an affair with her husband?

It was too early to tell and there were more questions than answers at this point, but his mind was catching at any and everything, looking for a sign, an opening, anything that would lead them to the bottom of this horrific trail.

"Is there anyone you can think of that might want to hurt your wife sir?" Detective Sparks continued her questioning, though she could already tell that Mr. Davis wasn't going to be of much help. He had the classic signs of someone who was in shock.

"No, no one, everybody liked Sonya." He looked at her without seeing her she was sure, that faraway haunted look in his eyes as he tried to make sense of what she was saying. Although she hated pressuring him in his current state, Detective Sparks carried on, asking all the questions she could think of before closing her little notebook.

"I have to go, I have to see my children. Where is she, where is my wife?"

"The M.E.'s office by now." She looked at her watch. The coroner wasn't qualified to do autopsies in this town so the medical examiner one town over was tasked with doing the autopsies for Briar Reef.

And since this was their first murder in half a century and a gruesome one at that, she wasn't taking any chances; she wanted everything done by the book. She was sure that as soon as word got out everyone would be looking to her for answers, and she didn't have the first clue where to start.

"I want to see her, are you sure?"

"That's not a very good idea right now sir I'm sorry."

"Why? I thought it was common procedure for the next of kin to identify the body? How can you be sure it's her if"

"I'm sorry sir, but there was some kind of acid used in the attack."

"Acid? You mean" He looked as though he'd been poleaxed. "Someone threw acid in my wife's face?"

"We're not at liberty to divulge that information at this time sir."

"So how do you know that it's her? It can be someone else."

"We found her car in the vicinity sir."

She got her phone out and pulled up the picture she'd taken of the victim's hand with her wedding ring. She'd been very careful not to include anything else in this particular photo.

"Do you recognize these sir?" He stared in horror at the image as if the truth was finally settling in. "Yes, they're hers. They belonged to my grandmother." He stared at the picture of the rings he'd put on his wife's hands all those years ago, still not quite believing that this was real

"I'm very sorry for your loss sir."

"I don'tI don't understand, how could this happen?" He looked back and forth between the two of them hoping for something, anything that would make sense of this madness. But all he saw on their faces was pity.

"Do you have any business rivals sir? Anyone you think might hold a grudge for some imagined slight?" He was shaking his head before she was through asking.

She didn't really believe that that was the case but she had to ask since she had nothing else to go on, and sometimes it was the one thing you overlooked that held the key in a case like this.

She'd learned long ago to always expect the unexpected, and to never take anything for granted. Besides, this early in the case, everyone was a suspect until they were cleared of suspicion by process of elimination.

"No, no one. Sonya and I were very private people, we kept mostly to ourselves except for the time we spent with our friends the O'Rourke s." There goes that name again she thought as she made note of that.

"As to my business, of course not. We're a bank; we might get the odd recalcitrant customer every now and then. Someone upset that we'd turned them down for a loan. But no one that would go to these extremes. Please, can't you tell me what happened to my wife?"

She was moved by the real pain in his voice but it would be the epitome of unprofessionalism to divulge that information at this point. She'd already slipped up enough by mentioning the acid. Thank heaven he'd let it drop or she'd have had a lot of explaining to do if word got back to her superiors.

"Thank you for your time sir, we'll be in touch when we know anything else or if there's any more questions." She wanted to leave to give him some privacy as it looked like he was about to break. "Is there someone we can call for you?" He shook his head and slumped back in his chair looking utterly defeated.

This wasn't her first time paying this kind of call, informing someone that their loved one had died or been murdered. But it was the first since she moved to the small town. It didn't get any easier with time.