Kendra rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a girl!”
“Maybe you should try being one,” he said, breezing out the door.
Kendra muttered something under her breath, but picked up her cup and was about to catch up to Nikki when her cell phone rang. Making a frustrated face, Kendra plopped down in her chair and, answering, peered around the edge of her cubicle, her calculating gaze following Nikki as she settled into the desk she shared with several other freelance reporters.
Tuning out the office drama, Nikki logged on and started her search into Billy Huber’s life.
The bullet points were quickly organized:
He’d been born fifty years earlier in Chatham County and had lived on the same property for most of his life, aside from a short stint in the army. He’d bought out his mother after his father had died and had been married to Linda-Sue Farmer for nearly a quarter of a century.
As Kendra had alluded, Linda-Sue had died suddenly at the age of forty-seven in a single-car accident. Billy Huber had been at the wheel, and while Linda had been thrown out of the vehicle and was pronounced DOA at the hospital, Billy had survived with minor injuries.
But had he “killed” her? Certainly not intentionally. Still, Nikki made a note to check further.
According to the county records, William and Linda-Sue had two children. The first, Caleb, was born five months after the marriage and died shortly after birth, which explained the sad, nearly forgotten altar in the attic at Huber’s house.
His only surviving child was a daughter: Janelle Alice.
She found Janelle’s birth certificate and marriage license and current address in Florida, where she resided with her husband; there were no children of record.
But William Jasper Huber had been far from a model citizen. His criminal record included two arrests for driving under the influence, shortly after Caleb’s death. There had also been assault charges filed after a bar fight, but those charges had been dropped. Again, within weeks of the baby’s death. Then his criminal record had become clean.
However, there were several civil suits filed as well. One was over an altercation with his neighbor during a dispute about the placement of a fence. Huber had ended up paying restitution and promised to move the fence, so the situation had been resolved. In the other, one of his two brothers had sued him for non-payment of a personal loan, a year after the fence incident, around the time of his wife’s death. That suit had never gone to court.
Nikki leaned back in her chair and studied the notes she’d taken, including the names and addresses of people she wanted to interview, especially anyone who might harbor a grudge against William Huber. He was no saint, but he wasn’t exactly a sinner, either. Most of his transgressions had been after a life-changing experience.
But if, as Kendra had suggested, Linda-Sue’s death hadn’t been an accident, then all bets were off.
Surely, the police had checked and looked into any life-insurance policies that Billy Huber had held on his wife. She’d double-check as well as talk to the neighbor who’d had the argument about the fence, if he still lived on the abutting property. Then she would check with Billy’s daughter and brothers. And with the man who’d accused Billy of assault in the bar fight.
Her cell phone pinged and she saw the text from Lily:
Heading home. I don’t know who is more worn out: Mom, Chloe, Phee, or me. Oh, wait. It’s me!
Nikki responded with a laughing smiley face emoji and a quick reply:
Thx. I should be home in an hour or so.
To that, Lily texted, with her usual sarcasm:
I won’t hold my breath.
The response bugged Nikki more than she wanted to acknowledge, but probably because the remark hit a little close to home. Nikki hated to admit it, but she did tend to lose track of time when she was working, though she didn’t feel her daughter was missing out. “Quality over quantity,” she said, hoping to believe the old saying, trusting that it wasn’t a cop-out.
Fortunately, Kendra wasn’t at her desk, and Nikki escaped another conversation.
But as she stepped into the hallway, she spied Fink and Norm Metzger getting off of the elevator.
Great.
She braced herself. Coming face-to-face with Metzger was never pleasant. He was big and a little sloppy, with eyes that could cut right to your soul. He was prone to jeans and baseball caps and never tried to fake friendliness. Unlike Fink. They were like Mutt and Jeff, she thought, outwardly opposites and yet both members of the “Good Ol’ Boys Club,” despite the women’s movement.
Fink was lean, his neatly trimmed hair more salt than pepper these days, and dressed, usually, like today, in a polo shirt and pressed khakis. Metzger might be sloppier, but he was Fink’s go-to crime reporter. It didn’t seem to matter that long ago Metzger had lost his edge. Though Nikki knew she was a better investigative journalist than the big man, Metzger and his boss went way back.
Golfed together.
Hunted together.
