“I just want—”
“To ask me a few questions. I know.” Radley snagged the thin club he’d booted and tossed it onto the pile. “Just so you know, that woman was the bane of my existence. You hear me, the goddamned bane.” He pushed the putters with one foot into a more orderly stack, but didn’t bother trying to arrange them. “But other than seeing her here at the club on occasion, I had nothing to do with her.”
At that point, Nikki realized she hadn’t even asked him a question. Just the mere sight of her—knowing she was a reporter—had set him off.
“God, I thought I was done with her.” He ran stiff fingers through his hair, still thick and sandy-colored, his palm white against a darkly tanned wrist, evidence of hours playing golf in the sun. “If you’ll leave me alone, I’ll tell you what I told the police, okay? Mavis and I were married right out of college, then, about eight years later, we weren’t. That was decades ago. She was out of my life. End of story.”
He didn’t display any modicum of grief for his dead ex-wife. “Why did you divorce?”
“A lot of reasons. Irreconcilable differences.”
“That’s pretty broad.”
“Ancient history, Nikki.” She waited, and his face hardened. He finally spit out, “I can tell you got ideas. Go ahead. What’re you thinking?”
“I think she had an affair.”
He snorted and shook his head. “One? That’s rich.” He snorted. “Look, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, okay?” He bent down and started sorting the clubs again as if the interview was over. “Yes, she cheated.”
“With my father.”
He froze for a second, then stood, still holding a child-sized putter. “Yeah.” Nodding, he nervously tapped the club onto the floor. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I found out and filed for divorce the next day. To her credit, she didn’t fight me.”
Nikki got right to the point. “And you were home, with your wife, on the night that Mavis was killed?”
His gaze held hers. “That’s right. I’d had a meeting at the church after work. Then I came home; we had a quiet dinner, later than usual, I think, and watched TV. There was a game on and then some reruns ofSeinfeld, I think. OrModern Family. I can’t remember, we rotate the old stuff we like, but I do recall that Kelsey was more than a little miffed. The Honeywells were having some sort of patio party, and we weren’t invited. Kind of ticked her off. But—that’s beside the point.” His eyes narrowed. “Anyway, if you’re asking me if I killed my ex-wife, the answer is ‘no!’” He tossed the child’s putter back onto the unsightly pile. “Divorcing Mavis was the second best thing I ever did. The first was marrying Kelsey. Now, if that’s all, I’m working here.”
“What church?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you were at a meeting at the church.”
“Yeah. The All Christian, off of Oglethorpe.”
“Where Westin Stark is the pastor?” Nikki asked, thinking the minister’s name kept haunting the edges of her investigation.
“Yes. Reverend Stark.”
“He was there?” she prodded.
“At least for part of the time. Why? What’s this got to do with Mavis?”
“The reverend didn’t stay for the entire meeting?”
“Had to leave a little early,” Radley said. “That matter?”
She ignored the question. “Can you verify who was at the church meeting?”
“Four of the elders. Knox Quinlan and Otis Childers, Norm Metzger and me. And, of course, Reverend Stark.”
“Norm Metzger is an elder?” Nikki couldn’t believe the miserable grump of a man she had worked with for years was an elder in any church, Christian or otherwise. For all the years she’d worked with him, she’d never heard him mention any kind of faith.
“That’s right. Now I need to get back to work.” He started to turn away.
“Did you know Billy Huber?”
“Uh … The guy who was killed a week or so ago? I read about it. Your story. But no. Never heard of him until I saw it in the paper and later on the news,” he said, then, “Why? Are the murders connected?”
