A Reasonable Doubt by Susan Sloan (free novels .txt) 📕

“Oh, I didn’t really mind it so much,” Lauren confided.  “It kept me from having to think.  I could just stay in a state of perpetual numbness and not have to do anything or decide anything or plan anything, and everyone understood, you know what I mean?”

Joe nodded.  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Dale used to be in charge of everything,” she said.  “And then, for a while, others were.  But now I’ve got a household to run, two kids to take care of, and decisions to make, all by myself.  And I don’t mind telling you, it’s a bit overwhelming.”  She gestured him to a chair.  “So, what brings you here today?”

“First off, I need to tell you that I’m working with Lily on the Lightfoot case,” he said, sitting.

“Oh dear,” Lauren said.  “I remember I jumped all over her at the cemetery for that.  But I wasn’t myself.  I know she was just doing her job.  I felt terrible about it afterwards, but I just didn’t know how to tell her.”

“I’m sure she understood,” Joe said.

Lauren looked at him with troubled brown eyes.  “I know I should have called her long before now, to apologize, to tell her that I wasn’t myself.  I just never got up the courage.  You tell her for me, Joe, will you?”

“Sure.”

“And tell her how happy I am that she wasn’t killed in that dreadful explosion, too.  Can you believe it -- that Wayne and Grady would do such a thing?   I always thought they were such nice boys.”

“I’ll tell her,” Joe said.

The smile returned.  “Randy says I don’t have to talk to you, you know, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” she told him.  “As long as you understand that I have no interest in helping the man who killed my husband, I’ll tell you whatever I can.”

“Randy said that?” Joe asked.  “You keep in touch, do you?”

“Of course,” she said.  “He’s been very good to us ever since Dale died.  I mean, he was always good to us, a real friend, right from the beginning when he and Dale first partnered up, and it was such a relief to learn that he was still willing to be here for the girls and me, whenever we needed him.  I guess, in the past few months, I’ve really come to rely on him.  You know, like a brother.  I never had a brother, but having Randy around -- well, that’s pretty much exactly what I think it would be like.”

Joe nodded sympathetically.  “It’s important to have someone like that, at a time like this.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed.  “So now, what was it you wanted to ask me?”

“I was just wondering if you knew what Dale was doing down on Broad Street the night he died?”

Lauren’s face went blank.  “No,” she replied.  “I really have no idea.  Dale didn’t talk much about his work.  He always said his job could be ugly, and he didn’t want to bring any of that into our home.”

“Do you by any chance remember what time it was that he left the house that night?” the cop-turned-private-investigator asked.

“Well, let me see, it must have been around eleven,” she said.  “We’d finished dinner, the dishes were in the dishwasher, the girls had already gone to bed, and the late news had just come on, so, yes, it had to have been around eleven.”

“Was that normal -- for him to go out so late on a Sunday night?”

“I don’t think it was abnormal,” she told him.  “He worked all kinds of odd hours, on any given day.  Why, is it important?”

“Well, the thing is, according to Randy, Dale wasn’t scheduled to work that night.”

Lauren frowned.  “Randy said that?”

“Yes,” Joe confirmed.  “He told me they weren’t on duty, and he was home with a head cold.”

“Well then, I don’t have the faintest idea where Dale was going,” she said with a shrug.  “I guess I just assumed he was going to work.  I mean, that’s where he said he was going when he left, and I had no reason to doubt it.”

. . .

“I know I’m supposed to be concentrating on Lightfoot,” Joe reported back to Lily, “but I’ve been taking this where it’s been leading me, and I’ve found out something that could be important.”

“Let’s have it,” the attorney prompted, giving him her full attention.

“Dale wasn’t on the job that night.”

“What do you mean?”

“The night he was killed,” Joe told her, “he was apparently out on his own.”

“Really?”

“Yep.  Got it from his partner.  Lauren told me he said he was going to work when he went out, but Randy said they weren’t on duty, and he was home sick, and there wasn’t anything going on he knew about.  And McAllister confirmed that.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Lily murmured.  “On a Sunday night, if he wasn’t on duty, then what was he doing on lower Broad Street.  More specifically -- what was he doing in the alley?”

“Not clear,” Joe said.  “I talked to Billy Fugate over at The Last Call.  He told me it had been years since Dale had made his hassling rounds.  And the owners of the other bars I went to all told me the same thing.  So, I don’t know what he was doing in the alley, but I’m thinking, whatever it was, it didn’t have anything to do with keeping the neighborhood safe from Jason Lightfoot.”

Lily frowned.  “I know this seems a silly question to ask -- but do detectives even go on that kind of patrol these days?”

“No, they sure don’t,” Joe told her.  “That particularly pleasant duty is reserved for lowly patrolmen.  Which means there was no reason for him to be in the alley, unless, of course, there was some kind of operation going down.”

“Which Randy and McAllister both said there wasn’t, right?” Lily wanted to clarify.

“Right,” Joe confirmed.

“So, strange as it may seem, is it possible he just went out