She Wore Mourning by P.D. Workman (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

two months.” He could see that the fireman didn’t believe him. “I was in a fire,” he repeated desperately. “I am very careful. I make sure! I replace the batteries every two months and test the smoke detectors every Sunday.”

“Let me talk to my chief. You just stay here.” The man sought out a paramedic close by. “You won’t take him to the hospital yet, will you? We need to talk to him for a few more minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Keep an eye on him. Don’t let him go anywhere or talk to anyone else.”

Zachary was again left alone, sitting on the gurney with his head whirling, trying to understand what had happened. How could a fire start in his apartment? With candles he’d never owned? And no batteries in the smoke detectors?

Another fireman came over to him, this one not drenched in smoke like the first. There was a policeman with him.

“Can I get your name, sir?”

“Zachary Goldman.”

The policeman looked startled but didn’t say anything, letting the fire chief proceed with his questions.

“And do you want to tell me what happened tonight? What did you do today, before going to bed?”

Zachary tried to sit up straighter. He wanted to look calm and self-possessed. He needed them to believe him and what he had to say.

“I went out for drinks with a friend in the evening.”

“You’ve been drinking?”

“I had a few drinks. Yes.”

“And you came back here. Alone?”

“She drove me home and walked me up to my apartment. She didn’t stay.”

“How long was she here? I’m going to need her name.”

Zachary filled in the details the best he could.

“And you didn’t light candles for a romantic atmosphere with your girlfriend?”

“No. I was telling the other fireman. I was in a fire when I was a boy. I don’t have any candles. I can’t stand having them around, and I’d never light one.”

“This fire was obviously started with candles. There is plenty of evidence of them in the apartment.”

“But I didn’t have any candles. He said there were no batteries in the smoke detectors. I always have fresh batteries in my smoke detectors, and I test them every week.”

“How much did you have to drink tonight?”

“Two, three drinks. Over a couple of hours. I wasn’t drunk.”

“Did you take anything before bed?”

“No. I couldn’t. Because I’d been drinking.”

The police chief looked at Zachary and looked at the policeman. “Does that mean that you normally would have taken something?”

“Sometimes I do… a sleeping pill to help me get to sleep. Or a Xanax… because I’d had a panic attack. I didn’t take either one because I’d had alcohol and I knew you’re not supposed to mix them.”

“But even so, you didn’t wake up when your apartment started to fill with smoke.”

“I… I don’t know when I was awake and when I was asleep. I was dreaming about a fire, having a nightmare. I don’t know when I woke up. I don’t know how much of it was a dream and how much was real.”

“How long was your girlfriend there?”

“Just a few minutes. I was tired… she didn’t stay.”

“Did she want to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you walk her out? Lock the door behind her?”

“No. I was already falling asleep… she saw herself out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I didn’t walk her out. I was too tired.”

“Are you sure she left?”

Zachary felt the cold through his blanket. He was starting to shiver. Another night out in the cold, nearly killed under suspicious circumstances. He thought of Kenzie in his dream. How she knew something. She knew who it was that was trying to kill him. She was helping them. Had he heard her leave the apartment? Or had she merely walked out of the room and waited until she was sure he was asleep? She was the one he told everything to. She was the one who knew about the fire when he was ten. She could have put something in his drink at the Four-Leaf Clover to make him sleep more soundly.

He won’t wake up. He’ll never know.

“I… I’m sure she did,” he protested, but he knew they could hear the doubt in his voice. That they knew very well he wasn’t sure. He could never be sure. He’d fallen asleep. He hadn’t walked her out. Locked the bolt behind her.

“Mr. Goldman,” the policeman said.

“Yes?”

“Are you the same Mr. Goldman who was in an accident a few weeks ago? In a car? Brake lines cut?”

Zachary swallowed. He took in a deep breath. Too sudden; he started coughing and had a hard time getting back under control again.

“Yes. That was me.”

“Who is trying to kill you?”

“I don’t know.”

“This girlfriend. Was she with you before the car accident?”

“She was in the accident with me,” Zachary said, sure it proved Kenzie’s innocence. “She couldn’t have been the one who did it. We both could have died.”

“Maybe that was the plan. For the two of you to die together.”

“No… I don’t even know her that well. We’ve only gone out a few times.”

“Uh-huh. Is there someone else who has motive to kill you?”

“I… the other officers who questioned me after the car accident… they have the details about the cases I was working on… I’m a private detective. I’ve been getting threatening notes.”

“I’d say this goes well beyond threatening notes.”

Zachary nodded. He put the oxygen mask over his mouth, both to breathe the warmer air that didn’t tear at his throat, and to hide behind it, so he didn’t have to speak while he was sorting out his thoughts.

“Anyone else we should be aware of?”

He breathed the warm air, not wanting to answer the question.

“Mr. Goldman?”

“My ex-wife was here tonight too.”

“You have an ex-wife? Any reason she might be upset with you? Other than being jealous that you were seeing someone else?”

“She wasn’t jealous of Kenzie… but she was pretty mad. She hit me,” Zachary touched the cheek that she had slapped. “And she said… that it was my fault that she got cancer.”

The policeman’s brows furrowed. “And how was it your fault that