Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

“What kind of business do you have, ma’am?” Charlie Player asked.

“It’s a shop on Bellevue. It’s called Once Is Not Enough. You’ve probably seen it. It’s a consignment clothes shop, across the street from Pierson’s Drug Store.”

She glanced down at the table and saw with surprise that her hand was cupped around a coffee mug. There was one in front of each of the detectives. She glanced toward the counter and saw the sponge cake cooling on a wire rack. The timer must have gone off, and when she’d gotten up to take the cake out of the oven, she’d made a pot of coffee.

Her voice was thready when she spoke again.

“I used to think that if I knew who Jim was involved with, I could have some control over it.”

She stopped, as abruptly as she’d started, not anxious to think about that period of her marriage, when she had taken to following him. That had been her lowest point. It made her skin creep to remember it.

Kentucky was looking at her, his gray eyes thoughtful.

“When I was first married I had a job with a printing company in Middletown, but the company moved to Baltimore. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Jim had just taken up with someone and I was too dispirited to look for another job. I helped out at a church and I did some volunteer work at the hospital. I did that for years, but it wasn’t enough. Then I began to think about opening my own business.”

“What kind of a business did you say you have?” Kentucky asked.

“Well, it’s selling women’s clothes. With consignments you don’t need much capital to start up a business. And with clothes all you need is hangers and a place to hang them. We started out in a small store on Spring Street, near the railroad station, but we have a larger shop now, in the center of town. It’s turned into a good business. There are a lot of shops like ours opening up, all over the country. There was an article in the Sunday Times last month. There’s one in New York on Madison Avenue that’s been there for more than thirty years. Women don’t hang onto their clothes the way men do. But they can’t afford just to toss them out and buy new things. In shops like mine, one woman’s discard becomes another woman’s treasure.” She stopped and smiled apologetically.

“That was a long answer about my business,” she said and turned away, toward the window. It was getting dark. A breeze ruffled the curtains. Why was she talking so much? Her cheeks felt strangely cold. She touched them and discovered they were wet.

“I gave you her phone number, didn’t I? Cindy Clarke’s? This is going to be hard on her.” She swallowed to get her voice under control. “She needs to know. You’ll tell her, won’t you? I can’t do it. I’ve never met her. Jim told me she was twenty-eight. He was fifty last year.”

Kentucky cleared his throat. “We’ll be in touch with her, but we wanted to talk to you first. Do you know what airline she works for?”

“I think Jim said it was TransContinental.”

Sarah watched as he wrote that down, then looked up slowly and leaned toward her. “Mrs. Fullerton, you haven’t asked us how your husband died.”

She frowned. They had told her, hadn’t they? Had she just assumed it was a heart attack? “He was always worried about his heart. That’s the way his father died, and his older brother. I must have thought...”

Kentucky continued to study her, and for a moment it made her feel uncomfortable, but the feeling didn’t last long. His gaze was so steady she found herself wanting to hold onto it.

When he finally spoke, it was in a slow, even voice. “Your husband’s car was found early this afternoon on one of the roads in the woods near the West Hills Golf Club.”

She nodded. “He was a member of West Hills. He liked to play golf, and he liked the woods, especially when spring came. He used to park his car in one of the pull-offs and go to a place where there were a lot of dogwoods in bloom... He took me there before we were married.”

Kentucky interrupted her, his voice more firm than she had heard it before. “Mrs. Fullerton. This is going to be hard for you, but you have to hear it. Your husband died in those woods, the woods you just described, where all the dogwood is in bloom. But it doesn’t look as though he died of a heart attack. It looks as though he was murdered.”

She looked away from him and stared straight ahead. She closed her eyes. She wanted to shut out the scene — that secluded, special place where the dogwood bloomed. But there was nothing she could do to stop the images that moved across her mind. They were not new. She had lived with them for years. She had tried to push them down and layer them with other thoughts, but now they were fresh again. She brought her hand to her mouth and held back a moan.

“Ma’am.” Player’s voice startled her, her eyes flew open and her head jerked in his direction.

“Ma’am, what kind of work did your husband do?”

“He was an electrical engineer. He worked on contract.”

“Ma’am, did your husband have any men friends?”