An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1) by W.H. Clark Page B

Let me see if I remember this. A coffee for the little guy
and a bowl of water for you, sir?”
    “He likes
his coffee black,” Ward said, and he waited a while before seating himself.
Cherry playfully snatched at his beard and said, “I like this.”
    Ward
liked the touch and he settled himself by the window, same table as before, and
removed his hat. He let Jesús’s leash drop to the
floor. “Might help myself to some pie of some sort if you got some,” he said.
    Bending
down he rubbed Jesús’s head and ears, and the little
dog seemed to relax. He removed his coat, placing it on the seat next to him.
He fished out his notebook and opened it to the last page to check if he had
imagined what he had seen earlier. But it was there in his untidy handwriting.
“Jesus is my savior. Christ is my redeemer.”
    He wanted
to shudder but the diner was too warm for that. He just sat there and shook his
head. He tried to fit Alice White into the William O’Donnell case but didn’t
know where to put her.   Was she a small piece of the
jigsaw – a piece of sky in the top right corner? Or did she play a bigger part
in this? She had been a nurse in her previous existence. She knew her way
around a hypodermic needle. Was she the one to administer the fatal dose to end
old William O’Donnell’s life? Had she done the same to Doctor Brookline? Could
she have done those things? Why would she?
    Yes, she
was the only beneficiary of William O’Donnell’s will, but that didn’t
necessarily make someone a suspect. She couldn’t be. Maybe she was helping the
old man on his way because he had an incurable disease. But that would’ve shown
up on the autopsy, surely. And anyway, she couldn’t be a suspect. She couldn’t
be. That phrase kept repeating in his head. She couldn’t be. And Ward also kept
hearing “Jesus is my savior. Christ is my redeemer.” At the back of his mind he
couldn’t help thinking she had something he needed to know. He just didn’t know
what the question was that he needed to ask to unlock that information.
    And then
his cell phone rang. It was Newton.
    “Two
things,” Newton said. Ward thought he sounded different. More upbeat. “Firstly,
I been doing some digging around O’Donnell’s bank account.”
    “Okay.”
    “Statements
going back twenty years. Five hundred a month as Alice White said. His salary
would have easily covered those payments he made.” Newton went quiet for a few
seconds.
    “Okay,”
Ward said. He stared at the neon beer sign that adorned the wall over the
diner’s counter. “What was the second thing?”
    “What?”
    “The
second thing? You said two things.”
    “Oh, yeah.
The autopsy on Brookline came back. Death by overdose of morphine. Only, no
obvious evidence of foul play. No signs of a struggle. No forensics to speak
of. Could be looking at a straightforward OD on that one. Or a suicide.”
    “Don’t
you think it’s too similar? Gotta be connected?”
    “I don’t
know.”
    “Okay.”
    “And I
been thinking. Gammond doesn’t want me digging around the Ryan case. He didn’t
say anything about you looking at it. How about you take a look? Fresh pair of
eyes. I can have the original case materials ready for you in the morning.”
    Ward
rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know.”
    “There’s
a connection. I’m sure of it.”
    Ward said
after a spell, “If I take a look, then I do it without Gammond knowing nothing
about it. I’m interested. But listen here, Gammond don’t find out. Nobody knows
but me and you. I’ll take a look but if it gets back to Gammond I could be
looking at a move straight back to San Antonio.”
    “You got
it.” And then Newton ended the call and Ward stared at his cell for a moment.
    Jesús let
out a noisy yawn as Cherry arrived with his bowl of water and a large slice of
apple pie for Ward. “Your pie.”
    Ward
smiled at her and said, “Thank you, ma’am.” Now he itched to get his hands on
the case notes for the little