Records confirmed that she'd attended choir practice at Ruby Bradford's. She'd headed home thirty minutes after her husband had supposedly started in the same direction. "Did she seem eager to be on her way?"
He frowned as if this was a question he hadn't been asked before. "I don't know."
"How was she acting? Agitated? Worried? Preoccupied? Resigned?" Irene hadn't sung with the church choir since. When asked about it, she admitted that it was the reverend who'd insisted she join. He wanted her to set the proper example by supporting his auxiliary programs.
"She said she had to go and left."
"And then you were alone with the girls."
"No. Clay was there. At first."
"What were they doing? Do you recall?"
He shrugged. "I was just there to fix the tractor."
"Did anyone else come or go that night?"
"I heard some kids stop by."
"When?"
"Maybe half an hour later."
So he'd heard one car. "What happened then?"
"I saw Clay climb into a black truck with some other kids. They drove off a second later."
Those "other kids" were Jeremy Jordan and Rhys Franklin. They'd gone over to the home of Corinne Rasmussen, a girl Clay had been dating at the time. Corinne had since moved away, but she'd confirmed the visit in the original investigation. The files contained these details.
"So thirteen-year-old Grace and eleven-year-old Molly were home by themselves?" Allie clarified.
"I guess."
"It didn't concern you that they were alone?"
"Why would it? Grace was old enough to take care of her sister. Anyway, it wasn't any of my business."
"You were just there to fix the tractor."
"Yes, ma'am."
Frustrated, Allie studied him for a moment. He wasn't doing a heck of a lot to help her out.
He offered only as much as he had to in order to answer each question. Was it just his taciturn manner? Did he distrust her because she was a woman? Or did he have some other reason for keeping quiet? "How well do you know Irene?" she asked, trying that tack again.
"She brings her car in now and then."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Were you friends at the time the reverend went missing?"
"She was his wife."
"She didn't deal with you personally?"
"Not unless the reverend wasn't around."
"Did that happen very often?"
"No."
"What type of interaction did you have when he wasn't there?"
Fowler shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his coveralls. "I told you, we didn't talk much."
Interviewing a man like Fowler wasn't easy. She hadn't gotten anything out of him that wasn't already well documented. But Allie kept at it. "You said you spoke to her when her husband wasn't around."
"She'd listen to what I told her so she could tell it to him."
"And Clay?"
"He was only a kid."
"What about now?"
"I don't do any work for him. Clay fixes his own cars."
"So you have no dealings with him at all?"
"Not unless we meet on the street."
"How does he treat you then?"
Fowler stared at her. "Like he treats anyone else, I s'pose."
"What about Grace and Madeline? Do you ever see them?"
"I've passed them in town--Grace more than Madeline since she moved back. She brought her Esplanade in for an oil change a few weeks ago."
He said it as if she was just another customer. If there was any kind of bond between the Montgomerys and Jed Fowler, Allie couldn't sense it. And yet he'd confessed when he thought Barker's remains had been discovered at the farm....
"According to what I've been told, nine months ago you tried to take responsibility for the murder of Reverend Barker. Is that true?"
No response.
"Can you tell me why you did that, Mr. Fowler?"
"I knew they were going to try and pin it on Mrs. Montgomery."
He admitted it? But he didn't even call her Irene.... "So you were trying to protect her?"
"I didn't want to see her go to jail."
"You'd rather go to jail yourself? That's a pretty big sacrifice for a lady you don't know all that well."
"She's been through enough." He stated it matter-offactly.
Allie let her breath seep out. "Is it because you're in love with Irene Montgomery, Mr.
Fowler? Is that why you confessed?"
"No."
"You're not in love with her?"
The telephone rang in the house. Fowler glanced back at it. "I've got to go. Someone might need a tow."
"Go ahead and answer it. I'll wait here."
He didn't have time to argue. Ducking inside, he left the door standing open as he headed down a hallway--presumably to the kitchen.
Allie took advantage of his absence to study the neat living room. From the look of the place, he'd kept the furnishings Mama Fowler had owned when she was alive. The crocheted doilies covering the arms of the sofa and the side tables had an old woman's touch. Even the television seemed ancient. An old Magnavox with rabbit ears on top, it sat next to a crystal candy dish that wasn't empty, as Allie might have expected, knowing that Jed never entertained, and a photograph of--
Who was that? Allie poked her head into the room. She might not have found the photograph so curious, except that there wasn't another sentimental object in sight--just a few landscapes hanging on the wall and a knitted afghan folded neatly on a footstool.
Fowler's voice filtered to her from somewhere else in the house. He was talking about a truck in a ditch and seemed fairly engrossed, so she slipped inside.
The scent that greeted her reminded her of a funeral home. This room didn't seem to be used much, and yet she spotted Fowler's work boots perfectly positioned beneath an antique oak hall tree.
He lived like a ghost, moving around without disturbing a thing. She thought his mother had died about fourteen years ago and yet the place felt as if Mrs. Fowler might walk in at any second.
Ignoring the creepy chill that skittered down her spine, she picked up the photograph. It was an old black-and-white snapshot. Was it Mama Fowler? Another relative? Allie might've supposed so, except that someone had been torn out of the picture. She could see a man's arm next to the jagged edge.
On closer examination, she realized it wasn't a snapshot at all. It was part of a program for some event. At the bottom it read, "Join Reverend Barker and his--" The rest of the words were missing, along with the man in the picture. But what she'd read jostled Allie's memory enough that she suddenly recognized the woman. It was Eliza Barker, the reverend's first wife.