Death By Chocolate 6 (Mystery and Women Sleuths) (Josiah Reynolds Mysteries) Read Free Page B

I agreed. “I’ll tell you another thing that bothers me is Selena’s behavior. It’s like she’s not even grieving.”
    “What do you mean, Mom?” Asa asked.
    “It wasn’t but a few weeks after they found Dwight’s hat that she wants to have a memorial for him. It would seem to me that a distraught wife would hold out for a few more months before declaring her beloved husband dead.”
    Asa countered, “Maybe he wasn’t so beloved.”
    “I was thinking the same,” I replied. “Have the police looked into Selena?”
    “I’m not supposed to tell you this,” divulged Kelly, “but Dwight had a half million dollar life insurance policy.”
    “The wife did it,” declared Asa. She reared back in her chair with a smug smile on her face.
    Kelly shook his head. “That’s where this gets creepy. The beneficiaries are Dwight’s mother and his daughter. His wife was not included at all.”
    “That’s odd,” I responded, watching Asa pour some Port into glasses. “What does his will say?”
    “There is no will. I guess Dwight thought he had plenty of time to draw up one.”
    “If he was far-thinking enough to buy life insurance, why didn’t he have a will? It doesn’t make sense.” Now that I had Kelly in a talkative mood, I was going to squeeze every ounce of information out of him that I could. Yeah, I know I was taking advantage of his kind nature, but I had promised Ginny so I had to make good.
    “Not having his wife’s name on the life insurance policy tells me that their marriage might have had problems. That’s just not normal for Dwight not to include her,” professed Asa.
    “That’s what we thought,” revealed Kelly, “but she’s clean as a whistle. No one has a bad thing to say against her, except for Ginny Wheelwright.”
    “That doesn’t mean there weren’t issues. It just means Dwight and Selena kept their business at home,” I stated.
    I was suddenly tired. The thought of Dwight missing overwhelmed me. I was tired of death. I was tired of seeing good people get the shaft. It made me afraid. It made me angry.
    Kelly and Asa began clearing the table as I lumbered off to bed, but not before I let Baby in. He was miffed that he had been put outside earlier.
    “Baby, don’t be mad,” I whispered. “I’ve got treats in the bedroom for you.”
    Baby’s ears perked up at the mention of the word “treats.”
    Suddenly a thought flashed in my mind and then fizzled out like a burned match. It was something important about Dwight. Realizing that I knew an important fact about Dwight, I tried but couldn’t pull it up from the depths of my subconscious.
    It must have been something that I had seen or heard, but what was it?
    I could only hope that it would emerge on its own. Perhaps it would be enough to set things right.
    I could hope, couldn’t I?

4
    I moseyed over to Ginny’s house and found her putting up missing person posters of Dwight several streets away.
    I opened the car window and leaned over. “Ginny. It’s cold out here. Let me take you home.”
    Determined to put up the rest of her posters, Ginny shook her head.
    “Come on, Ginny. I came to talk to you about Dwight. Come on now. My leg’s hurtin’ awful.” I always use that excuse to get people to do what I want.
    People are usually more compassionate than I give them credit for. They dislike being the cause of someone else’s physical pain. At least the sane people. I guess we can rule out sadists. When I run across one, I usually leave them alone. They’re joy killers.
    You know how I feel about suffering. I think suffering is crap and I have no use for those who like to suffer and those who like to cause suffering.
    Ginny reluctantly got into the car. “Someone keeps pulling down these posters. I can’t figure out who it can be.”
    “Probably some smart-ass teenagers,” I replied. “Listen, I want to ask you some questions.”
    “Okay.”
    “Did Dwight have a life insurance policy?”
    “Yes, I found