Assault and Batter(36)

Max frowned at me, and Peter had his back turned, looking out over the park that abutted our land. “Suzanne, we need to talk.”

“Fine, then talk.”

“Not out here,” he said. “Inside.”

Max might have changed in a great many ways, but that tone of voice hadn’t. He might have been under the impression that it was a no-nonsense delivery, but it just made me dig my heels in. I brushed past him and sat on the porch swing. “You know what? You’re not welcome in my home when you’re acting like this.”

“Me? What about you?” he asked accusingly.

“What about me?” I asked, and then I got it. “Oh. Emily came crying to you, didn’t she?”

“Naturally, she told me what happened,” Max said. “She wasn’t crying about anything. Suzanne, did you really accuse her of killing Jude?”

“I asked her a question, and she lost it,” I said.

“What was the question?” Peter asked. “Did you ask her if she killed Jude Williams?”

“No, that wasn’t it,” I said, and then I turned to Max. I was furious with Emily for turning to Max to rebuke me, but if there was any chance of friendship left between us, I wasn’t going to be the one who told him that his fiancée had made a date before their wedding with her ex-boyfriend.

“What was it, then?” Peter asked. I didn’t like the man on the best of days, and this clearly wasn’t one of those.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

He grinned at me. “No, ma’am. My job is to shadow the groom, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“If there’s even going to be a wedding now,” Max said.

“She’s not calling it off because of me, is she?” I asked.

“No, of course not. She doesn’t want to get married when there’s a cloud of murder over everything,” Max said. He studied me for a few moments before he said softly, “I know the real question you asked her.” He turned to Peter and said, “Wait for me by the car, would you?”

Peter looked astonished by the request. “I’m not going anywhere, buddy. You might need a witness.”

“A witness to what, exactly?” I asked.

Peter just shrugged. “You never know.”

“Fine, do what you want,” Max said to him before he turned back to me. “I know that Emily met Jude the night he was murdered.”

“What!” Peter said.

“Later,” Max said to his best man before he turned back to me. “Suzanne, he was going to try to disrupt the wedding, so Emily thought it might not be a bad idea to confront him before he could. She met him, told him that even if I wasn’t in the picture, she still wouldn’t be interested in him, and that he should move on.”

“And what did he say to that?” I asked.

“He didn’t like it, but he finally accepted it,” Max said.

“Did anyone witness this conversation but the two of them?” I asked.

“No, they were alone. Why?” Max asked.

“Then we can’t exactly ask Jude if that’s what really happened, now can we?”

“Suzanne, do you honestly think she killed him?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to, but it’s something the police need to investigate. From the way Emily reacted to my questions, she seemed awfully guilty to me of something. If she didn’t kill Jude, why did she react so violently when I asked her about the note? First she tried to deny it, and then she said it was from a long time ago. When I pointed out the date on back, she banned me from your wedding and fired me as the wedding donut caterer. She could have saved herself a lot of grief if she’d just told me the truth when I asked.”

“She panicked, okay?” Max asked. “When you threatened to turn her in to the police, what was she supposed to do?”

“We’ve been friends for a very long time,” I said.

“More than that once upon a time,” he answered.

“I’m talking about Emily and me, not you and me, Max.”

“Then shouldn’t you have cut her a little slack?” he asked me.

“She should have trusted me,” I said.

Max surprised me by nodding. “Yeah, maybe so, but she had a momentary lapse. She felt as though you were attacking her, and she reacted badly. She was really hurt when it felt as though you were accusing her of murder, Suzanne.”

“What does she want from me, an apology? She’s not going to get one, because like it or not, she belongs on my list.”

“What list is that?” Peter asked me.

“My list of suspects,” I said, staring straight at him.