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cemetery and watched a fellow cop put a gun to his head is not going to rest until he knows why. So I’m asking you if that’s true, Mr. Stride. You saw a good man kill himself right in front of you. Can you walk away and never know what really happened to him?”
    Kelli wasn’t shy about what she wanted. Stride respected women like that. Women who wore their toughness on their sleeves. Cindy had been that way. So was Serena. His uncle was right about him, too, because he couldn’t let it go. Walking away wasn’t an option. The scars he wore were all from people he’d failed, and he didn’t want to add Percy Andrews to that list. If he had any faith that things happened for a reason, then he had to believe he was meant to be in that graveyard at that moment on that night. He was destined to be a witness.
    “Tell me more about Percy,” he said.
    Satisfaction rose like a cold red flush in her cheeks. A smile of relief flitted on and off her face. He hadn’t said yes, but he hadn’t said no—and that meant yes. They brushed snow off a park bench and sat down next to each other. She pulled her long legs underneath her.
    “We were very different,” she told him. “That was hard. Percy was conservative. Never missed church. Me—well, you can look at me and figure out I’m not like that. The age difference was a thing, too. He was ten years older, and it made him insecure. I don’t know, I think what really bothered him was wondering if I loved him or if it was just—gratitude. You know, that I felt obligated to be with him because of what he did. Because he saved me.”
    “Did you love him?” Stride asked.
    Kelli nodded fiercely. “I did. I really did. Age, temperament, religion, none of those things mattered to me at all. I fell in love with Percy because he was decent to his core, and there are so few decent people in this world. I’m not saying it was always easy. Relationships are never easy, but I loved him, and he loved me.”
    “You said something changed about him.”
    “Yes, but I don’t know what it was. The last few weeks, he was acting strangely. Distant. Afraid. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. He seemed to be avoiding me.”
    “You couldn’t trace it to anything specific?”
    She shook her head. “No.”
    “What was going on in his life?” Stride asked. “I heard he lost a good friend.”
    “Tom Bruin? Yes, that was awful. It was really hard on Percy. They’d been best friends for twenty years. They would have done anything for each other. It’s been lonely for Percy since then. There are things that friends share that spouses don’t. Ever since Tom died, he’s been there for Tom’s wife Anna and for their little girl. I called Anna overnight to tell her what happened. She was a wreck.”
    “When did Tom Bruin pass away?”
    “Last year.”
    Stride knew from his own experience that it was hard to lose friends, but he didn’t think that was enough to drive Percy Andrews to suicide months later. “What about at work? Did he have problems on the job? I heard he and the sheriff didn’t get along.”
    “Yes, Percy and Sheriff Weik didn’t like each other. There’s no secret about that. Percy made noises about running against him in the next election, but that was just talk. He hated politics.”
    “What about his case load? What was he working on?”
    “Well, it’s not like this is the big city. Percy was a small town cop. Most of his calls were the usual thing. Kids stealing cars. Drunks getting into bar fights. Domestic violence. He’d been spending a lot of time on one particular case, though. He seemed obsessed with it.”
    “What was the case?”
    “A local man disappeared last month. Greg Hamlin. He’s kind of a big shot in town, both him and his wife. They’d be the first to tell you how important they are. He runs a real estate office, and she’s a bank manager, so around here, that means some serious influence.”
    Stride nodded.