Page 110 of Sunset Beach
“Alibis can be cooked up,” Vera said. “And remember, Allen’s alibi was his own father. A prominent doctor in town. Chief of staff at Bayfront Medical Center, as it was called back then.”
“Why would Allen Hicks kill his wife?”
Vera shrugged. “Lots of reasons. I always suspected there was another woman, a girl who worked in his insurance office. He didn’t waste much time marrying her, either. Got himself a quickie divorce in Mexico just three years later.”
“Why didn’t he just divorce Colleen while she was alive?”
“You don’t know very much about men and murder, do you?”
“I guess I don’t,” Drue admitted.
“Well, I do,” Vera said. “There’s a name for it, you know. Uxoricide. It means the killing of one’s romantic partner. The vast majority of the time a woman is the victim. And the men who kill them are jealous, possessive and controlling. For the man, it’s a power thing.”
“Makes sense,” Drue agreed.
“He beat her, you know.”
“Who?”
“Allen. Her husband. The bastard knocked her around. He was abusive. There’s been a study done. In England. Did you know that sixty-five percent of men who kill their romantic partners have been physically abusive in the past?”
“Did Colleen tell you he was hitting her?”
“She didn’t have to,” Vera said. “This one time, I remember, I got to work early and saw Colleen was in one of the examining rooms with Dr. Garber. He was stitching up her lip and she had a tooth knocked out too. She claimed she’d tripped, but that was clearly a lie.”
“Did the police know about that?”
“I told one of the detectives at the time, but he didn’t believe me,” Vera said. “There were no police or hospital records, and Colleen hadn’t complained to friends or family that her husband was abusive.”
“Probably she was ashamed,” Drue said.
“And that wasn’t the only time he hit her. She’d come to work with bruises on her arms. It got so that she’d wear long sleeves every day, even in the summer.”
“I don’t understand. If her husband was beating her, if she maybe suspected he was cheating on her, why wouldn’t Colleen leave?”
“People always ask that question,” Vera said. “But forty years ago, a girl like Colleen didn’t have many options. She didn’t really get along with her parents, and Allen controlled all the money. He actually had her on an allowance!”
Drue thought back to the binder on her kitchen table, of the picture of a demurely smiling Colleen on her wedding day.
“Have you talked to the police lately, about your theories about Allen Hicks?”
Vera shook her head. “Not in any official kind of capacity. Everybody’s dead now, you know. Colleen most likely, Allen, both their sets of parents, even Dr. Garber. Plus, it’s hard to investigate a cold case when you no longer have any of the official investigative file.”
Drue feigned surprise. “Really?”
“It’s gone. The whole file. It was only discovered missing ten years ago. But it could have been gone much longer than that.”
“What happened to it?”
“I wish I knew,” Vera said. “I’d give anything to read it. I’ve put out feelers, on my blog, but it’s still missing. Like Colleen, come to think of it.”
44
August 1976
She slid the Camaro into a slot around the back of the Dreamland and walked rapidly through the light drizzle that had begun falling at dusk, cinching the raincoat tighter as she walked, her heels clicking against the parking lot pavement.
As she approached the unit, the blonde began unbuttoning the coat. She’d seen his cruiser parked in the usual spot so she knew he was inside, waiting. She’d had to cancel the previous week because it was Allen’s mother’s birthday, and all day she’d been fantasizing about the coming evening.
