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her for a while. Hopefully he’d get bored and leave her alone.
    She strode back into his house. He hadn’t moved, just seemed to be waiting on the steps. She handed him a bill.
    “I’ll write you a check. I promise it won’t bounce.”
     

 
    Chapter Five
    Kate moved her truck several houses down to Mayor Dudley Stuart’s house. It was by far the biggest edifice on the street. Quite possibly the biggest house in Rock Ridge. Dudley considered himself royalty having been elected by a landslide four elections in a row.
    Each time he’d added on to the house. The latest addition was just about done, and Dudley had asked Kate to do the final painting. She had a good hand at it and some of her jobs were just for painting, not fixing anything.
    Kate found painting therapeutic. The steady brush strokes soothed her. Today she was in need of soothing. Her talk with Scott had unnerved her, and she got the impression that he watched from his front window as she drove to the mayor’s place.
    Hopefully he’d be back at his job in no time and leave her alone. That’s what she needed.
    The mayor’s wife, Jessica, answered the door when Kate rang the doorbell. She resisted the urge to glance back at Scott’s house. He would be unobtrusive if he were observing her. He was just as much a complication in her life as was the murder of his ex-wife.
    Kate smiled at Jessica.
    “Hello, Kate. Come in. Dudley is working from home today, and his office is next to the new addition. I hope he doesn’t mind you working in there.”
    “If he does, I can come back tomorrow. My schedule is usually flexible.”
    “Well, come in and we’ll talk to him.”
    Jessica led her past some of the most garishly decorated rooms she’d ever seen. Money did not buy class. A real estate agent would have a nightmare trying to sell this house. Everything would have to be repainted.
    Which reminded her that she had to stop in and see some of the town’s real estate agents to remind them that she was available for painting and repairs of their rental properties. She might do that after this painting job.
    Dudley sat behind a large wooden desk that looked like it had been stolen from the set of a movie. She couldn’t imagine that he’d purchased it from the local furniture store. No, he’d probably had it custom-made. The bottom had wood carvings in it as if someone had taken a trunk of a tree and made it a square before etching out animals.
    Kate tried not to grimace as she looked at it.
    “Dudley? Kate is here to paint the addition. Will that disturb you?”
    “Not at all,” Dudley said, smiling from under his thin moustache.
    He had thinning brown hair, and he’d always struck Kate as someone who that would bother. He wore a button-down shirt but no tie and no suit jacket.
    “Thanks, Mayor,” Kate said.
    Jessica disappeared while Kate unloaded her supplies. The color they’d chosen was a lime green. She wasn’t sure what the room was going to be used for, but it reminded her of a hospital.
    She didn’t have to live with it, just apply it to the walls.
    With drop cloths down, she put tape up around the windows and doorframes. She heard the mayor talking on the phone. Just a muffled voice, not that she was interested in listening. She imagined running a trucking company wasn’t that interesting.
    Having forgotten her radio, she worked in silence other than the mayor’s phone ringing.
    She’d completed one wall with the roller and knew she would have to do a second coat. She’d have to go out to her truck to get a few more cans of the paint. This job would help her replenish her truck fund. Too bad she’d have to use the cash for repairs and not a new one.
    She spent less on repairs than she would on a new car payment, so she guessed she was doing okay. She would rue the day her truck died.
    At a good stopping point, meaning she’d finished a wall, Kate was about to head out to her truck. The mayor, whose office door was open, began to talk