“Lawrence Cobb?” Rutledge asked, and identified himself when the man nodded. “I’ve come from Hobson. Your uncle suggested I might speak to you about Florence Teller.”

Suddenly wary, Cobb set down his hammer, glanced briefly at his bruised thumb, and then said, “You’re here about her death. Well, I had nothing to do with it, but if I ever lay hands on the bastard who did it, I’ll finish with him before the police can touch him.”

“Do you still care that much for Florence Teller?”

Cobb shot a look toward the house. “What if I do? She was married, I couldn’t speak to her. It came to nothing. She guessed what I was feeling, and we decided it was best that I move on. I did. My wife and I are happy.”

But Rutledge thought it was not true. Content, perhaps, but at least on Cobb’s part, not happy.

“Do you know who might have wanted to kill her?”

“No one in Hobson. I’d have torn out their throats if anyone touched her. I think if it hadn’t been for Timmy, she might have turned to me when Teller went missing. But she loved her son, and she loved his father. Never mind how he treated her.”

“What do you mean, treated her?”

“If I’d had a wife like that, I wouldn’t have stayed away so many years at a time. I’d have written more often. He sent gifts, but it wasn’t the same as being there. After Timmy died, she needed him more than ever. But I think coming here hurt too much, and his visits got fewer and farther between. Or so it seemed to me.”

“There were letters?”

“She kept them in a little rosewood chest on the table beside her favorite chair. When I was working there and came in for a cup of tea or mug of water, I sometimes saw her putting one away, as if she’d just read it again. Her lifeline, she called that chest.”

But there had been no such chest by the chair nor anywhere else in the house, as Hamish was remarking.

“You worked for her as a handyman, when you might have done far better for yourself,” Rutledge told him.