“Afternoon,” Ezekiel said, standing to greet me. “I do hope you weren’t too upset—finding that poor man dead in your backyard.”
“Having a doctor for a dad helps,” I said. “I’m not as shockable as many people. And my, how things change—now he’s ‘that poor man’?”
“Just trying to remember that even he didn’t deserve what happened to him.” He sat back down on the hearth. “When I heard about it, I admit, I had a hard time with it. I knew the right thing to do was to feel sorrow for him and to pray that he made his peace with his maker before he passed. But doing it still comes hard. Even in a season like this, when we should be filled with the spirit of peace and goodwill to all mankind.”
I nodded. No doubt the Gadfly had friends and family members who would mourn his passing. No sane person would expect Ezekiel to be one of them.
But he was clearly troubled by his own reaction to the news.
“No need to feel guilty,” I said. “It’s not as if you jumped for joy when you heard.”
“No,” he said. “What I felt wasn’t joy. Not any kind of joy. But it was…”
“Maybe relief?” I suggested.
“Yes. Relief.” His face relaxed with the obvious pleasure at being given exactly the right word. “That’s it. Relief. Naming it does help. I won’t have to worry about him hurting Ruth ever again. Or trying to poison people against me. Or doing his best to put obstacles in the way of another innocent person’s quest to regain their freedom.”
“Festus is fond of quoting what Clarence Darrow once said in a similar situation: ‘I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.’”
Ezekiel smiled at this.
“There’s something to that,” he said. “But I’m worried. It seems all too clear that someone took the law into their own hands. Probably someone here at the conference. And that’s not all right.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not. But maybe it’s understandable.”
“Not to me,” Ezekiel said. “Oh, I understand the impulse. The temptation. But I can’t understand someone giving in to it. Something like that comes into your mind, you shove it aside. You recognize it for the evil temptation it is and you pray it away. You don’t give in to it. Only some poor soul did. And for all we know, maybe they’re tortured now. Realizing what they’ve done. Realizing, maybe, that they gave way to a moment’s anger and did something they can never take back. Something they’re eventually going to have to answer for, one way or another.”
I nodded and kept quiet. Would it make him feel better or worse to know that whoever killed the Gadfly probably hadn’t given in to a moment’s anger? Because if what Vern had learned from his tracking efforts was true—and I’d bet it was—the person who killed the Gadfly had stalked him through the countryside and waylaid him behind our barn. Not exactly something that could be explained away by a momentary fit of anger.
“Maybe it will turn out to be self-defense,” Ezekiel said. “Although what I’ve heard so far doesn’t fit in too well with that idea. And when you come right down to it, isn’t whoever did it just doing the same thing that’s been done to so many of us?”
My face must have showed my puzzlement.
“A lot of unjust convictions come about because of racism or corruption,” he said. “But I’ve seen just as many happen because the cops or the prosecutors think they’re doing the right thing. They think someone’s guilty, and they’re frustrated because they can’t prove it, so they do whatever they need to get a conviction. To get a bad man off the streets. They think they’re protecting society and saving lives. I think that’s why it’s so hard to get a conviction overturned sometimes. Because they don’t want to admit that they were wrong.”
“And that was what Norton was doing, too, wasn’t it?” I asked. “I’ve heard more than one person say he played fast and loose with the truth in his efforts to prevent exonerations. Spread lies, forged documents—”
“Oh, he did all that,” Ezekiel said. “And he never gives up, not even when someone he thinks is guilty gets set free. Never gave up, I mean. He got me kicked out of the first apartment Festus found for me. Spread rumors that I was a stone-cold killer who’d gotten off on a technicality, and would probably murder them in their beds. Got the other tenants in the building so riled up that they started making complaints about me. That I came home drunk, that I’d hassled some of the ladies in the building, and that Ruth was barking all night. Fake, all of it, but it cost us our home. Of course, I landed in clover—Festus was so mad at what happened that he insisted that I move into the apartment over his garage till I get on my feet again. Which is going to be a lot easier now, without Norton trying to poison the well every time I apply for a job or an apartment.”
“You’re making it harder for me to feel sorry for Norton,” I said.
“If turning the other cheek was easy, the man upstairs wouldn’t have to tell us to do it.” Ezekiel shook his head. “Maybe whoever killed Norton did it because they wanted to stop him. To keep him from hurting anyone else. But you just can’t do that.”
“No, vigilantism’s never a good thing,” I said.
He nodded.
“So I don’t think you’re the killer,” I said. “And I bet the chief doesn’t, either. But please tell me you have a solid alibi for last night.”
“Depends what time we’re talking about,” he said. “I had dinner with Festus and a bunch of people from the conference. But a couple of the Innocence Project people wanted to have a meeting with Festus after dinner, and I told him not to worry about me and Ruth—we’d be fine for an hour or two. I took her out for a nice, long walk across the golf course. When Festus finished his meeting, he called me, and I met him back in the lobby, and he drove us out to his farm. He probably knows the times better than I do—I don’t think his meeting was much over an hour and a half, if that. Of course, I’ve got no proof that instead of strolling across the golf course I didn’t steal a car, drive out to wherever your house is, and bump off Norton during that time, so let’s hope that’s not when it happened.”
“Here’s hoping,” I said. I decided not to mention that the hotel’s security cameras would probably record exactly when he and Ruth had gone out and when they’d returned. With luck, the audio on our home system would peg the exact time of Norton’s murder and it would turn out to be during a stretch of time when Ezekiel was accounted for.
And that could be the kind of thing Vern was looking for out in the hotel grounds—signs that might show how someone had managed to leave the hotel and kill Norton. Even if someone managed to sneak into a car in the parking lot or the valet garage without being seen, they couldn’t drive it off the grounds without being spotted by the bellhop on duty in addition to the security cameras. And if someone had parked a car somewhere nearby and hiked across the golf course to it, Vern would find signs.
And I rather doubted that Ezekiel was up to making a hike like that. He got around well enough, but slowly, and he tended to sit down to rest rather often.
“Well, I’m going to get myself a good seat for the next session.” Ezekiel heaved himself up from the hearth and steadied himself on his cane. Had he been using a cane yesterday? I didn’t remember it. But yesterday had been a relatively strenuous day—I had several older relatives who kept a cane around for days when their hip, knee, or foot problems were acting up and happily did without on good days.
“What is coming up next?” I asked.
“One of your local deputies,” he said. “Talking about the challenges of being a woman in law enforcement.”
“That’s my friend Aida,” I said. “I should definitely go, if only to give her moral support. I’ll see you there.”
He nodded, and headed for the door to the conference rooms, with Ruth almost touching his right leg.
If I were a regular conference attendee, I’d have hurried along with him to get a good seat. But Aida would see me just as well—maybe better—if I ended up standing along the back wall, ready to dart out and deal with any kind of kerfuffle. So I began making my way toward the Hamilton Room, but in a leisurely fashion.
I ran into Cordelia in the Gathering Area.
“How was your morning with Horace?” she asked. “Find any useful clues?”
“Yes,” I replied. “But nothing that’s going to blow the case wide open. How’s it been going here?”
“A little subdued,” she said. “I could have prevented this, you know. I should have kicked Norton out the minute I found out who he was.”
“You couldn’t have predicted what would happen,” I pointed out.
“I predicted he’d cause trouble,” she said. “I just thought we could handle it. If I’d kicked him out Thursday, maybe he’d still be alive today.”
“And maybe that would only have been a temporary reprieve,” I said. “Unless this was the only time he ever left his computer, sooner or later he’d have run into someone who had it in for him. If not here, then somewhere else. I’m not saying he deserved what happened to him, but is anyone all that surprised?”
“No.” She sighed. “He was a nasty, toxic, unpleasant person. But he didn’t deserve to die like that. And you know what I’m most afraid of?”
I shook my head.
“That his pigheadedness may have driven some perfectly nice person over the edge. I’m going to focus on keeping the conference on track. Keep me posted if you learn anything. No, I take that back. Don’t tell me too much. I don’t want to accidentally spill anything the chief wants kept quiet. Just keep an eye on things for me.”
“Will do,” I said.
She nodded and strode off toward the ballroom. Probably checking on lunch.
I paused to peer inside the Lafayette Room. Although there wasn’t a formally scheduled session going on in there, I could see people having quiet discussions at several tables—including one where Amber Smith appeared to be giving an informal tutorial to two other women on what a grand jury was and how it worked. I stopped to listen and nodded my approval. Not that I was a lawyer, but I’d listened to Festus often enough that I could tell she was probably giving good information.
As I watched, she glanced down at her cell phone and nodded slightly, as if confirming that yes, it was time to get a seat for the next session.
“So don’t worry too much at this point,” she said, by way of wrapping up the conversation. “All the grand jury indicting your cousin means is that the case is probably going to trial. That grand jury didn’t hear one smidgen of the exculpatory evidence you just told me about. Exculpatory’s the high-falutin’ way of saying evidence on your cousin’s side,” she added, seeing their frown at the word. “So don’t panic yet—just make sure his lawyer is the best you can find.”
The discussion trailed off at that point into thanks on the women’s part, and assurances on Amber’s that they were welcome to email her if they had more questions. Evidently they found whatever she’d told them reassuring. They scurried off to the next session in the Hamilton Room. Amber followed more slowly, and I fell into step beside her.
“You’re pretty good at that,” I said. “I don’t know that much about your story—are you a lawyer or did you just pick all that up dealing with your own case?”
“Picked it up,” she said. “My husband was a lawyer—the one they think I killed. But it’s not as if he ever talked to me about his work. And he did real-estate stuff, not criminal defense. How he’d laugh if he could see me now—talking about briefs and motions as if I was Perry Mason or something.”
“Well, however you learned it, it’s great that you’re helping out other people with what you know.”
“A lot of people have helped me,” she said. “I feel like I should pay it back. Or would it be paying it forward? Anyway, I just hope I don’t have to make use of my knowledge of the legal system for myself this weekend. And don’t pretend that puzzles you,” she added, seeing my expression. “Your local police chief is no dummy and neither am I, so I know he’s got all of us here at the conference pegged as suspects.”
“No, I get that,” I said. “I was just puzzled at the idea of you having to use what you’ve learned yourself. I mean, didn’t I hear you yesterday telling someone else that the first thing you should do the minute a police officer wants to talk to you is find a good lawyer and then shut up and do what the lawyer tells you?”
“You think that sounds suspicious?” She paused and looked around, but we were in a quiet part of the Gathering Area, as most of the people were hurrying to get seats for the session that was about to start.
“No,” I said. “It sounds smart. It’s exactly what Festus has always drummed into the heads of any family member who’ll listen to him. And I gather you’ve already got a good lawyer—or does the one you’re working with only do appellate work rather than trial work?”
“He does both,” she said. “And his firm also has a department that does civil cases, like trying to claim my share of my husband’s estate so I can actually pay them. But until they can pull that off, I’m flat broke, and not all that happy about the possibility of going even deeper into hock for another criminal case. So let’s hope the chief finds whoever did away with Norton before I have to rack up too many more billable hours. Do you know if he’s looking at anyone in particular?”
“If he is, he’s keeping it close to the vest,” I said.
“Figures,” she said. “Meanwhile, what do you want to bet that as soon as the news gets out, the trolls will start saying someone did us a favor?”
“Did us a favor by making us all suspects in a murder case?” I asked. “Seriously? You think someone really will say that?”
“Yes, I know.” She laughed ruefully. “No one wants that. But you just wait. As soon as the news gets out, I bet one of Norton’s minions will say that, and the rest of them will chime in with the hate.”
“Actually, my dad has been thrilled on a couple of occasions when he thought he might be a suspect in a murder case,” I said. “But I think that reaction was pretty unique to him. And it’s because he reads mysteries by the bushel. Mysteries in which the real killer is always caught by the last page and gets his comeuppance.”
“Must be nice to be a suspect in one of those,” she said. “In real life, you can get cleared of all charges and have the real killer tried, convicted, and put away, and people online will still be saying you got off on a legal technicality.”
“As if actual innocence were a technicality.” I nodded my agreement.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve stopped worrying about my reputation.”
“‘Reputation is an idle and most false imposition,’” I quoted. “‘Oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.’”
“Is that another of the Dickens quotes Kevin says you’re good at this time of year?” she asked.
“Shakespeare,” I said. “From Othello. My husband appeared in a production of it a few years ago. Nothing like helping an actor learn his lines to help you memorize things. Which is useful, since I come from a family of competitive quoters.”
“Must be nice.” We had reached the door of the Hamilton Room. “You coming in?”
“I’m going to slide in at the last moment,” I said.
“See you later, then.” She joined the stream of people entering the room.
I’d spotted someone else I wouldn’t mind talking to—Madelaine Taylor. She was sitting by the glass wall at the other end of the Gathering Area, staring out and looking rather down in the mouth. Although even her unhappy expression didn’t spoil her looks. She had the translucent porcelain complexion that went with her vivid red hair, though I’d have called her pretty rather than beautiful. Even though she and Amber were probably within a few years in age, she looked a lot younger. Maybe it was her waiflike, orphaned air. Which was understandable. I tried to imagine how I’d have felt if Mother were locked up for murdering someone.
“You look glum.” I took a seat beside her.