CHAPTER 22

“Missus?” I say.

Jake squints again at the page in his hand. “That’s what it says here on her witness statement.”

I finger the fading cut on my forehead, then the puffy yellow-green flesh just below my left eye. “She never mentioned she was married.”

“I don’t suppose you asked.”

“Maybe she was divorced,” Flan says from the other end of the conference room table.

“No, no.” Jake sets the statement down and points. “Says here ‘married.’ To one Mr. Bruce Beagan. No question about that.”

“Shit,” I say.

“What are you thinking, son?”

“I’m thinking maybe I did something worse than eat that hick’s Buffalo wings.”

Jake grins. “You mean, like, maybe you fucked his wife?”

Flan says, “Maybe the Buffalo wings were just the last straw.”

So Sherry is married. I try to recall a wedding band but I’m drawing a blank. Did I even look for one? If I spotted one, would it have mattered?

Or am I just like…?

“Mia Landow,” I say quietly. “She’s the first witness I want to speak to. I need to know whether Trevor told her he planned on going ahead with the wedding. If Trevor lied to her to get her into bed, we have motive. Even if Trevor didn’t lie to her, I want to know why she decided to spill her guts less than an hour before the ceremony. She didn’t come clean just then because her conscience was killing her—she had an objective. And I think that objective was to stop the wedding.”

“How about the maid of honor?” Jake says. “What do we know about her?”

I flip the page on my legal pad. “Tara Holland. Apparently, she’s like an older sister to Erin, even though they’re around the same age. Erin is convinced they’ve been friends since the beginning of time.”

“You doubt her?”

I consider the question. “I doubt Erin on just about everything she says,” I finally admit. “But I particularly doubt anyone who thinks they have the perfect friend. Loyalty only goes so far.”

Jake shoots me a look. So does Flan.

“But if Tara Holland is as protective of Erin as Erin thinks,” I continue, “then any motive that is attributed to Erin applies to Tara as well.”

Jake says, “The same can probably be said of Erin’s parents.”

“Flan,” I say, “I’d like you to interview Todd and Rebecca Downey separately. Tell them it’s simply routine, but we have to surprise them with this, not give them any extra time to make sure they have their stories straight. Record the interviews. Have them transcribed. Then we’ll look for any inconsistencies. But whatever you do, Flan, be polite and be discreet.”

Flan jots it all down. “Got it.”

“Jake, talk to your pals in the police department. Glean any information you can about Trevor’s sister Lauren Simms and her fiancé Gabe Guidry. Lauren is spending an awful lot of time with the other side and she’s pretty damned convinced that Erin’s our killer. I want to know why.”

“I’ll get what I can, son. But I’ve got to tell you, I’ve lost a lot of friends on the force since you came along.”

I instinctively fix him with a stare. “Cops dislike a good defense attorney, Jake? I’m shocked.”

“It’s not just how good you are, son.” A brief pause, then Jake’s back to raising his voice. “It’s how you do things. How you conduct yourself in and out of the courtroom.”

“Jake, I…” I hold my hand up, hold my tongue. “All right, we don’t have time for this. I’ve also got to hunt down Trevor’s best man Isaac Cassel and have a chat with him. There’s something more to his relationship with Erin than Erin’s letting on.”

“The best man had a thing for the bride?” Flan asks, as Jake continues to seethe.

“They were together before Trevor, and I don’t think Isaac ever truly let her go.”

“But if Isaac killed Trevor to get to Erin, he wouldn’t let her go down for murder, right?”

Hoshi buzzes us on the intercom. “Kevin, you have a guest.”

“Tell him to have a seat, I’ll be right there.” I turn back to our investigator. “Self-preservation is an incredibly powerful instinct, Flan. You can see that by looking into the eyes of just about any criminal defendant. Even as a motive for murder, self-preservation can never be underestimated.”

Flan mulls this over.

“Besides,” I say, “there’s another scenario we have to consider. Unfortunately, this alternative scenario doesn’t much help our client.”

“What is it?” Flan says.

“That someone else murdered Trevor. And that Erin lit the fire to clean it up for them, inadvertently killing ten innocents in the process.”