“Why not share it with me now?” Rex asked as he started the SUV.
“I want you and Goodhue to hear it at the same time. I only want to be laughed at once.”
“It’s that bad?”
“No. Just a huge leap. If I’m going to take it, I want it to be the three of us together,” she replied.
“One for all and all for one? That kind of thing?” he kidded.
“Just drive.”
They went to Rex’s condo. Goodhue was only a few minutes behind them. Marla and Rex took spots on the sectional and Goodhue chose the easy chair. “Did those financials help?” he asked before Marla had a chance to broach her idea.
“Yeah. But can we put a pin in those for now? Marla’s got an idea she wouldn’t share with me until you were here, too,” Rex said.
Goodhue searched first Rex’s eyes then Marla’s. “You kids not getting along?”
“It’s not that, Chief,” Marla said. “Rex and I just finished interviewing Chloe Reardon a second time. Our questions focused on the numerous drop-by visits she received from Brecken Wallace, even after his divorce from Eloise Wallace and even after Eloise became the full owner of Essy.”
“What prompted that line?” Goodhue asked.
“It seemed strange to us, his continuing to stop by unexpectedly despite his explaining he just liked to keep in touch with the others that worked there. Plausible, but it just didn’t wash with us.”
Together, Marla and Rex recounted their interview with Chloe, ending with Brecken’s concern about her accepting the deal to act as Eloise’s hostess in return for no rent. So much concern, he went to find his ex-wife immediately only to learn she was out of the office.
“Okay, I hear what you’ve been telling me, but how does it relate to his wife’s murder?” Goodhue replied.
“I’ll get to that shortly, but bear with us. After our interview with Chloe, Rex and I tried to make some sense of what we’d learned. It was certainly a new Chloe Reardon. One who traded the young and naive act we saw earlier for a sharp, savvy and ambitious persona. But we believed her recollections of what Brecken said and asked on those visits. We both came away with the same impression: He was way out of line for just a casual acquaintance.”
“Okay?” Goodhue said.
“At that point, Rex challenged me to go back into Letitia Carruthers mode. As much as it pains me to return there, Letitia was a sharp PI because she always could identify the twist behind her findings. So I gave it a shot.” She paused, knowing that her next words could get her thrown off this case, never to investigate for the Maple Knolls police department again. “What if Brecken’s unusual interest in Chloe is because he is her father?”
The line of Rex’s mouth turned up. Not quite a smile but instead approval.
Goodhue’s eyes went wide.
“Too far-fetched?” she asked.
“More like brilliant,” Rex replied. “You, not Brecken.”
They both turned to Goodhue. “Well, Chief? What do you have to say to that?”
“I’ll have to tell Patty Letitia Carruthers isn’t dead, even without a script. But even if what you suspect is correct, and I’m not doubting that, that leaves me with at least three questions. How do we prove it, and even if we do, how does it relate to the murder of Eloise Wallace? And most important, how do we prove that?”
She settled back into Rex’s sectional. “That’s why I wanted to see you simultaneously. We all have to brainstorm those exact questions.”
“As for that first question, I say we confront Brecken head-on,” Rex said.
“Suppose he denies it,” Marla said. “Then what do we do?”
“Continue thinking like Letitia Carruthers and figure out what she would do,” Goodhue told her.
That was a cop-out. She’d caught the police chief without anything to offer. But his reference to Letitia stopped Rex from adding his piece. So it was up to her to start. At the risk that this Letitia thing might get out of hand, because she really wanted to keep her alter ego in the past, Marla attempted to answer her own question by channeling Letitia.
“We ask him straight off if he’s her father to catch him off guard. Once he denies the relationship, then and only then, we hit him with his concern about Chloe playing hostess for Eloise. We hammer away at the idea of someone who barely knows her coming across so disturbed at the prospect of her possibly prostituting herself. The idea is to shake his self-confidence by continuously turning Chloe’s words against him.”
Goodhue exchanged a look with Rex. Had she gone too far? She’d given them the best she could come up with when asked to do so on the spot.
“Does she always conceptualize like that?” Goodhue asked Rex.
Rex shot her a conspiratorial look. “Not always, but what you just heard happens frequently. I swear she’s stored away some of the story ideas from that show in her subconscious that she pulls up whenever they’re needed.”
“That’s a great approach, Marla, but a lot of it rests on how well you and Rex hit back with your questions. Are you up to it?”
“Rex is,” Marla replied, “and I take my cues from him.”
Goodhue ran his hand up and down his neck. “I’m with you so far, but where do you go if you can’t break him? Rex, it’s your turn.”
Rex took his time responding. “I’m more into facts and evidence than Marla, who tends to be the people person. So I would’ve started that way by checking her birth certificate and doing a DNA comparison. I’d also get a warrant to search his home and business for whatever personal data we can find on him. The problem is, my approach would take time, possibly several weeks to get the DNA data, and you want to settle this case quickly.”
Goodhue had been nodding throughout Rex’s response. “That’s pretty much the kind of answer I expected from you, Rex. You’re right, you’d be much stronger questioning him about his being her father if you already knew he was. And if the facts didn’t support Marla’s theory, then we’d have to determine before going in if we should still question his interest in the young woman. But, and this a big but, is it worth investing the time gathering this information?”
The three of them sat there in silence pondering his question.
Marla had hoped for more guidance from Goodhue. Instead, he was putting their next steps back on them.
Her brain sifted through various other alternatives. “Possibly we could learn more about Chloe’s late mother by talking to others who might have known her twenty-some years ago when she gave birth to Chloe. The problem with that approach would be getting the initial information from Chloe. Would we want to tip her off that we’re looking for her father?”
“Which is exactly why, even though we didn’t discuss that approach, we both shied away from it,” Rex said to her. “But if we could find someone who knew her mother then, it might take less time than the evidence-gathering I suggested.”
“Let’s take a step back from this idea that Brecken is her father,” Goodhue said. “Would he have had another motive for killing his ex-wife?”
“She treated him like dirt,” Marla said. “And he might’ve thought getting rid of her would get rid of the debt he still owed her. But something would have had to happen to make him snap under those conditions. We haven’t uncovered anything like that yet.”
“How about the other suspects?” Goodhue asked. “Have you dismissed any of them as the killer?”
“Probably Liz Parsons, our neighbor in the condo building, although we just learned Eloise treated her terribly when they were in college together,” Rex replied.
“Nell and Grace both have revenge motives,” Marla said. “But why would Grace have waited four years since being forced to sell Essy to Eloise?”
“What about the other woman, the former accountant?” Goodhue asked.
“It’s possible,” Rex said, “but she’s still working through her grief over the death of her late wife. She may not have agreed with some of Eloise’s expenditures, but I can’t see her killing her, even after being fired.”
Goodhue continued going through the list. “And that male assistant? What about him?”
“Tanner’s problem was more with Chloe than his boss,” Marla replied. “We suspect his negative feelings about her were more from rejection as a lover than from jealousy.”
“So, Goodhue,” Rex said, “what do you suggest we do?”
“This discussion has been an appreciated exercise on my part, so I feel up to date with the case, but you both already know the answer to that. Go with your gut. I’ll get the ball rolling as far as search warrants are concerned for Brecken Wallace’s home and business. Keep me posted on the specifics you want included. Keep me posted, period.”