37

 

 

I experienced a moment of confusion. Several scenarios went through my mind, but when I glanced over at Marie Brassart, and saw how she was looking at the blonde woman, everything fell into place.

“Who’s this?” she asked Marie.

“He’s…” Marie looked at me, then back at the woman. “He’s a friend. I guess.”

The woman frowned. “You guess? Marie…”

“Jeni Garrison?” I interrupted.

She looked at me. “How do you know my name?”

I stepped toward her, and held out my hand. “Jeni, I’m Stefan Kopriva. I’m trying to help Mrs. Brassart.”

She took my hand cautiously, gave it a single anemic pump, and let go. “Help her how?”

I motioned toward the couch and chair. “Maybe we could sit down?”

Jeni looked at Marie, who shrugged. The two of them moved to the couch while I took the chair. We sat in an uneasy silence for a few moments before Jeni waved a hand at me. “Explain.”

I held up my hands. “I’m still processing here. I didn’t expect to see you.”

“Who did you expect?”

“Quite frankly, your husband.”

Jeni scowled. “He barely knows I exist. Why would he be aware of Marie?”

“I only saw the car before,” I explained.

“Before?” Her eyes narrowed. “Have you been watching us?”

“I’ve been investigating,” I admitted. “That’s what I was hired to do.”

“Hired by whom?”

I leaned back and appraised her again. Her hair was short, and styled in an angled bob that also screamed rich woman to me. She sat rigidly, her hands balled into fists on her thighs, and leaning slightly toward Marie, who had fallen strangely silent.

I took it all in. I tried to see the story behind it, and wondered if I was right. There was only one way to know. “How long has this been going on?” I asked Marie.

Marie hesitated.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Jeni snapped. “You don’t have to tell him anything.”

“She’s right,” I admitted. “You don’t. But I hope you will.”

Marie seemed to struggle for another moment or two, then she put her hand on Jeni’s leg. “It’s…it’s all right. He says he’s here to help, and I think I believe him. I…I trust him.”

Jeni pressed her lips together but said nothing.

Marie turned her attention back to me. Some measure of confidence seemed to be flowing back into her demeanor. “We’ve been together for about a year,” she stated simply. “Why does that matter?”

“It changes everything,” I said.

“How so?”

I leaned forward. “You’re trusting me, so I’ll be honest with you. When I came here, I still wasn’t sure about you.”

“You mean whether or not I killed Henry.”

“Yes. Or had it done. In fact, once I saw the Mercedes, I assumed it was Walter in here, and that you were having an affair with him. I also believed it was a strong possibility he could have done the actual deed on your behalf.”

“But now?”

“Now I don’t think so.”

Jeni scoffed. “So just because it’s not a man, suddenly it’s not possible? You don’t think a woman could have done that? Or is it something else?”

Her eyes challenged me. I met them evenly. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? My gut says no.”

“Fuck you and your sexist, bigoted gut,” Jeni snapped. She turned to Marie. “Honey, we don’t need him. Tell him to leave, and we’ll figure this out ourselves.”

I didn’t reply, but it occurred to me that she really was offended by the fact that I didn’t think she was capable of murder. Talk about misplaced anger.

Marie wavered in the face of that anger, looking back and forth between us. The confidence I’d seen in her a moment ago seemed to have ebbed. “I…I don’t know. I think we do need him. Harrity, I mean.”

“Did you kill Henry?” I asked her bluntly.

“No.” Her answer was immediate.

“Did you?” I asked, turning to Jeni.

“Go to hell,” Jeni snarled back.

“No,” Marie said softly. “Of course she didn’t.”

“Then you’re right. You do need Harrity.”

We sat quietly again, all of us lost in our own thoughts. I stared at a white carved stone bust on the table next to me. The features looked very African, and the white stone seemed incongruous. Maybe that was the point.

Finally, I asked, “Can I ask you a couple more questions?”

Marie nodded.

“You and Henry? Was it contentious?”

She shook her head. “No. Just distant. I was figuring things out, and he had his work.”

“Did he know about the two of you?”

“No.”

“It’s a bit of a coincidence,” I said, pressing just a little.

“What is?”

I motioned to the two of them. “You start an affair and a few months later, your husband is murdered.”

Jeni opened her mouth, but Marie stopped her with a touch.

“That’s what it is,” she assured me. “A coincidence.”

“It’s the kind of coincidence juries struggle with,” I said.

“I know.”

“If you didn’t have anything to do with Henry’s death, how did the damage to your car happen?”

“A deer,” Marie answered. “A couple of weeks earlier, I hit a deer.”

I didn’t answer.

“I told the police about it,” she said.

“When it happened?”

“No. After Henry’s death. When they asked me about the damage to my Lexus.”

I nodded. “That was in the affidavit. And it’s another disturbing coincidence.”

Marie’s gaze fell. “I…I know. But that’s all it is.”

“The police don’t believe that.”

“Obviously,” Jeni said angrily. “They arrested her.”

“But she didn’t do it.”

“No,” Marie said. “I didn’t.”

“Is that all you came here for?” Jeni said. “To have this ridiculous conversation?”

I shook my head. “It’s not ridiculous. It’s important. But I did come here for more than that.” I looked at Marie again. “If you didn’t kill him, who did?”

When Marie raised her eyes to meet mine, they were filled with the glaze of tears, but anger radiated out from them. “I…don’t…know. If I did, don’t you think I would have told the police?”

“I get the feeling that the police were pretty focused on you right away. Especially after they saw the damage to your car. Do they know about the two of you?”

Marie shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“It didn’t come up in any interviews?”

“I only talked to them a couple of times after it happened. Once I realized they thought I killed Henry, I asked for an attorney. The attorney advised me not to speak with them again, and I haven’t.”

“Why didn’t you ask for Harrity right away, instead of the public defender?”

“The police froze all of our…all of my assets.”

That made sense, I thought. Then I asked, “But during those first few interviews, the police never made any references to a lover, or an accomplice?”

“No.”

“Not even by inference?”

“Not that I recall.”

I shrugged. “Well, maybe they didn’t know about it then.”

“Then?” Marie repeated.

I nodded. “Yeah, then. They definitely know about it now.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because they’re staking out your house from the woods.”

Marie’s look of astonishment surprised me a little. When I looked at Jeni, her expression mirrored Marie’s. Somehow, that resonated with me, and told me the truth I needed to know. Neither was devious enough to suspect the cops of watching them. It was a strange reason to trust them, but intuition is what it is.

“They’re…?”

“Yes.”

Marie looked at Jeni. “Then they know.”

Jeni shrugged. “So what? We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“We’re having an affair!”

“So I’ll get a divorce. I love you.”

Marie touched her face. “I love you, too. It’s not that. It’s that he’s right.” She motioned toward me. “Between you and me being together, and the damage to my car…a jury will think I killed Henry.”

“That’s why you need Harrity,” I said. “And he’s going to have the same question for you that I do.”

They both turned their attention to me and I asked them again.

“If you didn’t kill him, who did?”

Neither of them had an answer.