The next morning, I drove half an hour to the town where Dean lived. Once I realized he didn’t live in Fair Haven, it made a lot more sense that Erik didn’t know Elise’s ex had been arrested and that she’d been suspended for poking around in the case. The murder wasn’t even in the jurisdiction of the Fair Haven police.
Dean’s lawn was a little too long, like he stretched the time between cuttings as far as he could get away with. The front porch looked like it’d been white at one point, but the paint had mostly peeled away, leaving it looking like it had a bad case of eczema.
The car in the driveway, however, was brand-new. I’d seen the same model last week when Mark and I casually walked through a lot and chatted with a salesman. My car had been in enough accidents that I wanted to replace it before winter.
I peeked in the window on my way by. Dean’s car had leather seats and a sunroof. Those only came in the top-of-the-line package. The floor of the car was clean, making me think he hadn’t owned it long.
While that was a good sign for me when it came to him being able to pay my fees, it was a bad sign in terms of the case. I’d have to check whether Dean had a large life insurance policy on Sandra. If he’d gotten himself into debt, he might have killed her for the life insurance. Or, at least, that’s what the prosecution would argue if I destroyed their wife abuser motive.
The porch wobbled underneath my feet as I climbed the stairs. The doorbell didn’t seem to be in working order, so I knocked.
The man who answered the door was nothing like what Dean was supposed to be. He was supposed to be a former jock who was now fat and balding, his sexy voice the only thing remaining of his former glory.
The glory of the man who answered the door was anything but former.
To make it even worse, his chest was bare.
Heat crept up into my ears, and I averted my eyes. It was no wonder Elise married him. She’d probably still been young enough that she didn’t realize good looks didn’t make a good man.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught his I-know-I’m-good-looking grin. He didn’t make a move to put on the t-shirt in his hand.
He leaned casually against the doorway. “How can I be of service, darlin’?”
The way he said it turned my stomach. Whatever little bit of power his appearance had given him faded away. In the back of my head, I could almost hear my dad telling me that if we could get him to keep his mouth shut in court, his appearance would work in our favor. No one expected handsome people to be killers.
But that was something we’d deal with once we finally got to court. Right now, I had to deal with the fact that he apparently had the memory of a goldfish and forgot our appointment. “I’m your lawyer.”
I kept my voice deadpan. Hopefully he’d feel at least a little bit of shame.
His gaze moved slowly down me in a way that made me wish I’d worn a muumuu instead of the tailored blouse and skirt I’d chosen because I wanted to look professional.
He stepped out of the doorway, but still made no move to dress himself. I spelled Arielle and Cameron’s names slowly in my head. Maybe if I focused on them, I wouldn’t be so tempted to give their dad a black eye.
The door swooshed shut behind me, and big hands grabbed my waist. Tight.
My heartbeat kicked up into my throat, and I couldn’t breathe.
I tried to pull away from his touch, but he closed his grip.
“Stop it. What do you think you’re doing?” My voice came out a lot more freaked-out than I’d intended.
His lips hit my neck with wet kisses. “I prefer naughty nurses,” he said, “but a naughty lawyer fits the situation better. You’ll have to tell me who to thank when we’re done.”
Calm washed over my brain, and I stopped squirming even though his lips kept moving over my neck like a slug leaving a trail of goo.
The man was an idiot, with the self-control of a cat in heat, but thankfully, it seemed he wasn’t a predator. He really thought I was a call girl sent by one of his skeezee friends.
“You can thank your ex-wife.” I managed to bring my voice into a passable imitation of my mom now that I wasn’t panicking. “And if you don’t take your mouth off me, I’m going to place a knee on you in a spot you won’t enjoy.”
He stilled and cursed none too gently. “You’re actually my lawyer.”
“That depends on how quickly you take your hands off me and put your shirt on.”
He jerked away, and I turned around. His head was already halfway through his shirt.
“You don’t look like a lawyer.” His voice came out muffled. He yanked his shirt down into place. “If Elise wasn’t the one who found you, I’d think you won cases by doing special favors for the judge.” He winked. “Not that I’d have a problem with that as long as you get me off.”
Images of me kneeing him in the groin anyway danced in my vision, nearly blinding me.
Arielle and Cameron. I was doing this for Arielle and Cameron. Though, honestly, they might be better off if this guy was in prison.
I clenched my teeth, then forced my jaw to relax. The worst thing I could do was let him know he was getting to me. It was like how the bullies in school got worse the more they upset you.
I would not be bullied. We clearly needed to establish who was in charge here and what the ground rules would be.
“As long as you stand accused of your wife’s murder, you’re not allowed to go to any strip clubs, hire any prostitutes, or accept any gifts from your friends that show up at your door. You’re not even allowed to date. Your wife just died. You want any chance of being acquitted of her murder, you need to at least act like you’re a grieving husband.”
His face twisted up like he was going to cuss me out and kick me out of the house. Instead, he fisted his hands. “I guess I don’t have much choice. Elise said I had to listen to you, ’cause if I end up in prison for this, she won’t bring the kids to visit.”
An emotion rippled across his face that I couldn’t quite catch. It almost looked like…fear? Regret?
Even the worst examples of humanity loved someone. For Dean, it seemed like that was two someones—Arielle and Cameron.
Oddly enough, his motivation was the same as mine. Perhaps this would all be easier if we established some common ground.
“Arielle and Cameron are why I agreed to represent you.”
“What are my kids to you?” He crossed his arms over his chest, making his biceps into chiseled bars. “Elise switch teams or something?”
Lord give me patience. I held up my left hand, back facing him so my engagement ring came into view. “I’m a few months away from becoming a Cavanaugh.”
“Bobby?”
“Mark.”
His arms loosened slightly. “I always liked Mark. It was a shame about his first wife.”
Everybody liked Mark, but it softened me a bit to Dean. If he’d said something snide about Mark, I might have dropped him as a client regardless of the other factors.
I checked the buttons on my blouse. Thankfully they’d survived his manhandling, and we shouldn’t have a repeat. “We’re all working toward the same goal, so try to cooperate with me. When I tell you to do something, it’s for the good of your case.”
He gave a half nod.
Since that was probably as close to agreement as I was going to get, it was time to move on to what I’d come here for. “One of the strongest pieces of the prosecution’s case against you is that you were apparently in the house during the time of death window. I’d like you to show me around outside. I need to see if I can argue that the killer could have gotten in another way.”
He led me into the living room. The couch sat in the middle of the room, the TV up against the wall in front of it. Behind the couch were the stairs. The house wasn’t large.
I could see why it looked condemning to the police. “Is that the only way upstairs?”
The cockiness drained from his stance, and he suddenly looked more like a normal man than an underwear model. “Yeah. Whether they came in the front or the back door, they’d have had to climb those stairs.” He pointed to the couch. “But in my defense, I was wasted. I wouldn’t have heard a car crash into the house.”
That wasn’t much of a defense. We couldn’t prove it. It was easy for him to claim he’d been too drunk to hear an intruder, but without evidence, it wouldn’t stand up in court. It also wouldn’t endear him to the jury any. “Do you have receipts from whatever bar you were at? If we could show how much you had to drink, I might be able to use that. Or do you remember what taxi service you used to bring you home?”
If he’d driven himself home drunk, we’d have zero chance in court. Juries, in my experience, had very little patience for drunk drivers.
He shook his head. “I was drinking with a buddy at his house, and he brought me home.”
“What time?”
“Around 10:00 or 10:30 I think. I don’t remember exactly. I’d planned to come home and have a late supper with Sandra, but then she wasn’t downstairs when I came in. I figured she was already asleep.”
Well, that was just great. “How did you get your car back?”
The look he gave me said he’d been lying about the friend driving him home.
I headed toward the back of the house. “Why don’t you show me around the outside?”
Dean’s backyard wasn’t much tidier than his front. A two-foot wide swath of plants that had to be nearly four feet tall grew along the back fence. They’d bloomed in a showy presentation of purple flowers that looked like little hoods.
I didn’t recognize them, but they were planted among hollyhocks, clematis, and some sort of daisy. At least, I thought they were hollyhocks and clematis. This had been my first summer with gardens to tend, and I’d basically tried to keep up with what my Uncle Stan planted the year before. I’d been slowly identifying the varieties in his gardens, so I could figure out how best not to kill them. I was certain the little white flowers with yellow centers in Sandra’s garden were daisies, at least. I used to buy bouquets of daisies for my apartment back in DC.
The hollyhocks and purple flowers matched the ones that were in a tall vase on the kitchen counter in the crime scene photos. Sandra must have spent some of her last hours cutting blooms.
I gestured toward the garden. “Did Sandra like to garden?”
Dean hardly glanced in the direction I indicated. “Not really. Her sister was the one who liked plants. Nadine might have helped Sandra plant those, or they might have been here when we moved in. I can’t remember.”
Dean was shaping up to be the most difficult client I’d ever dealt with, and that was saying something, considering my parents’ stable of clients. “Where’s the bedroom window?”
Dean led me around the side of the house.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
The side of the house practically butted up against the fence. I could walk through the space, but anyone with wider shoulders or hips wouldn’t have been able to. The neighbor’s house on the other side of the fence seemed equally close. If the fence wasn’t there, I could have stretched out my arms and touched both houses at once. The placement of the windows on the neighbor’s house meant they’d have had a good view of anyone trying—I couldn’t see them succeeding—to set up a ladder and climb into the bedroom window of Sandra and Dean’s house.
But their bedroom probably wasn’t the only room on the second floor. The killer hadn’t necessarily needed to come directly into the bedroom. Maybe he’d come into the bathroom or another bedroom window.
I blew out a puff of air. “Maybe we ought to look at the other windows.”
I continued on to the front of the house. It would have been dark out when Sandra died, so theoretically, the killer could have come in through one of the windows above the porch. They’d have even had an easier time because of the porch roof.
I took out my phone and made notes to interview the neighbor across the street. The police should have already done so, but if they were sure Dean was their guy, they might have skipped a step. I also wrote down all the other items I’d been keeping on my mental list. I’d been spoiled working for my parents. I’d always been part of a team. On this case, anything I wanted done, I’d have to do myself. The police certainly weren’t going to help.
“The screens don’t come out,” Dean said.
I glanced up. “The screens don’t come out of what?”
“The windows on the front. It’s an old house, and the screens on the front windows are in a metal frame. He’d have had to cut the screens.”
And clearly the screens weren’t cut. The killer hadn’t gone in those windows, either.
We walked the rest of the house, though by the end, it felt like I shouldn’t have bothered. The windows in the bathroom were too small for anyone other than a child to climb through, and the windows on the back that were large enough were also painted shut.
“Old house,” Dean said with a shrug.
How he could be so nonchalant was beyond me. What we’d managed to prove was the killer had walked right past him and killed his wife while he was downstairs.
Or he was the killer after all.