Vincent Slater was convinced that Gary Barr had stolen Peter’s dress shirt from Elaine Carrington’s house. For a week he had mulled over in his mind the best way to get it back.
The need to recover the shirt had been made even more acute by a call late one evening from Conner Banks, urging him to try to convince Peter to allow his legal team to change the strategy of his defense.
“Vincent,” Banks said, “we are more and more convinced that we would have a good chance of a hung jury, and maybe even a shot at an acquittal, if our defense is based on reasonable doubt. An acquittal means that Peter comes home for good. A hung jury means we can argue strenuously for bail, and Peter would probably get to spend at least some time with his child before a second trial. If we got another hung jury at a second trial, the prosecutor would probably give up and drop the charges.”
“What would happen if Peter’s formal shirt turned up and it had Susan’s blood on it?” Slater asked.
“What’s going on here? Kay Carrington asked me that same question.” There was a long silence; then Conner Banks said quietly, “As I told Kay, if that shirt turns up with Susan’s blood on it, Peter had better be willing to plea-bargain.”
“I see.” It was nine o’clock, not too late to phone Kay, Slater decided. When she answered, she told him she had just driven her grandmother home.
“Kay, my bet is that Gary Barr stole the shirt,” he said. “We’ve got to get it back. There’s a set of master keys in a drawer in the kitchen. The gatehouse key is on it. I’ll stop by for it at seven thirty, before Jane comes in. Then, I’ll phone you at nine as though I’m in New York and ask you to send Gary into the city to help bring some of Peter’s private papers home. I’ll make sure my people there keep him busy for a while. You just make sure Jane doesn’t go home early.”
“Vince, I don’t know what to think about this.”
“I do. I’m not going to leave that shirt in Gary Barr’s hands. Let’s just pray that he’s got it hidden somewhere in the gatehouse or in his SUV. That’s something else: I’ll tell him that one of our executives may be coming back with him to visit you, so he must be driving one of the family cars.”
“As I say, at this point, I don’t know what to think, but I’ll go along with you,” Kay said. “Vince, I might as well tell you, I have an appointment with Nicholas Greco, the investigator. He’s coming here at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
Vincent Slater then said something he would never have dreamed he could say to his employer’s wife: “The more fool you, Kay. I thought you loved your husband!”