Chapter

Detective Jim Wadsworth studied his case notes. The case against Stacy McBride seemed solid: means, motive, opportunity, all there. She had no alibi, or even a reasonable alternative explanation behind what she’d been up to with Barkley, other than what he and everyone else suspected: they were having an affair. Cheating.

Except that it didn’t quite add up. Not yet.

First, he hadn’t found any corroborating evidence of the affair. No love notes, no gifts, no stash of contraceptives in Jared’s glove box. Nor did they find anything of the sort at Stacy McBride’s place. In fact, what they’d found fit her version of events—a purely platonic friendship—better than the “affair” version.

Second, McBride’s motive paled compared to a lot of other people’s. Lehigh Carter, for example. He had a strong jealousy motive, and no alibi. Nothing he could confirm, anyhow. Plus he’d gotten into some scrapes lately, both the legal kind and the fisticuffs kind. He’d shown he had the potential for violence in him.

Paul van Paten had even stronger motives: jealousy, revenge, ambition. But his alibi checked out. He’d checked into a vacation rental in Rockaway Beach, Oregon, the Friday before the murder, and checked out on Sunday morning. Because he was still under indictment, he’d checked in as required with the Tillamook County’s sheriff’s office upon his arrival, and they verified his BMW had been parked outside the house the entire weekend. Witnesses confirmed he’d been playing poker with them all weekend. Not the most reliable of witnesses—the sleazy James Thornburgh, the mouth-breathing Neil Brockton, and another crony or two—but their accounts lined up.

Then there was the gun found in Stacy’s bedroom. Could she really be that dumb? More disturbing, nobody could figure out where it had come from. Why would Stacy McBride go through all the trouble of buying it on the black market, then kill Jared Barkley with it, and not get rid of it? What kind of fool would stash a murder weapon in her bedroom? Stacy McBride was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

No, he was missing something. Maybe the whole cheating thing had blinded him. Maybe he needed to broaden his search a little bit.

He picked up the phone and called the file clerk on the other side of the building. “Bring me all of Jared Barkley’s case files for the past two years,” he said. “Yes, I said all of them.”

***

Stacy tugged at the starched blue cotton pinching her armpits. She’d always imagined that the jumpsuits provided to county prisoners would at least be comfortable, even loose fitting. Maybe they got the size wrong.

She waited for Constantine Richards to settle his long, hefty frame into the undersized folding chair on the other side of the rickety table between them. She wished they could close the door, but the guards insisted that leaving it open was “procedure,” and Richards didn’t argue, so neither did she. How they could keep their conversation private, she had no idea.

“Let’s start with a candid assessment of where we are, shall we?” Richards said. He fidgeted with his glasses, wriggled in his chair, and drew out a report of some kind, a few pages stapled together with the county logo across the top.

“How about we start with what your rates are?” Stacy said. “Don’t I have to sign a contract or something?”

Richards removed his glasses and smiled. “That’s been taken care of.”

Stacy smiled. That man! “Mr. Richards, I should let you know that Lehigh and I haven’t yet merged our legal or financial affairs, and I—”

“It wasn’t Mr. Carter.” He let his gaze rest on her for several seconds. “As you know, I am a longtime acquaintance of your father’s, and—”

“My father? Impossible. He’s broke, or so he claims whenever the subject of my wedding reception comes up.”

Constantine cocked his head, and his expression grew curious. “Should I be investigating the senator’s credit before attempting to cash his checks?”

Stacy leaned across the table, eyes ablaze. “No. You should tear up his checks. I’m paying for my own defense, and that’s not negotiable.”

Richards bit his lip, nodded once. “Very well.” He opened his briefcase and set a form in front of her, with blanks filled out in his elegant handwriting. “I anticipated you might feel this way. Please look this over and sign…there.” He handed her a pen and pointed with a long, manicured finger at the signature block. Stacy scanned the terms, gulped, and signed. Just the initial retainer would wipe out her savings, but she could refinance the house and maybe the veterinary clinic to cover the rest.

Richards studied the county form. “You’re charged with first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon, assault of a police officer, conspiracy to conceal evidence—”

“And what else? Jaywalking? Terrorism? What other crap did they trump up?” Stacy pushed away from the rickety table. For a moment it teetered, but Richards steadied it.

“The addition of lesser charges is not unusual in cases like these,” Richards said. “If they fail to convict on the most serious charge, it gives them—and the jury—alternatives. The only surprise to me is the conspiracy to conceal, particularly since you have no codefendant.”

“They’re going after Lehigh.” The words escaped her before the conscious thought finished forming in her mind.

“Not necessarily. Conspiracy usually involves a willing accomplice, but doesn’t require it—only a clear intention on your part. The prosecution is required to disclose all material evidence to support their charges, so we’ll know the source of this in a few days. What can you tell me about it?” Richards spread his leather portfolio open on the table and readied a pen above the yellow legal-sized pad within.

“Nothing. I have no evidence to suppress because I didn’t do anything!” In her excitement, Stacy bumped the table and nearly knocked it over.

“You’ve cooperated with all warrants, subpoenas, and information requests?”

“I did what you told me.” She crossed her arms, but that stretched the fabric too tight under her armpits, so she uncrossed them.

“Very well. Let’s walk through some of your records, shall we?” He opened an envelope and unfolded a sheet of paper: her itemized cell phone bill, with a record of all calls.

Stacy paled. “We’re going to look through all of my mail now?”

Richards continued to scan the sheet. “I’m afraid so. We have to counter their data with better data. Their case against you is largely circumstantial—who you were with, where you’ve been. Most murder cases are. There are almost never eyewitnesses.”

“Great,” Stacy said. “You’re really cheering me up here.”

“My apologies if this upsets you. Would you rather we not review it now?” Richards spoke in a slow monotone, but somehow it sounded disapproving.

“No, no. Let’s go ahead.” She recrossed her arms and ignored the pinching fabric. “What have they got?”

“First, of course, they have the weapon.” Richards fished out a photo of the gun the deputies had confiscated from her house and set it on top of his portfolio. “The ballistics report is not yet in, but the weapon does fire the same nine millimeter ammunition used to kill the victim. Whoever fired it, unfortunately, wiped it clean of any fingerprints.”

“I’d never seen that gun before they ‘found’ it in my house. I’ve never even shot a pistol. Rifles, yes, but—”

“An important point. But it was found in your bedroom.”

“I have no idea how it got there.”

“No idea?” His bushy white eyebrows arched high on his forehead.

“I suppose I could come up with one, but—”

“Could Mr. Carter have put it there?”

Stacy harrumphed. “Not without telling me. Besides, he already has a gun—a revolver of some kind. And a permit.”

Richards jotted down some notes and looked over his glasses at her. “That doesn’t preclude him getting another. Now, Miss McBride, do you lock your doors when you leave home?”

Stacy shrugged. “Usually. Ever since we got the dogs, we’ve been a little more lax. Especially Lehigh. He’s still getting used to living near people again.”

“But Mr. Carter was away that weekend—so far as we know.” Richards emphasized the last five words as if in doubt.

“Yes. So far as…no, I’m sure he was.”

“One hundred percent sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Richards nodded and a made another quick note on his legal pad. “Secondly, you were the last person seen with Mr. Barkley—just a few hours before his death.”

“I–we—” She swallowed hard. “Yes. I suppose so.”

“Third, you have no alibi for the time of death.”

She bit her lip. “I was at home, in bed.”

“Can anyone corroborate this?”

She swallowed harder. “No. As I said, Lehigh was away.”

“Fourth, the phone records, and now, statements from witnesses show a pattern of meetings prior to and leading up to the date of his death.”

Stacy’s ears and face grew warm. She knew she was flushing red—her fair skin never could hide stress. “We—Jared and I—met to discuss some things.”

“Some things?”

“Yes.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“It was all very innocent. Really. We’re just friends.”

Richards sighed. “So, how do you explain the motel charges on your credit card for that night?”

“We met there to discuss our...things. We did not spend the night.”

“So why meet at a motel?”

“We met first at Dot’s, but he had some things to show me, and he didn’t want to be seen in public doing that.”

“Why not?” Richards waited.

Stacy opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again, and thought for a moment. “Certain people would have...it could have gotten ugly.”

“Certain people, such as your fiancé?”

“I don’t have a fiancé anymore.”

Richards paused, his face grim. “Ms. McBride, verbal sparring with me does not help you. I am your advocate, not the enemy. I need you to be as forthcoming as possible.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

He waited. When no further explanation seemed forthcoming, he cleared his throat. “You can imagine how this would appear to the casual observer…and a jury.”

Stacy took a deep breath. As much as she hated to admit it, her attorney spoke the truth. And the truth looked bad. “I guess I need to explain that,” she said.

Richards inclined his head forward a notch, then righted it. “It would be helpful.”

“Jared came to me over a year ago, when I was seeing Paul van Paten.” She folded her hands into a worried knot. “He’d heard that we were getting kind of serious, and he warned me that Paul was…not the most ethical of men.”

“Did he come to you in his capacity as a law enforcement officer, or as a friend?” Richards focused his gaze on his notepad rather than on her. It helped.

“The latter. Actually, as more than that. Jared confessed that he’d had feelings for me for years—since we were teenagers. But he was a shy boy, and I was kind of popular, and—well, anyway, we went away to different colleges, I always had a boyfriend or husband or…oh, I don’t mean that the way it sounds.”

Richards waved it away. “You’re not in front of a jury.” He cleared his throat. “Yet.”

She swallowed the lump of concrete in her throat and worried her interlocked fingers a bit more. “I asked him if he could show proof of anything illegal. He said he couldn’t, so—”

“Couldn’t because he had none, or because an ongoing investigation prevented him from sharing?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t say. But I doubt the sheriff’s office was investigating. Buck thinks Paul’s the greatest thing since double stuffed Oreos.”

Richards smirked and jotted something on his notepad. “Go on.”

“I was rather firm with Jared. I loved Paul, and it felt to me like Jared was just bad mouthing him. I told him that was not the way to win my heart, if that’s what he was after. So he–he asked what would win me over.” She blinked moist tension out of her eyes. “He really was very sweet.”

“How did you respond?”

She smiled, a sad, weary expression. “I told him to bring me proof.”

“Did he?”

“Not right away. For a while, our meetings were purely social. But after I’d left Paul and gotten back with Lehigh, and the sheriff seemed hell-bent on convicting Lehigh for all the bad things Paul had done, Jared raised the subject with me again. This time, he had evidence.”

Richards frowned. “I was representing Mr. Carter then. I don’t recall either of you coming forward with any such evidence.”

Stacy’s face warmed. “Jared asked me not to share the information―even with Lehigh. He said if it got out, there...would be trouble. For us, and for Jared.” Her gaze dropped to the floor. “And, as it turns out, he was right.”

Richards’ eyebrows raised on his forehead. “I see. So…Jared, now…what exactly did he share with you? Any physical, tangible item that could help corroborate your story?”

“My story?” She gritted her teeth. Richards could be so exasperating. “He showed me things—documents, mostly—but I wasn’t able to make copies. I just read them.”

“And did he share anything confidential that you otherwise could not have discovered since? Something, again, that we could present to a jury?”

Stacy shrugged. “I’ll have to think about that. It seems that almost everything he told me came out to the public once Paul got arrested.”

“Yet you continued to meet with him until just before he died—long after Mr. van Paten’s arrest. Why?”

“He was still investigating. He thought—he knew, as it turned out—that Paul’s arrest wouldn’t end the threats. Paul’s connections and his ruthlessness meant that, even in jail, he remained a threat.”

“To you?”

She nodded. “To me, to him, and especially, to Lehigh. These people, Mr. Richards—Paul and his friends—they won’t be satisfied with putting Lehigh and me in jail. Paul is so jealous and so vindictive...the only thing that will satisfy him is to see both of us dead.”