AT MARIE’S INSISTENCE, they split up.
“It only makes sense. We don’t want to be out here any longer than we have to,” she said as they walked together toward the creek.
“Point taken.” Julia cast a glance toward the liquor store, wondering if she should buy another couple of pints, but decided against it. Now more than ever, they couldn’t afford the slightest appearance of trying to influence people.
“You go east. I’ll go west.”
She headed down the creekside trail without another word, placing her feet carefully, wary of the sheets of ice that lurked beneath fresh snow, waiting to send the unwary skidding into a bone-shattering fall. Given the cold, she doubted they’d find anyone at all. Duck Creek’s homeless citizens had likely scattered to their daytime haunts—the large public rooms in the library, a coffee shop known to dispense free java to those who had the good sense to keep quiet and not disturb the paying customers, a day shelter run by a nonprofit group. But the last, much like the town’s official homeless shelter, refused admittance to anyone drunk or high, which left a significant portion of Duck Creek’s transient population literally out in the cold.
She passed a few blackened oil drums, cold and unused, and even a fire ring deep within the inadequate shelter of the willows, along with a couple of makeshift lean-tos. Once she started looking, signs of habitation—a bedroll here, a couple of empty pint bottles there—abounded everywhere that offered the slightest protection from the wind and snow. She approached one of the bridges that arced over the creek. And there, huddled against the abutment, a veritable solid, dry palace compared to the pathetic spots she’d seen, three people surrounded the barest flicker of orange.
They turned as one, wary, defensive. A tall, skeletal man spoke up.
“It’s okay. She’s not a cop. This here’s Ray’s lawyer. Remember?”
Julia nodded confirmation to Ichabod Crane and his little red-sneakered sidekick, along with a woman wearing a man’s Stormy Kromer cap pulled so low on her forehead that the bill shaded her features. Julia wondered if she’d snatched it from the head of a solid citizen. The unlovely but gratifyingly warm wool baseball-style caps, named for a long-ago ballplayer, had earflaps that could be fastened under the chin and were ubiquitous in this part of the world. But they weren’t cheap.
Julia looked at the flames, which offered only a suggestion of heat. “That’s not much of a fire.”
“We don’t dare do more,” the woman said. “Cops’ll come. Or the sheriff. That one deputy, he’s a real bastard. Most of them, when it gets this cold, they give us a break. But not that asshole.”
Miss Mae had looked like a schoolmarm. This woman looked like exactly what she was, someone who lived hard and had been used even harder by life. Julia, slight as she was, felt fat and soft by comparison. The woman’s deeply grooved cheeks were sunken, her eyes hollow, her teeth nonexistent.
“Angie, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Which deputy?”
“That big guy.”
That could be any of them. Duck Creek’s firefighters, an impressively lean and fit crew who bragged about their feats in the region’s marathons and triathlons, poked fun at the noticeably pudgier cops and sheriff’s deputies, who in return disparaged the firefighters for having jobs that gave them plenty of time to work out.
A gust of wind found its way around the abutment, threatening to vanquish the feeble blaze. The group drew close, protecting it. Julia didn’t want to be out there a moment longer than she had to.
“I’m here about Ray again. He’s really in trouble now.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” The little guy. For someone who looked like such an easy target, he had a mouth on him.
“I heard he came back down here as soon as they let him out.”
“Like a bee to honey.”
Julia winced at the woman’s gummy grin. Had Ray come to see her? She considered Ray’s options when it came to female companionship and thought—maybe. Probably.
“Who’d he talk to? What’d he say? Was Miss Mae here?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Ichabod looked at her empty hands, clearly hoping for a repeat showing of a bottle.
Julia shook her head. “I wish I could. But all I need is a prosecutor coming at me, saying I bribed you all to tell me what I need to hear to protect Ray.”
The woman nodded. “Good on you. Ray needs all the protecting he can get. Because he ain’t killed nobody.”
“You don’t know that.” The troublemaker again, Little Guy.
“It’s what I’m trying to find out,” Julia said, stepping between them as the woman’s face darkened. “You told me he and Billy had fought the night Billy was killed. What about Miss Mae? Was she here the night he got out of jail? Were you here too?”
“We all were.” The others nodded agreement. “It was a party, Ray being out of jail again and all. But he wasn’t in a party mood.”
“What do you mean?” Julia’s fingers, despite her thin glove liners encased in unwieldy mittens, began to ache. She dreaded the thought of freeing them in order to take notes.
“He was like you were, asking all those questions about Billy,” Ichabod said. “Wanted to know where Billy went after they got crosswise. Like, did Billy talk to anyone else?”
“Wait.” Cold be damned, Julia shed her gloves and mittens and pulled out her notebook and pencil. “You mean Billy left after they argued?”
Heads bobbed. “Stomped off calling Ray all kinds of names. That was the last any of us saw him.”
Julia’s pencil paused in midair. “Did you tell the cops that?”
“Told that lady sheriff.”
“Then why did they charge him?”
As though they would know.
They tossed the question right back to her.
“You tell us. You’re the smart lawyer.”
“I have no idea, but I aim to find out.” She held her fingers to her lips and breathed inadequate warmth on them. “Did you tell the police all of this?”
“Oh, I told ’em,” Angie said. “Didn’t matter a damn. Once they make up their minds about things, that’s that.”
“What about the other night, after he got out of jail again? Did he and Miss Mae get into a fight too?”
Ichabod pulled a crumpled fast-food bag from a pocket and fed it to the fire, which flared without an appreciable increase in heat. “Naw. Kind of the deal as before. He and Miss Mae went off a ways and talked, sure, but it wasn’t any kind of a fight. He went with Angie right after that.”
Angie ducked her head. Julia could have sworn she blushed, a girlishness that softened her features. When she looked up, her eyes were wet. “And Miss Mae left right after they talked.”
“Where’d she go?”
The three exchanged glances, shrugging. “Miss Mae, she goes her own way. Kind of a loner. Stays with us long enough to have a few beers and then splits. Says she’s got secret places all over town where nobody can bother her.”
“Did you tell the cops that too?”
Curses littered their affirmatives.
“Thing is,” said Angie, “nobody can prove it. Ray and I broke into a car like we always do when it gets this cold and spent the night there. It’s warmer than you’d think. I’ve scored some primo sleeping bags.” Julia, glancing again at her primo hat, didn’t ask how. “But nobody else saw us. I mean, that was the whole idea. Last thing we wanted was to get caught, so now it’s just my word and Ray’s, and guess how much they believe anything we say?”
Julia could no longer feel her fingers. “I’d like to get your names, please. And, uh, any contact information, in case I need to call any of you as witnesses.”
She had little hope of the latter, but to her surprise, they all had Tracfones.
“To check in with family,” said Ichabod, who’d given his name as Johnny Harrow. He registered her look of surprise. “Think we don’t have anybody out there who cares about us?”
Little Guy—Craig Thompson—stepped forward, taking up the challenge.
“You think you’re so different than us. What if you lost your job tomorrow? Had a taste for drink, or pills? Used up all your family’s patience? It happens like that.” He snapped his fingers.
She jumped.
“Of course, of course,” she mumbled. “Thank you for talking with me.”
She fled, shoving her hands deep in her pockets in a futile attempt at restoring something approximating warmth, nearly running into Marie as she barreled head down along the path.
“Hey.” Marie fell in beside her, both of them quick-stepping back toward the office, a route that seemed to have lengthened during the time in the cold.
Julia grabbed Marie’s arm and pulled her down a side street. “This way.” A sign beckoned: Colombia, her favorite coffee shop. “In here.”
She pushed open a door, into a space so warm and redolent of coffee and baked goods that she nearly wept.
She spotted a single empty table. “Why don’t you go ahead and take that before someone else comes in out of the cold. I’ll order. What do you usually drink? Cappuccino? Just black?”
“I don’t.” Marie’s glasses had fogged up, underscoring her blank expression. “I can’t afford things like fancy coffee.”
But you can afford a fancy gun, Julia thought.
“You can today,” she said. “It’s on me.” After all, Marie had spent just as much time in the cold as she, in a skirt, no less.
“In that case.” Marie took off her fogged glasses, rubbed her gloved fingers across them, and put them back on, revealing a mischievous glint. “I’ll take whatever’s most expensive.”
Julia returned with her own latte, along with a mug of hot chocolate heaped high with whipped cream and dusted with sparkly green mint sprinkles. “I took a guess.”
Marie wrapped her fingers eagerly around the mug. “I actually don’t care what it is, as long as it’s hot.”
“Same. But drink it anyway. You’ll warm up even faster.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, wincing as sensation returned to frozen digits.
“I can’t even get to the hot chocolate through all this whipped cream,” Marie managed, slurping through it with great concentration. “Ahh,” she said a second later. “I think I can feel my feet again.”
So could Julia, and it was agony. “Those people. Out there all the time.”
She didn’t have to explain.
“I know.” Marie ran her finger around the inside of her mug, capturing a lingering smear of whipped cream. “How long were we out there? A half hour? Forty-five minutes?”
Julia watched with interest. Their prolonged—albeit relatively brief—sojourn in the cold had wreaked havoc on Marie’s cultivated smugness. Confusion crept across her features, and something else. Doubt?
Julia remembered the first time a case had knocked her sideways, forcing her to readjust long-held certainties. In the long run, it had made her a better, more compassionate lawyer. In the short run, she’d been a mess.
“How’d it go?”
Marie shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you find anyone?”
Marie held up her mug. “May I have another one of these?” Her voice was small.
The expense would be worth it, Julia thought, as she handed the barista her debit card, if the second cocoa loosened Marie’s tongue. She brought it back to the table, along with another latte for herself, and waited while Marie worked her way again through the whipped cream.
“I found people,” Marie said finally. “Only a couple. And they didn’t see anything directly, so for our purposes they’re basically useless.”
She looked up at Julia, who nodded confirmation and nudged Marie for more. “Sometimes what they say can point us in the right direction.”
“Right. Well.” Marie held the warm mug against her cheek. “Oh, that feels nice. They said they’d heard stuff.”
“What sort of stuff?”
“They said …” Marie swallowed. “They said that Ray stormed off after he and Billy argued. That the other times they saw him, he was running with some woman, not Miss Mae.”
“Angie.”
“That’s it. I got their names, anyway.”
“Good. You earned those hot chocolates, Marie.”
Julia’s words were as grudging as the half smile Marie offered in return.
“But.” The young woman’s features were in motion, the doubt returning stronger than ever despite her obvious attempts to vanquish it. “I don’t understand.”
Julia thought she knew what Marie was getting at but wanted to be sure. “What don’t you understand?”
“The affidavit in Mr. Williams’ case. It didn’t say anything about that. About Ray leaving.”
Julia played devil’s advocate. “Maybe he came back.”
“But.” Marie pushed her mug away with a sudden, sharp motion, nearly upending it. “What if he didn’t?”
“Exactly.” Julia smiled grimly. “That’s what you and I are going to figure out.”