MARIE CONFRONTED HER with a go-cup of coffee Monday morning.
“I stopped at Colombia and asked them what you usually get. I just came from there. You always come in about this time, so this should still be hot.”
Julia blinked at the brightness of Marie’s smile and accepted the offering in a swirl of wonderment, apprehension, and—at first sip—gratitude. She’d mentally put Colombia off-limits until she was done paying for the security cameras.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she finally managed.
Marie cleared her throat, then withdrew a sheet of paper from her briefcase and lay it with a flourish on Julia’s desk.
It was a spreadsheet with a list of names with check marks, email addresses and phone numbers, dates—all within the last four days—and times beside them, and a final notation, yes or no.
Julia studied it. She recognized some of the names—people around town, a couple of courthouse clerks. Legislators. Cops. Claudette. A couple dozen names in all. But she couldn’t figure out an overall theme, and the check marks, times, and dates made no sense at all.
“What is this?”
“Everyone I contacted about Leslie Harper and her committee. I tried to call or meet in person with everyone who had any contact with her on a regular basis.”
Julia blinked. “But what does”—she chose a name at random—“Ginny Stevens have to do with it?”
“She and Harper were in the same book group. Along with Claudette Green, the prosecutor. Interesting, huh?”
“I wouldn’t read too much into that. They’ve been friends for years.”
Marie’s laugh had an edge of hysteria. “Read—that’s funny!”
Julia scanned the list again, paying particular attention to the times, and wondered if Marie had gotten any sleep at all over the weekend. Exhaustion smudged the skin beneath her eyes, battling the pride in her gaze.
“Impressive.” Julia spoke carefully. The spreadsheet, for all its perfunctory categories, was devoid of detail. “How many of these people did you actually reach?”
“All of them. Even though not everyone—like Claudette Green, for one—would talk with me. It took me through the weekend.”
“So I see.” Julia ran her finger down the list. She tossed her another compliment. “Nice work. But what did you find out?”
Marie practically bounced in her chair. Julia wondered if she’d availed herself of coffee too, maybe something with a quad shot, before she bought Julia’s latte.
“The committee? For all practical purposes, it’s as dead as Leslie Harper. Sorry, that was rude.”
“So?” Julia pretended indifference, despite a prickle along her spine. Committees came and went.
“She pushed for the committee last fall when the Democrats were still in the majority. But then we elected a Republican governor, who thinks law enforcement of all stripes walk on water. Anything that committee came up with would have been a wasted effort. But Harper wouldn’t drop it. Now that she’s gone, they’ll probably just go through the motions and come up with some weak-ass bill they know will get vetoed. But even before she died, I heard on the down-low there was some pretty strenuous pushback.”
Julia wondered whether Marie would ever abandon her love of jargon. “You didn’t hear a name mentioned, did you? Because I heard”—she resisted saying on the down-low—“that Deputy Hayes was no fan of that committee.”
Marie shot a glance toward the door, as though to check for hovering multitudes, and whispered, “I heard the same thing.”
They looked at each other.
“It might not mean anything,” Julia said finally. She sipped at a latte gone cold, hoping for a final jolt of caffeine that would trigger her synapses into a connection that made sense.
“Why would she object to a committee set up to see if the state needs a board to oversee the sheriff’s departments?” Marie, gaming it out, just like she’d been taught in law school. Asking the obvious, which demanded the obvious answer.
“A board designed to crack down on corruption in the departments.” Julia’s hand went to her mouth. She thought of something Claudette had said. “I guess there were some allegations about our department.”
Our as in the Peak County Sheriff’s Office.
“What’s the matter?”
Julia shook her head. “Coffee just went down wrong.” She looked at the clock. “Shoot. I’m late for a meeting with … somebody.” She hoped Marie hadn’t noticed the hesitation when she failed to quickly embellish the lie with a name. “Thanks again for all your work. Truly.”
“Where do we go next with this?” Marie called as she headed for the door.
“I’ll let you know.” She fled to the ladies’ room, for the first time grateful for its single stall and a lock, which she turned behind her. She pressed her back to the wall and sank to the floor, repeating to herself in a hoarse whisper, “It’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing.”
Which might be true.
Just as it might be true that Mack Coates’s appearance in the very tea shop where Hayes had been taking her lunch break meant nothing.
But if someone had wanted to shut down Harper’s committee—wanted to shut it down badly enough to kill Leslie Harper and make it look like an accident—then Marie’s little fishing expedition had just let everyone on her list know that Julia was looking into the matter.
A list that possibly included the person who’d stood in her back yard on a dark night and made a telephone call, who’d returned in daylight and peed a message into the snow.