Fenway nodded. “This is good. It means her memory is coming back. Maybe she’ll remember more about last night.”
Dez set her mouth in a line. “It’s not great. She sees you, she might think we’re setting her up.”
Fenway tilted her head. “You say that as if you think she’s innocent.”
Dez frowned. “Fine—she sees you, then she’ll think she can get her attorney to say this was all a setup. You share an Uber, you sit next to her at the bar, and the next morning, there’s a dead body in the hotel suite where she wakes up and says she remembers nothing.”
Fenway stared at the floor. The cheap laminate tiles were a low-quality out-of-date design intended to look like marble. “It’s fine. I don’t need to be part of the interrogation.” She looked back up at Dez. “What does she remember?”
Dez flipped pages in her notebook. “After she was here a couple of hours, she suddenly remembered getting the Uber.” Dez flipped a page. “She reported getting in the car with a light-skinned Black woman around thirty years of age with short hair.”
“Hey, that’s me,” Fenway said playfully, then grew serious. “What about the restaurant? Does she remember what she and Annabel fought about?”
“I’m focusing on the hotel,” Dez said, “not the restaurant. After Levinson coerced her into sex in the living room, she remembers walking into the bedroom, but that’s it. Vaguely remembers sex in the bed later. Maybe she passed out and was unconscious even when the killer came in and beat Levinson to death. And when the killer cleaned up, too.”
“You think she’s innocent.”
Dez hesitated. “I have a couple of scenarios in my head, and in both of them, Maggie is the one with the golf club in her hand, but it doesn’t all fit.” She shook her head. “Why stay in the hotel room? And where did the towels go?”
“We thought maybe Annabel took them.”
Dez nodded. “Right. In one of my scenarios, Maggie hits him over the head—maybe she doesn’t mean to kill him, but he’s dead on the floor in front of her. She panics, calls the only person on the team she trusts. Annabel comes up with a plan, cleans up just enough to make it look like someone else could have done it. Then she took the towels and used the stairs to get rid of them.”
“But that’s not what Annabel says.”
“You interviewed her already?”
“I sent you a message—Deputy Huke and I went to Nidever this afternoon.”
Dez pulled out her phone, tapped on the screen, and nodded. “Right. Sorry, I was in the interrogation room with Maggie.”
“Then let me catch you up,” Fenway said. She gave Dez an overview of all the coach and player interviews, including the conversations with Coach Sunday and Annabel Shedd, then told her about Annabel’s AFF complaint that Levinson had victimized her ten years before.
Dez rubbed her chin. “Even if what Annabel says is true, that gets us possible motive, but we’re still light on evidence. Remember, we’re missing two towels with no theory about where they went.”
“Sarah thinks they could be in someone’s suitcase, or maybe a hotel staff member with a bone to pick with Levinson threw them somewhere we haven’t looked yet.” Fenway snapped her fingers. “The Toyota Corolla that the team uses. Someone might have stashed the towels in the car. I know it’s one of a zillion possibilities, but one we should explore.”
“I hate it when hours of hard work give you more questions than answers.” Dez pressed her lips together. “What else?”
Fenway thought for a moment. “His wife,” she said. “He’s cheating on her. Maybe she thinks it’s just cheating and not sexual assault, but when she finds out—”
“The widow Levinson,” Dez said, “still lives in New York. She didn’t make the move out to Vegas with her husband. She was at dinner with three friends last night. Confirmed it with all three friends and a few members of the waitstaff at the restaurant.”
“Professional hit?”
“We’re looking into the wife’s financials, but I spoke with her. She doesn’t seem to care enough to have done it. Her family is wealthy. Seems to me the marriage may have run its course—they live separate lives.”
“Okay,” Fenway said. “Then that keeps the suspect list local.”
“Have you seen the report Shedd filed?” Dez asked.
“Not yet. We’ll need a subpoena if we want to see it. I think we can get it—it’ll go toward establishing motive.”
“Hold on,” Dez said. “Sandra Christchurch didn’t say anything in her interview with you about Annabel coming to her room. You believe Annabel over the owner of the Neons?”
“Christchurch gave me evasive answers when I asked about what time she went to bed,” Fenway said. “I suspect she purposely didn’t tell me that Annabel showed up at her room.”
“Why would she do that?”
Fenway was silent.
Dez nodded. “So—my theory is that Annabel and Maggie worked together to cover up the murder of Coach Levinson. If Christchurch can’t vouch for Annabel’s whereabouts, then maybe my theory needs to stay on the table.”
“That’s the problem,” Fenway said. “Too many people had means and opportunity.”
“And now I get to ask about McVie’s investigation.” Dez crossed her arms. “You said McVie’s client is Annabel’s wife. She’s the CEO of a big Vegas-based entertainment company, right?”
“Mathilda Montague—she thinks Annabel is cheating on her with Maggie.”
“And you were following the two of them to Maxime’s when they had dinner last night.” Dez leaned on the table next to the one-way mirror. “How did you end up sharing an Uber with Maggie?”
“Uh—Annabel and Maggie fought. Annabel says she was trying to warn Maggie not to trust Coach Levinson, but Maggie got upset and stormed out. I ran out after her and made up a story about staying at the same hotel and needing a ride.” Fenway closed her eyes and remembered the hallway at Maxime’s in front of the women’s restroom. “‘I swear, if you don’t do something about Maggie and that monster, I will.’”
“What was that?”
“Annabel said it into her cell phone.” Fenway paused. “She says that Christchurch was on the phone with her. That’s another reason why Annabel needs to stay in the suspect column.”
Dez squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. “We might need to talk with McVie. Or with his client.”
“How is McVie’s investigation relevant? It’s about whether Annabel and Maggie are having an affair, not if Maggie is one of Paul Levinson’s sexual coercion victims.”
Dez dropped her arms to her sides. “Let’s take a what-if scenario. Let’s say that Annabel tells her wife that she was raped—or sexually coerced, however she might have phrased it—ten years ago. Mathilda Montague wants to find out who it was so she can hurt the perpetrator, but Annabel won’t tell her. So Montague hires McVie under false pretenses. Let’s say she knows it’s ten years ago, so she suspects it has something to do with the soccer team she was on back then.”
“So—wait, you’re saying Montague never thought her wife was having an affair?”
“It’s a good cover story when she hires McVie. And further, let’s say she knows McVie is good at what he does.”
“Why set us up with the expectation that Annabel and Maggie are sleeping together? They’re clearly not.”
“Did McVie tell his client they weren’t having an affair?”
“Yes.”
“And what was Mathilda Montague’s response?”
Fenway felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “She told him to keep digging.”
“So where do you expect he’ll dig? Maybe into her previous relationships?”
“Uh—yeah.”
“Piper still works for McVie, right?”
“Yes.”
“She’ll find Shedd’s AFF complaint in about twenty seconds.”
Fenway nodded—especially since she’d led McVie right to it.
“What if Mathilda Montague knew about the sexual coercion? One of her other investigators could have found that AFF complaint. Now Mathilda Montague knows Paul Levinson, her current coach, sexually coerced her. Raped her. Now she has motive as well as means: access to private planes, fancy cars—she could have hired someone to kill Paul Levinson.” Dez spread her hands out. “Now do you think McVie’s case is still irrelevant?”
“Then why hire McVie? He hadn’t found out about the AFF complaint before Levinson was killed.”
“To throw us off the scent. You have a better explanation?”
“Jealous. Control freak. Wants a reason to divorce. Any number of things that make a lot more sense than hiring a P.I. in an elaborate ruse to kill her wife’s soccer coach.”
Dez scratched her eyebrow.
“Occam’s Razor, Dez. That’s the far more likely possibility.”
“We can’t rule it out. Montague probably has other investigators who might have uncovered Annabel’s complaint already.”
“We go where the evidence goes.” Fenway set her jaw. “But let’s cover our bases. When you’re done with Maggie’s interview, see if any of Mathilda Montague’s planes landed at—or took off from—the Estancia airport in the last three days. I don’t know if we can find any large payments from Mathilda Montague’s personal accounts, but I’ll see what we can do.”
Dez looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “Piper might be able to find things we can’t. Especially if Montague has paid McVie electronically. Account numbers, transaction numbers—”
“We wouldn’t be able to use any of that in court. Fruit from the forbidden tree and all that.”
“Ah, but you’re focusing on the wrong tree. We find out there are suspicious payments being made, then we use legal means to get information about—or from—Montague’s other private investigators. If those payments come to light through those efforts, we’ll be able to use that evidence.”
It wasn’t the intent of the system, but Fenway had read enough case law to know Dez was right. “Then I’ll call Craig and see what Piper can find. But first, I’ll type up my notes and get them over to you.” Fenway motioned with her head toward Maggie. “And what do we do with Maggie? Hold her overnight?”
Dez frowned. “No blood on her. No fingerprints on the murder weapon. The clock started when she arrived this morning. Forty-eight hours, then we have to let her go. And every rock we turn over seems to point at everyone besides her.” Dez shook her head. “I’m inclined to release her.”
Fenway took a deep breath and gathered herself. “I agree. She didn’t understand he was manipulating her. Thursday night, she got into a fight with Annabel because she was still defending him. She may realize he coerced her into a sexual relationship now, but not Thursday night, and certainly not when she was drunk.”
“Sometimes drunkenness can provide a unique clarity.”
“The clarity usually comes after the drunkenness.” Fenway shrugged. “She doesn’t seem like a flight risk to me. She’s worried about her career—and that’s especially true now that Levinson is gone. I’d bet a hundred bucks she’ll go back to the hotel and show up at practice tomorrow.”
“If she’s guilty, she’s a flight risk.”
“I’ll sign off on the release if you’re worried about it. I’m headed back to my office to get my notes in the system.”
Dez nodded and Fenway left the observation room.
As Fenway walked across the street to her building, the rain fell harder.
She took her phone out of her purse and looked at the time. Her stomach rumbled. It was already three thirty, although the dark afternoon made it seem like the early evening. And she had missed lunch.
She walked back into the coroner’s suite, saying hello to both Sarah and Migs, and went into her office and shut the door. She searched through her drawers until she found an old granola bar, then tore it open and ate greedily, barely tasting it on its way down.
She typed up her notes and sent them to Dez, then went through her email and took care of some paperwork.
Not enough evidence to charge either Maggie or Annabel with murder. Maybe Dez was onto something. Even if Mathilda Montague wasn’t involved in Levinson’s murder, digging into her financials and travel might uncover something important.
Fenway pulled her phone out and texted McVie.
Can you talk?
She hit send, and less than twenty seconds later, her phone rang.
“Hi, Craig.”
“Hi, Fenway.”
She sighed heavily. “Sorry about earlier. I was—” She blinked and saw a flash of her Russian Lit professor’s carpet. “I was juggling a bunch of things at once.”
“I get it.”
Then it hit her. She’d never told McVie about what happened to her in that professor’s office ten years before. Her father knew—he’d been accused of the professor’s murder, after all—and Dez knew. But McVie didn’t know.
That might not be entirely true. McVie could have pieced things together—he was good at that.
Was Fenway putting a barrier between them because she hadn’t told him?
She drew in her breath sharply.
“You okay?”
“I might need your help on the murder case. Or Piper’s help.”
McVie was silent for a moment. “I thought you were going to keep my client out of this.”
“We have a—uh, possible theory that we need to explore.”
McVie was silent.
“Montague said to keep digging, right?”
“Yes.”
“It’s possible that Montague had an ulterior motive for that.”
“What do you mean?”
Fenway clicked her tongue in thought. “I guess I can’t tell you. But I need to know if any large payments have been made from Mathilda Montague’s personal accounts to individuals. Or any of her shell corporations.”
McVie paused. “That’s the kind of thing we’d focus on if we suspected she’d paid a hit man.”
Fenway licked her lips, choosing her words carefully. “I suppose it is.”
McVie sighed. “I can put Piper on it, but without a warrant—”
“Thanks, Craig,” Fenway said quickly.
“I have an obligation to protect my clients. To give them the information they need to make better decisions.”
“Like Annabel’s complaint?”
“Yes, you were right—Piper found the complaint Annabel lodged with the AFF Board of Governors really fast.” He hesitated. “Does this have something to do with—”
“I can’t say any more, Craig.” She paused. “Did you talk with Megan yet? Is dinner off?”
“She’s coming by the apartment in about an hour. Won’t tell me what she wants to talk about.”
“Oh—when you said she wanted to talk earlier, I thought you just meant a phone call. Do you think it’s something serious?”
“I’m trying not to obsess about it,” McVie said. “Anything else?”
“When do you think Piper can get the information about Montague?”
“Piper might have found the AFF complaint in record time, but she needs a few hours to review it.” A beep. “Speak of the devil. That’s her on the other line. Gotta go.”
Fenway ended the call, then took care of a few outstanding items in her email. She signed some more paperwork Sarah had left on her desk.
Then she opened her web browser and typed in the address for the Las Vegas Neons website. The news feed in the left column featured headlines:
Neons fire head coach Levinson for cause
New faces at training camp
What Levinson’s departure means for Neons’ season
Nothing about Levinson dying. No good way to spin his death, Fenway guessed. She clicked her monitor off. She packed up her laptop, picked up her purse, and walked out of the office, saying goodbye to Sarah and Migs as she went.
The rain had turned heavier. Fenway wished she had an umbrella, but it was only about a hundred yards between the office building and the parking garage. She looked up and down the street. About two blocks down, in front of the sheriff’s office, a cruiser was parked up on the sidewalk, its lights flashing. Odd.
If it hadn’t been raining, she might have been able to see what had happened, but with the streetlights reflecting off the wet asphalt, she couldn’t make much out.
Her clothes were only a little wet when she stepped under the protection of the parking garage’s overhang. Walking up to her Accord, she took the key fob out of her pocket and pressed the unlock button. The car chirped its greeting—
And Fenway heard a small shriek.
“What the hell?”
A head popped up on the passenger side of the car between the Accord and the Jeep parked next to it.
“Maggie?” Fenway said incredulously.
“Help,” Maggie whispered. “Someone’s trying to kill me.”