“This one’s on you,” Jacque said, “but I need you to commit.”
I looked at her. I hadn’t even taken my bag off my shoulder yet, but Jacque caught me when I got to the office door. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’ve got some questions to answer, and your name is the one on the door.”
“All right.”
I gestured toward my office and Jacque followed along.
“Questions,” I said. “How many are you looking at?”
“More than one.” She sat down and pulled out her phone. I wondered if I was ever going to get used to this kind of work. “First, how did this woman get this drunk? You know I enjoy a night out with the ladies when I need one, but don’t for a second believe I’ve been stumbly, stuttery drunk. Let alone fall in the pool drunk. Maybe she slipped. Maybe she hit her head. But two maybes in a row makes me wonder.”
I nodded. It wasn’t exactly Sherlock Holmes’ logic, but it held water.
“Second, even if she was that drunk, why so early? Or, I guess, so late? We’ll have to check the coroner’s report. You know I respect the dead, but when a body gets pulled out of a pool, you have to respect the time that takes place.”
“I think I see where you’re going,” I said.
“I think you probably do. And the thing is, I like the guy, but there isn’t any way you can sit there and tell me Mason isn’t at the top of your list for this. And don’t do what I know you’re about to do.”
“Which is?”
“Ask me what the motive would be. I know it’s shaky.”
“Shaky?” I ran a hand through my hair. “It’s right next door to non-existent. The man came in here himself and said they couldn’t get married. Take that how you will, but it pretty well cuts him out of the The Spouse Did It category.”
“What about life insurance? What if he’s the beneficiary? And since Hattie wouldn’t marry him, he got her money another way?”
“We’ll have Tim look into that. But I doubt it. The kind of people who live in the Heights don’t think of leaving their money to anyone other than family. If she wanted him to have her money, she would have married him.”
Jacque chewed her bottom lip. It was either a good sign or a bad one, depending on when it happened. What it meant, regardless, was she was thinking hard on what she was about to say.
“What if…” she started.
I held out my hands.
“What if it wasn’t about getting something so much as… taking something?”
I thought about this for a moment. I knew where she was going, but I also knew she was struggling to express it. “Like if he can’t have her then nobody could?”
She scrunched up her brows. “Kind of? That doesn’t feel right. I mean, you saw him. And you know how hard it is to pretend to cry. But you have to admit he’s about as close as we’re gonna get to a number one suspect. Maybe she didn’t drink, but he did. Maybe they didn’t drink that often, and he blacked out. I know it’s a stretch, but you can’t deny there’s a possibility.”
“You’re contradicting yourself,” I said. “If you think he got so drunk he doesn’t remember knocking his future wife over the head, that’s one thing. I’m not sure if that is even a possibility. If you’re saying he murdered her and then came in here asking us to solve it, that’s a whole different story.”
“Would it be that strange?”
I knew what she was thinking of. Plenty of guys—and let’s be honest—they are almost always guys, go on killing jags and then realize the true kicker is to have people running around trying to figure out how clever you are. Son of Sam as good as admitted it. Zodiac might’ve been the only one with enough sense to get out while the getting was good. The cold fact is, there are only a few types of murders. If Jacque really thought Mason was a fame killer, that meant he was either smart or stupid. The smart ones, as much as you hate to admit it, don’t get caught. They enjoy watching the dogs run, but they don’t pop in to say hello. And even Zodiac got on thin ice there.
“I’m not saying it’s impossible,” I said. “But let’s put that on a list of unlikely options. He’s got no real motive and, while I’ll give you that he had every opportunity, or at least we have to assume he did after a relationship that long, what would’ve made him snap all of a sudden? No previous calls about domestic abuse, no previous complaints from neighbors.”
“It’s the Heights.” She shrugged. “Rich people don’t like to admit they have problems. It makes them feel like poor folk.”
Her accent kicked in hard on the last two words.
“Maybe,” I said. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll look into it. If there’s even a hint of a possibility of foul play, you know I’ll go all in. But this one is tricky, Jacque. You might just have a guy on your hands who’s had bad luck for a good long time.”
She shrugged. “Everybody deserves a fair shake.”
“All right. How about I call Doc Sheddon?”
Jacque grinned, knowing I was giving in as much as I could really do. “It’s been a while. I’m sure he’d be happy to hear from you.”
“We’ll see.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” she said, standing up and strutting out of the office like she’d just won a major battle. The truth is, as much as Amanda wanted me to take the case, places like the Heights are like asking to get burned. When you start sticking your nose in other people’s business, things are always going to be tough. When you start sticking your nose in the business of the rich and powerful, you may as well just go ahead and expect big trouble. But, if Doc came up with something, I’d at least have science on my side, and that was a tough opponent to argue with.
I sat in my chair for a moment, thinking, and then had an idea. If Jacque and Amanda were sold on the idea, that was just fine with me. But I had an ace in the hole. Someone who had a law enforcement and psychology background. And she had an office down the hall.
I grabbed my phone and walked down to Heather’s space. She was sitting at her desk, back to the door, both computer screens on and a pile of folders on her desk. Amazingly, if anybody could keep track of that many things at once, it was her.
“Hey, boss,” she said without looking up. “Almost done with the last case report and I was just getting ready to send you the financials from it.”
“I don’t ever worry about it with you,” I said. “But let me pick your brain for a second. Have you heard about this Hattie Baker situation?”
She turned toward me and her expression told me a lot, though, interestingly, not everything.
“Some,” she said.
“But not from Jacque.”
“No, just what was on the news sites.”
“And your thoughts?”
“Well, to be honest, I had no thoughts originally. Rich lady gets drunk and falls in the pool. I don’t mean to sound cold-hearted, but I feel like that’s how the story goes pretty often. I mean, shoot, if she hadn’t died, how many people do you think have the same story? Alcohol and pools are always together, despite the fact they don’t mix. And if you slip and fall in, nine times out of ten people just laugh and pull you out. The fact that you’re sitting here asking about it though… that seems like a different situation.”
“Schrödinger’s cat, then.”
She gave me a small grin. “Pretty much.”
“All right.” I leaned back in the chair across from her. I could get Jacque started on finding close acquaintances, have her make a list of folks who had seen the woman last. Tim could dig into her online situation and financials. Shoot, if we were really going to do this, there was a good chance we could get the woman’s computer. If it was an accidental death, nothing would be locked down by the police. We might have a bit of a hitch with whoever was left in charge of her estate, but those were solved easily enough.
I glanced over at the pile of folders and then back at Heather. “You feel like going to see Doc?”
She looked at me and the stack of work in front of her. “I mean… you’re the boss, so I can’t really say no. But you see what I’ve got here.”
I shrugged and stood up. “We aren’t really office people to begin with.”
“Thank goodness someone knows that around here.” She laughed. “Your car or mine?”