Chapter Forty-Eight
Alone, except for RahRah, Sarah rinsed the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher. She tried to piece together the information she’d acquired but felt like a juggler throwing balls into the air. Keeping everything balanced in her head wasn’t working. She decided to outline what she’d learned and then call Peter.
She grabbed a pad and pencil off her mother’s desk and sat at the kitchen table. RahRah came and curled up with his head on her foot. She enjoyed the warmth of his little body.
Pencil in hand, she said, “Okay, RahRah, we’re going to figure this out.”
At the top of the page, she wrote Bill’s name and attached her name to his via a line that went to the far right of the paper. Above his name, she wrote “Mother Blair.” She connected “Mother Blair” to Bill with a solid line and to her with a dotted line. Using separate solid lines, she linked Bill to Jacob, Marcus, and Jane, and then used a dotted line to Harlan. She joined Emily to her through a thick line and tied Harlan to Emily and her with stars. Finally, Sarah marked the connections between Jane, Marcus, Emily, and the other Southwind chefs with squiggles.
She held up her paper. “No wonder I can’t figure out anything. It’s a spiderweb!” Frustrated, she added the cat to the bottom of the page. “Now, let’s see how everyone fits in with you.” When she finished, she chuckled. “Well, that pretty much makes the page unreadable. I don’t think this cleared anything up for me. Maybe I’d do better diagrams if I did the relationships for one question at a time.”
Sarah put her pencil on the line between Harlan and Jacob. “Okay, RahRah, listen carefully. Unless Harlan is involved in the development scheme, the only reason Harlan wouldn’t have shared the folder materials and development plans with me must be attorney-client privilege. It makes sense because I know Jacob is Harlan’s client.”
She leaned back, trying to figure out why Harlan told her and everyone else about Bill raising zoning questions with him. Just like he wouldn’t say anything about his dealings with Jacob, either through council confidentiality or attorney-client privilege, Harlan shouldn’t have mentioned the discussion with Bill, either.
“RahRah, the only thing I can come up with is that, in Harlan’s mind, with Bill dead, the random zoning question didn’t outweigh Peter’s need to know anything that might solve Bill’s murder.”
RahRah stirred. He strolled across the kitchen and pushed his nose into his dish but didn’t eat.
“You still have cat food.”
RahRah hit his dish with his nose again.
“Don’t look for more tuna. You ate all of it. Unless you find a bit mixed in with your food, that’s it for now. I’m not giving you any more.” She stared at the dish and RahRah and then jumped up and gave RahRah as much of a big hug as she knew he would tolerate. With Sarah holding RahRah’s right paw with one hand and the other bracing him around his midsection, they did a few “dance steps” around the kitchen.
“You’re a genius, RahRah! Harlan couldn’t tell me anything about Jacob and the entertainment district, but he purposely provided Peter and me enough of a tidbit to entice us to poke around until we found out the details ourselves.”
Sarah set RahRah back on the floor. He immediately tucked his paws beneath his body and assumed a relaxed sphinxlike pose, ignoring his food bowl as if he had never intended to imply he wanted more tuna fish.
“Don’t pull a Peter on me. That’s what he’s been doing. Not digging in to find the facts.”
With his head erect, RahRah meowed at Sarah as she sat at the table again.
“Do you want to dance more? No? Are you telling me I should keep investigating and trying to figure this out instead of dancing?” She rested her face on her hand and bit her lip.
When RahRah let out another string of sounds, Sarah saluted him and turned to the task of clearing her phone back to the first screen of the search engine.
She was about to hit go when she heard a text coming in and saw it flash at the top of the screen. It faded so fast she barely saw the message was from Emily. More interested in continuing her investigative efforts on this screen rather than backing out of it immediately to read Emily’s message, she ignored the text. This time, she typed “William Blair and Jacob Hightower” into the search engine and concentrated on reading the different results.
Thirty minutes later, Sarah pushed back from the table. RahRah, who had curled back up on her, rolled a few inches off her foot, turned on his side, and struck at the air with a paw. “I haven’t found anything new, RahRah. We’re stuck here at Mom’s until Peter or Harlan come up with a solution. You’ve been so good. Do you want to play?”
She picked up the corkscrew that she’d left on the counter and then rummaged in her mother’s kitchen catch-all drawer. “This will do.” She took a ball of string and a six-inch ruler from the drawer.
Sarah dangled the makeshift toy, the ruler hanging by a long piece of string from the corkscrew, in front of RahRah. When he swatted at it, she inched the ruler just out of his reach. He turned over and positioned himself to pounce when the ruler was dragged in front of him. For a few tries, Sarah kept the ruler away from him, but then she let him catch it. “Very good.” She waited a few seconds before beginning the game again.
After a few more rounds, RahRah figured out that he could maintain possession of the ruler by keeping a paw on it.
Sarah laughed. “Guess we’ve had enough of this game for a while.” She eased the makeshift toy away from him and undid the string from the ruler and corkscrew. “We’ll play again later.” She dropped the game pieces into the drawer.
Behind her, RahRah hissed. Turning, she saw he stood with his back arched, his body pointed in the direction of the kitchen’s back door.