10:24 p.m.
Maggie piled pillows against the headboard of the guesthouse’s double bed, adjusted the lamp, placed her open briefcase on the far side of the bed, and slid in between the covers.
She hesitated, her hand at the opening of the lid pocket. She limited herself to running her finger across the outside surface, feeling the edge of the plastic sleeve that always stayed there.
At least some things were where they belonged.
Just now, when she’d reached for the green tube of facial cleanser it hadn’t been where it belonged.
The toothpaste, floss, and glass with her toothbrush huddled together where she’d put them when she unpacked this afternoon. A few inches apart sat moisturizing lotion. In between, where the facial cleanser should reside, was an empty swath of vanity.
She’d widened her view, and there was the cleanser. On the right side, between her makeup and hairdryer.
She put things in the same place. Always. It helped her put her hands on necessities even in the depths of a trial.
But there was the cleanser on the wrong side.
Listen, Maggie, we all have a case or two like this. The ones that go bad. … Let it go.
The hell with that. The hell with Vic Upton’s ambitious pragmatism.
You’re bent on a do-over to get me convicted. And maybe you think to right old wrongs?
What exactly did J.D. Carson think he knew?
She adjusted her position and took out the copy of the original investigative file into the murder of Pan Wade.
It didn’t matter what Carson thought he knew. All that mattered was catching him.
Or, she mentally added in strict fairness, whoever the murderer was.
She began to read.
The file was even worse than Sheriff Gardner said and she remembered.
Next up was her case summary of Commonwealth of Virginia v. J.D. Carson.
Maybe Scott Tomlinson would have the complete and certified trial transcript tomorrow. When Nancy sent the material from her files she’d also go over the dailies where she’d made notes during the trial.
Finally, she re-read the preliminary information Carson had written on Laurel’s murder. It was concise, organized, and devoid of commentary or local color.
When she’d finished, she made a call.
“Belichek.”
“Got some time, Bel?”
“Yeah. Shoot.”
She outlined the case she’d made four and a half years ago in her opening statement, then built up layer by layer through testimony.
J.D. Carson, home on leave from the Army, had been seen with the victim numerous times in the days before the murder. Witness after witness provided observations of a man falling deeper and deeper for this woman.
The day before the murder, he called about off-base housing where he was stationed. Why would he do that if he wasn’t anticipating Pan returning with him?
But her estranged husband, his family, and her family all were urging Pan to give the marriage another try.
She had told her hairdresser she was meeting Carson that afternoon, and expected, the hairdresser had testified, “a turning point.”
It added up to a woman returning to her husband, cutting off Carson, a man who was no stranger to violence. He knew how to take the life of a man — or woman — in a cold heartbeat.
Maggie had told the jury they didn’t need to know what was said between Pan and Carson, because they had the evidence of what happened.
They were sighted in her car, turning off the paved county road that provided back access to Bedhurst Falls Park and surrounding woods that had been Carson’s second home since childhood. The next morning, Pan’s body was found in an isolated clearing.
Dirt around her body had been carefully brushed out. But on the path leading into the woods toward the shack Carson had recently inherited, had been two clear prints. His.
Two of his dark hairs had been found on her clothes. A strand of her hair was found wrapped around his shirt cuff button.
Pan had a broken fingernail, but no useful DNA was found under any of her nails. He’d had no marks on him, but the shirt could have protected him.
They’d found a note in his handwriting about off-base living with Pan’s body.
“Practically the only piece of evidence that didn’t get spread all over the county before the trial, because it wasn’t found until the autopsy at the regional ME’s office,” she told Bel. “They kept it to themselves except for the official reports, unlike the locals. They found the paper in her mouth, like it had been shoved in there. Which logic says was the action of someone angry and taking something very personally.”
“What did your guy say?” Bel asked.
She suppressed the urge to say he wasn’t her guy, instead delivering the facts. Carson acknowledged giving Pan the note, but said it had been the previous day and their conversations had shifted to her trying to make her marriage work.
He’d said he left Pan in the clearing, taking the path through the woods to his home. He’d stayed there, alone, until a phone call the next morning from Pan’s worried mother. He said he’d immediately searched the clearing and found Pan dead.
“What’s Carson’s connection to this second victim?” Bel asked.
She smiled without humor. “The sheriff will tell you that figuring out if Laurel is the second victim is the job of this bizarre task force I’ve been maneuvered onto.”
“You don’t get maneuvered, Mags. And I still wanna know if he’s connected to the latest dead body.”
“Of course he is. Everyone in this damned county lives in everybody else’s pocket. He seems to have been a frequent visitor to her father’s place — Rambler Farm. Don’t let farm fool you — it’s an estate. Plus, the older Blankenship sister went to school with Carson, Pan Wade, and Wade’s estranged husband.”
“What about that estranged husband? Was he looked at for the first murder?”
“He had an alibi. I don’t remember the details of it.” She scribbled a note to herself. “I should remember the details.”
“That case landed on you like a pile of bird shit at the last minute. You were too busy trying to get bird shit out of your hair to look around at the rest of the flock.”
Despite herself, she chuckled. “Thanks, Bel. I wonder about the current victim’s estranged husband’s alibi, too.”
“Another estranged, huh?”
“Yeah. This guy also has three exes before Laurel. I wanted to go there tonight to interview him — there and to Rambler Farm to talk to the judge and the sister. Laurel had been staying with her family since the problems with her husband. But Monroe said it was too soon to intrude on their grief. God, like you should give people a week to come up with their story.”
“Surprised you didn’t go on your own.”
“I would’ve. But the sheriff said no because he was conducting a round of interviews with them tonight about Laurel. I wanted to go along, but Gardner didn’t want me since I’m only supposed to be looking at the earlier murder.”
Bel made a noise that might have been sympathy. But she suspected it was for Sheriff Gardner, not her.
“Instead, Monroe insisted I have dinner at his place with him and Carson.”
“Learn anything?”
“Only that Carson wasn’t murdering anybody tonight between seven and nine-fifty-five. And Dallas Monroe can talk non-stop for nearly three hours.”
“He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?”
She gave an obligatory huh of amusement. “Gardner says he wants the details of the Wade case organized, but he’s swamped. What he really needs is comparing and contrasting of the circumstances and victimology of Pan Wade’s and Laurel Tagner’s murders.”
“He’ll love you telling him what he really needs.”
She ignored that. “And if I catch Carson in inconsistencies, place him where he says he wasn’t, get a line on a real connection between him and Laurel, I can nail the bastard this time. Get enough to convict—”
“Whoa. You’re not just putting the cart before the horse, you’ve got the cart miles down the road. Quit trying to go from nothing to a mountain of evidence. The mountain—”
“I know, I know. The mountain starts with a pebble,” she mimicked his frequent lecture.
“That’s right,” he said evenly. “It’s pretty simple, Mags. You’ve either got one murderer or two, with this recent one using what worked for the first murderer. Concentrate on which it is, and keep an open mind about the rest. Who and ifs and all. You don’t start with a vision of the mountain. You let the pebbles piling up say what the mountain’s going to look like.”