“Not a lot there,” he commented as they walked back.
“Cases are made from putting together a whole lot of not a lot.”
He grunted. “Theresa Addington suggested Doranna?”
“Yes.”
When Maggie called Pan’s mother from the high school yesterday, she’d asked her to think about any connections Pan and Laurel might have had. At first she said none beyond a distant family tie and living in the same county.
Maggie floated specifics — “Friends in common? A restaurant both went to all the time? A favorite store? A service provider. An auto mechanic, or—”
“Hair. Of course. They both went to Doranna to have their hair done. At least Laurel was going there when Pan—” As with many family members of murder victims, she hesitated at the next word. “—died. I heard she started going to Lynchburg after she married Eugene.”
Interesting Dallas and Carson hadn’t mentioned it.
“Why’d you press Doranna about a link?” Maggie demanded of Carson. “I’d expect you to want everyone to believe the murders are unrelated.”
“Why would I want that?”
“If Laurel’s murder isn’t related to Pan’s, it puts more distance between it and your trial.”
“I was found not guilty.” His left eyebrow arched. “Remember?”
“Not guilty is not innocent.”
Something glittered deep in his eyes. “I never claimed to be innocent.” He let a beat pass, then, “Except when it comes to murder.”
“Murder’s what we’re talking about. And I know you’re neither innocent nor not guilty.”
“Know.” He rolled it over on his tongue. “Based on?”
“Evidence.”
“A jury didn’t agree with you.”
“That particular jury.”
“You think there was something peculiar about that jury?” This was a different glint in his eyes. Humor? Malice? He seemed to be dangling the possibility there had been something peculiar about the jury.
Dangling it in front of her like candy to lure a child away from the main path, into the woods.
“That particular hometown jury,” she clarified without actually answering, “bought the hard-scrabble upbringing story Dallas pitched.”
“They told you?” Offhand interest was the best she could describe his tone.
“They told Ed Smith.”
“What did they tell you?”
“Nothing.” She left the post-trial interviews to Ed.
“Might have been interesting.”
“Why would you care? You got off.”
“Curiosity.”
“Well, I’m not curious. Not about that. They went with the illogical view that someone who’d bettered himself according to some incalculable scale, couldn’t murder. The sentimental view that someone they knew who was reasonably attractive couldn’t murder. Some juries look for a slavering maniac, preferably from another county, caught on tape committing the deed. Anything less they consider open to reasonable doubt because — What?”
“I didn’t know you thought so highly of me.”
She reviewed what she’d said. Reasonably attractive.
“I could have sworn you did consider me a slavering maniac. Since you don’t see me as a slavering maniac and you base your beliefs — excuse me, your knowledge — on evidence, we’ll get along fine.”
He lengthened his stride, making her aware he’d been letting her set the pace. Once ahead of her, he grasped the doorknob to Monroe & Associate, but didn’t turn it.
“Before you send your assistant on more chases, Doranna’s son, Trent Ruskin, has been in the Air Force since we graduated high school. He’s married, with two kids. Loves his wife. I know, I know that means nothing, not by way of evidence, but there’s this, too. He was stationed in Japan when Pan was killed, and he’s in Germany now. Wasn’t on leave either time. His cousin, Ralph, did die in a car accident. Ben Everly is gay and he’s been in the Seattle area since college. Hank Berkin’s teaching at Michigan State and the only time since high school he’s been here was when he testified as a character witness at my trial. You might remember him. The rest of us you know”
She said nothing.
He swung the door open. “After you…”
“Maggie!” Dallas called. “Is that you?”
“Yes.” She walked into his office. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” His smile was broad, his eyes sharp as they cut from her toward the doorway. “Missed you at breakfast.”
“I wanted to get work done before we start.” Dallas opened his mouth, but she kept talking. “We’ll head to Rambler Farm first, to question Charlotte Blankenship again. She must know more than she said yesterday. But first, let me tell you what Doranna Rushkin had to say.”
Dallas lowered his eyes, the creased lids hiding his expression, as he listened.
At the end, he said. “We will require your chauffeuring skills once more. My vehicle remains incapacitated.”
“Fine.”
* * * *
It wasn’t that simple.
Dallas received a phone call. His grimace and exaggerated shrug indicated it wouldn’t be short.
Carson left and she heard his office door close.
She hadn’t touched anything. He wouldn’t know she’d been in there unless Scott told him. Still, while she retreated to the hallway to email Nancy, she kept an eye on his door.
It remained closed. She called the sheriff, filling Gardner in on what Doranna Ruskin had said.
“If Laurel was seeing someone in secret…” She let it hang.
Carson? He could have learned a lesson from courting Pan publicly. He could have persuaded Laurel Tagner to be discreet.
“We’ll follow up with that hair place in Lynchburg, see if we can get a line on anything.”
As the sheriff spoke, Carson’s door opened. Its light showed Scott, at his desk, facing her, clearly listening.
Whatever they’d heard didn’t matter, since Carson had been there to hear the original, and Scott was privy to the investigation.
But she concluded her call without suggesting that whoever went to Lynchburg take along photos of Carson.
Scott hopped up. “Maggie, are you okay? Dallas was telling me about the scare you had last night. How awful.”
“Someone rearranged some of my things, that’s all.”
“But someone getting in — If you’d been there—”
“I wasn’t and it won’t be an issue going forward.”
He nodded. “New keys. Dallas said. Way, way past time. If you ever need help, day or night…”
She couldn’t get away without putting his number in her phone.
She went outside for “fresh air,” but actually to make her next two calls out of earshot of all denizens of Monroe & Associates.
The first thing Nancy said was, “Henry Zales was the divorce attorney Pan Wade consulted even before Carson got back in town, right?”
Of course, he was. Maggie had to be losing her mind. First to forget details of Wade’s alibi and now this.
Nancy reported Chester Bondelle and Henry Zales, the lawyers Maggie had asked her to check, showed no red flags of any kind.
“Speaking of red flags,” she continued, “Vic’s snorting like a bull with one flapping in front of him. Making noises about you being on a boondoggle.”
She’d known he’d be restive with her out of pocket, but not this fast. “I just got here.
“Better call,” Nancy said.
She did that next.
The first bad sign was Sheila put her right through.
“Answer your goddamn phone.”
“The signal up here’s like Swiss cheese. About a tenth of the calls get through and a quarter of the messages.”
He humphed. “I want you in tomorrow.”
“No. The sheriff requested my help. You agreed. We’ve barely scratched the surface—”
“You don’t work for Gardner. You work for me—”
“And the people of Fairlington County.”
He ignored that. As usual. “—I’m not waiting around forever while you work out the burr in your butt about this case.”
He hung up.
All in all, that went better than she’d expected.