9:06 p.m.
“Week before she died was when Laurel changed about those calls — right when she went to Zales’ office and told him to draw up those papers. Interesting,” Maggie said with them all back in the car. “Wish we could talk to Henry Zales.”
“He wouldn’t tell you a thing anyway,” Dallas said with apparent satisfaction from the backseat. “Besides why be sour when she was getting what she wanted?”
Maggie backed out of the driveway. “The calls could explain that. Her other plane lover had given her what she needed — enough to force Eugene to give in — and she wanted Mr. Other Plane Lover gone. He didn’t want to go.”
She felt Carson’s gaze on her. Was he reminded of what he’d heard between her and Roy? At least the part about wanting him gone and him not wanting to go.
“Might not have been a lover, the way people talked. And she might have gotten information from another source,” he said.
“Possibly,” she conceded.
Dallas clicked his seatbelt closed. “One thing’s closer to buttoned up. Eugene was telling the truth about the calls.”
“Not necessarily. He could have been the one making them.”
“I admire you not limiting your thinking, Maggie. But some avenues have to be closed off, at least temporarily, or you’ll never get far enough down the others to know if they lead somewhere.”
“There’s no—”
“What Dallas is saying,” Carson interrupted, “is it’s less likely Eugene was lying about the calls, because Laurel was giggling and happy about them when she was trying to punish him, and her sour attitude coincided with Eugene coming to heel.”
Maggie kept her attention on the road. “Good point. Unless he was threatening her as well as grudgingly renegotiating.”
Carson made a sound.
“Okay,” she said, “so Eugene doesn’t seem like the threatening type.”
“I was thinking Laurel wasn’t the type to be threatened.”
“Never underestimate the nastiness of a fearful man backed into a corner,” Dallas said. “Eugene’s not in the clear. Need more checking on him.”
“Before that, we need to dig more at Rambler Farm. The follow-up on what Allarene said, including—” She looked at Carson. “Earlier, when the judge said something about Pan being Charlotte’s friend, not Laurel’s, you didn’t agree.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you looked it. You don’t think Pan was Charlotte’s friend.”
“Pan was her friend.”
His even tone gave away little, but she got it. “Pan was Charlotte’s friend, but Charlotte wasn’t Pan’s friend. If you think that, all the more reason to get back to Rambler Farm now and—”
Dallas interrupted. “No, even if we hadn’t already been there today. We go and start askin’ Charlotte questions, she’ll know Allarene told us things. Least four cars passed slow enough to note your car. Word’ll be back to Rambler Farm anytime if it isn’t already. So, we go other places, ask other folks, and when we do get back around to Charlotte, there’ll be no straight line she can follow to Allarene.”
“You wouldn’t know a straight line if it hit you between the eyes,” she muttered. “Okay, then Eugene.”
“Entirely too late. We keep early hours here in the country.”
* * * *
Scott came out of Monroe House as she braked to drop off her passengers.
“Still here?” murmured Dallas.
“I was getting ready to leave when — I kept him here. Took some doing, but I was sure you’d want to talk to him. Especially when he’s in such a state.”
“Who?”
“Rick Wade.”
J.D. started toward the door, but Dallas laid a hand on his arm, slowing him, at the same time he asked Scott, “What kind of state?”
Maggie shut off the car and got out.
“He’s all wound up. Insists on talking with Maggie tonight. I tried to tell him—”
“What did Evelyn say?” Dallas asked.
“She invited him right in and sat him in front of the fire.”
Who’d kept him there? Maggie wondered wryly.
“Well, then, let’s go see what he has to say.”
* * * *
Evelyn surveyed Dallas, quickly but comprehensively, then rose and excused herself.
Wade sat in the chair Dallas usually occupied, his head down, his hands rubbing up and down his thighs.
“Rick,” Dallas said pleasantly, taking the other chair.
“I understand you want to talk with me.” Maggie sat on the end of the couch across from Wade. Scott took the other end of the couch and Carson pulled up a side chair.
Wade’s head came up. “No. I won’t talk to you with him here.”
J.D. stood.
Maggie pointed to him. “Sit.” He did.
She said to Wade, “You’re both staying here and you’re talking.” Playing them off each other might be the best way to get to the truth.
Wade glared at her. “You’re like all the rest. I told you. I warned you.”
She was aware of Carson looking at her. She kept her attention on Wade. “Never mind that.”
“Never mind it? It’s what started everything. Pan fell for his crap. The jury fell for it. Everybody fell for it. And Laurel—”
“Now, Rick, you can’t be sayin’—”
Maggie sliced through Dallas’ objection. “Do you have evidence? Was Carson involved with Laurel?”
“Laurel?” Wade sounded confused. “Not that I heard. But he fools people. So many people. Pan.”
“Yes, let’s talk about Pan,” Maggie said. “When Pan was killed, Laurel was your alibi, Laurel and being at the charity meeting, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We know you weren’t at the meeting. Where were you?”
His gaze bounced around. Abruptly he dropped forward, his face in his hands, his elbows between his legs.
“Oh, God, Oh, God. I did … Oh, God. … Pan…”
Maggie felt something thrum through her. Was he saying…?
Carson hadn’t budged. The only change she saw was the lines in his face tighten as he watched Rick rock forward and back, forward and back.
“Tell us what happened, Rick,” Dallas said in his most soothing voice.
Wade lifted his head a few inches, but otherwise remained almost doubled over. “I did that to Pan — God, to Pan. I must have been crazy. To fall for that little tramp Laurel. To break Pan’s heart over a bitch like that. I was crazy.”
Dallas huffed out a breath, and Maggie’s shoulders eased. He was confessing to the affair. Not murder.
“So, you’re confirming what we’ve heard from others — you were carrying on with Laurel, back five years ago or so?” Dallas asked.
“Yeah. I was a fool, but… Yeah.”
Maggie asked again, “Where were you when Pan was murdered?”
“With Laurel. At Piedmont Manor. We thought… We went to the meeting, well before the meeting, saying hello to people, making them remember us being there, then we slipped out. That’s how we — We did that regular.”
“Is keeping that quiet why you give Barry a new truck every year?”
“God, you, too? Gardner’s been going on and on about that. It’s marketing. He can do us some good, talking up the dealership at Shenny’s.”
Interesting he’d used the same phrase as Barry.
“Did Pan know about you and Laurel?”
“Not at the start. She found out … later.”
Maggie thought Carson moved. But, no. No movement, no expression, no reaction.
Or was an absolute lack of reaction a reaction?
“How did she find out?” she asked Wade.
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk to me. Said she needed time to think. If I could’ve gotten her to talk to me, to make her understand—”
“Understand?” Carson’s voice was low and cold. “Understand you betrayed her, adding on humiliation by doing it in Shenny’s parking lot, where more people than Barry were certain to see, certain to talk, until everybody knew except her. You couldn’t have found a better way to hurt her. You—”
“Like hell! It was you — you came between a man and his wife. You were pulling apart our marriage.”
“You’d already done that yourself, you asshole. You never knew what you had, you never gave her the love she deserved. You did it, Wade. All you.”
If he’d killed Wade it would make more sense.
The thought shot through Maggie’s mind, but this was not the time to consider it.
Wade shouted, “Everything was fine until you came back.”
“You’re lost in your own fairytale, as always, where you’re Prince Charming. Pan was done—”
“She loved me.”
“She had. Until you squandered it, you sonuvabitch. Fucking Laurel in Shenny’s parking lot. You never thought about anybody but yourself. What do you think that did to her? Knowing you were running around on her. And she knew Laurel wasn’t the first.”
“Because you told her—”
“I wasn’t here.”
Wade froze. Maggie suspected it was Carson’s abrupt return to rigidly calm control.
In the same tone, Carson continued, “But other people were here to tell her. It was eating her up inside.”
“But she was still with me,” Wade said. It was a rally of sorts. “Until you came and tried to get her to run off with you.”
Carson’s posture didn’t change, yet Maggie had a sense of infinite weariness coming over him. “She wasn’t leaving with me, she was going to give you — give the marriage another chance.”
“Like you were some fucking marriage counselor?” Wade said with an ugly twist to his face. “Like hell! She told me. That last day. She told me she was going away with you.”
“That was earlier. We talked it over again and—”
“After that. After you left her in the clearing. She called me and said it was over between us and she was going away with you as soon as she made you see it her way. Like she had to beg trailer trash—”
Carson’s face went hard, yet there was a sense of movement beneath the surface.
But Maggie had no more attention to spare for him.
She leaned across, cutting the space to Wade, shutting off his words. “Pan called you from the clearing? After Carson left? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yeah.”