Proof of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  “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.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Back inside, she heard Dallas saying good-bye to his caller, and entered his office. “Ready?”

  “Near enough.”

  When Dallas paused at the corner of the desk, leaning one hand on it, picking up a pen with the other and cocking his head at her, she wondered if it was a ruse to take a few extra breaths.

  “You know, Maggie,” said Dallas. “You’re different from when you were here before.”

  “Things change in more than four years.”

  He waved his hand. “A few wrinkles, a gray hair or two, deepen a woman’s allure for a man of sense.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she said dryly.

  “Dallas, that’s absolutely—” Scott started in protest.

  It was drowned by a sound it took a second for her to name.

  J.D. Carson’s laughter.

  She caught her jolt before it became a full-blown cessation of motion. Except Carson noticed.

  Scott’s protest continued, now audible. “… a lovely woman — beautiful — and deserving of the best treatment, even if that boyfriend of hers—”

  She pulled out her keys and — letting a hint of impatience seep in — said, “I left the car at the guesthouse. I’ll be right back.”

  “No need, no need. Scott, run get Maggie’s vehicle, will you?”

  “Sure.” Scott snagged the keys from her and trotted into the hallway’s dimness.

  “Wait. I—”

  “There’s a backdoor,” Carson said, as if that had been the basis of her objection.

  “I don’t need valet service. And—”

  Dallas interrupted as if the subject hadn’t changed. “That’s not the difference I detect. It’s an attitude.”

  He tapped a finger against his chin, gazing out the window. Then focused on her.

  She’d discovered long ago that the way to handle this game was to not play. That worked in a squad room full of testosterone trying out the new ACA and would work now.

  “I can’t quite…” Dallas murmured.

  “It’s because she’s not trying a case.”

  “Explain yourself, J.D.,” Dallas demanded.

  She set her purse’s strap on her shoulder.

  Carson said, “This is different from trying a case. You have to be open to everything, taking it all in, anything can be important. For a trial, it’s narrowed. You take in only that trial. And Maggie—” He stepped back, clearing the doorway as she reached it. “—filters everything else out, focusing completely on the trial.”

  “I believe you’re correct, J.D. I do believe that is the difference I detect in our Maggie. This suits you, my dear.” Dallas checked the narrow window beside the door, then straightened. “J.D., open the door please, let our Maggie out into the sunshine. She’ll want to be involved in this.”

  “Involved in—?”

  Carson had the door open with one hand and the other under her elbow. She could have escaped his hand, stood her ground, but the open door revealed Charlotte Blankenship Smith about to walk past.

  “Charlotte, my dear,” Dallas said from behind Maggie, crowding her forward. “Good morning, good morning.”

  Maggie quickly stepped down to the sidewalk. Dallas was out behind her faster than she would have believed. Carson came last.

  Had Dallas seen Charlotte coming? Had his huffing and puffing been a ruse to time their exit?

  Maybe.

  Charlotte slowed, said a monotone “Morning” in the direction of the street, then took her next step.

  Dallas blocked her path. “How propitious you were walking by as we came out.”

  Maggie updated maybe to probably.

  “I’m certain,” he continued, “you’re most anxious to hear how our inquiries are proceeding.”

  “Sheriff Gardner keeps the judge apprised of the investigation.”

  That didn’t stop Dallas. “We’ve been talking to any number of people who knew Laurel, getting a picture of her, a well-rounded picture. We’ve come to hear … well, she was a healthy young woman and beautiful.”

  Charlotte stared at him without expression.

  “We’d like to hear your take on it, Charlotte. Give you an opportunity to tell us the truth of the matter.”

  “What makes you think you haven’t heard it?”

  Dallas didn’t blink at the blandly hostile words. “It would be most helpful to the effort to find Laurel’s killer if we knew who her most recent, ah, interests were. Who better to know than a sister?”

  “I did not spend time keeping up with such transitory matters.”

  Dallas pulled in air in apparent preparation for another try, but Maggie figured his head had met the brick wall more than enough.

  She asked, “Did you know Laurel and Pan went to the same hair stylist at the time of Pan’s murder?”

  Charlotte’s gaze came to Maggie. “Of course. Doranna.”

  “They must have crossed paths there and at family and other events.”

  “Nothing to bother about.”

  Maggie’s head started to ache from contact with that brick wall. “As the sister and friend of these two women, you are in a unique position — knowing them well and observing them interacting with others. Your insights might help us know if there is a connection, which in turn might help solve these murders.”

  Charlotte stared off absently. Just when Maggie became certain she wouldn’t reply, her voice started slow
ly.

  “What people didn’t know is she had a blind spot. She thought the way people responded to her on the surface was how they truly felt.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know any particulars. Now,” she added, already moving, “I have a great many duties to perform before the memorial.”

  Charlotte walked away with no more expression than when they’d started.

  “That was…” Maggie stopped.

  “Yes, indeed,” Dallas said cheerfully, as her car with Scott behind the wheel came around the corner. “What was that old song about sisters?”

  Maggie knew immediately. From White Christmas. Vivian’s favorite movie. “There were never such devoted sisters? Somehow that doesn’t fit the Blankenship sisters.”

  “Ah, but there’s another line in the song, about no sister better get between me and my man.”

  She waited for him to explain. He didn’t.

  “You think that’s what she was saying? She and Laurel wanted the same man?” Ed? Really? Or someone from when they were younger. Someone Charlotte might have had a crush on and Laurel stole away. Rick Wade? Or — She glanced at Carson. “I thought what she said about a blind spot meant Laurel didn’t recognize the dark side of someone she knew. That she only saw the surface. What about that?”

  “Maybe.” Rather than elaborating, Dallas waved Carson to the front seat and hefted himself into the backseat.

  She thanked Scott and got behind the wheel.

  “No opinions, Carson?” If either of them expected her to protest the change in seating arrangements she wasn’t going to. It would be easier to catch Carson’s few reactions with him in the front seat.

  “You and Dallas covered it. Besides, you ever seen three dogs with one bone, Maggie?”

  She didn’t answer. She looked over her shoulder for traffic. None.

  “Two of ’em square off,” Carson continued, “while the third sits back and awaits developments. At worst, third one has one dog left to fight. At best, he slips in and grabs the bone while the other two are distracted.”

  “Just what bone is this you think you’ll grab?” She eased away from the curb.

  “The truth.”

  “Right. The truth. And how do you think you’ll grab that?” Her sarcasm wasn’t subtle. “If her sister doesn’t know about Laurel’s life leading up to the murder, then I don’t see how you hope to—”

  “Ho!” Dallas hooted from the backseat. “Your words reveal you as not a sibling, my dear. There are many and many a sibling who would tell a stranger on the street his most intimate secrets before confiding in a fellow from the same nest. With Rambler Farm now unnecessary, I think Shenny’s next, don’t you, J.D.?”

  “Yeah. Turn left here,” he said to Maggie.

  “The sheriff will have covered Laurel’s movements in the days leading up to her murder. Standard operating procedure.” But she turned.

  “Then we shall go for premium operating procedure, including what Doranna said about Barry.”

  “A right at the stop sign,” Carson directed. “One thing I side with Maggie on — just because Charlotte didn’t tell us about Laurel’s life, doesn’t mean she doesn’t know.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Shenny’s resembled a shoebox, with a flat roof and narrow windows set into siding above chest-high brick.

  Cut off from the highway by a belt of trees, a graveled area fronted the building. Maggie parked beside a maroon pickup, forming the closest thing to a row among the scattered vehicles.

  “One thing before we go in,” Dallas said from the back. “I heard some about Laurel’s business with Henry Zales.”

  Maggie twisted around to him. “The divorce lawyer Laurel saw in Lynchburg? That was the call you took? Why didn’t you tell us in the office or during the drive?”

  “I was enjoying spring.”

  What he was enjoying was springing it on her.

  “My source says those two peas weren’t so happy in the pod. Eugene’d learned a bit from his first three wives — at least from divorcin’ them. Before the fourth wedding, he got himself a real strong lawyer from up your way, Maggie, and had Laurel sign an agreement. Sort of two-barreled affair — a regular pre-nup in case of divorce, but also an agreement on what her allowance would be during the marriage. Could have been a union contract, with cost-of-living increases and raises for seniority and all. Laurel was lookin’ to Henry Zales to renegotiate.”

  “Her attorney volunteered that?”

  He gave an easy wave of his hand. “Not saying I talked to Henry Zales. Not saying it at all, though we do go way back. And even if I did talk to him it’d be a matter of confirming, rather than volunteering, because I had an inkling.” Dallas’ gaze flickered to the back of Carson’s head.

  Maggie filed that away, but kept to the main thread. “What argument was Laurel using?”

  “According to my source, her only argument was she wanted more. She was mad as a wet hen when Henry Zales told her the agreement didn’t leave him a glimmer of daylight. Stirred up the whole office with her exit scene. This was before she left Eugene.

  “And then, last week, she waltzed in to his office and ordered him to start working on a new document that would give her exactly what she’d wanted. When the matter of Eugene and his lawyer was brought up, she laughed and said his lawyer had no say in it and Eugene would sign all right. She’d made sure of that.”

  “She’d made sure of it — it was already settled?”

  He nodded. “That’s what she told Henry. I have the name and number for Eugene’s lawyer, if we get Eugene to agree he can talk to us.”

  Maggie looked out the back window past Dallas. “From what you’ve said, Eugene was nuts about her at the start. If he had enough control over his emotions to be practical then would he reverse himself now when — from what we’ve heard — the bloom was off the rose and her power over him had waned.”

  Dallas’ eyes lit. “The bloom off the rose, yes, and Laurel’s sexual power over him waning. But there are other kinds of power.”

  “Like?”

  “They are as varied as the human race, my dear.”

  “Can we narrow it down some?” Maggie heard, but didn’t respond to Carson’s grunt of amusement. “What—?”

  But Dallas was maneuvering himself out of the car. She could follow or be left behind.

  Carson held open Shenny’s glass outer door. A second set of doors opened to a constricted area with benches to either side. Beyond were three arches — to the left opened to a restaurant, straight ahead pointed to restrooms and telephones, to the right could pass for a cave. In the center was a lectern, with a dark-haired smiling woman behind it.

  “Why, Dallas Monroe, it’s about time you came by. We haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.” The woman’s smile slid over Maggie, then broadened for Carson. “And J.D.! Well, if this isn’t a fine day!”

  Carson smiled. “Good to see you, Janice.”

  “You two young people go on in, and I’ll catch up after I say a real hello to Janice here.” Dallas gestured to the cave on the right. Carson put his hand under Maggie’s elbow. Moving forward was the best way to avoid it.

  Carson pointed to a small table beneath a curtained window and across from the bar. Three men sat at the bar’s far end, with two other patrons widely separated along the length. A man with gray hair in an uneven ponytail was bartending.

  Carson pulled out the chair with its back to the bar, presumably for her.

  She took the chair closest to her, angling it. “To interview the bartender, we should be at the bar.”

  He left the chair she’d refused and took the one opposite her. “Dallas is clearing the decks with Janice. She owns the place. Besides, talking at the bar wouldn’t get us a thing from Barry. If customers know he gave up their secrets, he won’t hear more. He’ll come to us.”

  “We’re supposed to sit here and wait?”

  His left eyebrow quirked up. “You could have a drin
k. Relax. What do you do to relax, Maggie?”

  “Read.”

  “Anything besides case materials and legal opinions?”

  She ignored that, because the answer was no. Remembering her conversation with Jamie, she said, “Garden a little.”

  “You find that relaxing, do you?” He didn’t believe her.

  “No.”

  He was going to laugh again.

  She moved the dish with pink and blue packets of fake sweetener to the precise center of the table, prepared.

  No sound came from him.

  She looked up. He watched her, laughter lightening his eyes without mobilizing his mouth.

  Abruptly, she said, “What you said — about what it’s like when someone’s trying a case.”

  “When you’re trying a case,” he corrected immediately.

  “That was based on your experience?”

  “You mean my handful of times representing a client in a courtroom? No. Most haven’t lasted long enough to need to filter out anything except a couple flies buzzing around. I recognized it four and a half years ago in you. I’ve seen it in combat.”

  “Oh, come on!” she scoffed. “You’re likening my concentration during trial to a soldier in combat? What, I’m afraid to die? I’m prepared to kill an enemy?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Could be — afraid to die, prepared to kill an enemy, in legal terms. To make sure no one storms your position, to defend your certainty.”

  “If I’m not certain, I don’t go to trial.”

  His mouth stretched in a quick, sardonic grin. “No claiming you were just following orders for you.” He added a nod, as if he expected no different. But his gaze went far away. “When a soldier’s in combat, there’s a sort of bubble … a zone…” Slowly, he brought his gaze back to hers. “That’s what I saw in you. When you tried me. And at other trials.”

  Something went up her spine. “What other trials?”

  “A few of yours in Fairlington.”

  “You haven’t — I’ve never seen you.”

  One side of his mouth lifted. “I wasn’t part of those trials. I was filtered out.”

  Was it possible? Maybe. After one of her earliest cases, Jamie and Ally said they’d been in the courtroom and she’d had no idea.