said. 'Pretty tempting.'
'You like forbidden fruit?' she asked, taking another bite and wiping the juice from her mouth with the back of her hand.
'As long as it doesn't come from a poisonous tree,' he said. 'Tell me about Gina.'
Paula tossed the half-eaten apple on the ground. 'All business,' she said, disappointed at Mason's answer. 'What a waste. Gina slept around, but I bet you figured that out already.'
'How long had you known her?' Mason asked.
'Since she was on the air, five or six years, I guess.'
'What did you know about her daughter, Emily?' Mason asked.
Paula blanched, caught off guard by Mason's question, relieved by the shouted orders for cold beer from the golfers who had reached the green. She delivered four cans to the golfers, regaining her composure when she returned to the cart.
'I better get you back to Max before he tries to add up his score by himself. Since you settled his case, he can't add anything less than six figures.'
'Does that mean you'll tell me about Gina sleeping around, but not about her daughter?'
Paula took a breath. 'There's not much to tell. I'd met Emily a few times. She was a head case. Gina had plenty of advice for everyone else. None of it worked with her own kid.'
Paula pushed the cart's gas pedal to the floor, flying down the hill and taking a turn so sharply Mason had to hold on to keep from being thrown out. After wanting to take him for a ride, Paula couldn't wait to get him out of her cart. Mason wanted to know why and took a shot at one of the missing links in the case.
'Did you ever hear Gina mention a woman named Abby Lieberman?' he asked.
They were back at the halfway house where the driver of another golf cart appeared from around a tree, causing Paula to veer hard to her left as the cart skidded to a stop. 'Shit!' she said as the beer cooler bounced off the back of the cart, spilling cans and bottles.
Max pulled up on his cart, laughing. 'Christ, Paula. We're giving the stuff away, not throwing it away,' he said, until he saw how Paula was trembling. 'Hey, girl- are you okay?'
Paula waved off his concern. 'Yeah, I'm great. I need a cigarette,' she said, leaving Mason and Max to clean up her mess.
'What was that all about?' Max asked Mason.
'She's not a fan of the game, I guess,' Mason answered. 'We need to talk, Max.'
'So talk, Lou.'
Mason looked around, spying an empty gazebo near the halfway house. 'Privately,' Mason said, leading the way, waiting until they were out of earshot. The gazebo was barely big enough for the wooden table and four chairs underneath its pitched roof. Mason felt himself shrink in Max's shadow, sensing the intimidation opposing linemen or wrestlers must have felt the instant before Max earned his nickname.
'Sit down, Max,' Mason said, hoping to contain him, but knowing better than to dance around the subject. 'Were you and Gina Davenport screwing around?'
Max laughed, banging his ham-sized hand on the table. 'Are you kidding me? Is that what you came out here to ask me? Why the hell would a classy, uptown woman like Gina take a tumble with me?'
'I don't know, Max. You tell me, because her husband says she broke off an affair with someone just before she was killed. The cops would want to talk with the boyfriend.'
'Lou,' he said, his face darkening, 'you got something to say, say it.'
Mason tapped the envelope on the table. 'I'm not saying anything, Max. I'm asking.'
Max bit his lower lip and tugged at his chin as he eyed the envelope. 'You're my lawyer, right? Anything I tell you is confidential, right?'
Mason shook his head. 'Not on this, Max. Jordan Hackett is my client. If you and Gina were having an affair, you need another lawyer. I'll be glad to give you a name.'
Max nodded, his huge head looming over Mason like a boulder. 'That envelope,' Max said. 'Pictures?'
Mason said, 'Yeah.'
Max nodded again, taking shallow breaths, then a deep one as his chest and neck expanded, popping his veins. He burst out of his chair, snarling, overturning the table with one hand like it was made of air, grabbing Mason by the collar with the other, and throwing him onto the grass like a bag of dirty laundry.
Mason landed on his back, stunned and breathless, opening his eyes to find Max towering over him, the envelope in his hands. 'I may need another lawyer, Lou, but you're going to need a doctor. I'll be glad to give you a name.'
Chapter 25
History, geography, and Interstate 70 connect Kansas City and St. Louis in a perpetual rivalry. Both claim, rightly, to have been jumping-off points for the country's westward expansion. Each sits on a border, orbiting the state like moons competing for the gravitational pull of the capital that, not accidentally, is located dead center in the middle of Missouri. St. Louis, its residents often sniff, is an Eastern city- read sophisticated — while Kansas City, they note from the view looking down their noses, is a Western city- read not sophisticated. Kansas-Citians, not above trash talk or cheap shots, still remind their St. Louis brethren of the 1985 World Series, and wonder aloud why a city's movers and shakers rank one another according to the high school they attended.
The highway is a 250-mile concrete tether connecting the cities, a four-hour-drive, long enough for Mason and Abby to exhaust the possible explanations for Paula Sutton's nervous reaction to Mason's questions about Emily Davenport and her near accident when he asked about Abby.
'Are you certain you never ran across Paula before?' Mason asked for the tenth time.
'I'm certain,' Abby answered with diminished patience. 'I've never heard of the woman, never met the woman, never even listened to her damn show!'
'Okay, I'm convinced,' Mason said. 'But Paula knows enough about you that she wasn't happy to hear your name. Or Emily's, for that matter.'
Abby said, 'At least it's easy to understand Max's reaction to the pictures. Gina broke up with him. He doesn't take rejection well, especially when he finds out someone was watching over his shoulder. Plus, he's got a reputation for violence and he's so big, he could have sneezed at Gina and knocked her out that window. I don't blame him for not wanting the police to find out they were involved.'
'He is that strong, I'll give you that,' Mason said. 'Only, I always thought that his Mad Max routine was just an act to psych himself up for football games and sell tickets to wrestling.'
'Until today,' Abby reminded him.
'Yeah,' Mason said. 'For someone his size, he's very quick. I never had a chance to get out of the way. He wouldn't be the first guy who killed the woman that dumped him, though I don't know why he'd go after Trent.'
'Maybe you and Blues and Harry are wrong about there being one killer. Maybe the murders aren't connected.'
Mason shook his head. 'I wouldn't bet against Blues and Harry on something like this.'
'Are they that good?'
'Yep. They're that good.'
'Then maybe you should pay more attention to Trent. All your suspects start out with Gina and dead-end with Trent. Try looking at the case from the other direction.'
'You're that good?' he asked her.
'Oh, yeah,' she answered as Mason took the Highway 40 exit off I-70, entering St. Louis through the area called West County.
It was also Abby's idea that they talk to her uncle, Nathan Ruben. He might, she said, know who was involved in the adoption of her baby. They had to wait until Monday to see the hospital's records on Abby and Jordan, but could talk to her uncle on Sunday. Abby hadn't thought to ask her uncle at the time, and she hadn't seen or talked with him since her baby was born. Her parents never mentioned his name, as if doing so would remind
