'And his hair?'
'Uh, brown, I think.'
'Any jewelry?'
Rittenhouse frowned. Then he brightened. 'I think he had an earring.'
'Can you describe it?' Kerrigan asked, fighting hard to mask his excitement.
'Uh, I think, yeah, it was a cross. A gold cross.'
Kerrigan had a sudden flashback to the hearing in Dupre's case. He remembered the defendant strolling down the aisle, radiating arrogance the way his gold jewelry radiated light. One of those pieces of jewelry had been an earring in the shape of a cross.
'Sean, call Stan Gregaros. Tell him to put together a photo throw-down with a picture of Jon Dupre in it and get over here, pronto. Tell him to make it a great throw-down, one that will win a prize.'
'Who is this guy, Tim?' Rittenhouse asked.
'Jon Dupre runs a high-class escort service that's a front for a call-girl operation. We got an indictment based on the testimony of one of his escorts, but we had to dismiss the case when she was beaten to death.'
Rittenhouse turned pale. 'Just like the senator,' he said.
'Just like the senator,' Tim echoed.
When Kerrigan and McCarthy entered the living room, Dr. Deborah Cable was seated on the sofa surrounded by friends. All conversation stopped, and Deborah's protectors stared at the detective and the prosecutor. Deborah stood up, and Tim walked over and hugged her. She was a substantial woman with graying brown hair, who normally exuded confidence and energy. Today she looked exhausted and bewildered.
'I wish this wasn't my case,' Tim said after introducing Sean McCarthy.
'I wish this hadn't happened at all,' she answered.
'Can we talk to you alone?' Tim asked, after casting a quick glance at the people who had come to comfort her. Deborah spoke quietly to her companions. Some hugged her and others squeezed her hand before drifting out of the living room.
'When did you get back?' Tim asked when they were gone.
'I caught a midnight flight. Carl picked me up at the airport. Thank God the press didn't know I was coming in. It's been a zoo out there.'
Deborah sat on the sofa. Tim and the homicide detective took chairs across from her.
'Tell me how Harold died,' Deborah asked as soon as they were seated.
Kerrigan hesitated.
'I'm a medical doctor, Tim, a neurosurgeon. I can handle the details.'
Deborah sat up straight, her hands clasped in her lap, like a schoolgirl. Her body did not move when Kerrigan explained what he'd seen at the A-frame, but her hands tightened on each other.
'There are some questions that I have to ask if we're going to catch the person who did this.'
'You don't have to walk on eggshells with me.'
'Okay. Can you think of anyone who hated Harold enough to kill him so brutally?'
'No, but there was a lot about Harold's life that I didn't know.' Dr. Cable fixed her large brown eyes on Kerrigan. 'My work is here and Harold's was in Washington, D.C. That meant that we didn't see each other very much. For the past few years that's been intentional.'
'I'm sorry.'
Deborah flashed a tired smile. 'Don't be. I wasn't. Our marriage was a mistake from the beginning, but we were both so busy with medical school and law school and our careers that we weren't together enough to notice. When I finally took a look at our marriage, it dawned on me that I didn't really know Harold at all.' For a second her eyes darted down. When she looked up, Tim saw defiance. 'I also learned that he was cheating on me every chance he got. Probably had been since we met.'
'Why did you stay with him?'
'I don't know. Inertia, I guess. And I was too busy to take time out for a divorce, which would have hurt Harold's career. I didn't want to do that. I didn't hate him. We didn't know each other well enough to have intense emotions in either direction.'
'Can you think of anything that will help us find Harold's killer?'
'I'm sorry, Tim. I can't give you a name. I didn't know any of his girlfriends. I do know that he was agitated for the past week. I asked him if something was wrong but he was evasive. I chalked it up to the excitement of sewing up the nomination.'
'Do you think someone had threatened him?'
'He never said anything like that to me, but we didn't confide in one another. Besides, Harold was a United States senator. They have tremendous resources. If someone was threatening him he would have gone to the FBI.'
'So you have no idea why Harold was upset?' McCarthy asked.
'No.'
'Did you know that Harold owned the cabin where he was killed?' the detective continued.
