“Can we sit?” Maddie seemed irritated.
“Make it fast. I’m with friends.”
“I see that. Looks like a fun crowd.” They found an empty booth by the kitchen door.
“What is it?” she repeated.
“Like I said, it might not be anything. Tacoma PD missed a potential piece of evidence. Or maybe not. I don’t know.” Kendall chose her words carefully, but in doing so, she made the scenario appear worse than it was. She was, as Josh said, on shaky ground. While she was technically working her own case involving Tori Connelly, she was stepping on the toes of Tacoma Police and that was never a good idea.
“I’m working my own case,” she said.
“But it could be related to yours. Hear me out.” Maddie was devoid of facial expression, which spoke more of her ability to hide her feelings than of Botox. It didn’t matter to her if she believed her client or not, but a mistake by the police was always a good thing.
“Go on. All ears here.”
“Lainie says there was a condom wrapper in the guest room. The deceased had a vasectomy.” Maddie’s eyes were flinty. Again, cool.
“All right.”
“What about your client?”
“That’s extremely personal.” Kendall fidgeted a little in her chair.
“Well, sure it is,” she said.
“But we can’t figure out why there would be a condom wrapper in that bedroom.” The lawyer tapped her long nails against the dark walnut surface of the tabletop.
“So what you might be saying—and what Kaminski probably would not like brought up at trial—is that there might be another man involved with the charming Mrs. Connelly.”
“Something like that,” Kendall said. Maddie got up and started for her table.
“I’ll get back to you,” she said.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
It was 1:40 P.M. Ten minutes after Kendall’s appointed meeting with Laura Connelly. Kendall slumped into a booth in the back, but facing the front door at Shari’s Restaurant off Union Avenue in Tacoma, just past the Target store.
“I don’t want to say anything over the phone,” Laura had said.
“Are you all right? Can you tell me what it’s about?”
“Parker,” she said, her voice catching a little in her throat.
“It has to do with my son.” Despite the waitress’s chirpy delivery of the “Strawberry Fields” promotion (“pie, sundaes, pancakes, smoothies, shakes—just about anything you can freckle with strawberries, we’re doing it this month”), Kendall ordered only coffee. As she waited, she wondered if Laura had backed out. She texted a message to Steven, letting him know that Laura was late, and that meant she might be, too.
“Over here,” she mouthed as Laura came into the restaurant. She was wearing black jeans, a black sweater, and a rope of silver chains around her neck.
“I thought it would be more private here,” Kendall said.
“After I talk to you, what difference will privacy make?” There was a coolness, a directness, to Laura’s words, and Kendall nodded understandingly.
“It depends on what you have to tell me.” Laura barely blinked.
“I guess so. Believe me, I thought about not coming inside. I sat in my car for fifteen minutes. I saw you go in and thought about just driving away.”
“But you didn’t,” Kendall said. Laura nodded at the busboy, but kept silent as he poured her a cup of coffee.
“No, I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m crazy about this.”
“I understand.” The waitress scurried over with a thermal coffeepot.
“Coffee? Something to eat?”
“Coffee’s fine,” Laura said.
“Nothing else for me.”
“Strawberry Fields going on now,” the waitress said.
“I’ll fill her in,” Kendall said, somewhat sharply. The waitress shrugged and went back to the counter across the room, where a man had been complaining loudly that his popcorn shrimp was heavy on the batter and low on actual shrimp.
“I’m worried about my son,” she said. Kendall nodded.
“Yes, I know you are.” Laura ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it away from her face.
“I don’t think I can talk about it. This was a mistake.”
“What was a mistake, Laura?”
“Talking to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My son. He’s all I have.”
“Yes, I love my son, too.”
“I think my son is mixed up in something.” Kendall had seen that look, heard those words, felt the palpable fear that came with a mother trying to save her boy. She prayed that she’d never be the woman telling the story. God knew that she had her own challenges with Cody, but he was inherently sweet. It was possible that he could be victimized by someone, but she could never imagine him doing something that would harm someone. Laura Connelly clearly thought something was up with Parker. The waitress approached and Kendall waved her away.
“I read about that minister. The one who was killed.” Kendall had no idea where that the woman was going.
“Yes, that was a terrible tragedy. Go on.”
“Well, I found something in his room. Something from that church.”
“What did you find?”
“I brought it with me.” She reached into her purse and pulled out the money pouch emblazoned with the name of the dead minister’s church. She slid it across the table. Kendall didn’t touch it. Though she could readily ascertain that Laura Connelly had her fingers all over the pouch, she didn’t want to degrade any potential evidence. She knew of one case in which a positive DNA match was made to a hairbrush that had been used by other family members two years after a murder victim had been dumped and found. It was not a familial match, but dead-on to the individual.
“Did you ask him about it?” Laura nodded and awkwardly slid her elbows close to her sides.
“Yes, a couple of days ago,” she said.
“I know I should have told you sooner. I don’t think he had a thing to do with the murder. He’s not a violent kid. I just think he must know something.” Laura started to cry, loudly enough to get the attention of diners adjacent to them.
“Tell me what happened,” Kendall said.
“I know you’ll help me, mother to mother,” she said.
Laura Connelly had wrestled with the discovery of the deposit pouch to the point where she couldn’t think about anything else. While it was true that her relationship with Parker had worsened since his father’s death, she could see that the disintegration had been coming for quite some time. He’d been evasive, indifferent, and on occasion, almost threatening. There was no “you and me against the world” banter. No more promises to “take care of you when you’re an old lady, Mom.” Parker was sullen, agitated, and counting the days to his eighteenth birthday. Her heart thumped hard inside her chest as she knocked on the door of his bedroom. It was never open
