His partner headed out with a nod, and Marsh let himself relax back into the chair and consider the changes. Connor dating was a good thing. Dating Marie… she wasn’t dating material; she was the marrying kind. He wasn’t so sure about that idea, for Connor had never even drifted that way before, but Marsh thought the idea would grow on him with time.
The coffee really was awful. Marsh dumped his out in the sink and risked pulling out the basket on the coffeemaker. He couldn’t remember when he’d dumped those grounds in there. He made a fresh pot of coffee and pulled out the remains of a deli sandwich to eat as he worked. The pad of paper and the pens were sitting there on the table waiting for the inspiration of what to write, but so far they were blank. Marsh sat at the table and went back to contemplating the crime scenes in his mind’s eye and thinking about what still bugged him about what he had seen. He picked up his pen and doodled.
When the coffee was done, he got up and poured himself a full mug.
Luke found the afternoon unexpectedly warm and appreciated again the fact he’d built the backyard deck as a place he could linger on the sunny winter days. “Sam, you were the one running background checks for Henry on the staff he hired. Was there anything at all in the background check of Philip Rich that suggested trouble?”
Luke leaned back against the railing of the deck and studied his friend, trying to pull anything of use out of the guy’s memory without having to come right out and explain Marsh’s idea. It was far-fetched but still the kind of thing he paid his officers to sense, and Marsh was convinced he had something. Luke was too.
Sam relaxed in the deck chair he’d chosen. “Philip was not a guy you want to spend time with-an hour with him reminded me of a root canal-but he was precise at his job, competent to make money recommendations, and he knew the proper way to keep a person’s finances away from an IRS audit. If he got paid a little too much and reported more hours worked when he had some lower-paid staffer actually doing the work-it wasn’t so far across the line that Henry bothered to care about it.”
“The bookkeeper and the chauffeur have one thing in common; they both knew Henry Benton,” Luke offered. “And Henry was definitely keeping a couple secrets for the last three decades. The bookkeeper knew something; the chauffeur saw something-and someone out there put two and two together and figured out Henry’s secret.”
“If it’s not the fact he had two daughters, then what? Another affair? Henry is dead-he’s not going to care,” Sam noted.
“Daniel would; the sisters would.”
“But that kind of thing is a blackmail fax, not two murders. Why shut up two retired guys who apparently didn’t know they knew something? Philip at least would have been hitting Daniel for a monetary fee if there was something that smelled not quite right in Henry’s affairs and should be best left swept under the rug. He’d stay silent for a price, but he was the kind of guy who would want to be paid for his silence.”
“Nothing like that was going down,” Luke replied.
Sam rubbed the back of his neck. “You mind if I make a suggestion?”
“Go ahead.”
“You and your guys, you’re seeing this nice and logical and from the crime scenes working your way out. Why don’t you just step back a minute and see the big picture? It looks different from where I’m sitting.”
Luke sensed another turn coming his way. “I’m listening.”
“Amy’s shooter out of New York disappeared a week ago; it took at least four days before the cops up there noticed the old man was not around, as in gone and three more for them to conclude he wasn’t sleeping off a hangover somewhere in their own backyard. That’s what I came over to tell you this fine evening. And he currently drives an old tan Lincoln.”
Luke slapped the railing of the deck as the pieces of information fit together. “‘
“Seems like a reasonable fact to me. These two gents-they were easy targets for a guy like that, easy to approach, simple to kill. The family secret is staring you in the face, Luke.
“Amy is the real target,” Luke said with rising dread; trouble had come and found the lady he cared a great deal about.
Sam nodded. “And if the New York shooter is here and doing the hunting, you can bet he’s not leaving without his personal problem solved. Amy had to have seen him that night, no matter what she says. He’ll have a personal reason to want her dead.”
“So do we work these two murders to find this guy?”
“There won’t be evidence to find, I’ll wager. He’s careful in his own overkilling style. And it served his purpose this time to do the extreme overkill with a knife rather than a gun. He’s making sure the press are hungry for every detail of the cases and doing the digging for him. One of those reporters will one day get a hint that Amy may not be dead, and this will burst open on you. The shooter may even plant that rumor to help have dozens of eager reporters searching for where Amy is hiding out.”
“This doesn’t ever get easier, does it? Big picture or small, I’ve still got the same problem. Amy to protect, two murders to solve, and Richard Wise out there wanting to make trouble for this family until the day he gets what he wants.”
“I think the money will always be his scorecard of who is winning and who is losing, but the end of this-he’ll want Amy dead. And as long as there is someone willing to pick up that assignment there is going to be trouble.” Sam got to his feet. “You want me to talk to Jonathan? have a few more guys out watching Amy?”
He would love to build a brick wall around her, but he shook his head. “Not yet. Amy’s got the senses of a cornered alley cat-she knows when there is more than Caroline around the property. Don’t ask me how, but she’s pegged when Jonathan’s people were out there three out of four times now. The circle of people who know that location is small enough; I think we can keep it locked-down knowledge. For now I’ll just warn Caroline which guy we think has shown up in town. Put your focus on finding that car he’s driving and where the guy is staying. There has to be something being whispered on the streets that will help us find the guy.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
“Always glad to help the police,” Sam replied, smiling a bit too dryly for Luke to take him seriously. The man didn’t respect authority as much as he accepted the fact it existed. But he was the good kind of friend to have around, regardless.
“Don’t take too many chances,” Luke requested. “I like my friends living long enough to bug me.”
Sam laughed and disappeared out the backyard gate.
Luke sighed. Nothing about this case set well right now, from the thought of the New York shooter prowling around his town to the idea Marsh had brought him earlier in the evening. It didn’t particularly matter which theory was right; trouble was here. Figuring out how to stand in front of it was the challenge.
He’d go see Amy once dark fell-he owed her that.
Amy settled into the couch across from the blazing fire, holding a mug of hot chocolate between her hands and staying too calm for Luke’s tastes; he’d rather see fear than a quiet resolve that said Amy was deciding something he might not like.
“Do you have a sense of where this man might stay in town, if he has arrived?”
Luke shook his head and just watched her think.
