Buried in Secrets (Carly Moore #4) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,85
her. Then she insisted on leaving and sobbed in the car. Selena says she refused to tell her what was wrong.”
“That fits with the timing too.”
“Pam probably found out that Jim Palmer got her daughter pregnant, let it simmer a bit, then went off and shot him. He put his house on the market because he was trying to leave town.”
“That’s pure speculation, Carly,” Marco said. “And it’s a lot of speculatin’. The biggest part of that speculation is that Palmer is the father. All we have is circumstantial evidence, which is slim at that. For all we know, Chuck’s lyin’ to get out of supportin’ his kid.”
“So we find Ashlynn and ask her.”
“That’s presumin’ she’ll tell the truth.”
Crap. He was right. About all of it.
“We’d need to corroborate this,” he said as he opened his container. “We’d need to check with her friends to see if any of them noticed a connection between the two.”
“Is there any point?” I said. “If Pam killed Jim Palmer because she thought he impregnated her daughter, nothing else matters. It means Bart didn’t make her do it.”
“We don’t know that Pam made the connection,” he said calmly. “We don’t know that Ashlynn had a relationship with him at all.”
I pushed out a sigh and opened my salad. “You’re right.”
Marco reached across the table and snagged my hand. “Do you want to let this go?”
Did I? Would I much rather revel in my newfound happiness with Marco? Absolutely. But happiness was fleeting, and my ability to hold on to it very much depended on Bart. I’d never be free until he and my father were off the streets.
“No. We’ll keep going for now, but if it becomes obvious Pam didn’t do it for a Bart favor, we’ll let it go.”
He squeezed my hand again before releasing it. “Okay. So we’ll finish lunch, then drive by Jonathon Whitmore’s place to see if Ashlynn’s there.”
“I found something else,” I said, pouring dressing on my salad, then mixing it around with my plastic fork. “Before the power went out, I did some research at the library on Rob Crimshaw and his father, Stewie.”
“I’m listening.”
“Rob was arrested for some bar fights and few DUIs about twenty years ago, but his father was arrested multiple times for drug possession, the last time with intent to sell.”
“How long ago?”
I pulled my notebook out of my bag, opened to the page, and told him about Stewart’s case. He’d been given a ten-year sentence after being caught with a large quantity of Oxy over eighteen years ago.
“He was arrested during Hank’s reign,” Marco said.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “But Hank swears he didn’t deal in that kind of stuff.”
“You confronted him about this?”
“No. But I’ve asked him about this kind of thing before.”
“I’ve heard that Bingham was hot on Hank’s tail back then, picking up what Hank didn’t cover. He likely worked with him.”
I hesitated, then lifted my gaze to Marco’s eyes. “When I asked Hank if he knew the Crimshaw family, he told me he knew Stewie. He said he had two sons and he was known for his temper.”
Marco took a bite and swallowed before he said, “If Stewie was in the drug world, then it stands to reason Hank knew him.”
“Because he was working for him?”
“Maybe because he was working for Bingham.”
I nodded and stabbed several lettuce leaves, but for some reason I wasn’t convinced. It bothered me that Hank hadn’t told me about Seth and Ricky being so close. I understood that he found it too painful to talk about Seth—I’d witnessed it a dozen different ways—but it was hard to believe that he wouldn’t realize the information was important to share.
Marco gave me a pensive look, like he was waiting for me to share what had made me so quiet, but I knew he wouldn’t push me to tell. He’d wait until I was ready. Call me a coward, but I wasn’t quite there yet. I didn’t want to face the possibility Hank had lied to me.
“I’ll see what I can pull up on Stewart and Rob Crimshaw,” he said. “But if Stewart received a ten-year sentence, he would have gotten out almost a decade ago.”
Thinking about Stewart Crimshaw getting out of prison put me in mind of Lula’s mother.
“Carnita said that Lula’s mother is getting out of prison soon.”
Marco’s brow rose.
“She also said Bingham and Lula are researching their family trees. Lula told her Bingham had tracked his back to the early 1800s.” When he didn’t respond,