she cheated on me. It doesn’t matter that I wanted the marriage over, and her out of my life. She was my wife, and I need to know who came in our home and killed her.”
“We can put Carlson back on.”
Eli shook his head. “No, he played it out. I want someone fresh, someone who comes into this fresh, starts at the beginning. That’s not a dig at Carlson. His job was to find evidence to support reasonable doubt. I want new blood, not looking for evidence to prove I didn’t do it, but to find who did.”
On his legal pad, Neal made a lazy, looping note. “To go into it without automatically eliminating you?”
“Exactly. Whoever we hire should look at me, and hard. I want a woman.”
Neal smiled. “Who doesn’t?”
With a half laugh Eli sat again. “That would be me for the past eighteen months.”
“No wonder you look like shit.”
“I thought I looked better.”
“You do, which only shows how bad it got. You specifically want a female investigator.”
“I want a smart, experienced, thorough female investigator. One Lindsay’s friends would be more apt to talk to, to open up with than they were with Carlson. We agreed with the police determination that Lindsay either let her killer into the house, or the killer had a key. No forced entry, and after she got home at four-thirty, coded in, the next coding in was my own at about six-thirty. She was attacked from behind, meaning she turned her back on her killer. She wasn’t afraid of him. There wasn’t a fight, a struggle, a botched burglary. She knew and didn’t fear her killer. Suskind’s alibied, but what if he wasn’t her only lover? Just the latest?”
“We went down that avenue,” Neal reminded him.
“So we go down it again, slower, taking a detour if it looks promising. The cops can keep the case open, can keep scraping away at me. It doesn’t matter, Neal. I didn’t kill her, and they’ve exhausted every angle trying to prove I did. It’s not about making that stop, not anymore. It’s about knowing, and being able to put it away.”
“Okay. I’ll make some calls.”
“Thanks. And while we’re on PI’s—Kirby Duncan.”
“I already made calls there.” He rose, went to his desk and brought back a file. “Your copy. Basically? He runs his own bare-bones firm. He does have a reputation for slipping around the edges, but he hasn’t been formally cited. He was a cop for eight years, BPD, and still has plenty of contacts there.”
As Neal spoke, Eli opened the file, read the report.
“I figured Lindsay’s family hired him, but he seems too low-key, too basic for them.” Frowning over the details, he searched for another angle, other possibilities. “I’d think they’d go for the flash, the fancier firm, higher tech and profile.”
“I agree, but people can make decisions like this based on a lot of factors. They might’ve gotten a recommendation from a friend, an associate, another family member.”
“Well, if they didn’t hire him, I can’t think who would.”
“Their attorney neither confirms nor denies,” Neal told him. “At this point, she’s under no obligation to disclose the information. Duncan was a cop. It’s possible he and Wolfe know each other, and Wolfe decided to make an investment. He’s not going to tell me, if that’s the case.”
“Doesn’t seem like his method either, but . . . There’s nothing we can do about Duncan asking questions around Whiskey Beach, whoever his client is. No law against it.”
“Just as you’re under no obligation to speak with him. That doesn’t mean our own investigator can’t ask questions about him, gather information about him. And it doesn’t mean we can’t let it leak that we’ve hired someone to do just that.”
“Yeah,” Eli agreed. “It’s time to stir the pot.”
“The Piedmonts are, at this point, just making noise, trying to gin up doubt about your innocence, keep their daughter’s case in the media storm, which has ebbed, and in the public eye. The side benefit of that is making your life as uncomfortable as possible. So this latest push with a PI might’ve come from them.”
“They’re screwing with me.”
“Bluntly, yeah.”
“Let them. It can’t be any worse than it was when this was a twenty-four/seven circus. I got through that, I’ll get through this.” He believed that now. He wouldn’t simply exist through it, but get through it. “I’m not going to just stand there while they take shots at me, not this time. They lost their daughter, and I’m sorry,