tightened. “I’m not answering any more questions without a lawyer.”
As she turned to leave, she paused at the door and looked back at him. “You know what strikes me about Lana?”
“No, what?”
“She looks like a younger version of your wife.”
“Get out,” Darren said through clenched teeth. “Or I’m calling the cops.”
She had hit a nerve. Good.
An express package was waiting for Gideon when he returned to his desk. It was from the warden of Montana State Prison. He shrugged off his jacket, hung it over the back of his chair, and sat. He ripped open the tab and removed the thin bundle of copied letters that had been written to Elijah James Weston, prisoner #2317104. There were letters from five women.
The warden indicated that Elijah had received many more letters in the last decade, but these were the only ones in Elijah’s file. His staff was searching for the remaining letters.
Gideon knew the letters would never be found. The warden had said Elijah had worked in his office during his last year in prison. He likely had removed the letters.
The warden also indicated that because of Elijah’s excellent record within the prison, he had been allowed six contact visits a year. These visits allowed the prisoner to hug or shake hands with the visitor and to sit across from each other at a table, not separated by glass. The women who visited Elijah Weston were Scottie Winter in 2014, Sarah Rogers in 2019, and Lana Long, who had visited him six times in 2020.
According to the warden, all the women were required to submit a questionnaire detailing not only basic facts about their lives but also if they had prison records. All Weston’s visitors had been incarcerated at one point in their lives. Infractions included prostitution, identity theft, and narcotics possession.
There was nothing of real note in any of the letters. Given the strict guidelines of the prison, the letters simply detailed their day-to-day lives. On several occasions, the women would send books to Elijah via a mail-order book service. All the women except Joan were on Elijah’s preapproved visitor list and were able to send him money via the prison systems.
Gideon set Joan’s letters on top of the pile and studied her bold cursive handwriting. She had asked him several times in different ways why he had set the College Fire, but each time he had vehemently denied it. Finally, she had stopped asking, as if she hoped he would reveal his motivations. Elijah had never revealed anything significant about himself, and yet she had continued to write him right up to this year. Her last letter read:
Elijah,
It’s been a few months. What can I say? Work’s been crazy. I have a tough case on my docket. I am digging into case facts and motivations, but it seems the deeper I go, the more I come up empty. I want to solve this case badly, but as a friend of mine once said, “There are no guarantees in life,” and that includes finding the answers that explain painful events.
Excuse this grim, short letter. Perhaps my next one will be more upbeat when I am less reflective.
Sincerely,
Joan Mason
He glanced at the date. The letter had been written on February 7, 2020. He shifted to his computer and searched Avery Newport’s name. Newport’s house had burned down February 1, and Joan would have been in the early and, most would argue, ugliest stage of the investigation.
He pictured her sitting alone writing this letter. Was she pouring out her frustration to a man thousands of miles away and locked in prison? It didn’t sound like she was working him as an asset at this point.
A knock on his door had him looking up to find Detective Sullivan. “Got a second? I have some of the Halperns’ financials.”
Gideon rose, and when she took the seat by his desk, he sat again. “Are they in debt?”
“Technically no. But they own several properties around the city that they’re renovating. Right now, they’re seeing negative cash flow, but by the first of the year, that should turn around.”
“But . . .”
“They have a balloon payment due on the Beau-T-Shop building in December. That’s going to be a tough payment for them to make unless they have a secret stash of cash that the IRS doesn’t know about.”
“If the insurance policy Jessica took out in February of 2020 pays out, they would be flush with legitimate cash.”
“To the tune of two million dollars.”
When Gideon saw Joan pull