“In this county?” Jet gets up and walks to the back window. She speaks without looking back at me. “Marshall . . . how would you feel if the Poker Club killed Max?”
In all the years I’ve known her, I have never heard this tone in her voice. Something has snapped. “I’m no fan of Max’s,” I say warily, trying to stall as I adjust to this new perception. “I never was. But you’re talking about murder. Potentially. Remote-control murder.”
“Hey—” She’s still looking out the window, and there’s a new rigidity in her posture. “I thought I saw something move in the trees.”
“Probably a deer. They hang out at the edge of the woods this time of evening, using the tree line for cover when they venture into the grass.”
She raises her hand to the window and squints. “Do you know how much better off Paul would be without Max riding him every day? Max has spent his life crippling Paul emotionally. Beating him down.”
“Granted. But the penalty for being a shitty father isn’t death.”
At last Jet turns from the window. “I also believe there’s a strong probability that Max shot Sally, no matter what Dr. Kirby says about her prognosis. Sally was genuinely religious. Not churchy—truly devout.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be defending him.”
Jet watches me in silence for half a minute. Then she reaches into her cropped pants and takes out what looks like a necklace with a jewel pendant.
“There may be one more way I can neuter Max,” she says.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to the pendant in her hand.
“A sapphire necklace. Art deco. It belonged to Sally.” Jet hooks her fingers through the chain and swings the pendant slowly back and forth like a Hollywood hypnotist. Light from the window flashes blue from the stone, which appears to be surrounded by diamonds. “It was made in Moscow in 1930. Sally’s father bought it in Berlin in 1947, when he was in the air force. It’s a family heirloom.”
“And?”
“You know sapphires are my favorite stone. Sally always told me that after she was gone, this would be mine.”
“Okay.”
“This morning, while Max was in jail, I didn’t just go through his office. I wandered around the house thinking about Sally. I went into her bedroom. I could smell her, see the clothes she’d worn the last couple of days. I also went into her bathroom and looked through her jewelry box.”
“And you took the necklace.”
Jet nods.
“What’s it worth?”
“I don’t know. Maybe fifty thousand. You’re missing the point. It’s not just a necklace.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a white sticker on the back, and there’s writing on it.”
“What does it say?”
Her eyes flash. “It’s passwords, Marshall. A five-digit one on top. Then a longer one, a word followed by numbers.”
“Passwords to what?”
“I don’t know. I tried Sally’s computer—no luck. Same with Max’s laptop and desktop. The police have her iPhone, but I think she would have foreseen that. Whatever these passwords open, I think she put them where she knew I’d find them—not right away, but sooner or later.”
“What’s the word part of the second password?”
“Mai Loc. The whole password is MaiLoc1971.”
“My lock?” I ask, incredulous.
“It’s not English words,” she explains. “It’s M-A-I, L-O-C. I googled it. Mai Loc is a village in the central highlands of Vietnam. The U.S. Army Fifth Special Forces Group established a camp there in 1968.”
“Holy shit. That’s Max all over. Green Beret. But he was still in high school in ’68. Was the camp still there in ’71?”
“Yes. Wikipedia says the Special Forces had pulled out by then, but there was a sizable operation near there in ’71, and Max could have been part of that. He reached Vietnam in 1970, and I know he served in that area in ’71. Quang Tri Province.”
“Was the name of the operation ‘Mustang’?”
“Montana Mustang.”
“Max played some role in that. I heard him talk about it in high school. Those have to be passwords, at least the second one. The pun is so obvious. Mai Loc?”
Jet nods, her eyes filled with the primal excitement I’ve seen in men’s eyes before a hunt. “Sally left these passwords for me. But unless I can figure out what they open, it won’t help us.”
“Do you think Max killed her over whatever those passwords protect?”
“Maybe.”
“What could it be?”
“I think the first number is a cell phone password.”
Suddenly I see her intent. “You’re going to try to steal Max’s phone?”