Two semi trucks traveling in tandem blow past us, and the Acura shudders.
The implications of Nadine’s reasoning have left me cold, almost disoriented. Maybe it’s just sleep deprivation. For a few seconds I wonder if Jet is with Paul right now and, if so, if she’s all right. After that scene at the hospital, there’s no telling how he might treat her. For now, I have to trust that she’d text me if she were in trouble.
To distract myself from these thoughts, I say, “Did Sally ever consider killing Max? I mean, straight-up murder. Talk about having a good motive . . .”
“I know, right? She not only considered it, she planned it. But when the moment came, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Sally didn’t go to church much, but she was deeply religious.”
“That’s too bad. Because the world would be a lot better for a lot of people right now if Max had died instead of Sally.”
A darkened service station drifts past on the right.
“We’re going to be at the barn soon,” I tell her. “Tell me this: How did Sally compile such a damning data cache in only a few months? I mean, she was a housewife, not a private detective.”
Nadine pops my chest with a stinging blow.
“Damn! That hurt.”
“I should have smacked you in the face. Sally was sharp as a razor, and one of my best customers. Since 1865, the Poker Club has rotated meetings between the members’ houses. The Mathesons’ hacienda was better suited to a big group than most houses, so they hosted more than their share of meetings. As a first step, Sally started recording them. The last few months have been especially busy because of the paper mill. In no time she had enough damaging information to put most of the members behind bars. And that was before she cracked Max’s password and started copying his emails. She even installed a keystroke recording program.”
I laugh in amazement. “If Max had known that, he’d have died of a stroke weeks ago.”
“Or murdered Sally,” Nadine says in a cold voice.
“True. Look, I know you said Sally was sharp, but all this sounds pretty high-tech. Are you sure she didn’t have the help of a tech-savvy young attorney?”
Nadine nods. “Positive. Sally had read mysteries and true crime for fifty years. She also watched a lot of TV. That may sound quaint to you, but while her friends were watching Downton Abbey, she was bingeing on The Wire and The Americans. It was actually The Americans that inspired her plan.”
“How so?”
“Do you know the show? It’s a Cold War setting. And one episode involved the so-called Dead Hand system. Are you familiar with that?”
“I did a paper on it when I was at UVA. It’s a system that fires nuclear missiles even after your country has been destroyed. It’s put in place to deter a first strike by the other side. Even if your whole population has been wiped out, the Dead Hand fires every missile you have left, destroying the ‘victorious’ opponent.”
This earns me a smile from teacher. “Sally adapted that doctrine to marital warfare.”
I think about this for a quarter mile. “Here’s where I’m confused. How was the cache itself supposed to function? What were you supposed to do with it? Sally created this weapon, which she gave to you. Then she warned Claude Buckman that if Max ever revealed his secret, the Poker Club would be destroyed. But they don’t know what the secret is. So how did Sally’s Dead Hand system work? How does the cache keep Max quiet? Was it meant to be a threat only? Never used?”
“Oh, no. If it were only a threat, Sally wouldn’t have needed to create it.”
“Except to bolster the threat at the beginning.”
“Uh-uh. That cache exists to destroy them all if Max ever tells Kevin or Paul the truth about Kevin’s paternity. Sally was deadly serious about that.”
“Well, that’s a crappy plan. Once Max tells the secret, Kevin and Paul are screwed for life, whether Max and the Poker Club are ruined or not.”
Nadine smiles with secret knowledge. “Unless there’s an early-warning system. A trigger to alert me if it looked like Max was going to spill the beans.”
“What could that be?”
Nadine raises her eyebrows. “You mean who. Tallulah, of course.”
The elegance of Sally’s system takes my breath away. “Tallulah practically lives with Max and Kevin,” I think aloud. “She’d know if Max was coming apart, edging up