Cut and Run (Lucy Kincaid #16) - Allison Brennan Page 0,114
Grant killed Victoria and had embezzled two million from the company account because he’d started gambling again and was in the hole. He told him to confess, or his sister and her family were in danger. Grant didn’t believe him until the next day. Marie was in an accident and when Grant arrived on scene he saw the same man watching. He convinced his sister to leave town and then confessed. If Grant is innocent of her murder, someone who was there and had the details told Grant what to say.”
Reed was listening, so Lucy pressed on. “You and your people canvassed the area and interviewed a neighbor named Robert Clemson. I want to interview him. Care to join me?”
She didn’t say anything for a minute, then drained her beer. “Let’s go. You’re lucky you have friends on the force, otherwise I would have told you to fuck off, especially after hearing you’re friends with that bitch reporter.”
“I wouldn’t say friends, exactly. I respect her, though. To be perfectly honest, if it wasn’t for Max I would never have known who killed my nephew.”
“So you feel like you owe her something.”
“Maybe. Maybe I do.” Lucy hadn’t thought about her conflicted feelings about Max like that, but Reed could be right. “But more, I owe Denise Albright and her family justice.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Lucy and Jennifer were at Robert Clemson’s house. Jennifer knocked on the door and Clemson answered, clearly unnerved to see them.
“Mr. Clemson, do you have a moment?” Jennifer said sweetly.
“I, um, really don’t.”
“I promise, five minutes. Just a follow-up on your statement from September. If you don’t mind?” She motioned if they could come in.
He hesitated, then opened the door, but made no move to leave the large entryway. He looked at Lucy, and she introduced herself.
“FBI?” he said, his voice a squeak. He cleared his throat and said, “What can I do for you?”
Jennifer made a show of flipping through her notepad. “I’m confirming the timeline. You said on September 6, the night that Victoria Mills was killed, that you hadn’t left … then you later recalled that you had drinks with a friend, Melissa Randolph, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right. I just got the dates confused.”
“How do you know Ms. Randolph?”
He blinked. “I— We just knew each other. I, uh, think we met when my lawyer was drafting a contract for my business.”
“So you were dating her.”
He hesitated. “Uh, no.”
“You don’t know if you were dating her?”
“No, no, we just met for drinks. She wanted advice on a work-related matter.”
“Which was?”
“I—I don’t honestly remember.”
“Why would she come to you for advice?”
“What?”
“She’s a young paralegal, you’re not a lawyer, right?”
“No, I’m not, but I run a business, and she wanted to move into a different type of legal work and wanted to know how much businesses pay for legal consulting, things like that. I don’t quite remember the conversation, it was more than two months ago.”
“Okay. That’s fine. And you went to Russo’s.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Good. And do you remember again what time you returned home?”
“About midnight, take or leave. I don’t really know for certain. Why is this important?”
“You heard about the shooting at the courthouse?”
“Yes, so?”
“The victim was our primary suspect in Victoria Mills’s murder. My boss wants me to verify every piece of information we have related to the the Mills murder, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“Oh.”
Lucy asked, “Did you go to Russo’s directly from your house?”
“What? Of course.”
“Did you make any stops on the way?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“So you went to Russo’s, were there for about an hour, and returned home.”
“Yes.”
Jennifer shut her notebook. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Clemson.”
“Is that it?”
“For now.”
“For now?”
Jennifer smiled. “Yes, I may need to talk to you again, but for tonight I think we’re good.”
Even Lucy could feel Jennifer’s anger under her skin.
In the car, Jennifer nearly exploded. “The fucking liar!”
“Excuse me?”
“Maybe he was confused, maybe he remembered wrong, but there was something … and if I’m right, he flat out lied. Either when I first interviewed him or now.”
“Trust your gut,” Lucy said.
“Two months ago he told me that he was giving Randolph relationship advice. Like what twenty-nine-year-old professional woman could go to him for relationship advice? I didn’t think anything of it at the time, figuring he was embellishing something, making himself look good, but I should have known.”
“She corroborated, and then Grant confessed,” Lucy said. “You had no reason to go back again.”