his wife had divorced him for the murder victim. If he knew about Cadence’s affair or thought that she knew about his, that would give him more motives to commit crimes. FireWind was also informed that any further harassment of Goode’s client would result in legal consequences.
Rick and Tandy slipped out of the observation room during the game of 3D legal chess, the main participants claiming territory and threatening each other. I was still thinking. “Occam? Was Stella trying to put the original poly marriage back together?”
He slid his eyes to me. They looked greenish in the odd lighting. “Not just the original version. FireWind thinks she wanted a houseful of partners, some new, some old. Check this morning’s summation.”
I frowned and pulled up the summation, scanning it fast. Then I skimmed through the pics of all the injured and dead. They all fell into a similar age range and they were all attractive, single people. “Was she having an affair with Monica Belcher too? And what about Verna Upton, the housekeeper?”
Occam gave a half smile, watching the people on the other side of the window wrap up the interview. “Yes, she was, Nell, sugar. Does that creep you out?”
“Creep me—” I tapped on his shoulder.
He didn’t turn to me, but his smile did widen.
“Occam. Let me be perfectly clear. I am not offended or emotionally distressed about the lifestyle of these people. I may not like looking at photographs of a bed full of naked people, but I am not a prude.”
He laughed. “Oh, Nell, sugar.” Occam’s eyes captured mine, and he put his hands on my shoulders, massaging them with his fingers. The stiff ones felt weaker than the others, but they were warm and my tension slid away. “I don’t think you’re a prude. In fact, I know from very pleasurable personal experience that you are not a prude. But in a lot of ways you are god-awful innocent. You’re still kind and compassionate and virtuous and—” He stopped, as if trying to decide to say the next part. I scowled at him. “And a little naïve,” he finished.
I huffed at him. “I am not naïve.”
“Not about humans, no. But about sex, yes. You are. If this had been a man having sex with all the females, you’d have understood it perfectly. But it’s a woman having sex with all the men and all the women, and that fights against your upbringing.” He leaned and kissed me on the forehead, like he might a child. Without another word, Occam left me alone in the observation room. Which was probably a good thing, because I was irked. Very irked. Maybe even riled. Because I thought I had hidden it so well.
Goode and the grieving Mrs. Merriweather left HQ and I left the observation room.
Back in my cubicle I opened the files Jo had scanned and downloaded to us from the Merriweather financial records and began comparing information. And I found something that inserted a lot of questions into Cadence Merriweather’s sworn interview. But . . . did my discovery mean that Cadence had successfully lied, perhaps by omission, to Margot Racer?
I stood from my office chair and carried my tablet to the conference room, where FireWind, Rick, Margot, and JoJo were discussing the case. FireWind was standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee in his hand, his crisp shirt blinding white in the bright lights. As I walked up the hallway, he stopped in midsentence and turned to me. “Ingram. You have something?”
“Some of the companies that the Merriweathers own are listed solely in Cadence’s name,” I said.
“Of course,” FireWind said. “There can be tax benefits to putting some businesses under one name.”
I said, “Cadence Merriweather owns forty-nine percent of the silk-screen-printing business that handles Stella Mae’s promotional merchandise. Merry Promotions, and by extension, Cadence, made the T-shirts in the box at Melody Horse Farm. She said she ran into Stella Mae at an antiques store. But she’s had a business connection to her for over two years. And the person who owns fifty-one percent? Is a man named Hugo Ames.”
Rick whispered a soft curse. JoJo started pounding on her keyboards.
I said, “Hugo knows Cadence and is blackmailing her. And Hugo knew Stella Mae. But Cadence might not know Hugo was doing business with Stella.”
FireWind asked, “Why didn’t she tell us that? Did she lie by omission?”
Margot said, “No. No way. There was not one single hint of a lie in that woman.”