Tapped Out

by Emily James

  Now that Griffin wasn’t a suspect anymore, though, I was back to square one. It wouldn’t hurt to talk again with the woman who seemed to watch her neighbors closely enough that I questioned when she found time to weed her gardens. Though perhaps that’s why they were so well tended. I bet she didn’t have any gardens in the back where she couldn’t watch who came and went from the houses around her.

  I waved to her. The watering can slipped, and the stream of water doused her leg. She pursed her lips and set the can down as I jogged across the street. Today I’d decided casual was the best way to go, so at least I didn’t have to worry about heels.

  Her lips stayed pursed and her gaze slid over me from my sneakers to my ponytail. “You don’t look like this visit was professional.”

  Apparently, I couldn’t win when it came to my clothes. “Heels aren’t very practical when you have long day ahead of you.”

  Her lips relaxed. I wouldn’t have called her expression friendly, but at least it wasn’t openly hostile anymore. My dad would tell me to suspect everyone, and that she might have hated Dean enough to kill him, but I couldn’t see her killing Sandra. Lecturing her about how she could do better, maybe, but smothering her with a grocery bag…it didn’t fit. Though I’d been wrong before.

  I pointed back at Dean’s house. “I promised to tell you if Dean planned to sell the house.”

  The woman stopped swiping at her wet pant leg and looked up at me. “He’s selling.” She gave her pant leg one more squeeze, not even allowing me a chance to confirm that she had the facts right. “It’s about time. I’m not one who likes to speak ill of the dead, but they’ve been keeping nice families from moving into the neighborhood, which hurts all our property values. No one wants to bring their spouse and children into a community with an open marriage like all those celebrities have.”

  I wasn’t up-to-date enough on celebrity gossip to know which couples she meant, but this was the first I’d heard about Dean and Sandra having a non-monogamous relationship. That could mean a jealous third party had killed Sandra—either to have Dean to herself or because she didn’t want Sandra sleeping with her man. It could also open up motives on the side of whoever Sandra was cheating with. If he asked her to leave Dean for him and she refused, that could be motive as well.

  I started to ask the woman why she thought they had an open marriage, but stopped myself. Why questions could come across as accusatory if they weren’t worded perfectly. I leaned forward, drew my eyebrows down, and opened my mouth slightly, pretending to be aghast. “You saw them with other people?”

  She nodded. “Women would show up at their door when Sandra wasn’t home. Sometimes men, too.”

  That sounded more like it related to Dean’s business than him having affairs. He’d said Sandra hadn’t known what he was really doing, so he likely met with clients at times when she wasn’t around.

  “And Sandra went next door to Ken’s house more than was neighborly,” the woman said. “At times when Dean wasn’t around. She tried to be discreet at least, but asking to borrow a screwdriver doesn’t take an hour.”

  I’d heard the name Ken before. Back in my original conversation with Dean, he’d said something about Sandra taking care of Ken when he was sick. The prosecution’s list of witnesses they might call also included a Ken Vasel. In his statement to the police, he’d said Dean and Sandra’s relationship was rocky. The prosecution never had to disclose how they intended to use what they’d uncovered, but I’d assumed—apparently correctly—that Ken would be called to the stand to present evidence for Dean’s motive.

  It was a good bet Ken wasn’t the sixty-something man I’d spoken to before. He was more likely the neighbor who never seemed to be home during a weekday. His absence suggested he worked a regular nine-to-five job. Not that people who held down regular jobs couldn’t kill the woman they were having an affair with—it happened all the time. But if he had done it, people would be much less likely to want to believe it than if I’d been able to find evidence that Dean’s partner had done it.

  Unfortunately, if Sandra was having an affair and Ken had an alibi for her time of death, I might not be able to save Dean. Given what Ken said in his statement to the police, the prosecutor had probably already spoken to him and likely knew about the affair. Even if Ken hadn’t admitted to it, any decent prosecutor would know enough to push him about why he thought their marriage was falling apart once they put him on the stand and he was under oath to tell the truth.

  The question then would be whether Ken was afraid enough of being accused of Sandra’s murder that he’d lie about the affair even under threat of perjury. If he had an alibi, he’d tell the truth, and Dean would be sunk.

  I backed up and casually waved to Ms. Nosy Neighbor so she didn’t know how important what she’d said could be to Dean’s case. “I’m glad I was able to convince him to sell. You’ll hopefully see the sign up this afternoon, but don’t worry if you don’t. He’s definitely going to sell.”

  She scurried for her house, presumably to call the neighbors and tell them the news. She left her watering can tipped over on the lawn.

  I bypassed my car and headed straight back inside Dean’s house. The files I’d brought wouldn’t be necessary if it turned out that Sandra was having an affair. We’d then have another viable suspect to investigate. The question I needed answered now was whether or not Dean knew about it.

  If he did, we had a lot of damage control to do where his case was concerned. Beyond that, I needed all the details about the affair he could give me. Proving Ken had killed Sandra could be the only way to prove that Dean hadn’t.

  Dean was still sitting at the computer where I’d left him, but when I stopped behind him, he was playing Minesweeper rather than searching for jobs.

  It was amazing that Sandra had been the one to die. If I’d been asked to lay odds, I would have put them on her killing Dean. Elise must have more patience than I could even imagine.

  At least now I knew Dean couldn’t have killed Sandra since he had an alibi. It was nice to know one thing was a solid fact. Mark had asked me if Dean might be lying about the alibi and simply trying to scare me enough that I didn’t ask Griffin about it. I’d wondered the same until I’d gotten a voicemail from a burner number late last night. It’d definitely been Griffin’s voice, and all he’d said was He was with me that night.

  Something about the way Griffin said it had also made me certain that Dean hadn’t been exaggerating about what Griffin would do if we tried to expose him or the business.

  Dean didn’t even bother shutting Minesweeper down when I walked up. “You were gone a long time. Get lost in my driveway?”

  I turned his monitor off.

  He cursed at me and swiveled around in his chair. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.

  I pulled a kitchen chair over and sat across from him. It made me feel a bit like we were in a group therapy session and I was the counselor, but this case was turning out to involve a lot of protecting my client from himself.

  “The prosecution will need to show that you had a motive for killing Sandra. Nearly half of all women murdered in the U.S. are killed by romantic partners. That means they’re going to ask a lot of questions about your marriage.”

  “We had a good marriage,” he said quickly.

  Much too quickly, considering how evasive he tended to be when I wanted information out of him, and this time I hadn’t even asked a question.

  “Did you ever fight?”

  “Yeah. Everyone does.”

  The sulky tone was back in his voice. He’d seemed a little scared when I asked about his finances before, like he was hiding something. It was part of what had tipped me off that his business might not be legitimate. Now he sounded like I’d hit a sensitive spot. He and Sandra had been having troubles in their marriage, and he didn’t like to be asked about it.

  His tone of voice wasn’t angry, though. It wasn’t the voice of a man who’d been having vi
olent arguments with his wife and one of them went too far. It was more the voice of a hurt little boy trying to protect himself. That was good in one way. It meant they shouldn’t be able to find witnesses that could say they’d heard them fighting. In another way, it made my eyes sting. I couldn’t imagine what it did to you to have one failed marriage, let alone thinking your second one was heading the same way.

  I softened my voice. “You know I have to ask because they’ll ask you on the stand. What did you two fight about?”

  “Normal stuff. Money.”

  Originally, I’d suspected Sandra’s death might be connected to some shady business Dean was involved in. If the prosecution found out they argued about money, they’d say maybe she didn’t like working so hard while he sat around—that’d been something Elise once confided in me happened within their marriage. Perhaps Dean finally got tired of the women in his life complaining about his laziness and he did something about it—something that resulted in Sandra’s death.

  The prosecution could still go down those paths, and I’d have to figure out how to block them without revealing Dean’s alibi or the true nature of his construction business. Doing either would put Arielle and Cameron at risk from Griffin. Even if he ended up charged with a crime, he wouldn’t be locked up immediately, and Dean seemed confident he’d take vengeance.

  “What about money specifically?” I asked.

  Dean gave what sounded like a mix between a huff and a growl. “Normal stuff. Not having enough. How we’d spend what we had. Are they really going to care about any of that? Every couple fights about money.”

  “They are going to care if they think it points to motive.”

  His sigh carried less confrontation this time. “Fine. When I started to make more, she wanted to give some to her sister, and I wanted to keep it for Arielle and Cameron.”

  The story I’d gotten from Elise was that Dean had been terrible about contributing to the needs of their kids until recently. “What changed? Why the sudden concern with providing for your kids?” I held back a flinch. That sounded more accusatory than I’d intended it to. “If the prosecution knows your history, they’re going to push you on it.”

  Dean shrugged, his arms still across his chest. “Last summer, Arielle wanted to go to this horse camp. She was crying on the phone to me because Elise wouldn’t let her go. I talked to Elise about it, telling her she should send Arielle, and she blew up at me about how she had to make sure they had shoes and clothes and that didn’t leave money for expensive camps when I didn’t send the child support I was supposed to. Arielle was mad at her mom, but it was my fault she couldn’t go.”

  My mind bottomed out, and I had no idea what to say in response.

  “I wasn’t going to give money to save a stupid garden center when my kids needed it. Arielle was crying because I let her down and blaming her mom for it. Is that what you wanted to hear?” He sucked in a long breath. “Are we done?”

  Boy, did I wish we were. Not only did this whole conversation make me feel like I was digging through Elise’s underwear drawer, but I’d genuinely upset him.

  But I had to ask him about the neighbor’s assertion that one or both of them was cheating. I’d be negligent to omit it since the prosecution would likely find out and bring it up. “Your neighbor said people would come to the house when Sandra wasn’t home. Did you have a girlfriend on the side who might have wanted to get rid of Sandra?”

  “No. The only people I had come by when Sandra wasn’t here were Griffin and clients.”

  His response wasn’t too fast or two slow. Drat. I believed him. I had to make sure, though. “You cheated on Elise.”

  “Yeah, and look where that got me. By the time I realized how stupid I’d been, Elise wouldn’t take me back, and now I get to see my kids a couple weekends a month.”

  “What about Sandra?”

  “What about Sandra what?”

  “Do you think she might have been seeing someone else? If she was, and she refused to leave you for him, he might have been jealous enough to kill her.”

  His Adam’s apple jerked in his throat like he wanted to swallow and couldn’t. His breathing turned ragged. “She might have been. One time when we were fighting about the money, she said she didn’t have to stay with me. She had other options.”

  On one hand, an affair by Sandra gave us a viable person of interest in her murder. On the other hand, if Dean suspected an affair, it strengthened his motive, at least in the eyes of the prosecution and jury. Based on his history, if he’d been sure, he probably would have simply left her for someone else.

  “I’m done talking about this for today,” Dean said. “This is still my house. I’ll talk to the real estate agent myself. You can get out.”

  Staying wasn’t going to do me any good. His reaction told me he didn’t know who it was. If he had, he would have said so. He’d want me to try to pin Sandra’s murder on him.

  I headed out to my car. The driveway to the left still sat empty.

  With Dean’s confirmation that Sandra might have been having an affair, now I had an even larger problem.

  Based on what Ms. Nosy Neighbor told me, Sandra was most likely having an affair with her other neighbor Ken. I needed to talk to him.

  But I didn’t feel safe doing it alone.

  18

  Why anyone would want to be a lone wolf was beyond me.

  I’d been back to my house for fifteen minutes, and I still had no idea who I could ask to accompany me to talk to Dean and Sandra’s neighbor.

  Elise and Erik were obvious nos. Not only was it out of their jurisdiction, but I hadn’t talked to Erik since I took Dean on as a client. He hadn’t called me, either. Erik was a born avoidist, so the lack of communication meant he was annoyed with me and had to work through it in his own head first.

  I also couldn’t ask Mark. He’d been working long days, and when we did have time, I needed him to look at the medical examiner’s report more. We’d lost our opportunity thanks to someone stealing my dogs. Besides, I’d have a hard time explaining who he was and why he was there without raising the neighbor’s suspicion.

  My phone dinged with a text message. I scooped it up.

  We still on for lunch on Saturday? Anderson wrote.

  I stared at his name and the message for long enough that when I closed my eyes I had colored dots on the back of my eyelids.

  I did have one other person I could ask to come with me—Anderson.

  Problem was…actually so many problems popped into my head that I would have had trouble ranking them. Asking for his help put me more in his debt and might give him the wrong idea if he did have more than a professional interest in me. I barely knew him, so I’d have to explain why I wasn’t capable of going alone. Or, more specifically, why I refused to go alone into the home of someone if there was even the remote possibility that they were a murderer.

  I could let him think I was incompetent and needed help with the interview, but I wasn’t my father’s daughter for nothing. That was too humiliating even for me.

  On the what-kind-of-a-mess-have-I-gotten-myself-into scale, embarrassment over him taking my request wrong seemed less daunting than having another person try to kill me.

  I called Anderson.

  “Not that I’m complaining,” he said, “but you could have texted me back.”

  “It would have been too hard to explain over text.”

  “You’re cancelling on me?”

  Unless I was reading him wrong, he sounded a lot more disappointed than a simple lunch with a colleague merited. Crap. Double crap.

  A thought flitted through my head that the best way to get what I wanted was to pretend to flirt with him.

  My dad might have no problem manipulating people to get what he wanted, even if it hurt them in the end, but I did. It wouldn’t be fair to Anderson, and Mark certainly wouldn’t like it.

  The straightforward approach it was.

  “I’m not cancelling, but I
’m hoping we can take a detour to talk to a witness in Dean Scott’s case.”

  “Okay.”

  The way he drew the word out made it clear he didn’t know how to interpret the request. Like maybe he thought I was presuming too much and taking advantage of his good nature. I had already asked for two favors.

  “It’s not what you think,” I blurted.

  Smooth, Nicole. Real smooth.

  “I think there’s no way I’m taking Dean Scott back as a client.”

  Absolutely not what I guessed he thought. “Not that I wouldn’t love to be done with this case, but, believe me, I’m not trying to pass him back to you.” There was just no way to say what I needed to without sounding paranoid, so I might as well dive in. “I need someone to come along so the neighbor doesn’t try to kill me.”

  I smacked myself in the forehead. That could not have come out worse if I’d spent time coming up with the most awkward way to say it.

  “And why would the witness’s neighbor try to kill you?”

  Great, now he was using the same tone of voice I would if I thought someone was off medication that they should definitely be taking.

  “Not the witness’ neighbor. Dean and Sandra’s neighbor. Who is the witness. Arg!”

  I glared at the phone and considered hanging up on him, bailing on Saturday’s lunch, and never speaking to him again. I was making such a big fool of myself you’d think I was a medieval court jester. Or in a court room trying to argue a case.

  A soft chuckle came through the phone. “Want to start over?”

  I let out a long breath. “Please.” I took a second to focus on my breathing. I was smart. I was competent. I was this man’s equal. I didn’t need to get courtroom jitters just because I was trying to win another lawyer over to my side and get his help. “I have reason to believe Dean’s neighbor might have been having an affair with Sandra. If he was, that gives him a possible motive. And I have a bit of a track record of people wanting to kill me when they realize I know they’re a murderer.”