A Parfait Murder

by Wendy Lyn Watson

“Ha-ha. Seriously, I saw Jason Arbaugh at the fair tonight, and he said something hinky is going down at Jackson and Ver Steeg, and I think I know what it is.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Well, Jason sorta slipped up, and he let me know that Maddie is shredding the files of her drug-using clients, the ones who were busted for possession. And she was snapping at Neck about keeping it together, like maybe they had some shady deal going on. And Neck,” I said, completing the circle, “was walking around with a list of big-time drug dealers in his pocket.”

  “So . . .?”

  “Well, we know the firm was strapped for cash. What if the firm had a deal with the dealers? What if Maddie was connecting buyers and sellers, and taking a cut as commission?”

  Finn nodded, eyes squinted thoughtfully. “Maybe. But what do the dealers get out of it?”

  “Business.”

  “They’ve already got business.”

  “But wouldn’t they want more? I mean, Maddie had a steady supply of addicts she could refer to them.”

  He tipped his head to the side, skeptical.

  “Maddie’s clients had gotten busted with dope. They had suppliers already. And if the dealers were looking for a list of addicts, they could get the names off the court docket themselves, without risking Maddie and Kristen as middlemen.”

  He raised an excellent point. But I felt like we were on to something, and I couldn’t let it go. “Maddie’s up to no good, and it has something to do with dealers and users. I just know it.”

  “You may be right about the big picture, even if the details are off. Tell you what. I’ll do a little digging tomorrow morning, and then you and I can pay Ms. Jackson a visit.”

  Whether our romantic relationship could be healed or not, one thing was certain: Finn and I made a pretty awesome crime-fighting duo.

  chapter 21

  The Law Offices of Jackson and Ver Steeg grew more depressing by the day, it seemed. When Finn and I showed up the next day, Jason was gone, the front desk chair empty, the front desk itself buried beneath an avalanche of unopened mail.

  “Hello?” I called.

  “Yes?” Maddie hustled into the waiting area, breathing heavy. Her hair was mussed and she had a wicked run in her hose.

  She frowned in annoyance when she saw us.

  “What do you want?” she snapped.

  No wonder Jackson and Ver Steeg was hurting for clients. Maddie didn’t have the most winning personality.

  Finn inched forward. “We’d like to talk to you about your client list. You seem to have quite a stable of drug clients.”

  “I’m a lawyer,” Maddie said. “Drug users need lawyers.”

  “I think it’s a little more complicated than that,” Finn said. “Maybe we could sit down and discuss it.”

  Maddie sighed. “Fine. Come on in. Say your piece.”

  She led us back to the conference room where Deena and I had found Neck. The big guy was nowhere in sight.

  “So,” Finn said as we all settled in, “I spent a few hours looking at some of your clients’ files at the courthouse this morning.”

  “Really? Nothing better to do?”

  “Turns out it made for fascinating reading. Your clients who get busted for possession, they seem to get more time than most. People who get busted for possession, they usually get a walk or a slap on the wrist, as long as they tell the authorities where they got their junk. But your clients . . . your clients are surprisingly discreet. And they pay for their refusal to narc on their dealers with longer, harsher sentences.”

  “Wow,” Maddie said with a sneer. “Thanks for coming all this way to tell me I’m a crappy lawyer. Made my day.”

  Finn smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think you’re a crappy lawyer at all. I think you’re very shrewd.”

  Maddie’s eyes narrowed, her lips thinned, but she didn’t say a word.

  “Here’s what I think,” Finn said, leaning forward to rest his folded arms on the glass-topped table. “I think you’ve got a little arrangement with Eddie Collins, Juan Solis, and Daniel Skarsgaard, all local dealers. I think you counsel your clients against cooperating with the authorities. You sell out your clients to protect the dealers and, in exchange, the dealers pay you a little commission.”

  Maddie’s expression didn’t waver as Finn spoke, but the color drained from her face.

  Then she laughed. “Jeez. You guys think I’m some sort of criminal mastermind, huh? That’s quite a theory.”

  Finn shrugged. “It’s a little more than a theory. First, your associate, Neck, got a little careless with his notes.”

  I pulled the crumpled envelope that had fallen out of Neck’s pocket from my purse and held it up so Maddie could see it. When she reached to take it from my hand, I pulled it back. As I refolded it and put it back in my purse, securely on my lap, she watched my every move with a venomous gaze.

  “There’s that,” Finn said. “And then I tracked down one of those clients who didn’t cooperate. Wiley Bishop.”

  I confess, I was a little surprised Wiley dallied with drugs. He’s always been a hard-core alcoholic, but I didn’t think he strayed from the bottle. Apparently, though, old age has brought on some medical issues and Wiley thought maybe a little pot might help.

  “I gifted Wiley with a pint of whiskey,” Finn continued, “shared a shot or two with him.” He glanced at me, smiled his rakish smile. “It was after noon, I promise. And I used my own cup.” He turned his attention back to Maddie. “After a couple of drinks, I asked Wiley about getting busted. I asked him how he chose his lawyer. Wiley told me something interesting.”

  Maddie’s nostrils flared.

  “Wiley said the guy who sold him the pot actually gave him your business card along with the weed.” Finn leaned back in his chair. “That’s quite a referral system.”

  I could see the wheels turning behind Maddie’s eyes.

  “Still just speculation. I mean, let’s say—hypothetically, of course—you’re right. My communications with my clients are privileged. No way for anyone to know what was said.”

  “Except your partner,” I said. “Kristen would have known. Especially since Neck, the resident ex-con and all-around badass, was making the connections for you, and Neck was tail-over-teakettle in love with Kristen.”

  “Hypothetically.” Maddie nodded. “Hypothetically, she might have had some knowledge of how I advised my clients. So? My privilege extends to her.”

  I decided to stop dancing with the woman. “Look, we know Kristen filed an ethics question with the state bar.”

  Maddie looked puzzled. Then she smiled again. “Oh, I see. You think Kristen was troubled by our business practices. And you think . . . wow. You think I killed Kristen?”

  Actually, no, we didn’t think Maddie killed Kristen. At least not personally. Maddie was a hefty woman who got winded trotting down her office hallway. No way she managed to get herself up onto the saloon girl’s balcony and then get down and out before Cal and I rushed the joint.

  “Maybe,” I hedged. “Prove to us you didn’t.”

  Maddie grinned. “This is what us lawyers call a ‘fishing expedition.’ You’re just bluffing your way through this, hoping to get information out of me.”

  She clasped her hands together and leaned forward. “Why don’t you just ask me what you want to ask me? I didn’t kill my partner. In fact, her dying leaves me in a bit of a bind. She had the better clients, the ones who actually paid their bills. And she was sort of my friend. I didn’t want her dead.”

  Sort of her friend, but not entirely. It seemed to me there was some wiggle room in that statement. Enough to rationalize a murder?

  “So, if you didn’t want her dead, who did?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. If I had to put money on someone, though, I’d put it on Tucker Gentry.”

  “Tucker? Why? Because of the lawsuit?”

  She nodded appreciatively. “So you know about the suit. I’m impressed.”<
br />
  “Just that it exists,” Finn said. “We don’t know who was suing him or why. You want to enlighten us?”

  “Uh, no. Privilege, remember?”

  “Really? You’re going to hide behind legal ethics?”

  She shrugged again. “Let’s just say that, hypothetically, I’m turning over a new leaf. You want to know what the lawsuit is about, ask Tucker.”

  “What makes you think he wanted Kristen dead?” I asked. “Can you at least tell us that?”

  She closed her eyes, thinking, and then heaved herself to her feet. She left the room for a few seconds, returning with a small digital recorder in her hand.

  “He’s not our client, so his communications with us are not privileged,” she explained. “He left this message on our voice mail two weeks ago.”

  She pressed the button on the recording device and Tucker’s voice filled the room, resonant with hellfire and brimstone. “Miss Ver Steeg, you are doing the devil’s own work. I urge you to tend to your eternal soul.”

  Maddie clicked the recorder. “The rest of the message contained references to our client. This is the part we pulled out to give to the cops.”

  “You gave this to the police?” Finn asked.

  “When we got it. They filed a report but didn’t seem to think it was any big deal.”

  I wondered if the officers who had filed the report had bothered to tell the officers investigating Kristen’s death about the implied threat.

  “Talk to Tucker,” Maddie said.

  Finn made a move to leave, but I laid a hand on his arm.

  “Listen, have you been in touch with Kristen’s family?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know where they are. She told people she was from Galveston, which pretty much guarantees that’s the one place she’s never been. I wouldn’t know how to begin to find her people.”

  “Someone ought to,” I said. “I know she had a past.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Maddie quipped. But there was no judgment in her voice, just a trace of sadness.

  “Even so, somewhere there’s someone who should know she’s gone. A mother, a sister, maybe just a third-grade teacher who remembers a cute little gap-toothed blond girl. But somewhere, someone ought to mourn the girl she used to be.”

  chapter 22

  The main facility of the One Word Bible Church was out FM411 a ways, just outside the Dalliance city limits, where land was both cheap and plentiful. Which was good, because the One Word Bible Church was more a compound than a church. They boasted a massive sanctuary that held thousands of the faithful every Sunday; a private elementary school with two classrooms per grade; and a residential center that housed visiting religious leaders as well as special prayer retreats for the various study groups within the church.

  Tucker Gentry, though, kept his office in the Dalliance campus, where the youth group met. As we entered the building, located not far from the courthouse square, I heard the sound of kids laughing and the high-pitched wail of an electric guitar being tuned. The whole place smelled like brownies. My stomach grumbled as we made our way down the linoleumtiled hallway to Tucker’s office.

  One Word, as an organization, had a lot of money, but not much of it made its way to Tucker. When we tracked him down that morning, he was dressed in well-worn khakis and a simple oxford shirt. His hair was neatly combed, and a pair of glasses sat slightly askew on his face.

  I knocked on the frame of his open office door.

  “Hey, Tucker. Sorry to drop in unannounced.”

  “Tally! And, uh. . .”

  “Finn Harper.” Finn stepped forward and held out his hand. Tucker shook it. I’m guessing he was flying on autopilot at that point.

  “I’m, uh . . .”

  “Surprised?” I suggested.

  His face twitched. “Yes, I guess that would sum it up. I don’t get many visitors at all. Not many adults, at least. And, well, we, uh. . .”

  Poor Tucker couldn’t seem to figure out how to say what needed saying without being impolite. Thankfully for us both, I was past worrying much about “polite.”

  “Yeah, we don’t exactly run in the same circles. Listen, can we sit?”

  “Uh, sure. . . .” He stumbled to his feet as he belatedly realized that a lady had entered his orbit. He gestured to a pair of chairs upholstered in a nubby gray fabric. As he did so, I noticed the long, dark hairs dusting his fingers. They seemed out of place on his long, delicate, almost feminine hands.

  We sat together, eyeing each other cautiously, before I got down to brass tacks.

  “Who’s suing you?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  Finn took over. “Let’s cut to the chase, here, Tucker. In case you’re not aware, I’m a reporter for the Dalliance News-Letter.” Apparently Tucker hadn’t realized exactly who Finn was, because that tidbit of news washed what little color he had right away.

  “I know you are being sued,” Finn continued, “but I don’t know why. And I’m curious. I could call in some favors, ask a bunch of questions, but I figure it might be in your best interest to tell us what’s going on all on your own. Last thing you need is more gossip. Am I right?”

  Tucker straightened in his seat. “I don’t appreciate being strong-armed.”

  Finn and I had done this good-cop, bad-cop routine before. It was my turn.

  “I totally understand, Tucker. We don’t want to force your hand or pry into your private business. But Kristen Ver Steeg served papers on you and my cousin, Bree, on the very same day. And the next day Kristen was murdered. We’re just trying to figure out what happened.”

  Tucker leaned back, as though he were trying to physically get away from me. “I wouldn’t hurt anyone. Especially a woman.”

  “From what I’ve heard,” Finn said, a hard edge to his words, “you prefer girls to women. So I’m not really sure what you’re capable of.”

  Tucker leaped to his feet, genuine outrage stamped on his face. “If you dare to print Eloise Carberry’s lies, I will sue you and your employer so fast—”

  “Easy,” I crooned. “No one is printing anything. Like I said, we’re trying to set the record straight.”

  He eased back down in his desk chair, but his breathing came in short hitches. He was surely riled. “I do not have a thing for little girls. I am deeply in love with a wonderful Christian woman who has been working at an orphanage in Peru for two years. She’s coming home next month, and I plan to propose.”

  He reached across his desk to a silver-framed photo and turned it around so we could see it. In the picture, Tucker stood side by side with a sweet-looking woman. She was his height with a soft, matronly figure—must have outweighed the scrawny preacher by thirty or forty pounds. Her pin-straight sandy hair draped over her shoulder, fanning over the bodice of her demure pink shirtdress, and falling all the way to her waist. There wasn’t a lick of makeup on her face, but she glowed with a Madonna-like radiance, her eyes meeting the lens of the camera with clear, gentle kindness.

  In the photo, Tucker’s head was turned slightly, looking at the woman. The only word to describe his expression: adoration.

  “That’s me and Kim, last Christmas. In Peru. I was visiting.”

  “She’s lovely,” I said.

  A smile flickered over his face. “Yes,” he said simply.

  Tucker couldn’t be that good an actor. He loved his missionary woman as deeply as a man could love a woman. And I didn’t think for an instant that the man who fell in love with Kim would also be attracted to teenyboppers. It just didn’t make sense.

  Which left me more confused than ever.

  “Why would Eloise say such horrible things about you if they aren’t true?”

  “Eloise Carberry has a hole in her soul. I don’t know where it came from, whether someone hurt her or if she was just born that way, but she’s projecting her own sickness onto the world around her. She cannot fathom that I might have a love for her child that is Christ-like in its pu
rity.”

  Wow. Christ-like in its purity? Was this guy for real? I exchanged a “what the heck?” glance with Finn.

  “I know she looks like an ordinary woman,” Tucker said, as though he’d read our thoughts. “But the devil takes many forms.”

  “Maybe you could be a little more specific,” Finn suggested.

  Tucker sighed. “Last spring, I chaperoned a trip to South Padre Island.”

  The infamous spring break trip Kyle had mentioned.

  “Right,” I said. “The tequila shooters.”

  Tucker winced. “Exactly. A bunch of the kids slipped out after curfew. Got horribly drunk. Made themselves sick.”

  “And you didn’t report them,” I said.

  Tucker removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That’s true. In retrospect, I probably should have turned them in. But I didn’t. That sort of overindulgence reflects an injury to the spirit. Those kids needed ministry, not punishment. I invited them to join us at One Word, where they could find something other than liquor to make them happy.”

  “And did they take you up on that offer?” Finn asked.

  “Only one of them. One soul, saved.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Dani Carberry.”

  Tucker nodded. “She came to us, a lost lamb. And we offered her the peace of Christ. But her mother wanted to stand between her daughter and the true word of God. She forbade her child to pray with us.”

  “Is that why you didn’t want her to chaperone that trip to Glen Rose?” I asked.

  “Yes. What kind of Christian woman denies her child the opportunity to hear the true word of God? Eloise was not fit to care for her own child, let alone others. But Dani was made strong in the Lord, and she continued to seek our fellowship.”

  Uh-oh.

  “So the Carberrys filed suit against me and the church. For interference with parental rights.”

  “Is that even a real thing?” I asked.

  Finn answered. “Some states recognize a tort for interference with parental rights. It’s usually used against a noncustodial parent. I have no idea about Texas.”

  Tucker snorted. “The church elders and I, we were anxious to vindicate our rights in court. I would have gone to the papers with news of Eloise Carberry’s efforts to deny her child Christ’s word on the very first day, but the Carberrys had the file sealed. Our attorneys said we couldn’t discuss it.”