“Chris,” she said.
“Emma. I’m in town,” Chris said. “Where are you?”
“Lorelei Mahoney’s place,” Emma said.
“You mean you’re with Gabriel,” Chris replied, and heaved a sigh. “I can be there in fifteen minutes. Try not to get into any more trouble before I get there, will you?”
“I’ll do my best,” Emma promised, but her voice sounded weak. “Chris, I’m really worried.” Tell me everything’s going to be okay, she thought.
“You should be,” he said instead, and hung up the phone.
* * *
He arrived exactly fifteen minutes later. Christopher Best was Black, nearly six foot four, and broad in the shoulders, the hair at his temples graying and a pair of glasses giving him a professorial air. He had a predilection for fine suits and good brandy, and was the sort of man who read Ulysses for fun. What he called his “intellectual blossoming” had occurred after high school, which explained how he, Randolph Palmer, and Rick Hadley had ended up friends. Back then he’d been primarily concerned with football, beer, and girls—shared interests among the three. He’d left Arden Hills while the other two stayed, changed when they’d stagnated, but he’d maintained a friendly relationship with his high school buddies as an adult. Up until he became Emma’s lawyer.
Chris wasn’t a hugger. Or at least, not with her. She gave him a close-lipped smile as she opened the door, then stepped aside to let him pass. It might have come across as cold, given all that they had been through together, but Emma had come to appreciate the emotional distance. She had been so desperate for anyone to show her love back then that if he had offered her tenderness, she would have dissolved into it. She would have clung to him and never let go. But he was not her parent. Whatever warmth existed between them, there was also a careful remove.
They sat together in the kitchen, Lorelei and Gabriel having vacated to give them some privacy. Emma picked nervously at a loose thread on her jeans as Chris settled into his chair.
“What have you gotten yourself into?” he asked her.
“You tell me,” Emma replied. “You’ve talked to the police?”
“I’ve talked to a number of people,” Chris said. “First order of business, the Arden Hills Police are not investigating this case. The State Police will be stepping in.”
“How did you manage that?” Emma asked.
“I pointed out to them the personal history between you and the two senior officers, not to mention the ongoing harassment the department’s second-in-command has engaged in for years. The misconduct investigation a few years ago helped my case.”
“An investigation? Of Hadley?” Emma guessed.
“Ellis,” he corrected. “Abuse of civil asset forfeiture to fund the department. Mismanagement of city funds. Things missing from lockup that he claimed were a result of bad recordkeeping. The last decade hasn’t been kind to Ellis. Word is he’s holding on to his job here by a thread. Smart money would be on him retiring soon.”
“And then Hadley’s in charge? Not exactly an improvement,” Emma said.
Chris’s expression was regretful. She forgot sometimes that they’d been friends once. All the way up until Best became her lawyer. With that, he’d made himself Rick Hadley’s enemy.
“He was your friend, too,” she remembered Hadley shouting at him.
“That’s why I’m here. Looking after his family,” Best had answered.
“She’s a bad seed. He knew it. She’s the reason he’s dead.”
Of all the people who had asked her questions about that night, Best was the only one she had ever thought believed that she was innocent. And the strange thing was, he was the only one it didn’t matter to. He would have done everything the same either way. He would have done his job.
“The detectives are eager to get a statement from you,” Chris said in a tone that suggested this was entirely the detectives’ problem, not his.
“I was pretty out of it when I talked to Hadley before,” Emma acknowledged with a convulsive nod.
Chris raised an eyebrow. “You shouldn’t have talked to them at all. You know better.”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly.” She dropped her eyes to the floor.
“Good thing I’m here to do your thinking for you now,” Chris said, only a little bit joking. He reached into the briefcase on the floor beside him and took out a pen and a legal pad. “Now. You are going to tell me every goddamn thing that led up to your husband’s death. Not just the relevant things or the things you want me to hear, all of them. Understand?”
She nodded mutely. “Where do I start?”
“I think you have a better handle on that than I do,” he said. He clicked the end of the pen. She wetted her lips.
She began with the house, the lost job, the move. She told him about the flaming shit bag and the fireworks, the kids throwing rocks, the arguments and the almost-arguments. She found herself skipping forward and back, filling things in, but he never interrupted, just took quick little notes as she went along. Every once in a while he asked a clarifying question, and it always set her stammering. When she got to the carriage house—the body—she faltered.
“You pretty much know the rest,” she said.
He nodded slowly. “I believe so. Now, Emma—do you or Nathan own a gun?”
“Just Dad’s,” she said. “He got them out of storage. They were in the gun case.”
“All of them?” he asked, glancing at her over his glasses as he scribbled notes.
“I think so.” She chewed her lip. “Do you … do you think that what happened back then is relevant?” she asked.
“Why would it be?” Chris asked.
“It just seems like a massive coincidence otherwise, doesn’t it? I come back here and start asking questions, and suddenly my husband is dead,” Emma said.
“I think that the more distant from your past this current murder is, the better for you,” Chris said.
“In other words, I shouldn’t talk to the cops about that idea,” Emma said.
“I wouldn’t advise it.”
Emma fidgeted, rubbing her thumb over the opposite palm in a repetitive gesture. “The thing is, I’ve been talking to some people. People that think Dad was involved in some dangerous things. Illegal things.”
“Your mother’s suspicions aside, I never saw any proof of wrongdoing,” Chris said. She was silent. For all that he’d helped her back then, she’d never felt like she could tell him how she’d really felt about her father. As far as he was concerned, the narrative the police painted about a girl who hated her parents was a total fiction. Randolph Palmer had been his friend. “Who have you been talking to, exactly?”
“Logan Ellis,” Emma said. “He told me that he used to sell prescription pills to Mom. And that Dad was using the company as a front for smuggling.”
“Logan Ellis is a waste of oxygen who sold pills to middle schoolers,” Chris said, his expression dark. “I wouldn’t believe a word he says.”
“But is there any chance it’s true?” Emma asked. “If it was, couldn’t that have something to do with why they died?”
Chris clicked the pen to retract the point and set it on the legal pad, then folded his hands. “We aren’t trying to solve your parents’ murders. We’re not trying to solve any murder. We are trying to insulate you from this investigation.” He let out a sigh. Rubbed the spot between his brows. “I’m sorry. After everything you’ve been through, you shouldn’t have to endure this. And it’s going to be hard. Very hard.”
“Does that mean you believe me, at least?” Emma asked, hating the tremor in her voice, the way she couldn’t quite look at him.
“I’ve always believed you,” he told her.
“I haven’t always told you the truth,” she said.
“You told me the important thing. That you didn’t do it,” Chris said. The chair creaked as he adjusted his weight. “And this time?”