“At the funeral. Everyone was there. The whole town. I heard whispers that even though her death had been ruled accidental, some people thought she’d killed herself. That she was depressed because she hadn’t become a big movie star. I was so angry. Then after a while, I noticed that Alfred Tate wasn’t there. And as her boss, he should have been. For the first time, I started to wonder if Raya had only thought everything was cool that night. If Tate had caught her stealing those papers and realized what it would cost him if Hiram got them. What if, I wondered, he’d followed her in his car, killed her, then put her car on the tracks to cover it up?”
Mac and I were both nodding. But my mind was racing forward, trying to figure out how any of this linked to Ben Davenport’s family, and especially his daughter.
“The service hadn’t started,” Jill said, “so I walked off by myself. I just needed to be alone for a minute.” Her gaze turned inward. “It was rainy, like it is today. There’d been a lot of storms, and everything was soggy. I’d worn my good black pumps. I remember how my heels kept punching through the grass. I was standing under a tree, looking up at the leaves, not wanting to see them bring out her coffin. And suddenly he was there.”
“Tate?” Mac asked.
“Hiram. He told me how sorry he was about Raya. Said he’d seen me at the accident, and that he knew Raya a little bit, and how sad it all was.” Jill dropped the wad of napkins on the table and reached for more.
Mac nodded for her to continue.
“He went on like that for a bit, asking me how I knew Raya, if we were close. He was fishing, trying to find out how much I knew. Maybe Raya never mentioned me by name. She could have just told him she had ‘a source.’ But finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I told him Raya was my best friend, and that I was the one who’d stolen most of the information. That we’d done it for him.”
“Was he surprised?”
Jill nodded. “Shocked. Then I said I knew about the affair, that she’d done it out of love, and that it was his fault she was dead.”
Mac said, “That was—”
“Stupid. It was stupid. I was already afraid of what Tate might know about me. Terrified that he really had killed Raya, and that before she died she’d told him I’d helped her. Now I’d just gone and told Hiram I knew things about him I shouldn’t. Not just the things we’d stolen. But the affair.”
“What did Hiram do?” Mac asked.
“He was cool as could be. Stood there for a while like we were just enjoying the day together. I started to move away, and that’s when he told me that we should keep our friends close, but our enemies closer. I can’t tell you how that made me feel. Like he’d just put a knife to my throat.”
The lights flickered then went out, and the music from the kitchen fell silent. The restaurant was plunged into gloom. Beside me, Jill gasped.
Then the lights came back on. Jill took a shaky sip of her coffee and went on.
“He said that he appreciated what I’d done and that I could keep my job when he took over T&W. Then he leaned in close and said, ‘Loose lips sink ships, Mrs. Martin. And when those ships go down, they take everyone with them.’ He stared at me with those pale eyes of his, and it was like looking into the devil’s eyes. He said, ‘And I do mean everyone, Mrs. Martin. Guilty and innocent, alike.’ He said it just like that. Then he asked me if he could trust my discretion. Of course I said yes, and he walked away. I was so scared that my legs gave out and I sat down right there in the wet grass. And I never talked about it to anyone. Not even my husband.”
“What a terrible secret to live with,” Mac said.
Jill’s gaze went back and forth between Mac and me. “I still don’t know the truth about what happened that night. But I’m sure Raya was murdered. I just don’t know if it was Hiram or Alfred Tate who killed her.”
“We can protect you until this is over,” Mac said.
But Jill shook her head. “I’m leaving tonight anyway. Heading to Cancún for two weeks to hang out with a girlfriend. Maybe knowing I’ll be out of the country is what gave me the courage to talk.”
She stood as if she were sleepwalking and excused herself to use the restroom.
As soon as she was gone, I turned to Mac.
“Blackmail,” I said. “It’s the merger. This is what Ben Davenport found out.”
“Explain.”
“There are two possible scenarios. The first is exactly what Jill said. That Tate realized what Raya was stealing and killed her for it, and Hiram found out about it. Twenty-eight years later, Hiram threatens Lancing Tate that he’ll go public with that information if Tate doesn’t back off from the fight over the bullet train.”
Mac shook her head. “Going public would make Hiram an accessory to murder after the fact.”
“Maybe it was a risk Hiram was willing to take. There’s no way Lancing would let Hiram go public—he’d be hanging out his own father for murder. Plus, Hiram could just leak the story to a journalist anonymously. No need for him to be involved.” I thought of Tom O’Hara’s business card locked in Ben’s desk.
“Okay.” Mac pushed away her empty coffee cup. “Lancing is enraged by the threat, freaks out, and goes after Hiram’s family. It’s possible. But not likely.”
“Or,” I went on, “it was Hiram who murdered Raya to guarantee her silence about the thefts and his plan to blackmail Tate. Or because of the affair.”
“Or both.”
“Then, years later, someone reenacts the crime with Samantha Davenport and uses it to send a message to Hiram. Maybe it’s personal, an enemy—I’m sure he has plenty of those. Or it’s for the money. Someone wants to blackmail him for that long-ago crime.”
“And this person, he also took Lucy for the money?”
“If the motive is financial. Otherwise, to hold her in order to force Hiram to confess to the world that he’s a killer.”
“Who would that be? Who would have that kind of motivation?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
I looked up and saw Jill making her slow way back to us across the restaurant. Wet strands of hair clung to her forehead and temples, and her cheeks were painfully pink, as if she’d scrubbed them. She stumbled on the edge of the carpet, caught herself.
“We don’t have everything yet,” I said. “But there’s something here. I can feel it. We just can’t see the entire picture. Damn it, Mac, we’re running out of time.”
She threw some bills on the table and stood. “Let’s see if Esta Quinn is still around. Maybe she can shed some light.”
CHAPTER 23
“The past is a leech. Digs its head into you and sucks your blood until it leaves you dry.”
—Nik Lasko. Personal conversation.
Half an hour later, just outside of town and in a world washed fresh by the rain, I pulled in behind a cruiser belonging to Weld County Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Phillips.
Jill had told us that, to the best of her knowledge, Esta Quinn was still alive. But she said Raya’s childhood home was way out east, hidden in a tangle of dirt roads and vast fields, and that trying to find it on our own would be almost impossible. She had to close up her shop and get ready to leave for Cancún, so I called the sheriff and asked for help. Deputy Phillips agreed to lead us to Esta’s.
Mac and I stepped out of the truck.
The deputy was a baby-faced twentysomething, with green eyes and a fresh-scrubbed look. When we shook, he gripped my hand with both of his.
“It’s a pleasure,” he said.