Holly left Marilyn dictating notes into her cell phone. When she returned a few minutes later, Marilyn was still at it. She completed her thought, then clicked off the phone. “I’ve come up with some ideas just off the top of my head. We don’t have to implement all of them, but… What’s that?”
Holly sat Marilyn’s packed suitcase near the back door. “Don’t you recognize it?”
“You’re moving me out?”
“No, I’m firing you.”
Marilyn’s lips went slack.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done, Marilyn. You were worth every penny I’ve paid you up to this point. But the lengths to which you’ll go to win the election are repugnant to me.” When she saw that Marilyn was about to speak, she held up her hand. “Argument is futile. Our association ends now. Please clear the table before you go. Have a safe drive back to Dallas.”
Neal was waiting in the corridor outside the ME’s domain when Crawford arrived a few minutes before nine o’clock. Neither spoke. Crawford took up a position against the wall and just looked at the other man.
Finally Neal said, “The PD is all abuzz this morning.”
Crawford turned away to look down the long hallway, currently deserted. Neal didn’t take the hint. “Is it true you got served a TRO?”
“Yes.”
“Did you threaten your father-in-law?”
“No.”
“You’re capable of violence. I have firsthand experience.”
Crawford brought his head back around and caught Neal swabbing his lower lip with his tongue. “But I don’t give advance warning of it,” Crawford said. “Sort of defeats the purpose.”
“You’re destructive,” Neal said, gathering angry momentum. “That little stunt you pulled last night with the TV station set this investigation back—”
“What investigation, Neal? You’re soft on the one thing we have going.”
“Otterman? The chief—”
“Awww. Did you get called into the principal’s office?”
“I got reamed.”
“For letting this case congeal on your tidy desk?”
“For your unsubstantiated allegations—”
“I didn’t allege a goddamn thing. True or false, Otterman came to us and admitted to talking a cop into letting him leave the courthouse. Huh? True. True or false, I asked him to take a look at Rodriguez, and he said okay. Also true. What did I allege?”
Neal remained silent but irate.
Crawford took a breath and assumed a more conciliatory tone. “Look, you want me to talk to the chief and take full responsibility for any backlash over Otterman, I’m happy to do that.”
“Hell. No. I don’t want you talking to anybody. Something about you just naturally pisses people off.”
“And here I was hoping to get elected homecoming king.”
“Who trashed your house?”
The flippancy of Neal’s question grated the part of him left raw and exposed by the vandalism. But he replied with a forced nonchalance. “The PD really was abuzz this morning, wasn’t it? Forget holding seminars on home security. Y’all ought to conduct them on gossiping effectively.”
“Wasn’t gossip. It’s a matter of record. You called the police to your house. Responders filed a report.”
Crawford knew the chances of catching the intruder were slim to none. Anyone committing a crime that specific, that targeted, knew what they were doing, and it was doubtful they’d left incriminating evidence behind. Even so, the room was being dusted for prints this morning.
The vandal had entered through a window in Georgia’s room, but a flashlight search of the area outside it hadn’t yielded much. One of the officers had theorized that the culprit had been looking to steal something that he could swiftly pawn for drug money. “When he found dolls instead of electronics or jewelry, he got mad and went a little crazy.”
Crawford didn’t agree with that theory, but he hadn’t argued. He’d called in the police only so there would be a record of the break-in if ever he should need it, say for an insurance claim.
“Any idea who did it?” Neal asked him now.
Crawford wouldn’t have answered anyway, but he was spared the need to. “Here’s Otterman.”
The man stepped off the elevator and strode toward them, looking as robust and arrogant as he had the day before. The only difference was that he was dressed in work clothes. The legs of his khakis were stuffed into boots that were caked with mud. He stopped a few feet from them, his eyes as hard as drill bits as he addressed Neal. “Are you so desperate for leads that you had to put my name out there?”
Neal quailed. “No one from our department referred to you as a person of interest, Mr. Otterman. That was the reporter’s inference. He’s since been corrected and promises to recant.”