“Maybe,” she said slowly. “But… Lester’s been the one following me. He sent the flowers and sent over the drink. Lester’s the one who showed up at my house last night…”
“Exactly,” Margolis agreed. “And all of this has made me wonder whether Dr. Manning was wrong about the relationship between Lester and Atkinson. If he’s right, and Atkinson is trying to frame Lester, then how did he get Lester to play along so perfectly? Especially when you take last night into account? If you throw that idea out, however, it leaves us with a couple of other possibilities. The first is that Lester somehow knew that Atkinson was going to go after you, and he decided to join in. Of course, that raises the question as to how Lester would know what Atkinson was planning, which opens a whole new can of worms. If we put aside that idea, too, however, there’s also a third possibility.”
Maria looked across the table at Margolis, almost afraid to hear what he was going to say next.
“What if,” he finally offered, “Lester and Atkinson are working together? And they’re providing alibis for each other?”
Maria, trying to absorb Margolis’s questions, said nothing.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Margolis said. “And it sounds crazy to me, too, but of the three explanations, it’s the only one that seems to make any sense at all.”
“I’m still not sure why you think Atkinson might be involved in the first place. Maybe Lester had some homeless guy or kid slash my tires and leave the note because he knew he’d have the perfect alibi. Because everything else points to the fact that Lester’s probably working alone.”
“Not everything,” Margolis said. “See, the thing is, I ran the registrations on the cars near the park, just like Colin suggested. And one of them brought up a serious red flag.”
“Why?”
“Because the car in question is registered to Mark Atkinson.”
“Does that make sense to you?” Maria asked Colin after Margolis had left. “About Lester and Atkinson working together?”
“I don’t know,” Colin admitted.
She shook her head. “It’s Lester. Alone. It has to be.” Even to her ears, it sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “And if they are working together, why is Atkinson’s car at the park? How did they get away? Lester doesn’t have a car.”
“Like Margolis suggested last night, maybe he stole one.”
She shook her head. “It’s just so confusing. This whole thing is like one of those Russian nesting dolls. Open up one doll, and there’s another one inside, and on and on. And what am I supposed to do now? What if the detective finds something that implicates Atkinson? Am I supposed to get a Fifty-C on Atkinson, too?”
“It might come to that.”
“And what if they can’t find Atkinson, either? Even his mother can’t find him. What good would a Fifty-C do if they can’t serve it right away?”
Colin didn’t answer, but he sensed that Maria didn’t need him to. Her thoughts continued to spin, words tumbling out. “God only knows where Lester is, but it’s the same situation. What good can the Fifty-C do if they can’t find him, either?”
“They will.”
“How?”
Instead of answering, Colin reached for her hand. “For now, I think our best bet is to stick with the plan, especially since there might be two of them.”
“Because you think it’s easier for two people to follow me?”
“Yes. And because until we really know what’s going on, keeping you safe is the only thing we can do.”