Max didn’t bring up Nick again and neither did Lucy. But Max couldn’t stop thinking about what Lucy had said—was it simply the not knowing that drove her up a wall or how Nancy’s shenanigans impacted Nick and his relationship with both his son and with Max?
She didn’t know. Maybe a combination of both. Maybe she really was a selfish bitch who needed to know everything about everyone.
Or maybe she just couldn’t stand the fact that Nancy was, essentially, a bully and Nick wasn’t standing up for himself. He wasn’t even using Max as a sounding board. If there was one thing that Max was good at it was weeding through bullshit and getting to the truth.
“Your husband is returning on Sunday?” Max said.
“Most likely.”
“So you’ll be leaving then?”
Lucy put her fork down and sipped her coffee. “I’m not leaving.”
“Don’t you have a job?”
Lucy didn’t respond to the question. Instead she said, “When you get the names of the possible suspects from Andrew tomorrow, we’ll talk to Katella, then to the chief in Santa Barbara and go from there.”
“You’re staying until we find the killer.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Until we find the killer or hit an impassable brick wall. My producer will throw a shit-fit if I’m not making forward progress, but I have some wiggle room.” Max waited as the waiter refilled their coffees. When he left, she said, “Tell me the truth, Lucy. Are you risking your job by staying out here? You said something earlier about not having the vacation time.”
“It’s my job to risk. I’m okay with that.”
Max believed her. Most cops Max knew were willing to risk their lives for others, they were the ones who ran toward trouble, not away from it. But they all played the game. Most wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their jobs, because they were cops not simply because they wanted to protect the public. It was a job and they had families to support. And with only a few exceptions, the agents Max had worked with in the FBI were even worse—they were bureaucrats as well as cops.
Lucy was the furthest thing from a bureaucrat.
“That said,” Lucy continued, “I’m confident that the name of the killer is in those employment files. We just have to figure it out sooner rather than later. Did you find out if Peter Caldwell was buried with a stuffed toy?”
“I left John a message. He wasn’t happy that I was continuing the investigation.”
“He wasn’t? Or his wife?”
“He wasn’t happy because it upset his wife. He’s going through hell and all he wants is to make everything easier for Blair. My involvement is unsettling to her, even though I assured them both that my focus was on the first three victims.”
“You don’t like her.”
“Never did. Doesn’t make her a killer.”
“Andrew can get the information.”
“Would he?”
“Yes,” Lucy said without hesitation. “But I want him to do it right.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“If there was no stuffed animal, that means Justin’s killer didn’t kill Peter Caldwell. Which means that Blair Caldwell is more than likely guilty, yet she planned this by studying the murder of my nephew. She used the pain and suffering of three other boys to inflict pain and suffering on her own child and her husband. Yet you said yourself that she has a top defense lawyer and he must think that the evidence is weak otherwise they would have pled out.”
“Not all guilty people will plead. Most think they can game the system or that they’re smarter than the jury.”
“True, but Peter’s murder was methodical. You said it had all the same elements as Justin’s murder—all the same public elements. Though Andrew’s affair was made public during the investigation, it wouldn’t be something a copycat would consider part of the MO. It wasn’t publicized in the Porter case, not widely. You said you believed John when he told you he wasn’t having an affair.”
“I did, but he could have been lying.”
“Do you think he was lying? This is important, Max. You have good instincts. What do they tell you?”
Max considered everything she’d learned during her investigation into Peter Caldwell’s murder. She hadn’t learned much about the murder itself that wasn’t already public information, but she had learned a lot about John and Blair and how the people around them perceived them.
“I don’t believe he has ever been unfaithful to his wife. But there’s another key point—the first three murders the husband was with his mistress during the murder and the wife was working. The Caldwells were at a party in the same neighborhood where they lived. They were seen by dozens, if not hundreds, of people. If John had disappeared long enough to have sex with someone, even if they screwed up against the wall in the bathroom, someone would have noticed he was missing. And Blair was at the same party. If John was having an affair, he would be far more discreet. And honestly, a quick fling isn’t his style.”
“I am positive,” Lucy said, “that the affair is the primary motivation for this killer.”
“You think Blair’s guilty.”
“I didn’t say that. I haven’t seen the evidence. I’m suspicious. I also want to know if John found the information about Justin’s murder on his own or if Blair steered him to it.”
“He told me he found it when he was doing research into like crimes. He was desperate to help the defense.”
“He could have, but my guess is that Blair knew about Justin’s murder, and most likely Tommy Porter as well because it’s also unsolved. Porter’s affair wasn’t as widely reported in the press.”
That was true—Max had read every press clip on the murder and the affair was only mentioned in one article, almost in passing, and in the context of the father’s alibi.
“And Chris Donovan?” Max asked.
“Another similar crime, but she wouldn’t have concerned herself with it because he was convicted. If she had read the trial transcripts, she would have known about the stuffed animal.”
“You really do think she’s guilty,” Max said.
Lucy didn’t comment. Max found both what she said—and what she didn’t say—intriguing.
“I’ll talk to Andrew,” Lucy said. “If John returns your call, let me know what he says. Otherwise, we’ll get the information another way. And if my suspicions are right, fair warning—I’m going to have Andrew suggest that the prosecution bring in my brother Dillon as an expert witness. Because if there is any reasonable doubt, the jury won’t convict Blair Caldwell—no one wants to believe a mother can kill her son in cold blood. It’s a difficult case to prosecute unless they have hard evidence.”
“You’re far more familiar with these cases than your brother.”
“I can’t testify as an expert witness—I’m a forensic psychologist, Dillon is a psychiatrist—a medical doctor—who has testified dozens of times. He has the credentials. And trust me on this, if he believes she’s guilty and goes on that stand, the jury will believe she’s guilty.”
Max didn’t doubt it for a minute. She couldn’t wait to meet Dillon Kincaid in person, though he might not be as friendly as his sister.
Lucy ate almost the entire chocolate mousse before she pushed it away. “When does the trial start?”