“Yes, but I can’t right now.”
She hadn’t missed Nick sitting on the porch with J. P. in his lap. He was eyeing them suspiciously.
“Let me think about what you said,” Carina said. “And I’m sorry about the way I reacted. You’re right, I’m emotional about this. I’ve always had a hard time thinking like a cop when it comes to Justin.”
Spontaneously, Carina hugged her. Lucy hugged her back. “I love you, Cara,” Lucy said.
“I love you, too, sis. I really do.” Carina smiled and wiped away tears. “Damn, I get so weepy since I’ve had J. P.”
“Motherhood becomes you.”
Lucy opened her car door and slipped inside. As she drove off, she looked in the rearview mirror. Carina and Nick were sitting together. Carina had taken J. P. from Nick and was hugging her son.
Lucy blinked back her own tears. Time to focus. She called Assistant Chief Carney with the Santa Barbara police department and knew she was about to overstep her bounds—and it could very likely cost her her job.
But if she solved Justin’s murder, she could live with that.
Chapter Twenty-five
The government offices weren’t empty on Saturday morning, but staff was minimal. Andrew set up his laptop in the conference room adjoining his office. He also had nine boxes stacked on the floor.
“We went completely digital ten years ago, but to save on the budget, we included only current employees. If you’re right and whoever we’re looking for left the office shortly after Justin was killed, then she’ll be in one of these boxes. I pulled the files from the year Justin died and the following year, as you suggested.” He stared at the boxes and shook his head. “Basically, those are all employees of the county of San Diego who terminated employment in those two years. It would be faster if these files were separated by department.”
Max sipped her coffee. Two years ago, before she began Maximum Exposure, she’d been solely responsible for all her own research. Now, she did so little of it that she realized she had become lazy. The idea of spending all day sorting through spreadsheets and employee files was far from exciting. “We’re two smart people, we’ll figure it out,” she said. “We’re looking for women in which department?” She put one box in front of her.
“Lucy said anyone working in the courthouse or the district attorney’s office, but I also figure the public defenders’ office should be included. I know the codes, I can go through the files faster. I’ll separate them and you can then look and determine if the individuals fit the profile.”
“Good plan.”
Andrew took the box from Max and started separating out files. He was able to sort the files based solely on the coded employee label, which saved time. They worked in silence for several minutes. Andrew was putting one in roughly every three files in front of her. She had a cheat sheet of what she was looking for: a female employee who was between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five at the time Justin was killed. Lucy was confident she was from the East, but Arthur had suggested that it could be someone simply outside the area. Because they weren’t settled on it, Max decided to leave hometown as irrelevant.
The first six files Andrew put in front of her were men, easy to put aside. The next was a woman who retired—she’d been sixty-five—out. The next a woman of thirty-three—put her in the maybe pile.
Max wanted to ask Andrew questions about Lucy, but she didn’t want Andrew to know she was curious.
“I apologize for how I responded to your insistence I work with your sister-in-law,” Max began, choosing her words perhaps a bit too carefully. She actually wasn’t sorry for her response—it was justified, considering the circumstances—but she did wish she’d kept her cool. She’d felt blindsided.
“No apologies necessary,” he said, not looking up from the files. When the first box was empty, he took the reject folders, put them back inside, and wrote on a sticky note the names and employee numbers that Max had set aside. He put it on the lid, pushed it back against the wall, and opened the second box.
“I’ve found her insight surprisingly helpful. My experience has been that cops don’t like working with me.”
Andrew glanced at her with a wry grin. “You’re a reporter.”
As if that explained everything.
“You say that as if I’m a used car salesman.”
“I’m a lawyer, I get the same attitude.”
“Yes, but you’re a prosecutor. A district attorney. A lot more prestige and respect than, say, an ambulance chaser.”
“Sometimes it’s an uphill battle.” They finished with the second box faster as they developed a rhythm, and he did the same thing as he’d done with the first, putting in the rejected files and making a note on top.
“I’ll admit, I was nervous that Lucy would say no,” Andrew said as he opened the third box. “Not because she doesn’t want answers, but because she’s finally gotten her life together. I didn’t want to bring all this back on her. But the one thing I’ve learned about Lucy over the years is that she has a spine of steel.”
“She does. She’s very focused.”
Finally gotten her life together. What did that mean?
“Her father had a heart attack last year—right before Christmas. The family was all here. I think that’s the hardest thing for me being on the outs with the Kincaids. I had a shitty childhood. No excuses—it was what it was. My father was an alcoholic cop. A real jerk. My mom left him when I was a kid, my little brother and I bounced back and forth between them for years, until I finally said screw it, my dad didn’t deserve anything from us. He died when I was in law school—broken and bitter. So when I met Nelia, I think one of the reasons I became so attached was because I fell in love with the Kincaids. Losing them on top of losing my son … honestly, I went through some dark times. If it wasn’t for Dillon, I wouldn’t be here today. He forgave me, he talked to me. He was the only one.”
“We had a long conversation with Dr. Kincaid last night. They talked shrink talk—I listened.”
“Dillon’s a smart guy. We’ve been able to work together over the years, but he wouldn’t even think of asking his family to forgive me. He does what he wants but I think he understood, even back then, why Nelia and I were together at all.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes, but not the right love.”
“I have no idea what that means.”