“Did I wake you up?”
Sam Knight rolled onto his back and fumbled his cell phone closer to his ear. “She found?”
“No,” Grange said, “but Jeff’s mistress caved.”
Knight sat up and shook off his grogginess. “That was fast.”
“I drove down to Atlanta early, skipped interviewing the neighbors, and instead was ringing her doorbell before dawn. Woke her up and took her off guard.”
“Aren’t you a go-getter?”
“At first, she was defensive and evasive, but when I pretended that we know more than we do about her relationship with Jeff, she started crying. Broke down, admitted to their affair.”
“Huh.” By now Knight was trying to pull on his socks using only one hand and mimicking drinking a cup of coffee so his wife would take the hint and bring him one. “She say how long it’s been going on?”
“Six months. Since Memorial Day weekend. Emory got an emergency call, had to meet a patient at the hospital, left a cookout at Alice’s place early.”
“And the minute her back was turned…”
“To bed they went. From the start Alice has been afraid Emory would find out. Never meant for it to happen. Never intended to hurt anyone. Just one of those things. Nobody sees it coming.”
“So to speak.”
Grange was too excited for the double entendre to register. He kept talking. “She blubbered the typical guilt-trip stuff that people blubber when they’re screwing a friend’s spouse.”
Knight blew an air kiss to his wife, who’d brought him coffee. “So what about the spouse, our dear Jeff?”
“I asked her if she thought he had something to do with Emory’s disappearance. She jumped all over that.”
“Which direction?”
“Shot down the notion. Adamantly. Said it was unthinkable. Besides, she says he couldn’t have done it. She claims they were together from Friday evening till Sunday daytime.”
“Where?”
“Her house. They always shack there. She’s his client, which gives them a plausible out if Emory ever catches them.”
“Stop. I’m getting an image of him doing her taxes while naked.”
Grange laughed.
Sam thoughtfully sipped his coffee. “She says they were together all weekend, huh? Convenient, wouldn’t you say? Could be she’s only providing him with an alibi.”
“Could be, but I believed her, Sam. By that time, she was making me coffee. She was shaken and eager to cooperate.”
“Okay, so they were keeping the sheets hot till Sunday. Till how late in the day on Sunday?”
“After a late breakfast. Not too long before Jeff started making his round of calls.”
“Hmm. This isn’t good for us, Buddy. It doesn’t fit the Saturday night scenario we discussed last night. Either Alice is lying about him being with her all that time, or, if she’s telling the truth, when did he kill Emory?”
Grange thought about it. “He admits to driving up here on Sunday. Maybe he met Emory somewhere along the way. They set up a place to hash things out. Wherever that place was, he left her body, then drove on up here and did the woe-is-me.”
“Doesn’t work. Doesn’t for Saturday, either. Because,” he stressed, “Emory’s car was in the parking lot on the mountain, preserved in two days’ worth of ice and fresh snow. Came to me in the middle of the night. She didn’t leave the mountain. Not in that car.”
“Shit.”
“We gotta put Jeff on the mountain, and so far we ain’t.”
“Double shit. But the thing is, Sam, I think he did it.”
“I think he did, too,” he grumbled.
Each contemplated the dilemma, then Grange said, “The extramarital affair, plus the money, plus his being a prick, gives us reason enough to hold him and buy ourselves a little more time to either break him, break Alice, find Emory’s remains, or come up with a piece of physical evidence.”
“You’re expecting a miracle?”
“They happen.”
Knight mulled it over and reached a decision. “Where you at?”
“In my car on the way back. About an hour out. I let you sleep in.”
“Thanks.” Knight consulted his wristwatch. “We’re supposed to pick Jeff up at nine.”
“I’ll make it back well before then.”
“So let’s pick up Jeff half an hour early, take him by surprise, and hit him hard with his infidelity. You know the drill.”
“I get to be the bad cop?”
“See you in sixty.”
*