“But I still don’t think Sinclare had anything to do with it,” said Beasley. “I also don’t think he had anything to do with the burglary of your house, Ms. Cashion.”
“Okay. How come?”
“Because he was at his cabin, out on Lake Burton. His wife says they were there together all last week. They’re still there. Sounds like she’s attempting to persuade him to spend less time at the office.”
“Where’s Lake Burton?” I demanded. “When did you talk to her?”
“North Georgia. Rabun County.” Beasley sighed. “You asked me to find out where Sinclare was last Wednesday. I can’t say I credit your suspicions about him, but I figured we owed you an answer. Also figured we owed him the courtesy of not hearing secondhand that we’re taking another look into the Smith murders. So I called his law firm yesterday. They gave me the phone number for the lake house.”
“And he’s definitely there?”
“Yes, ma’am. Betsy—that’s his wife—she said he’d walked out the door five minutes before I called. Out on his boat fishing all afternoon yesterday.”
“Great bass fishing up at Burton,” Gerry chimed in. “Although getting a little cold for it now. Anyhow, if we’re done here—”
“We’re not done here,” I said, irritated. “She could be lying about where he was last week.”
“Possible,” said Beasley evenly. “But I had his secretary check his calendar. She agrees he was at the lake house last Wednesday and Thursday.”
“Did she lay eyes on him there? Or is that just where he told her he—”
Beasley cut in, “And we checked the flight lists into National, Dulles, and BWI. All three DC-area airports. Ethan Sinclare didn’t fly to Washington last week.”
“Maybe he drove.”
“Also,” added Gerry, “local police got the fingerprinting results from your house. And we already had Mr. Sinclare’s on file from way back. We compared them. No match.”
“So the man owns a pair of gloves!” I exploded. “Look, please tell me that one of you is going to follow up. Press Ethan Sinclare on how he happens to know both my families—”
“I thought we’d already agreed, he had good reason to attend the same Bar Association meetings as Thomas Cashion,” Gerry grumbled.
“Absolutely,” I shot back. “But why didn’t he mention the connection when he met me for breakfast at the St. Regis? He acted as though he had no idea that the man who adopted me was a lawyer.”
“I have to agree with her there,” said Beasley. “I thought of that, too.”
“Thank you.” I relaxed a little in my chair. “Meanwhile, any news about the bullet? The lab’s had it four days now.”
“We’ll keep hassling them,” said Gerry. “These things can take time.”
After he signed off, Beasley stayed on the line. “Sorry about that. Gerry’s a good guy. Skepticism and mistrust are part of the job description.”
“What about being a complete jerk? Does he throw that in for free?”
Beasley chuckled. “And I take your point about Sinclare not acknowledging that he knows the Cashions. It’s odd. There must be an explanation, but I’ll be damned if I can think of it. Maybe I’ll drive up today, pay him a visit at his cabin. It’d do me good to get out of the city.”
“Thank you. One more thing. His alibi. Back in ’79. Who was it?”
? ? ?
ON MY DOORSTEP stood a woman with flaming red hair. “Hey there. Hi. Sorry to disturb you,” she called through the door, waving a business card in front of her. I couldn’t read it through the narrow tunnel of my peephole. “Hello? Rhonda, from your office, said I would find you here.”
Rhonda is the administrative assistant for the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics at Georgetown. Cautiously I cracked the door. “Yes?”
“Thanks. Hi.” She trained a warm smile on me. “My name’s Alexandra James. I’m a journalist. Wait!” She jammed the toe of her boot in the door before I could slam it shut. “I know, last person you want to talk to, right?” The megawatt smile tipped up at me. “Just hear me out. Two minutes and I’ll go.”
I studied her face more closely. She looked a few years younger than me, perhaps in her late twenties. She wasn’t beautiful, not exactly, but she was striking. Well dressed. I glanced down. Great legs. “I remember you. You write for that Boston paper, right? You broke the big terrorism story at the White House last year.”
“Yeah.” She grinned. “Still recovering from that one. I got this for my troubles.” She lifted bangs off her forehead to reveal a thin, white scar.
Alexandra James had been all over the news herself for a while. She had broken the mother of all stories, had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, as I recalled, but questions had been raised about her ethics. Whether she’d crossed red lines in dealing with sources. She was rumored to have slept with a British spy; I couldn’t remember the details.
“I’m based here in Washington now. I read your story, about the bullet, and what happened to your family. Were you pleased with how the Journal-Constitution handled it?”
I was caught off guard. “Er . . . Yes. More or less. Look, I really—”
“Good. I thought the reporter was respectful, the way he wrote about the deaths of Boone and Sadie Rawson Smith. I did wonder, though . . . I mean, obviously, the AJC ’s an Atlanta operation, they’re going to want to play up the Atlanta story. But I did wish they had also interviewed your family here. The Cashions.”
“Oh, we don’t want any more publicity.”
“Can’t say I blame you. But it would be nice, you know? To hear from the family that you grew up with. They got . . . sidelined by the story, the way it was written. Left out. Kind of a shame, because if I read between the lines correctly, it sounds like you’re close. I’d love to see a story where you had the opportunity to thank them. Talk about how much they mean to you.”