"Trying to get yourself shot?" McVeigh asked her as she spun around to face him, her heart pounding out an overture, her breath vibrating in her chest. His hand fell from her shoulder.
"Trying to save me the trouble by giving me a heart attack?" she retorted, hand pressed to her chest as she waited for her heart rate to return to normal. "You scared the life out of me!"
He at least had the decency to look abashed. "Sorry," he said, glancing down at the ground. "I didn't mean to startle you. I looked up and you were gone. Didn't want you to get lost, not when it's about to rain. You'd ruin your fancy shoes." His head came back up, moustache twitching into an apologetic smile.
She found herself returning the crooked grin. "No, I'm the one who's sorry. I shouldn't have wandered off, but Kurt, I thought I saw someone running through the woods! This is private property; no one else should be here, and if they are, maybe they've been here before." Still a bit chilled, she rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms, smoothing out the goosebumps.
He nodded slowly. "What did they look like? Tall?"
"I...I don't know. All I really saw was something white, like a shirt. They were moving fast, running, over there, through the trees."
He turned to look where she was pointing. "Don't see anything now."
She shook her head, still rubbing her arms. "No, I lost sight of them; that's why I came back. Why do you ask if they were tall? Is that important?"
Kurt frowned and slid off his brown suede jacket and held it out for her. "Because whoever shot John Patterson was at least six foot."
She stared, opened her mouth, then closed it again, turning around and sliding into the jacket before she spoke. "But Karen is only 5'3."
He pointed at her. "Exactly."
Diane smiled slowly, her eyes locked on his as she considered whether that would be enough to clear their client.
McVeigh was first to look away, clearing his throat and turning back to where he left his equipment.
"Maybe we could go take a quick look," Diane said quickly, gesturing off the beaten path, the too-long sleeve of his jacket sliding up her arm as she pointed. "If I could find a witness to a tall man shooting Mr. Patterson, that would lock things up."
"You reckon maybe your figure in white conveniently dropped a business card?" Kurt asked teasingly, folding his arms across his chest.
Her eyes narrowed, lips pressing together in a thin line. "Never mind. I'll look by myself." She spun around, as gracefully as she could manage, given that her heels were sinking into the ground and took a few steps away from him.
"No, no, come on. Don't be like that. Let's go take a look." He walked past her and veered off the path in the direction she had pointed. "How far in?" he called back over his shoulder.
She hurried over tree roots and batted away brambles to catch up to him. "If we were in the city, I'd say he was about a half a block away from me."
He laughed. "No blocks in here, Ms. Lockhart. But I take your meaning.
"Diane," she said, finally catching up to him, but staying behind a couple of steps behind so she could follow where he stepped.
"Diane," he repeated. "I thought there might be another trail running parallel to the one we were on, but I don't see anything." He stopped and turned back to face her. "In fact, I don't see any sign of someone having walked through this brush at all."
"I didn't imagine it," she insisted. She was physically warmer now, with his coat on, but something about these woods, especially off the trail, tightly surrounded by trees, chilled her deep inside. It was getting darker too, the bits of the sky she could see through the trees were a cloudy grey.
"Didn't say you did." Whatever it was that bothered her about this place seemed to have no effect at all on McVeigh. Perhaps he was just used to the strange quiet of the forest in a way she wasn't.
They continued walking until Diane was certain they had gone farther into the woods than whatever she had seen.
"Okay," she conceded. "I give up. Whatever I saw didn't leave anything behind. Maybe..."
A crash of thunder interrupted her thought.
An hour later, she entered her office to find Cary, Kalinda and Will already seated around her small conference table. "Hello," she greeted them, limping past them directly into her private bathroom with as much dignity as she could muster.
The three of them exchanged puzzled glances. Their usually immaculate managing partner was dripping on her oriental rug, her hair wet and tangled, her clothing streaked with mud.
"What the hell happened to you?" Will asked loudly, leaning as far back as the chair would allow trying to see her.
"Were those pine needles in her hair?" Cary whispered to Kalinda.
"I spent the morning traipsing through the woods with the Marlboro Man," she said, poking her head out of the bathroom doorway. "In heels. It rained; I fell. That is all." She closed the door behind her and took some small comfort in the fact that Will was the only one brave enough to laugh loudly enough for her to hear.
Quickly changing into the spare dress she found hanging in the tiny closet, she ignored the pair of shoes the floor and ran a brush through her damp hair, which still smelled pleasantly masculine from being in contact with Kurt's jacket. It didn't help much; she still appeared to have lost an epic battle with Mother Nature, which really wasn't that far from the truth. After one last frown at herself in the mirror, she shrugged and padded out the bathroom in her stocking feet to join the others at the conference table.
"You clean up nice," Will commented, standing and offering her his chair with exaggerated chivalry.
She rolled her eyes, but took the seat as her partner left them to their case.
"So, what do you have for me," she asked Cary and Kalinda.
Cary stared for a moment, still distracted by his boss's dishevelled appearance until Kalinda kicked him under the table. "Oh, right. I met with Arthur Eames, and you're not going to believe this. He and John Patterson were about a minute away from ending their partnership."
"That is interesting," Diane said. "Is he a tall man, this Mr. Eames?"
"Tall? Yeah, I guess so. Taller than me, maybe six foot or so. Why?"
"According to our ballistics expert, the shooter was at least six feet tall," she explained, giving a quick, edited account of her morning. There was no need to mention the person she thought she saw running through the woods. Given that she and Kurt had found no trace of anyone before it started to rain, that avenue was most likely a dead end. She turned the conversation back to the original subject. "Why were they ending their partnership?"
"He said it was a mutual decision, that they hadn't been getting along for some time, and it was just time to go their separate ways. They were about to meet with a lawyer."
"A lawyer? Who?"
"A woman named Renee Abrams," Cary said, checking his notes. "She had done some work for them before, and according to Eames, John Patterson set up the meeting to discuss dissolving the partnership."
Diane nodded. "I've heard of her. She has a good reputation. Give her a call, Cary, see what she'll tell you." She turned to Kalinda. "How about you?"
The investigator opened her notebook. "I did as you asked and struck up a conversation with the receptionist at Patterson & Eames while I pretended to be waiting for Cary.
"You were waiting for me," Cary added jokingly. "You were my drive."
Kalinda rolled her eyes and ignored him. "I offered my condolences on Mr. Patterson's death and said I heard they arrested his wife. The receptionist, a Mrs. Dobkins, immediately said Mrs. Patterson had to be innocent, that she would never do anything like that."
"Of course not," Diane said. "No one ever knows anyone who would do something like that, yet people do, every day. What else?"
"I suggested a few possible motives: marital difficulties, infidelity, money issues, and she firmly denied any fighting or cheating, but wavered a bit on the money. Apparently the firm hasn't been doing well lately."
"Which can happen when the two founding partners are at each other's throats," Cary pointed out.
Diane agreed. "I think your Mr. Eames, guilty or innocent, is our best shot at reasonable doubt. Keep on it. Kalinda, I want to know where he was the night of the murder. And Cary, get in touch with Renee Abrams as soon as possible." She stood, signalling that the meeting was over, and the other two were quick to take the hint, filing out of her office with Cary closing the door behind him.
Diane stepped away from the conference table, only to collapse behind her desk, slouching back in her chair and wiggling her sore toes. It had been a long day already and it was only mid-afternoon. Trekking through the woods was exhausting, even before the rain and her unfortunate incident with some wet leaves and a hill. Now everything hurt, and she wanted nothing more than to go home, take a hot shower, and crawl into bed with a good book. It was a nice fantasy, but one that would have to wait given the piles of paperwork awaiting her attention.
After a couple of hours work, the piles had decreased somewhat when she looked up at her assistant's knock on the door. At a wave from Diane, the young woman entered, a plainly wrapped box in her hand. "This just came for you," she said, setting it on the desk. "Someone dropped it off downstairs."
She thanked her, and waited until the other woman was settled back behind her desk on the other side of the glass, before pulling the package toward her. Her name was neatly inscribed on the wrapping in masculine handwriting she didn't recognize, but there was no return address.
Unable to contain her curiosity, she ripped off the wrapping to discover a large shoebox. Beginning now to get an inkling, she fought a smile as she lifted the cover of the box to reveal a pair of grey hiking boots with bright purple laces. One hand flew to her mouth to hold in a burst of pleased laughter as she plucked a boot from the box and leaned back in her chair, turning it this way and that in admiration.
They were even in her size.
