"Dad and Uncle Art weren't going to be partners anymore? That doesn't make any sense." Daisy shook her head in disbelief as she added sugar to the cup of tea Diane's assistant had set in front of her. "They've been friends since before I was born."
"What do you think, Karen?" Diane asked her client, who was sitting silently across the boardroom table, head lowered, staring into her teacup with her hands in her lap. She looked tired, eyes puffy and underlined with dark circles, like she hadn't slept since the day of the murder. Probably, she hadn't. Feeling slightly cold-hearted, Diane made a mental note to suggest a sleep aid. They couldn't have her looking like that in court. An inability to sleep suggested guilt.
Diane had Cary call them to come into the office early that morning to discuss both the results of McVeigh's preliminary work at the crime scene, and his discussion with Arthur Eames. He was presently with Patterson & Eames' counsel at her office, and should arrive back at shortly with whatever information the lawyer could offer on the impending break-up of the partnership.
"What? Oh, I...I don't know what to think, quite honestly," Karen said. "If Arthur and John were having problems, neither of them mentioned it to me. He didn't give a reason for the decision?"
"Not really," Diane said. "According to Cary, he just claimed that they had grown apart. Cary is speaking to their lawyer right now, so he may have some new information when he arrives. A Ms. Abrams, do you know her?"
Karen nodded, picking up a spoon and stirring her untouched tea. "She was helping us with the land donation. I should actually contact her myself. Someone will have to tell INPS that they won't be getting the land after all."
"Oh, you're not going to go through with it?" Diane asked.
Karen shook her head, set down the teaspoon and reached out to pat Daisy's hand. "It's Daisy's land now."
Daisy laid her hand atop the older woman's as she addressed Diane. "I may still do it. I just want to take some time and think about what my mother may have wanted."
"I'm sorry," Diane apologized, confused. "Your mother? But I thought...aren't you…" She gestured from Karen to Daisy.
"I adopted Daisy when she was two," Karen explained. "Her biological mother passed away when she was a baby."
"Mom...Karen...is my mother in every way that matters," Daisy said, squeezing Karen's hand, "but the land came to us through my biological mother's family and I feel like I owe it to her, and to my grandfather, to take some time to think about what to do with it."
"Your grandfather, the man who was here with you that first meeting," Diane said, understanding dawning.
"Yes," Karen said. "Roger was my husband's first father-in-law."
A knock interrupted any further comment Diane may have had, and the door opened as Cary entered the room. "Good morning, everyone. Sorry I'm late."
"How did it go," Diane asked.
"It was...interesting," he said, setting his briefcase down on the table. "Diane filled you in?" he asked Karen and Daisy.
"Yes, we just can't believe John and Arthur had decided to go their separate ways and didn't even tell me," Karen said. "It makes no sense. Shouldn't I have known if they were having problems? It's my business too."
"Well that's the thing," Cary said, taking a seat at the table next to Daisy. "I don't know that they were. At least, not the kind of problems Mr. Eames led me to believe."
"What do you mean?" Diane asked.
"Well, according to Ms. Abrams, the reason Mr. Patterson wanted out of the partnership had nothing to do with two old friends growing apart. He wanted out because he found out Arthur Eames was embezzling from the company."
Kurt McVeigh lived on a farm. She wasn't sure why that discovery surprised her, but it did. Rural, yes, she expected rural, but her unconscious mind had pictured a small log cabin surrounded by wilderness, maybe with an old-fashioned water pump in the front yard and a bomb shelter in the back. What she actually found was an immense barn-like structure, next to a largish, well-kept farmhouse and several other smaller buildings, all surrounded by what appeared, to her uneducated eye, to be functional farmland. There was something intriguing about it, attractive, even as she felt distinctly out of her element.
She drove up the long winding driveway and parked her car next to the barn, not getting out right away, but taking a moment to gather her thoughts and prepare. McVeigh called earlier that morning before her meeting with Karen, Daisy and Cary. He hadn't given her much information, only saying he had something he needed to show her. She hoped that wasn't indicative of bad news for her client. Worry that the ballistics expert would quit the case if he discovered Karen was guilty was always in the back of her mind, a possibility she very much hoped wouldn't come to pass. Not only would it be difficult to find someone else on such short notice, but it would be potentially prejudicial if anyone were to find out. And also...well, she just didn't want to hire anyone else.
He had advised her over the phone that she would find him in the smaller cottage beside the main house. She walked up the entrance, pulled open the storm door, and tapped lightly on the inner wooden door, before entering as instructed. Inside, she found a neat, wood-paneled office complete with a roaring fire. Several lamps were lit, adding more warm, golden light to the cozy but masculine interior. The walls were lined with bookshelves and adorned with multiple diplomas, antique ballistics documents, and odd western art. The man himself was slouched in a worn leather chair, boots up on his desk, telephone receiver pressed to his ear. She motioned back behind her to the door when he looked up, asking wordlessly if he wanted privacy. He shook his head and gestured to the chair in front of the desk. As she sat, Diane was again struck by the strange feeling of being both comfortable and uncomfortable simultaneously.
"Gotta go," he told the person on the other end of the line. "Gotta client here." There was a brief pause as he listened, followed by, "Yep."
"Thank you again," she said when he hung up and turned his chair toward her. "For the boots. That was very thoughtful."
He nodded. "No problem."
His mouth remained slightly open, as if he were about to continue. She found herself hoping he was going to suggest helping her break them in, but as seemed to be his usual way, he held her gaze, but said nothing more.
She blinked first. "So...you wanted to show me something."
"Right." He rose and headed for the door, leaving her scrambling after him. They walked outside, past her car and across the driveway to the barn. "It's lovely out here," she commented. "So much...space."
He shot her an amused look, but didn't comment as he opened the large barn doors.
After passing through a cavernous storage area, Kurt tapped a code into a security console and pushed open a heavy steel door. Diane stepped forward and found herself in a surprisingly high-tech looking lab. The counters were lined with microscopes, computers and other equipment she couldn't begin to label. The work table in the middle of the room was strewn with open books, printouts, and what she recognized as photos from the crime scene. "Over here," Kurt said, beckoning her over to to a computer monitor. "Look."
She looked. And then looked some more. "What am I looking at,"she asked finally, giving up on working it out for herself.
"This." He tapped his finger against the monitor, pointing at a line of figures on the screen.
"And this means...what?"
"It's an analysis of the presumed trajectory of the bullet, the features of wound, the position of the body, and the geography of the area surrounding the crime scene. It isn't adding up."
"It isn't?" She looked over at him to find him glaring intently at the monitor, as though he could change what it said through sheer force of will.
After a moment he shook his head and straightened up. "No. The way I figure it, the body was moved."
What he didn't add, though she knew he was thinking it, was that Karen Patterson was the most likely person to have moved it. And the only reason for her to have done so and not mentioned it, was if she was the one who shot her husband and she was trying to conceal some sort of evidence.
"Moved?" Diane repeated, as if she hadn't caught the implication. "Oh no, I don't think so. We went over everything that happened numerous times with both our client and her daughter and neither of them said anything about moving the body."
Kurt shrugged. "And clients never lie."
Clients, of course, lied all the time and they both knew it, but…"There was nothing in the police report about the body being moved. Wouldn't their crime lab have picked up on that? Or wouldn't someone have noticed, I don't know, drag marks or something, at the crime scene?"
He shrugged again. "All I know is these numbers don't make sense with the body lying in the position it was in when the police photographed it. The science doesn't lie."
"Oh. Okay. So now what?" Don't quit, please don't quit.
"Now," McVeigh said, "We go back to the crime scene."