Lacey took the photo from her father. Dillon hadn’t told her about this. She stared at the photo, then at her father. “It’s possible, then, that because you gave him that three-year sentence, he wanted revenge. It’s possible when he got out, then, that he killed Belinda, to get his revenge on you.”
“There’s a problem here,” Savich said.
Both Judge Sherlock and his daughter looked at him, their left eyebrows arched in an identical way.
“Look again at the photo, Judge Sherlock.”
“Yes, all right. What?”
“Marlin Jones would have been twenty-eight years old ten years ago. This man is older, maybe fifty-five or sixty.”
“Well, yes, you’re right, he is. It’s hard to tell with all that hair and the glasses. Oh, I see what you mean. It isn’t Marlin, is it?”
“It’s his father,” Lacey said slowly. “This man, Erasmus, the man Dad prosecuted, is Marlin’s father. And this is an old picture of him, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The FBI in Phoenix got hold of this photo of him from an old driver’s license. Our lab people worked on it. I didn’t tell you about it, Sherlock, because I didn’t really think it would lead to anything.”
“Is the man still alive?”
“He is as far as we know. He hasn’t been back to Yuma in years. That’s where he raised Marlin. Marlin left at eighteen. Erasmus drifted in and out for a few years, then just disappeared. He’d be about sixty-four now. Where is he? No one knows.”
“Let me see the man,” said Mrs. Sherlock.
Lacey handed her mother the photo.
“He’s scruffy. I remember his sort, they were all over San Francisco back in the sixties. But he was in court in the eighties, Corman?”
“Yes, some ten years ago.”
“I think he would be handsome without those glasses and all that hair and beard.”
“His son is handsome, Mother, very handsome. Here’s his photo. But you know, he’s got dead eyes.”
Mrs. Sherlock looked at Marlin Jones’s photo, stared toward her husband, and fainted, sliding out of the chair and onto the carpet before anyone could catch her.
28
WHAT DO YOU WANT?” Douglas stared at Dillon Savich. He laid down the papers he’d been reading and rose slowly, splaying his fingers on the desktop.
“It’s okay, Marge. Let him in. He’s FBI. Ah, you’re here too, Lacey. Why is he with you? You know I don’t like him. He’s corrupted you, changed you.”
“He’s my boss. He has to be with me.”
“Madigan,” Savich said, barely nodding.
Douglas said nothing. He sat back down in his chair. He crossed his hands over his stomach.
“How are you doing, Douglas?”
“I’m very angry at the moment, but you don’t care about that. Why are you here with him?”
Savich said easily as he sat down in one of the plush client chairs opposite Douglas Madigan’s large high-tech chrome-and-glass desk, “It appears Belinda had an affair with Marlin Jones. Did you know about it?”
“No. I don’t like your jokes, Agent Savich.”
“No joke, Lawyer Madigan. As far as we know it’s a distinct possibility-that Belinda slept with Marlin Jones seven years ago.”
Lacey was watching his face. There was no sign of pain, of anger, of remembered betrayal. Nothing.
“So you’re saying you know why he killed her?” “No, that’s not what we’re saying. I’m sorry, Douglas,” Lacey said, sitting forward, extending her hand to lightly touch his forearm. “It seems that there were some things about Belinda none of us knew. We just came from home. Mother saw a photo of Marlin Jones. She fainted. She’d seen him, she said, seen him kissing Belinda in the driveway. At least that’s what she told us. You know Mother. One can never be quite certain if the flag is going to be flying high or hanging at half-mast.” “That crazy old lady is probably right about this. Belinda was a gold-plated faithless bitch.”
They all turned to see Candice Addams Madigan standing in the doorway, a flustered Marge behind her, waving her hands. Douglas smiled and said, “It’s all right, Marge. Tell you what, anyone else comes, just wave them on in. Hello, Candice.”
Candice Addams Madigan walked into the office, head high, beautifully dressed in a pale blue wool suit and a Hermes scarf. “She was a bitch and she did cheat on you.”