Pugh chuckled and shook his head. ‘Yeah, how many of them trucks are there around here? Did you run through all the licenses and pick out the black faces?’
‘We picked out the people with criminal records,’ Maggie replied. ‘Jay Ferris was shot, and jewelry was taken from his home. You’ve had a series of convictions in the last decade for burglary and auto theft, Mr. Pugh.’
‘True enough. You see me using a gun in any of them?’
‘No.’
‘No, you didn’t. Nobody got hurt. And fact is, the last time I was inside was three years ago. I’m clean now. I got a job.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I drive a truck. I deliver machine parts all over the Midwest. Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas. Most days I’m hundreds of miles away from here. Hard being away from home, but it’s a living. An honest living. I got a job, a wife, kids. Jesus blessed me.’
‘Good for you.’ Maggie eyed the house, which needed work. ‘Looks like you could use some extra money, though.’
‘Yeah, and if I was breaking into rich people’s houses, I guess I could do better than this, huh?’
‘Sometimes desperate people will do just about anything,’ Maggie said.
Pugh jabbed a finger at her. He’d chewed his nails and cuticles until they were bloody. Maggie spotted movement in the front window and saw a boy’s face peering out with wide eyes. He’d pushed aside the curtain, which looked like a plastic tablecloth. A woman’s arm dragged him away.
‘Look, lady, don’t go throwing my past in my face,’ Pugh snapped. ‘Yeah, I made mistakes. I was a stupid kid. Fact is, when I stole shit, it was to put food on the table, okay? You and me may not have the same values, but don’t go thinking that means I don’t have any values. My family needs something, I make sure they get it, but I don’t steal anymore. We make do on what I earn.’
Maggie nodded. ‘Back to that Friday night,’ she said.
‘I told you, I have no idea where I was or what I was doing. Either I was on the road or I was home with my family. You can call my boss and find out. For me, Friday’s just another day on the calendar.’
‘That was the night of the multi-car crash up on the Bong Bridge. It was closed for hours. Does that help?’
‘I don’t pay attention to traffic unless I’m in it. Now, are we done?’
‘We’re done. Thanks for your time.’
Seymour Pugh retreated inside the house. Maggie heard the sound of his voice change and heard him greet his kids with the excited shout of a father. It made her smile.
She returned across the street to her Avalanche and got inside. As she headed back toward the bridge, she passed the white Rav on the street again, and she realized that this end of the investigation wasn’t going anywhere. Most cases had dead ends you had to follow. The car on the street near Janine’s house was one of those stray facts that got in the way of finding the truth.
Seymour Pugh was a white Rav owner with a criminal record, and unless he was driving a truck between here and Milwaukee that night, he had no alibi. Even so, he had no history of resorting to violence or using a gun in any of his crimes. He didn’t trust a cop showing up at his door, but she couldn’t blame him for that.
More than anything else, Maggie realized she liked him.
‘Nathan Skinner?’ Stride asked.
He saw a flush in Janine’s face as she nodded. She’d said she was embarrassed, but he also thought there was sexual arousal in her expression. Cindy had told him on more than one occasion that a man who could melt through the ice cap of Janine Snow would find a volcano underneath.
He didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he assessed her credibility. And Archie Gale’s. Nothing came free with Gale. Nothing was given up to the police or the prosecutors without an upside for him. If Janine was freely willing to confess to an affair, there had to be a strategy behind it. Either Gale wanted credit for providing information that the police would have discovered anyway — or he wanted to cloud the facts by handing them a shiny new suspect in Jay’s murder.
Nathan Skinner.
‘You were sleeping with a man who lost his job because of your husband?’ Stride said.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, tell me how this affair came about.’
Janine regained some of her composure and arrogance. Her blue eyes met his. She moistened her lips and brushed the loose hair from her face. ‘Nathan was working overnight security at St. Anne’s last May. I often work late, and we got to know each other.’
‘You knew who he was?’
‘Yes, of course I did.’
‘And yet you engaged with him anyway,’ Stride said.
‘He approached me, not the other way around. This isn’t hard to figure out, Lieutenant. Nathan’s motives were transparent. He sought a friendship with me, because — how should I phrase this? — he was interested in screwing me as a way to get back at Jay for screwing him.’
‘I understand his motives. It’s yours I’m struggling with.’
‘Is it a blindness of handsome men that they don’t recognize it in others? You’re very attractive yourself, Lieutenant, which you obviously know. I’ve said as much to Cindy. Nathan Skinner is an extremely attractive man, too. So yes, I allowed him to seduce me.’
‘Getting into a relationship with Nathan Skinner sounds a lot more complicated than you’re letting on,’ Stride said.
Janine shrugged. ‘Last May was a difficult time for me. Jay and I were struggling. I was in severe pain much of the time because I’d broken my ankle over the winter. So to be honest, Nathan’s attentions were flattering. That was exactly what I needed at the time.’
‘Is the affair still going on?’
‘No, I broke it off in December.’
‘Why?’
Janine hesitated. ‘Jay confronted me about it. He knew. I didn’t realize he’d hired a private detective, but the fact is, these things have a way of coming out. It was just a matter of time.’
‘What was Jay’s reaction?’
‘He was upset, of course. He wanted me to break it off with Nathan, and I agreed to do so. Frankly, the affair was becoming uncomfortable for me anyway. Nathan had developed an emotional attraction. He was falling in love. For me, it was just sex. He wanted more.’
Stride listened to the monotone in her voice and didn’t like it. ‘You make this confrontation sound pretty bloodless, Dr. Snow. I find that hard to believe. I would have expected a much more volatile argument with your husband over something like this. Particularly given what he thought about Nathan Skinner.’
‘I think Jay was saving his anger for Nathan,’ Janine replied.
Stride heard the emphasis in her voice. ‘You think Jay confronted Nathan about the affair?’
‘I have no idea, but Jay didn’t take humiliations lightly.’
It was a convenient story. Impossible to prove. Easy to deny. It laid the groundwork for an explosive fight between two men who already hated each other. Jay found out about the affair. Nathan was in love with Janine and didn’t want to let her go. Situations like that had a way of ending with a man dead on the floor.
‘You said that you and Jay were struggling in your relationship,’ Stride reminded her. ‘Did you want a divorce?’
‘I don’t think that topic is part of this conversation—’ Gale began, but Janine reached over and put a hand on her attorney’s sleeve.
‘It’s all right, Archie. What’s the point in denying it? Yes, Jonathan, I wanted a divorce. Jay and I were a mistake from the beginning. It hurts to say that now, but it’s true. When we met, there was this electricity between us. I’ll be the first to acknowledge it was extremely physical. We got swept up in each other, and we got married before we came off the high. But we fell far and fast. The things that attracted us became the things we hated about each other. Jay was a person who wore his emotions on his sleeve. I’m not. He became more and more desperate to draw me out, to get a reaction.’