Faith stared at it, holding it in such a way that if the men looked at her they would think she was intently studying her fingernails. A tiny silver bell. A tiny silver charm she suddenly remembered having seen before.
Did you know about this, Dinah? Or am I the one who knew somehow? The dead didn't answer, so Faith said to the living, "What did Dinah want of you, Mr. Cochrane?"
He turned his head quickly to look at her, seeming relieved to face her rather than Kane. "She said she was working on a story, that she suspected other prominent men in Atlanta were being blackmailed. She wanted to know if I'd be willing to come forward when the story broke, to go to the police."
"You told her no."
"I told her I handled my own problems."
"And did you? Handle it?"
"I thought I had."
Faith didn't have to listen to the voice in her head now. "You refused to pay, didn't you? Refused to pay them and told them to go to hell. You were the first not to give in to them. To be willing to see your secret exposed rather than pay hush money."
"The ... lady involved found out about the threats and agreed I couldn't bow to blackmail. We both knew it would never end, that I'd be bled until I stood up to them. So, yes, I refused to pay. And they backed down. Or so I thought. There were no more demands for money, and my wife never received that envelope of incriminating photographs they'd promised."
"But?" Faith watched him steadily.
"But ... we began having problems out at the new plant. Mechanical breakdowns, tardy deliveries, mistakes in orders. It looked like sabotage, but there was never enough evidence to point to a culprit. And then problems began cropping up in our other divisions, the same sort of delaying, destructive tactics."
"You were being punished."
"So it seemed. I realized these faceless enemies were out to destroy me, and that I was helpless to stop them."
"You could have paid," Faith noted.
"No," Cochrane said. "I couldn't have done that."
"You could have gone public about the affair, taken that weapon out of their hands and taken your chances politically. Extramarital affairs aren't the political death knell they once were."
"True enough. I could have. The lady was willing, and I was ready to accept the consequences. But they had shown their hand. They meant to destroy me, piece by piece. If I took one weapon out of their hands, they would have found others. Another secret, some stupid mistake I'd made somewhere along the way." Cochrane smiled wryly.
"I haven't led a particularly blameless life, Miss Parker. And I have no desire to watch all my mistakes exposed one by one."
"Then what can you do?"
"I'll fight them. Fight their tactics, hold my own until I discover who they are. I may lose. But I won't go down without a fight."
"I see."
Cochrane looked at Kane. "By the time I realized the scope of my problem, Miss Leighton had been missing for several weeks. I hope you believe me when I say that if I'd thought I could help the police find her, I would have come forward."
Before Kane could respond, the sliding doors of the connecting study opened, and a new voice spoke quietly.
"And so would I."
Kane was stunned, and Faith looked at him with sympathy, then stretched out her open hand, the charm lying on the palm.
"I think this came off your bracelet, Sydney."
Kane's discomfort was obvious, and even though neither Cochrane nor Sydney seemed to bear him any malice, the next few minutes were very strained.
It was left to Faith to keep the discussion going.
"You're absolutely sure you have no clue as to who is trying to ruin you?" she said to Cochrane.
"I've racked my brains." He sat beside Sydney at the other end of the long couch. "The problem is, I have plenty of enemies. I just can't settle on anyone with a grudge big enough to drive them to blackmail and sabotage. Unless it's purely money, of course, and I was chosen because I had a point of vulnerability and the means to make blackmail worth the risk."
"You've got bigger problems than that," she told him after a glance at Kane.
"Do you know a man named Jed Norris?"
"No, I don't think so. Why?"
Kane asked, "Do you own a handgun, a .45 automatic?"
"I own several, including two .45s. Why?"
"Because," Faith said, "the body of a man identified as Jed Norris was found this morning. Murdered, execution-style, shot in the head. A gun registered to you was found nearby. And it is the murder weapon."
"Oh, my God," Sydney murmured.
Cochrane reached for her hand and held it. He was a little pale, but composed. "Setting aside that I would hardly be stupid enough to use a gun registered to me in a crime and then leave it at the scene, the last time I can swear all my guns were in the case was months ago. Someone must have stolen one of them."
"The case isn't locked?" Kane asked.
"Of course, but it's hardly more than a childproof lock, a simple precaution. There is a security system, but it's active only at night."
"Who has access during the day?"
"To the room? Quite a few people. The housekeeping staff. My wife's secretary, my own assistant. And my wife has held two charity functions in the house or on the grounds in the last three months. The place has been crawling with people at various times." He paused. "Who was this man apparently killed with my gun?"
Sydney said almost inaudibly, "He was off somewhere, Max said, just AWOL because they weren't working ..."
Kane looked at Cochrane. "Norris was the construction foreman on the Ludlow project. The crew wasn't working this week because there was a problem. Today, I discovered the site has been sabotaged."
"How badly?"
"It's bad enough. Somebody who knew how to do it undermined the foundation. The inspector says it can't be patched. Which means we pull it down and start all over, cancel the project."
"That," Cochrane said without emotion, "would be the final nail in my financial coffin."
"Maybe that's the idea," Kane said. "Put your back against the wall financially so that taking any action other than paying them would mean total ruin."
"If so," Cochrane said, "it's a smart plan. Too many of my business interests are largely dependent on my wife's money, and she wouldn't hesitate to sell out her interests to get back at me — no matter how many people were put out of work because of it."
"In the meantime," Faith said, "the police are probably trying to find a motive for you to have killed Norris. They'll want to know where you've been. People at your office and home..."
"Said I was out of town. Yes, it's what I told them to say." Cochrane looked at Sydney. "We hadn't had much time together these last weeks, so I invented a business trip. I've been here at the condo since Sunday night."
"So have I," Sydney said instantly.
"Not all the time," he said, his voice astonishingly gentle and his smile too tender for onlookers. "You've been at the office during the day, Syd. "
Her mouth firmed stubbornly. "I slipped out a lot and came here to be with you. Got in late at the office, took long lunches, and left early every day."
"You know I did." Cochrane smiled at her again, then said to Kane, "When was this man killed? Do they know?"
"The police say the body's been ... exposed to the elements ... for at least a couple of days. My guess is that they won't be able to pinpoint the exact time of death."
"Then I have no verifiable alibi," Cochrane said calmly.
"Jordan..."
"No one was witness to my movements all the time, Syd. It won't help me for you to say you were with me some of the time, and it could only hurt you for no good reason. Don't worry. I had no reason to kill this man."