I hurried downstairs. With a brisk wind blowing down off the snow-covered Cascades, it was clear and sunny outside but cold as hell. Mel was huddled inside one of the collection of justin-case outerwear she keeps in her office-a hooded, fleece-lined jacket. She sat at the table with a lighter and a package of Marlboros and a huge glass ashtray in front of her. An unlabeled file folder lay next to the ashtray.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said, taking a seat across from her as the chill of the picnic bench bit into my backside.
Mel blew a column of smoke skyward and watched it drift off toward the traffic speeding past along I-90. “I don’t,” she said. “I borrowed these from Barbara.”
It seemed mean to point out that she was indeed smoking. For once in my life, I had brains enough not to say anything.
“The last time I smoked before this was the day I came home from work early and found Greg in bed with my best friend,” Mel continued. “I walked into the bedroom and there they were, both of them stark naked. I didn’t say a word to either one of them. I stripped off my work clothes, put on a pair of sweats and tennis shoes, and went jogging. Threw my cigarettes into the bedroom trash can on my way out. I knew I couldn’t jog and smoke. Never smoked again-until today.”
These were gory details from Mel’s past that I had never heard before, but knowing her, especially knowing her when she’s mad as hell, I could see it all in my mind’s eye. In another time and place I might have made a joke about it, but she was hurting way too much for me to make light of her pain. I didn’t want to make it worse than it already was.
“Why today?” I asked.
“Someone’s trying to frame me for murder,” she said. “And it must be one of my so-called friends. It’s so damned close to what happened to me before, with Greg and Gina, that it really set me off. Brought up all those bad old times; sent me looking for some of my bad old friends-one of these, for instance.” She pointed at the pack of Marlboros.
I wasn’t surprised. This is the kind of emotional setback that can send long-sober drunks bellying up to the nearest bar.
Mel stubbed what little was left of her smoldering cigarette into the ashtray. I pushed the ashtray aside and covered her icy hand with mine.
“Which so-called friend do you think is involved?” I asked.
She shrugged. “One way or another, it’s all tied in with SASAC. I came down here to work up my courage before calling Ross. I’m sure he’ll want to put me on a leave of absence before somebody in the media gets wind of this rather than after, the way he had to do with Destry.”
“Destry?” I asked. “Destry Hennessey?”
“Sure,” Mel said. “It was three years ago, just after she came back here but before I showed up. Don’t you remember?”
I did remember, but only vaguely. I wasn’t involved with a news junkie back then; current events tended to get by me. “Something about her grandmother?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mel answered. “The shorthand version of the story goes like this. The grandmother had been widowed for several years and was living alone in Salt Lake City when a sixteen-year-old punk broke into her house one night, robbed her, raped her, and left her to die. But she didn’t die-not right then. A neighbor saw the kid running out of the house and reported it. He was only two blocks away and still on foot when the cops managed to nail him with some of the grandmother’s personal goods still in his possession. When the case went to court, the kid’s defense attorney finagled a plea bargain. Juan Carlos Escobar went to a juvie facility up in Logan until he was twenty-one.”
“And Destry’s grandmother?” I asked.
“She was left with permanent internal injuries. She had been independent right up until then, but after the attack she was no longer able to live on her own. She ended up first in an assisted-living facility and later in a nursing home, where, two years later, she died. The doctors were convinced that the infection that eventually killed her came about as a result of her original injuries, but the D.A. refused to amend the charges against the punk. He was released on his twenty-first birthday.”
The more she told me of the story, the more it jogged my memory.
“And he was killed that night, right?” I asked.
Mel nodded. “On his way home to his own grandmother’s place in Salt Lake. Someone ran him down in a vehicle. It wasn’t an accident, either. They ran over him several times and left him to die in an irrigation ditch.”
“How do you know so much about this?” I asked.
“For one thing, Destry and I roomed together when we were down in Cancun. We sat up late one night on our balcony watching the moon on the water and drinking margaritas. That’s when she told me about it. What happened to her grandmother was what propelled her into SASAC, the same as what happened to Sarah did me. For another, that’s what I was doing upstairs-a LexisNexis search on the case.”
She tapped the file folder, but I didn’t reach for it or ask to see what was inside.
“What about Ross?” I asked. “You said something about what happened before?”
“Naturally Destry was a person of interest in that case. All of her relatives were as well, but on the night it happened, Destry and her husband were actually in Washington, D.C. She had been to a Homeland Security meeting and was at a dinner at the White House when Escobar died.”
“Talk about a gold-plated alibi,” I said.
Mel gave me a faint smile. “That’s what Ross Connors thought. He saw no reason to put her on administrative leave while the investigation ground on. And that’s just as well since the case has yet to be solved. But some investigative reporter from the Seattle Times raised all kinds of hell about it. Thought Destry was being given special treatment. And that’s why I’m going to go call Ross right now-to give him a heads-up.”
She started to rise, but I held her hand and stopped her. “No,” I said. “Not yet. Let’s talk about this.”
“What’s there to discuss?” she asked. “I owe him. When I needed a job that would get me out of D.C., Ross Connors was the only guy who would give my resume a second glance.”
“No, wait a minute,” I said. “You said you thought someone was trying to frame you. Assuming that’s true, there must be a reason. Has someone tried blackmailing you, for example?”
Mel looked me straight in the eye when she answered. “No,” she said vehemently. “Absolutely not.”
“So if they’re not looking for something from you, then maybe whoever’s behind this did it just for the hell of it. Because they could.”
“It doesn’t really matter why they did it,” Mel returned. “The point is, they did. And they’re getting away with it.”
“Just like whoever took out Destry’s grandmother’s killer is getting away with it,” I pointed out. “What do you think the chances are that lightning strikes twice in exactly the same spot in exactly the same way?”
Mel shrugged and didn’t answer.
“Right now,” I continued, “the people responsible for all this think they’re getting away with it. You haven’t been notified that you’re a suspect in the Matthews case, have you?”
Mel shook her head. “Of course not. How could I? I knew nothing at all about it. Until you brought it up this afternoon I didn’t even know Richard Matthews was dead.”
“Exactly,” I said. “The cops in Mexico haven’t made the connection, and as far as the killer is concerned, neither have we. As long as nothing happens to change the status quo-Ross putting you on administrative leave, for example-no one will know we’ve caught on, either. And that gives us our best chance of catching Matthews’s killer.”