Will finally stopped his woodworking, and his brow wrinkled unhappily. “Why are you asking me about Jay, Rebecca?”
“We’re trying to figure out what happened to his father.”
“Well, Jay didn’t kill him,” Will said.
“I never said that he did.”
“Yeah, but you’re thinking it, right? Look, Jay and Gordon didn’t get along, and he may not show how upset he is about his dad getting killed, but that’s just the way he is. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel bad about it.”
“Do you think Jay has any idea who murdered Gordon?”
“Not that he said to me.”
“He told us he was home the whole time, but he says he didn’t see or hear anything. That’s a little weird.”
“He probably had his music cranked,” Will said. “Put on ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ and you won’t hear much of anything else.”
“Sure.”
“If Jay says he doesn’t know anything, then he doesn’t.”
“Okay. Well, thanks, Will.”
The teenager nodded at me and went back to his work. I started out of the garage, but when I’d reached the snow, he called after me.
“Rebecca?”
“Yes? What is it?”
This time there was no magnetic smile. Will had a serious look on his face. “I’m not kidding. You need to believe me. No matter what you think about him, Jay didn’t do it. He didn’t kill his father.”
Chapter Nine
Ajax and I tracked down Gordon Brink’s secretary before heading back to the sheriff’s office. Penny Ramsey was staying at a motel only a mile from the 126, along with the other members of the mine’s legal team. She looked extremely nervous talking to us.
“I can’t say anything about the litigation,” she insisted, when we were together in her small motel room. “That’s privileged. If I said a word, I’d be fired.”
“We’re not looking for legal secrets,” Ajax said. “We just want to find out who killed your boss.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Penny put her ear to the wall of the motel room. When she didn’t hear anything, she sat down on the twin bed, which was covered with heavy law books. She closed them one by one, and then she took a stack of yellow pads filled with spidery handwriting and shoved them inside a suitcase on the floor. “One of the associates is staying in the room next to me. He went cross-country skiing, but he could be back at any time. We need to do this fast.”
Ajax took a wooden chair and sat in front of her. They were face-to-face, their knees nearly touching. Sandra had called her an Amy Irving look-alike, and she was right about that. Penny had frizzy brown hair, parted in the middle, and blue eyes that looked a little wild, as if they might go spinning around without warning. She was small, no more than five feet tall, and to me, she didn’t look much older than twenty. She had pretty features but went a little heavy on the blush.
“You must still be in shock about Gordon’s murder,” Ajax said.
“Of course. Yeah.”
“Do you need some water? Kleenex or something?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Well, if you need to stop and catch your breath, you just tell me. Okay, Penny? Do you mind if I call you Penny?”
Her nervous mouth broke into a little smile. “No, I don’t mind.”
“I’m Ajax.”
“That’s a cool name.”
He gave her one of his broad grins. “Thanks.”
I stayed in the corner, trying not to groan. I felt a grudging admiration as I watched Ajax work his magic on her. It was strange, seeing him operate on a woman other than me, but I wondered if this performance was partly to let me see how good he was at seducing his prey.
“How did you hear about Gordon’s death?” Ajax asked.
“Erica called Hal Barker. He’s the senior associate on the team. Hal told the rest of us.”
“You must have been surprised.”
“Well, sure, but I already knew something was wrong. Erica had called earlier to see if I knew where Gordon was. She said he was missing. Although at the time, I figured that was just an excuse.”
“An excuse for what?”
“To see if Gordon was with me. Erica watches me all the time. She thought Gordon and I were having an affair.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
Her denial was swift and sharp, as if even the idea of an affair with Gordon disgusted her. Ajax heard it, too. He glanced at me for help, and I came over and sat on the bed next to Penny.
“Is there something we should know about Gordon?” I asked.
“Nothing at all.” She pretended to be calm, but I saw her chest rise and fall like the rapid breaths of a bird. “Erica was suspicious of all the girls. I guess when you take your husband away from another woman, you’re always looking over your shoulder to see if someone is trying to do the same thing to you.”
“It doesn’t sound as if you like Erica very much,” I said.
“I don’t like women who turn a blind eye to who their husbands are.”
“Who was Gordon?” I asked.
Her wild eyes met mine. Somehow, I knew exactly what she was going to say. “He was a monster.”
Ajax and I exchanged a glance.
“Why would you call him that?” he asked.
Penny looked down at her lap. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. If it gets back to the firm that I’ve been talking to you, I’m out, and I need this job. I need the paycheck. Look, I’ve worked for Gordon for two years. This was my first job out of high school. I was lucky to get it, because the firm is very exclusive.”
Ajax put a hand on her shoulder. “Anything you tell us doesn’t go any further than this room.”
He knew that was a lie. Penny should have realized she was being played, but behind those scary eyes, she was a single city girl on her own in a small town, and she was being talked up by a very handsome cop.
“It sounds like you knew Gordon better than almost anyone,” Ajax went on, massaging her ego the same way he’d massage her thigh if they were in bed. “So you may know something that would help us catch whoever did this.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Well, you called him a monster. What does that mean?”
Penny began to backtrack. “I just meant he was ruthless. Hard as nails. Lawyers have to be tough, you know. That’s their job. But the things he said to those women, the questions he asked. It was awful.”
“Did any of them get angry?”
“Sure. They all did. I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t want someone grilling me about my sex life like that.”
“Did you hear anyone make threats?”
“Not specifically. Not in the room. But it got pretty heated sometimes.”
I took over the questions again. “Penny, you said Erica suspected you of having an affair with Gordon, but she was wrong about that. Do you know if he was having an affair with anyone else while he was here?”
“I have no idea, but I wouldn’t be surprised. All the paralegals are women. So’s the other secretary working on the case. We’re all young and cute. That’s part of the job description if you work for Gordon.”
“Did you ever see him with any local women?” I asked.
“No. He worked sixteen hours a day. He hardly ever left the house. Some of us would go hang out at the bar in the evenings and on weekends, but Gordon never did. I mean, back in Milwaukee, he’d usually go out and have a drink and blow off steam with us. Not here. I don’t know...”
Her voice drifted off.
“What?” I asked.
“Gordon was on edge about something. The whole time he was here, he was angry and restless. He took it out on us. I mean, he’s always demanding, but this was worse. This case really seemed to get to him.”