Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(97)

Detective Madison offered me a firm handshake with a grip that wasn’t quite as forceful as Twink’s but close.

“Glad to meet you,” she said, with a welcoming smile. “Call me Jenny.”

“And I’m Beau,” I told her. “So what’s going on?”

“We were just discussing Mr. Adams’s latest lab results with Ms. Miller here,” Marvin explained. “It appears that Shelley has been controlling her husband for some time by administering low doses of both scopolamine and LSD.”

Those initials took me back several decades. I knew people who tripped out on LSD in the sixties and never returned to any semblance of reality. No wonder Roger’s doctors feared there was a possibility of long-term residual consequences.

“But here’s the good news,” Jenny Madison offered. “We ran the photocopies in Tracy Hamilton’s notary file through our facial-rec program and hit pay dirt. The guy posing as Roger Adams for the power-of-attorney application turns out to be Duncan Langdon.”

I nodded. “I met him,” I said. “He’s married to Shelley’s cousin Nadine and goes by the name of Dunk. According to Shelley they did odd jobs around the house.”

“Boyfriend and girlfriend rather than husband and wife,” Jenny supplied. “Oddly enough, they were booked on an early-morning Alaska Airlines flight out of Anchorage headed for Seattle with a final destination of Cancún. They spent the night inside the terminal. We had a team of officers intercept them before they were able to board.”

“Cancún,” Marvin added. “It’s the same place Shelley was going. I’m sure they were expecting their big payday. Turns out Dunk Langdon is, as we say, ‘someone known to law enforcement.’ He’s Homer’s resident drug dealer—mostly a small-time operator who deals in more exotic things than, say, your basic methamphetamines.”

“Like LSD and scopolamine, you mean?” I asked.

“Exactly,” Marvin replied, “to say nothing of fentanyl. So we put both Nadine and Dunk in separate interview rooms and, after a certain amount of persuading, offered them the same deal. Surprise, surprise, they both took it.”

“What deal?” I asked.

“The two of them agreed to plead guilty to low-level drug-possession charges in exchange for testifying against Shelley Adams on charges of both attempted murder and elder abuse with regard to Roger Adams. We have no idea what the feds plan to do on the wire-fraud and money-laundering charges, because Dunk was obviously involved in those as well. They’re examining all the closing statements on those fraudulent real-estate transactions and trying to retrieve those offshore funds so they can be returned to Mr. Adams’s custody or, if necessary, into the custody of whoever is put in charge of handling his affairs. But I suspect that the feds will also offer Langdon a similar deal on those. Shelley’s clearly the major doer here, and she’s the one whose feet we all want to hold to the fire.”

Having the feds along with the state authorities working hand in glove with the local cops? In my book that was virtually unheard of.

“What about Chris’s case?” I asked.

“It may be circumstantial, but the blood evidence we found in Shelley’s vehicle and in the plane is pretty powerful.”

“The plane?” I asked. “There was blood evidence in the plane?”

“Yes, there certainly was,” Marvin answered. “Not as much as in the Forester, but enough. Not only that, our CSI also discovered traces of blood on the business end of a Maglite found on board the aircraft. We’ve already sent the dimensions of that to Professor Raines so it can be checked against the damage to Chris’s skull. If that matches up, it’ll be more than circumstantial. It’ll give us actual physical evidence. Not only that, our prosecutor is weighing in. Even though Chris’s murder and Roger’s attempted homicide are two separate incidents, he’s hoping they can be tried together. The defense will object, of course, but Shelley’s willingness to commit one murder speaks to her willingness to do two.”

“What about Jack Loveday?” I asked.

Marvin shook his head. “Unfortunately, without additional evidence that one’s still off the table.” He checked his watch. “Right this minute Jenny and I need to be on our way. We have an upcoming joint press conference, and the two of us are expected to be front and center.”

I understood that a press conference would open a whole new can of worms for both Nitz and Jimmy. Suddenly they would be thrust into the limelight and targeted by all kinds of unwelcome public attention—attention they’d never expected nor wanted. Still, if that was the cost of finally solving Chris’s homicide, it seemed like a small price to pay.

“Wait,” I said as the two detectives started to walk away. “What about Twink’s nine a.m. appointment with the FBI?”

Marvin paused long enough to look back at me. “Not to worry,” he replied with a grin. “That’s been handled.”

Just then a cell phone began chirping. At first I thought it was one of theirs, but Nitz was the one who turned away to answer.

“Hello,” she said, sounding a bit uncertain. Then, a moment later, she added, “Oh, hello, Jared. I’m so glad to hear from you. Not under these circumstances of course, but yes. . . .” There was another pause, a longer one. “This afternoon at three? That’s wonderful news. Jimmy and I would love to meet you, but we’re not actually in Anchorage at the moment. . . . Yes, we’re still in Homer and will probably be here until at least tomorrow and maybe the next day as well.”