Redemption (Amos Decker #5)(92)

They went methodically from room to room, ending up in Brimmer’s bedroom. Decker checked the attached bathroom while Lancaster went into the closet.

After a few minutes, Lancaster called out, “Hey, Decker?”

He walked into the large closet to see Lancaster holding something up.

“What?” he asked.

She held the item up higher. It was a short-haired wig.

Blonde.

Decker lifted his gaze to Lancaster’s. “You think Sally impersonated Susan Richards?” he said.

“I think she might have. It wasn’t Gardiner. And if it wasn’t Katz, who else fits the description?”

“Sally was the right height and build,” conceded Decker.

Lancaster fingered the wig. “And this is nearly the cut and style of Susan Richards’s hairdo. And from a distance, with her back turned and an old woman looking out into the darkness? She could have been fooled.”

Decker took the wig in his hand and looked it over. The memory came back to him effortlessly. Sally at the park. She had on a trench coat, gloves, and a hat. Exactly what the person leaving Richards’s house was seen wearing.

“So if she participated in that, did she know Richards might be in that suitcase, either already dead or drugged?” he said.

“I can’t believe she didn’t know,” replied Lancaster. “But then the question becomes why would she do it?”

“She was acting funny,” said Decker. “When she interacted with me. Before and after Richards went missing.”

“Funny how?”

“Guilty, maybe. But then I just associated that with her having a fling with Natty.”

“Guilt, then, but of a different nature.” Lancaster shook her head. “Brimmer was such a straight arrow in my book. Why in the hell would she have become involved in something like this?”

“Well, we don’t know for sure that she was. We found a wig that looks like Richards’s hair, but that could be a coincidence. Women do have wigs in their closets.”

“That’s true. And even if we find evidence of Sally’s hair inside this wig, it’ll prove nothing. If she’s not involved, she presumably bought the wig to wear it.”

“We have to find other proof. If she was paid off, we might be able to find a record of that in her financial accounts.”

“And if she wasn’t paid off?”

“Then someone might have coerced her into doing this.”

“How?”

“Maybe someone who knew about her relationship with Natty?”

“Well, that could be. They kept it pretty secret. Hell, I didn’t know.”

Lancaster took back the wig and placed it into an evidence bag she drew from her coat pocket. “And you still think the motivation to kill Richards was to place blame for Hawkins’s murder on her?”

“They had to cut that investigation off, Mary. The police start looking into Hawkins’s claims, things could get dicey for whoever’s behind all this. Her seeming to commit suicide was a good way to do that.”

“Only it didn’t work.”

“They couldn’t know that. They had to try. And Richards was their best bet for that.”

“Why not Rachel Katz? She had a motive to kill Hawkins too.”

“That’s right, she did. But I don’t think they could afford to kill Katz.”

“Why not? Someone ended up trying to kill her.”

“That was later.”

“So how’d they choose between the two women?”

“Look at it this way: Katz has prospered since the death of her husband. Richards hasn’t.”

“So you think Katz was involved with the murders thirteen years ago?”

“I’m not going to go that far, Mary. But I think Katz ended up being useful. Richards didn’t. So she was dispensable.”

“What in the world is going on here, Decker?”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s been going on for at least thirteen years.”

“Dating back to the murders?”

“Actually sometime before them, probably.”

Lancaster looked at the bagged evidence. “I’m going to have to tell Natty about this. He’s in charge of the investigation now.”

“I don’t think he’s going to take us suspecting Sally of being an accomplice in Richards’s murder very well.”

“That’s an understatement. Unless he’s involved as well,” she added with a sudden thought. “Do you think he might be?”

“I think everybody’s a suspect until they’re not.”





Chapter 60



“HOW’S IT GOING down there?” Alex Jamison asked.

It was the next evening and Decker was in his room at the Residence Inn, on his phone.

“It’s going. How about you?”

“Long road ahead, I’m afraid. Not making much headway. Bogart is missing your horsepower.”

“Did he say that?”

“I can tell.”

“He laid down the law to me when we last spoke. I’m not sure I’ll have a place on the task force when I’m done here.” He said this in part to get it off his chest, but also to get Jamison’s reaction.