The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 1-5 - Catherine Coulter [261]
“Is the man still alive?”
“He is as far as we know. He hasn’t been back to Yuma in years. That’s where he raised Marlin. Marlin left at eighteen. Erasmus drifted in and out for a few years, then just disappeared. He’d be about sixty-four now. Where is he? No one knows.”
“Let me see the man,” said Mrs. Sherlock.
Lacey handed her mother the photo.
“He’s scruffy. I remember his sort, they were all over San Francisco back in the sixties. But he was in court in the eighties, Corman?”
“Yes, some ten years ago.”
“I think he would be handsome without those glasses and all that hair and beard.”
“His son is handsome, Mother, very handsome. Here’s his photo. But you know, he’s got dead eyes.”
Mrs. Sherlock looked at Marlin Jones’s photo, stared toward her husband, and fainted, sliding out of the chair and onto the carpet before anyone could catch her.
28
“WHAT DO you want?” Douglas stared at Dillon Savich. He laid down the papers he’d been reading and rose slowly, splaying his fingers on the desktop.
“It’s okay, Marge. Let him in. He’s FBI. Ah, you’re here too, Lacey. Why is he with you? You know I don’t like him. He’s corrupted you, changed you.”
“He’s my boss. He has to be with me.”
“Madigan,” Savich said, barely nodding.
Douglas said nothing. He sat back down in his chair. He crossed his hands over his stomach.
“How are you doing, Douglas?”
“I’m very angry at the moment, but you don’t care about that. Why are you here with him?”
Savich said easily as he sat down in one of the plush client chairs opposite Douglas Madigan’s large high-tech chrome-and-glass desk, “It appears Belinda had an affair with Marlin Jones. Did you know about it?”
“No. I don’t like your jokes, Agent Savich.”
“No joke, Lawyer Madigan. As far as we know it’s a distinct possibility—that Belinda slept with Marlin Jones seven years ago.”
Lacey was watching his face. There was no sign of pain, of anger, of remembered betrayal. Nothing.
“So you’re saying you know why he killed her?”
“No, that’s not what we’re saying. I’m sorry, Douglas,” Lacey said, sitting forward, extending her hand to lightly touch his forearm. “It seems that there were some things about Belinda none of us knew. We just came from home. Mother saw a photo of Marlin Jones. She fainted. She’d seen him, she said, seen him kissing Belinda in the driveway. At least that’s what she told us. You know Mother. One can never be quite certain if the flag is going to be flying high or hanging at half-mast.”
“That crazy old lady is probably right about this. Belinda was a gold-plated faithless bitch.”
They all turned to see Candice Addams Madigan standing in the doorway, a flustered Marge behind her, waving her hands. Douglas smiled and said, “It’s all right, Marge. Tell you what, anyone else comes, just wave them on in. Hello, Candice.”
Candice Addams Madigan walked into the office, head high, beautifully dressed in a pale blue wool suit and a Herme`s scarf. “She was a bitch and she did cheat on you.”
“But was the man Marlin Jones? I doubt it. Where could she have met him?”
Candice gave her husband a scornful look. “Belinda had low tastes. I’ve heard that she went to dives, to real low-class places. That’s where she would have met this killer. Yes, I’ll bet she did sleep with him. She slept with everyone. Why don’t you ask her?” She turned and gave Lacey a vicious look. “Yes, ask the little princess here. She probably went with her sister. Hell, she might have slept with him too.”
Lacey had blood in her eye. Her heart was pounding, she was ready to kill. It was Savich who grabbed her wrist and kept her in her place. “Ignore her,” he said low, only for her hearing. “She’s miserable she’s so jealous. Let it be. Let’s just listen. Consider this a bad play. Let’s see if we can’t figure out the theme of the play.”
She tried to pull away from him. She couldn’t take any more from this miserable woman. “Okay, then, Agent Sherlock,