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Dix continued, “Helen must have contacted them when she learned I found an unconscious woman in my woods who couldn’t remember what had happened to her. It didn’t seem like they had a choice, really, so they risked coming to my house Saturday night to kill her. The only thing they didn’t count on was dying.”

Gordon was shaking his head. “I still can’t believe someone as devoted and kind as my Helen would have hired men like Dempsey and Slater. No, I think this is all a ruse to try to trap me somehow. I know you believe I hired them, maybe with Chappy’s help since he knows so many people in Richmond. That’s what you believe, isn’t it?”

Dix said, “Oh no, Gordon, you’re being the actor here. You do believe Helen did it because she called you on Wednesday night and told you what she’d done. And that’s why you strangled her.”

“That is insulting and ridiculous! You ask anyone, Helen had to come into my office to swat flies! I couldn’t kill anyone.”

Ruth said, “We know Helen called you Wednesday night—again, Gordon, her phone records. She probably told you all about it when you went over to her house to see her. Was she remorseful, tearful, Gordon? Truly upset about the death and pain she’d caused? Did she intend to tell everyone and ruin your life? Did you kill her in a rage, for revenge, or was it more cold-blooded than that? I go for cold-blooded, myself, because you strangled her in her sleep, when she couldn’t see you, when she was at her most vulnerable. Were you trying to protect your reputation and your cushy little wood-paneled job?”

Gordon slammed his fist down on the keyboard. “I don’t want to talk to either of you any more about this! You accused me of murdering Erin; you’ve had me watched continuously; you’ve searched my house, my office, my e-mail, for God’s sake. And you have found nothing! And through all this I have cooperated with you. And here, after all that, you have the gall to come to my house and accuse me of murdering Helen. You have no proof of anything!”

So much for a distraught confession, Dix thought.

But Gordon wasn’t through. “You are right about one thing, Dix. If what you say about Helen is true, then there is nothing left for me. Everything will come out now, no hope for it. I will have nothing—not Erin, not my reputation, my career, my good name. It’s only a matter of time before the board of directors of Stanislaus very civilly demands my resignation. Can you imagine how Chappy will delight in that? Of course you can. You have ruined my life, Dix, ruined it!”

Gordon stuck out his hands. “So arrest me, find yourself a grand jury to indict me. You know it’s impossible because I didn’t kill Helen and so you can’t have any proof that I did. You think I’m stupid and weak or you wouldn’t even have come here.

“Damn you both. Get out of my house. Don’t come back unless you come to arrest me.”

It was as if he’d yelled out all his passion. He slumped forward, looking ineffably weary. He whispered, not looking at them, “Please leave. I want to be alone to mourn Erin, and Walt and Helen. I’m tired to my soul. I want to go to bed.”

CHAPTER 38

TARA

MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

MONDAY MORNING

RUTH AND DIX sat facing Tony and Cynthia. Chappy sat in his big winged patriarch’s chair, his fingertips tapping.

Dix looked around at Christie’s family, who were utterly silent. He didn’t think he’d ever been in their company when one of them wasn’t insulting or complaining about one of the others. He sat as silently as Ruth, tapping his foot, waiting for one of them to speak about Gordon. Of course they knew everything. It was all over Maestro.

But no one said a word.

Dix finally said, “So which one of you is going to tell me where Gordon went off to?”

Chappy shrugged. “Can’t imagine why you’d think any of us would have a clue, Dix.” Chappy sat back and folded his hands over his belly. He chuckled, shook his head. “So old Twister’s gone into the wind, has he? Milt at the post office called me this morning, said your deputies were banging on doors trying to find him, but it seems