“Oh I would never be that callous. It is a very big deal. It’s just that my sister has a history.”
“Ofmurder?”
“Of vehicular homicide, yes. The charges were dropped, but there you have it.”
Maude didn’t know what to make of that. “What happened?”
“Aren’t you here for me to ask you questions rather than the other way around?”
“Oh.Yes sir.”
“Who is my sister accused of murdering? And “Why do you feel a need to help her? Because she was a good editor years ago?”
“Because she’s being accused of killing the wife of the very man I was investigating for corruption. But as I was doing my best investigative journalism ever, I uncovered more than just corruption.”
She waited for him to ask her what did she uncover, but he didn’t ask her anything. So she kept going. “I found out that five years ago his first wife was killed too, and in that case he accused another woman who declared up and down that she didn’t do it. That she was totally innocent and was being framed by Ross Hampton.”
“Ross Hampton? Is that the name of the victim’s husband?”
“Yes sir. You know him?”
“That name sounds familiar.”
“He owns Hamp Construction. That’s why everybody calls him Hamp. But his real name is Ross Hampton. His company builds lots of new construction communities in Dillon and surrounding areas. He’s currently working on a shopping mall.”
“What is he to Natasha?”
“I have no idea.”
Edmund had an idea. But he kept it to himself. “Did Natasha tell you she was innocent?”
That was an odd question to ask about his own sister. “Not in so many words, no sir.”
“In any words did she tell you she was innocent?”
Maude realized she did not. “No. But come on now. In just five years this man has had two wives killed by two different women? Two wives. Two murders. Two different ladies did it? In their whole lives, most people have never been associated with any murders whatsoever. But in five years, he’s been intimately associated with two? No way. Nobody’s that unlucky.”
That was an unconvincing argument to Edmund. “You believe in luck? I don’t.”
“I don’t believe in weird coincidences either,” said Maude. “And if it’s true, then that would be a super-weird coincidence.”
Edmund knew it too. What in the world had Tasha gotten herself into now? It inwardly angered him. Because he was certain, given the gravity, that he was going to have to be the one to get her out of it. Their father would see to it.
But it begged the point. Why wouldn’t she have this young lady come to him first, not last?
He looked at Maude. “Do you still have that list she gave to you?”
“Yes sir,” Maude said as she rummaged through her shoulder bag and came up with the now crumbled sheet of paper. She handed it to Edmund.
Edmund looked at the various names on the list. None of them,sanshis own, rang any bells. “And you said none of them would help her?”
“Not even a little bit,” said Maude. “It was as if they were offended that I even asked them.”
“Then why would she give you their names?”
“That’s what I want to know,” said Maude.
Then Edmund, still staring at the list, suddenly uncrossed his legs. And leaned forward.
