Page 79 of Not a Word

“She was an employee, in sales, doing the same kind of work I believe your husband did for them.”

“Oh.”

“Did your husband ever mention her? Did her name ever come up in conversation?”

Mom looked as though a memory had clicked in. “Now that you mention it . . . I remember around that time someone Brent had worked with was killed. Murdered, I think.”

McCabe nodded. “Yes.”

“I knew I’d heard that name somewhere. I’m sure Brent must have mentioned it. Something like that happens at work, it’s a shock for everyone. But I don’t recall the details.”

“Evelyn Corby’s body was found alongside a road, just down the embankment a ways. Shot in the back. Her car was found a few miles away outside a bar.”

“Terrible,” Mom said.

“It appeared she was killed elsewhere, her body moved and dumped.”

Mom shook her head, made a tsk sound with her tongue.

“Her killer made it look as though there’d been a sexual component to the murder, but the evidence didn’t bear that out.”

Mom shrugged. “It’s all horrible, but I still don’t understand why you’re telling me about it.”

“It’s what they call an open-unsolved case. Police try their best to close it, but when the leads dry up, there’s not much they can do but hope for a development someday that will give them another kick at the can.”

“I see.”

“And that’s what’s happened.”

“What’s happened?” Mom asked.

“There’s been a development.”

McCabe had me on the edge of my seat. Mom was, too, but she looked more uneasy than intrigued.

“After we did a ballistics check on the slugs that were recovered here yesterday we fed them into our database. Just a routine thing we do. And something interesting came back.”

“What?” I asked.

“We got a match. The gun that killed your husband and Leah Kennard is the same gun that was used to kill Evelyn Corby.”

Mom had the face of a statue.

“You understand what I’m saying?” McCabe asked.

Mom opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. After a couple of seconds, she managed two:

“That’s impossible.”

Then, a few more: “It’s . . . I don’t . . . it’s impossible. That’s all. It’s as simple as that. It’s impossible.”

“The evidence suggests otherwise.”

“But that gun—” Mom stopped herself, shook her head slowly.

I stepped in. “Is there any way these tests you do, they could be wrong?”

“No,” said McCabe.