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Margot retrieved her Shaw Detective Agency card, and her Private Investigators license and put them on the table where Helms could see them.
“Are you working with Phoebe’s defense team?”
Margot took note of the fact he said ‘Phoebe’s’ with no trace of animosity. If he thought she committed the crime, he didn’t seem mad at her about it.
“If I say yes, are you going to refuse to talk to me?”
“No, so you work weekends too?”
“When the job requires it.”
“Does this qualify? I don’t think she’s even been indicted yet.”
Margot shrugged and told him, “You know the first forty-eight hours in a murder case are the most important and I’m already over forty-eight hours behind.”
“But you’re the defense.”
“It’s still a murder case.”
“I suppose that’s a fair point. I’m just not sure what I can tell you. I had no idea my wife was seeing Tim. If you're wondering, my whereabouts that night are well documented.”
She also noted there wasn’t a trace of sadness in his voice when he said, ‘my wife.’ Margot thought these two reactions were odd, but that didn’t mean much. People react to tragedy differently; there isn’t really a right or wrong way. It still made her wonder about Mr. Helms though.
“I was more interested in your business relationship with Mr. Masterson.”
“Well, that’s easy. We didn’t have one.”
“You used to, though.”
“Once upon a time.”
“You had a falling out.”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
“I’d say I didn’t want to use my business as a money-laundering operation for mobsters.”
“So you dissolved the partnership?”
“I sold him my share and started over without him. Turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. Tim had trouble turning a profit even with free money rolling in.”
“That’s the problem with laundering money, you don’t get to keep it.”
“Yeah, though I guess none of that matters now.”
“It might.”
“You think mobsters killed Tim because he was screwing my wife?”
“Unlikely.”
Helms nodded as he reached the conclusion Margot was considering. “I suppose, if somehow Phoebe didn’t do it, an angry mobster could have killed him, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. I don’t even know if he was still in business with them.”
“If you had to guess? Since you were both still working in the same field...”
“Would I notice if things looked off?”
