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With even more perplexity than she’d shown before, she looked around, taking in the dilapidation of her house, the shambles of her life. When she came back to him, she said, “I can’t leave my home.”
He looked about to speak, then sighed with resignation. “Have Lisa ready.”
He walked back to the pickup, and this time when he opened the passenger door, he said, “We’re not arguing about this, Doc.”
Seeing it would be pointless to try, she got in. What other choice did she have?
* * *
“Did I wake you up?”
Sam Knight rolled onto his back and fumbled his cell phone closer to his ear. “She found?”
“No,” Grange said, “but Jeff’s mistress caved.”
Knight sat up and shook off his grogginess. “That was fast.”
“I drove down to Atlanta early, skipped interviewing the neighbors, and instead was ringing her doorbell before dawn. Woke her up and took her off guard.”
“Aren’t you a go-getter?”
“At first, she was defensive and evasive, but when I pretended that we know more than we do about her relationship with Jeff, she started crying. Broke down, admitted to their affair.”
“Huh.” By now Knight was trying to pull on his socks using only one hand and mimicking drinking a cup of coffee so his wife would take the hint and bring him one. “She say how long it’s been going on?”
“Six months. Since Memorial Day weekend. Emory got an emergency call, had to meet a patient at the hospital, left a cookout at Alice’s place early.”
“And the minute her back was turned…”
“To bed they went. From the start Alice has been afraid Emory would find out. Never meant for it to happen. Never intended to hurt anyone. Just one of those things. Nobody sees it coming.”
“So to speak.”
Grange was too excited for the double entendre to register. He kept talking. “She blubbered the typical guilt-trip stuff that people blubber when they’re screwing a friend’s spouse.”
Knight blew an air kiss to his wife, who’d brought him coffee. “So what about the spouse, our dear Jeff?”
“I asked her if she thought he had something to do with Emory’s disappearance. She jumped all over that
.”
“Which direction?”
“Shot down the notion. Adamantly. Said it was unthinkable. Besides, she says he couldn’t have done it. She claims they were together from Friday evening till Sunday daytime.”
“Where?”
“Her house. They always shack there. She’s his client, which gives them a plausible out if Emory ever catches them.”
“Stop. I’m getting an image of him doing her taxes while naked.”
Grange laughed.
Sam thoughtfully sipped his coffee. “She says they were together all weekend, huh? Convenient, wouldn’t you say? Could be she’s only providing him with an alibi.”
“Could be, but I believed her, Sam. By that time, she was making me coffee. She was shaken and eager to cooperate.”
“Okay, so they were keeping the sheets hot till Sunday. Till how late in the day on Sunday?”
