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“You don’t think I can handle finding Deming without help from the Callahan brothers?”
She spread butter on her toast. “Of course I do. But where do we start? We don’t even know what name he’s using. Brent promised he’d contact Interpol, get his photo out worldwide. That’s a start. But we need all hands on this. Birk has connections. Don’t make it personal or about ego.”
“Fine,” Lucien muttered as he sampled the eggs. “But I still plan to find out everything I can about Pollock’s links to known criminals, anyone he could’ve turned to for a favor.”
“Great. We’ll attack this on two fronts. Go after Deming and the man who hired us.”
“If you’re suggesting Pollock deserves loyalty, don’t.” When he saw her eyes questioning that, he went on, “You think it’s a coincidence that Chad’s the only family member left standing? His father and mother died within six months of each other. I plan on finding Frank’s autopsy report to see if he had heart issues before his cardiac event. Then I’m looking into the drowning death of Freida. His mother’s death is suspicious to me. Anna died during a double homicide. Duh. Matthew conveniently fell to his death from the eleventh floor. Was Chad in Vegas when it happened? I don’t know. But there’s a lot of death surrounding this guy. I need to know the answers to all the questions in my head because there’s no denying Chad’s the only guy left.”
She could tell there was no need to argue with him. His mind was made up. Resigned to his mood, she laid her hand over his. “Then dig. But do it fast. And promise me you won’t put Deming on the back burner.” She held up a hand to protest what was about to come out of his mouth. “Before you say anything else, I’ll do my fair share of looking into Anna’s friends and coworkers at the hospital. God, please let Anna have mentioned her relationship with Deming to somebody.”
“You really think there was an affair?”
“I’m leaning that way. Yeah. And Kelly’s the one who uncovered Deming showing up at the crime scene—out of the blue—hours after it happened. Why would he do that? It bugs me. It should bother you, too.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t sound like it to me. Look, it wasn’t Chad who showed up there, Lucien.”
“That’s because Pollock wanted to stay out of the picture.”
“If you say so,” Brogan mumbled as she got up to rinse off her plate and load it into the dishwasher. “So, I’ll get dressed, start going back over the database I created with phone numbers from Anna’s call log, and take it from there. But I seriously doubt twenty-year-old phone numbers will be that much help.”
Most of the morning, they spent time in separate rooms on their laptops.
Brogan discovered she had to rely on several different applications to uncover current information like cell phones and email addresses. She also learned that touching base with Anna’s old acquaintances gave her another insight into the woman’s personality. Friends and neighbors repeatedly used words like caring and loving to describe the young mother’s bubbly, helpful, energetic nature—a natural-born nurse.
After several hours of making calls, she sent emails to those she couldn’t reach by phone.
When she went looking for Lucien, she found him outside, sitting at the patio table while the dogs lounged at his feet. “Why do they like you best?”
He answered without looking up from his screen. “I bribe them with treats. I never leave the kitchen without that stuff that looks like beef jerky. Any luck on the affair front?”
“Some. Rumors mostly. But I hit paydirt with Anna’s best friend, Caitlan Sorkin, another nurse. Caitlan suspected Anna had been seeing someone off and on for more than three years. That’s three years plus. But she claims Anna finally came to her senses and broke it off for good a year earlier.”
“If Deming was her lover during that time, it means he waited a long time before murdering her,” he pointed out.
“Yeah. True. But that’s not all I discovered. It sounds like Anna was a terrific human being, except for one aspect of her life. She loved Mack. I believe that. But not enough to stop fooling around on the side. She had this propensity to attract men before her marriage and after. Caitlan didn’t want to badmouth her friend. But with some prodding, I got her to admit that Anna had more than one affair going back four years or so. Caitlan swears Anna’s infidelity was a cry for attention. Her parents had what she described to Caitlan as an open marriage. Before meeting and marrying Mack, Anna wasn’t faithful to any of her boyfriends. Caitlan went on to say it was one of her worst character flaws. Unfortunately for us, multiple affairs make things a lot more complicated.”
Lucien ran a hand through his hair. “No kidding. So knowing that might mean Elliott wasn’t Mack’s son?”
“Multiple affairs mean multiple partners from three or four years back. If you do the math, we have a suspect problem. It could be a motive for murder if any of those men got wind of a child. But the only man who showed up that day was Deming. That’s why he’s still at the top of the list. Now, what about you? What have you found out?”
“Pollock’s been in the record business for decades. He’s represented all kinds of people and then dropped them.”
“That’s not unusual. If sales are down—”
“The point is Pollock’s made a lot of enemies. He’s made stars out of people with questionable backgrounds, people who know people who know people—if you get my drift. The list is endless. And I’m not sure how to narrow it down at this point to connect the dots.”
“Maybe focus on Pollock’s alibi. Where was he the morning Anna and Mack died?”
“He was with his longtime girlfriend Adelai Lucas.”
“So not exactly airtight if she’s covering for him.” She reached out and touched his hair, then slid closer. “At what point will you give up on Pollock as the killer?”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “When I’m satisfied that he didn’t arrange the murders of his sister and brother-in-law, his brother, and his parents. That’s five people close to him who died within a year of each other. That can’t be a coincidence. It can’t.”
“You’re right about that. Why not find out if Chad was anywhere near Las Vegas when Matthew died?”
