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True. Moving on, Finley asked, “Anything new from Ventura? Forensics should be done with at least part of the processing by now. Preliminary reports should be available.”
“I left him a voice mail last night.” Jack riffled through the folders waiting atop his desk. Ever-efficient Nita prepared Jack’s work in order of urgency for him to review each morning.
“Based on what I’ve found,” Finley said, “there’s every indication that Grady and the receptionist, Marsh, were partners at least for the past year. I haven’t been able to confirm anything beyond that time frame.” Finley had started reviewing the fragments of information onthis case at four this morning. She damned sure hadn’t been able to sleep.
“Unless we have something that connects the two of them in Atlanta,” Jack warned, “we only have a working theory.”
The fact that Marsh had worked at the clinic where Dagne saw her therapist was circumstantial on its own. “I’m trying to locate a previous address for Marsh. If I can find where she lived in Atlanta, I can check with neighbors to see if Grady—a.k.a. Wilensky—lived with her or visited her regularly.”
The confounding issue was that just because both had ties to Atlanta didn’t mean they were partners in crime there. But Finley knew. She felt it in her damned bones.
“We need that kind of proof to solidify Marsh as a long-term partner to Grady.” At her raised eyebrows, he added, “I’m confident Ventura will see the relationship here between Grady and Marsh as enough to make her a suspect in his murder, but the long-term aspect would go a lot further with fully shifting guilt from our client. FYI, Ventura has put out an APB on Marsh’s car.”
Finley made a skeptical sound. “If Marsh is smart, she’s changed vehicles by now. She may have been the brains in their partnership. If so, she won’t be easy to find.” Frustration nudged her. “I can’t shake the idea that Winthrop’s top-notch security guru should have found this connection. It wasn’t that difficult. The idea kind of makes it difficult to see Winthrop as completely innocent in all this.”
Jack scoffed. “We don’t have to prove she’s innocent, Fin, only that she’s not guilty.”
Yeah. Yeah. He was preaching to the choir.
Finley had to hand it to Winthrop: if she knew all this and had worked around it toward some end—whether her plan included murder or not—she was damned good.
“Marsh’s former neighbor having known Jarrod Grady as Jay Grady ties in with the J.Grady on the first bank account where the stolen money landed,” Finley said.
This was another of the many pieces she had been mulling over before daylight. She didn’t actually see the point of him having put his own name on the account twice, but she was sure there was a reason. She had passed the info along to Everson, Winthrop’s accounting czar. So far there had been no response.
“The neighbor’s statement alone suggests Marsh was at least aware of Grady’s duplicity.” Finley scoffed. “How could she not be?”
“I’ll give you that,” the boss agreed, “but does that mean Marsh was involved with the embezzling or that she killed him?”
“Maybe, maybe not, or possibly both. The one hitch for me,” Finley debated, mostly with herself, “is how far she went to send me after false leads.” The Duncan scenario still bugged Finley despite Winthrop’s explanation. “Marsh came across as credible in her insistence that Winthrop was the one who killed Grady or had him killed. She kept calling her a psycho. She claimed Grady had dug up all this stuff in Winthrop’s past that suggested she’d been involved in other murders. Nora Duncan’s, for example.”
Jack tapped his fingers on his desk, his face a study in concentration. “But Duncan was a dead end.” He shrugged. “And we still have nothing that suggests Winthrop was the one who wielded the hammer. If we’re lucky,” he added, “it’ll stay that way.”
“But,” Finley countered, “what about the fraudulent credit card receipt for the bug Grady supposedly purchased at the spy shop. That move smells of a desperate attempt to shift the focus for the purpose of protecting herself, meaning Winthrop, or someone close to her. No one else had access to her home office. Winthrop said so herself.” At his skeptical look Finley held her hands palm up. “I know, I know. But whoever killed Grady had to know the relevance of the hammer, which means if not Winthrop, it was someone close to her.” She blew out abig breath. “Or Grady. Winthrop could have told him the story, and he told his partner, presumably Marsh, who wielded the weapon in an effort to frame Winthrop.”
They were going in circles.
Jack scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I agree the murder weapon is the fly in the ointment where the evidence is concerned.” He shrugged, his expression proof he remained unconvinced. “Equally illogical is Winthrop, an obviously brilliant woman, planning this out and choosing a weapon only she had access to. It makes no sense.”
“In which case, I would go back to the theory that she’s protecting someone.” Finley and Jack often went back and forth like this with cases. It was the most effective way to flush out those elusive details.
“But who?” He shook his head. “One of her partners?”
“Why not?” Finley shrugged. “The five are very close to Winthrop. One of them may have thought she was helping by killing him.” The memories of watching each woman in those first interviews—their actions and mannerisms—flashed one after the other through her mind, landing lastly on the one who had placed her hand on her heart to show her horror over the tragedy. “Only one is left handed, and Shafer said the killer was likely left handed.”
Jack looked to her in anticipation of the answer.
“Jessica Lauder.”
He grunted, a disagreeable sound. “Would she have the guts to kill a man? We didn’t find anything in her background to suggest she was the violent type.”
“That leaves Marsh,” Finley offered.
“Why would Winthrop protect Marsh?”
“Maybe,” Finley began, “she wasn’t protecting her. Winthrop may have discovered not only the missing money but the other betrayal—that he was still cheating with Marsh. The news may have prompted a last-minute change of plan.”
This was assuming their client was cold blooded enough to set up her own husband’s murder. No one knew the hurt, humiliation, and anger of that sort of betrayal better than Finley. Was all that emotion enough to prompt murder in someone so intelligent and with so much to lose? Finley thought of the things she had done the past few months, and there was only one answer: she couldn’t rule out the possibility.
