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Bernard kept up with Jo’s stride. “My sources show no police activity dispatched to this location until forty-five minutes later. Was the gunshot unrelated?”
“We won’t have more details to give you until the press conference.” Jo clenched her jaw shut.
“She was found with some sort of cloth over her head. Was she asphyxiated? Was she tortured? Does this have to do with one of her cases?”
Jo’s stomach churned. That was a detail she and Arnett would have held back from the public, but with the Nelson’s fondness for gossip she should have realized they’d pass it on. Still, the way Bernard had worded it was wrong—maybe they hadn’t realized what they were looking at. She had to figure out how much damage had been done, and do some damage control, quickly.
She stopped, met Lacey Bernard’s eyes, and smiled. “I don’t think we’ve met before. I thought I knew all the journalists from theGazette.”
Bernard’s eyes bounced between the two of them, seemingly trying to figure out this sudden shift in response. “I just started there a few months back. I can show you my credentials if that’ll help.”
“No need.” There wasn’t, because Jo would verify everything later. But she needed a moment to think, and see if she could turn this into an opportunity. “How do you like working for George Mazar?”
Bernard’s face turned wary. “Everyone at theGazettehas been wonderful to work with.”
“That’s good to hear.” Jo studied her face. “How did you manage to get here so early, before the rest of the crowd?”
Bernard’s eyes shifted away for the smallest moment. “Early bird gets the worm.”
Jo leaned in slightly and lowered her voice. “So, the Nelsons told you about the bag over the victim’s head?”
Bernard’s eyes widened so briefly Jo would have missed it if she hadn’t been specifically hoping for it. Bernard jotted a note as she answered. “They did.”
Jo’s glance dropped just long enough to read the note upside down:bag over head. “Here’s the deal, Ms. Bernard. We need to keep that piece of information off the record for reasons of public safety, at least for now. Can you do that for me?”
“I’m all about public safety. But I need to bring something to Mazar that has more substance than ‘a woman was found dead on a dock at Lake Pocomtuk.’”
“Fair enough. In exchange, I’ll make sure you get first access to any information we’re allowed to release.”
Bernard searched her face, probably trying to judge how likely Jo was to keep her word. Jo pulled out one of her business cards. “This is my direct line.”
Bernard glanced at the card, buried it in a pocket, and produced one of her own. “I’m always happy to work with people willing to work with me.”
Jo slipped the card into her blazer. “Sounds like we have an agreement. I’ll be in contact as soon as I have anything.”
Once they’d climbed back into her car, Arnett turned to her. “Nicely done back there with the bag-over-the-head decoy. In one swoop you managed to confirm she, and thus the Nelsons, didn’t realize it was a blindfold,andmisled her so if she does go rogue and print it, our proprietary information is still proprietary.”
“And if the information gets out, we know exactly who leaked it. If it doesn’t, we know we can trust her.” Jo glanced at Bernard in the side mirror as they passed, watching her carefully. “Because as it stands, I don’t understand why the Nelsons would call theSpringfield Gazetteand not the local Pocomtuk paper.”
CHAPTERSIX
After a quick pit stop for very large coffees, Arnett looked up Bruce Ashville’s address, then started the hunt for the Hauptmanns while Jo drove. Half an hour later, Jo pulled into the driveway of a nineteenth-century farmhouse with Victorian elements that looked like a strange mash-up between American Gothic and Addams Family. “What would you call that color?” she asked.
He glanced up at it. “Early-American Drab.”
She laughed. “I’m going to land on day-old-avocado green. Remind me what Bruce does for a living?”
“Some kind of doctor. Podiatrist? Private practice, I know that much.”
“That explains how they can afford two homes.”
While waiting for Bruce Ashville to open the door, Jo searched her memory trying to remember something about him, but the best she could come up with was a vague, shadowy image from some past holiday function. She barely recognized him even once he’d opened the door; around six-foot tall and lean, his blond hair was now artificially boosted, and his eyelids now sagged around the edges of his blue eyes. His tanned skin was paling toward a winter white, making the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced. His tan-and-banana golf clothes felt both too casual and at odds with the storm on his face, as though he’d thrown on someone else’s outfit without realizing.
His eyes shifted continually between Jo and Arnett as she reminded him of their names. “Right, right. Come in,” he said when she finished.
He escorted them into an open living room with a sleek Scandinavian-modern aesthetic nearly identical to the one at Sandra’s lake house—and that completely mismatched with Bruce’s loud personal style. Did he just not care enough to redecorate, or was he holding on to the past?
Bruce sat on one of two blue modular couches and pointed toward the other. “What happened to her? Officer Racinsky would only tell me she’d been killed.” Bruce’s voice was thick, and wavered.
