“I was in shock for a while. I actually thought he’d come back to me. That didn’t last long.” She sipped her tea. “It was nice of you to check on me, Conner. But I’m fine. Totally fine.”
“You’re not in shock anymore.”
“Indeed not. So what did you want to ask me?”
“Oh. That. I was wondering if you were headed to that yoga class tomorrow, since it’s Saturday. Because I could be headed to that coffee shop at about the same time. And maybe this time we could get off on a better foot, as in, you not furious with me.”
“No,” she said. “Tomorrow I’m getting my exercise in the yard. I’m planting flowers. It’s spring. And I’m settling in.”
Five
Saturday started with a summons to Brie’s house. His landlord, Luke Riordan, the owner of the cabins, knocked on Conner’s door and said, “I have a message for you to call Brie when you’re up.”
“I’m up,” he said. “Is your phone available?”
Brie wanted him to come to brunch. He honestly didn’t know if that was code for something else, he just accepted the invitation. It turned out to be code for something else.
“I’ll give you breakfast,” Brie said. “But you’re going to call Max from my office phone. I spoke to him an hour ago. He just wants to update you.”
Regis Mathis, out on bail and his case in the capable hands of one of the best defense attorneys in the West, seemed to be keeping a very low-profile. When he was seen in public, he had lots of men around him. Bodyguards, perhaps.
“How is it he’s out of jail? I saw him kill a man and then he threatened to kill me. And we know he burned down the store!”
“Unfortunately, we don’t know as much about that as you might think. It’s not his voice on your answering machine, which should come as no surprise.”
“No, the surprise is why he would dirty his own hands in the killing when obviously he didn’t need to. He was locked up when the store burned down, so we know he knows people who could do his killing for him.”
“I have some theories about that,” Max said. “I’m not at liberty to discuss it any further—we’re still investigating. Confidentially, we’re looking into some connections between Mathis and Randolph. But it’s early....”
“When can we get this circus over with?” Conner asked.
“Looks like a trial date of May twenty-fifth if there aren’t any more defense delay tactics, but I think you can count on the defense doing everything they can to slow the process. They’ve already been hammering us with motions.”
“Great,” Conner said.
“Listen, they’re caught and they know it. The blood in the car belonged to the victim, it was a good warrant, there’s an impartial eyewitness, there might have been trouble between the two men—therefore motive… There’s no way out of this for him, Conner. But he’s not going to go down quickly or quietly. You have to prepare yourself for that.”
“How long could it take?” Conner asked.
“I’d hate to speculate. The judge is a hanging judge and won’t tolerate a lot of paper delays, that’s in our favor. Just sit tight and let’s hope for the best. Our biggest problem is going to be jury selection.”
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