Taking McTavish out of the equation meant taking me out of it as well. There could have been a case that only Troy and Mark worked.
I had to reach Mark. He could give us a list of cases that he’d worked with Troy. There couldn’t have been many that Troy played a major role in. He was a junior officer. Those might be able to be narrowed even further if Mark could remember anyone making a threat or reacting in anger.
Hopefully Anderson was still with him at the station. I sent a text instead of calling. If the police were still questioning Mark, Anderson wouldn’t be able to answer a call.
My phone rang a second later.
“They charged him with Troy’s murder,” Anderson said in lieu of a hello. The additional static on the call told me he was already in his car. “Since it’s already Friday, the best we could do for a bail hearing was Monday morning.”
Mark would stay in the Fair Haven holding cells until then rather than being moved to a regular jail somewhere, but that was a small comfort. He didn’t deserve to be locked up for even one night.
It also introduced an additional problem. With Anderson gone, he couldn’t ask Mark my question. And I definitely didn’t want to put this investigation on hold over the weekend. The longer we waited, the easier it would be for the real killer to cover his tracks. The police wouldn’t be looking for anyone else anymore. They thought they had the killer. With most of the people close to Mark placed on leave, he wouldn’t even have anyone there advocating for them to consider other options.
“How far away are you?” I asked.
“I know I should have called you right away, but I’m going to be lucky not to be late for court as it is.”
Not what I’d meant, but it answered my question none the less.
“I did call your mom,” Anderson said. “I figured it was time to bring in the heavy hitters. We have a conference call with your parents scheduled for tomorrow to go over everything we know so far.”
Perfect. That meant I’d be getting a call or text from my mom imminently asking why she had to hear about this from Anderson. I’d have to do damage control on that later.
Right now, I’d have to go to the station myself and ask Mark. The trick would be convincing the officers there to let me see him.
10
The Fair Haven police station smelled like wet wool, and someone had turned up the heat higher than Chief McTavish ever allowed the thermostat to be set. It reminded me a bit of Isabel’s food truck. Whoever was in charge now had probably grown up in a more southern state.
Sheila looked up from the front desk and hunched down as if she didn’t want me to see her. No doubt she thought I’d come to press her for more information.
The vindictive part of me wanted to let her squirm for a bit because she’d been unwilling to help me, but that wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be.
“I’m here to see Mark,” I said as soon as I got close enough for her to hear me.
She planted her elbows on the desk, and her shoulders relaxed backward. “I’ll call someone for you.”
I went over to what I called the Yearbook Wall. Each year, the Fair Haven police station took a photo with all the employees, framed it, and hung it on the wall in the lobby. It looked like they’d been doing it since the inception of the department, but I couldn’t tell for sure because the oldest photos hung far above my head. Only the ones from the past twenty years were at my eye level.
I liked to study them when I came in. It was fun to see how long each person I knew had been here, to see the changes in hair styles, and even watch the long-standing members age.
I’d been in this station more often than anyone but an employee should be. Not only when investigating cases, either. I’d come to drop something off to Elise, or to meet Erik for coffee, or to bring samples of some new maple syrup treat that Nancy, my employee who had a gift for baking and candy making, was experimenting with. It wasn’t only Mark who had friends here. They’d become my friends as well.
It felt different today, almost like I’d come home to find someone had redecorated my house while I was at the grocery store. Sheila’s face was the only familiar one, and I still felt the distance her refusal to help me had created between us.
I went over to the metal bench along the wall to wait instead and shifted my gaze to the floor. It was too unsettling to watch so many strangers milling about, none of whom had a space in the photos on the wall.
“Are you the one who asked to visit Mark Cavanaugh?”
The man’s voice sounded like it belonged to an opera singer—deep and rich.
I looked up. The voice didn’t match with the person standing in front of me. He looked to be around fifty, wasn’t much taller than I was, and had cheeks so red they looked like he’d painted them with blush. He’d also spilled coffee on his striped gray tie at some point today.
He put a hand over the stain as if he’d caught me looking. “Cavanaugh isn’t allowed visitors until after his bail hearing.”
I rose to my feet. My dad always said you were more likely to get what you asked for if you weren’t negotiating from a position of weakness. That included psychological cues of weakness, like being on a lower level than the person you were speaking to.
Even if they weren’t allowing regular visitors, they still had to allow Mark access to his legal counsel.
“I’m not a visitor. I’m his lawyer.”
His hand moved off the stain, as if he were no longer worried about what I might think. “I met Cavanaugh’s lawyer. Unless you’ve had a sex change in the past hour, you’re not him.”
It might have helped my case if I was dressed more professionally, but I hadn’t planned on doing case work when I’d picked out my clothes this morning. I’d only planned on eating cupcakes, and my favorite jeans and a fuzzy sweater worked great for that.
“I’m co-counsel with Anderson Taylor. He was called away to court before we could finish discussing the upcoming bail hearing with our client.”
The officer raised both his eyebrows. He clearly thought I was lying.
What I wouldn’t give right now to be able to ask for Chief McTavish. Did I even have a business card with me?
I held up a finger in a one-moment gesture and dug through my purse. My parents were probably flinching all the way from Virginia that I didn’t have a card holder to keep business cards where I could easily find them. In my defense, it wasn’t like I was actively sourcing clients. Since I only worked with people who claimed to be innocent, any work I received would come through Anderson.
But he had printed up business cards with both our names on them and he’d given me a whole stack. Most of them were still in the box on my kitchen counter. I was sure I tucked a couple in my purse to show Mark’s mom, though.
A little white corner peeked out from the middle of two grocery receipts. Bingo.
I wriggled it out and handed it over, praying he wouldn’t notice the badly bent corner. “I can produce ID if you’re still not convinced.”
