I’d finally turned to the curator-owner of the local chainsaw and logging museum for help. It seemed I’d been right to think he’d have sources that I didn’t.
“That’s me. Were you able to find one?”
“Yes, but…you’re also a lawyer, right? You said you used to defend people back in DC.”
That didn’t sound pertinent to my bucket, but I had told him that when he asked what brought me to the area. “That’s right.”
A sharp exhale. “I need to hire you. I think I need to hire you. The police are out at my place. I was hoping you could come.”
I wanted to exclaim what?! But I held it in.
Granted, you couldn’t tell if someone was a potential law-breaker by looking at them, but the curator of the logging museum—Clement Dodd—wouldn’t have even made my top ten list of people I’d suspect of committing a crime.
He was a big man and bearded like a lumberjack, but I had a suspicion he grew the beard because he ran a chainsaw and logging museum and he knew that sort of thing would make his establishment more memorable. It was the part he played. He’d also worn round glasses that looked too small for his face, and when I’d come into the museum, he’d been reading a book on the War of 1812.
The museum was his “early retirement,” he’d told me. Prior to moving back to Fair Haven, he’d curated larger museums and then taught college history classes for a few years. Even though I’d only come to ask for help locating a sap bucket, he’d taken me around the museum. He’d been prone to staring off into space like he forgot what he was saying, but his knowledge of each item had shamed me because I didn’t know half as much about my business when I’d been running tours last winter.
Hopefully, whatever had brought the police out to his museum turned out to be a misunderstanding. Given his line of work, the most likely cause was that some piece in his museum turned out to be stolen property. That could be a tricky situation, but if his records were as meticulous as I suspected they were, it should be easy enough to demonstrate that he’d purchased the item instead of stealing it and to argue that he didn’t know it was stolen.
“Since you’re not sure if you need to hire me,” I said, “how about you tell me what’s going on first?”
“May I tell you while you’re on your way?”
His voice was almost softer than mine. Soft voices were always harder to read than the average voice. They tended to hide fear a little better, in my experience. But I thought I might have caught a slight tremor.
It wouldn’t cost me anything more than a little gas to head in his direction. I could do that for him. He’d been so helpful in narrowing down exactly what type of sap bucket I was looking for and helping track one down.
“Sure.”
The chainsaw and logging museum was on the opposite side of Fair Haven from Sugarwood, but I could swing around the outskirts of town, avoiding most of the stop signs and traffic lights.
I hurried back down the path toward my house where my car was parked. “It shouldn’t take me more than ten to fifteen minutes. You don’t have to answer any questions the police have until I get there as long as you tell them your lawyer is coming, but if you weren’t involved in whatever they’re investigating, then it’s a good idea to give them the information they ask for.”
There was enough of a hesitation that my palms started to sweat. Maybe I’d read him wrong, and he was involved in something criminal. But I was sure I’d told him in our conversation before that I didn’t want to defend people who were guilty anymore.
“What if I’m not sure?” he asked.
His voice had gone even softer, and I strained to hear him above the rustling of the last dry leaves still clinging to the trees overhead.
This wasn’t a time for misunderstandings. “You’re not sure you have anything useful to tell them?”
“I’m not sure whether I killed my employee or not.”
2
The words oh, crap didn’t seem nearly strong enough.
I picked up my pace to a near jog. It’d been one thing when I thought he might have accidentally purchased stolen goods. It was another thing entirely when the police were looking at him as a person of interest in a murder.
And how could he not know if he’d done it?
It was more likely that he did know and simply didn’t want me to refuse to help him because he’d done it. Either way, I’d help him out now and then pass him along to Anderson Taylor, another defense attorney in the area who I’d formed a friendship with a few months back. I didn’t defend guilty clients. Even if I was willing to, I wasn’t a good choice. Stage fright would have been too mild a way of describing what happened to me when I got in front of a jury.
I slid into my car, and my phone synched to Bluetooth. “Did you tell the police that you aren’t sure?”
“No one’s asked me yet. I called you as soon as the police got here. They’re taking my wife’s statement now.”
So he wasn’t worried about his wife’s involvement or about them asking her questions.
I turned out of Sugarwood’s driveway and headed in the direction of the museum. The route only had two turns, so I didn’t even need my GPS. “Calling a lawyer before they’ve even spoken to you is going to make you seem guilty even if you’re not.”
“I couldn’t take the chance. My wife…she found me with his blood on my clothes, standing next to his body.”
Not good. That not only screamed guilty but liar as well if he claimed he didn’t know whether he’d killed his employee or not. I couldn’t turn this case over to Anderson soon enough. If I wasn’t on the phone with Clement, I might have called him right away.
As it was, my best option was to do damage control and make this easier for Anderson once he took over the case. “I need you to tell me—honestly—what happened. I need to be prepared when we talk to the police.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you. I don’t know what happened.”
Unlike my last client, there wasn’t any hostility or snarkiness in Clement’s voice. It sounded more like hopelessness, like someone who’d given up.
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to sort through this in one short phone call. And it was sounding more and more like the best plan was to stonewall the police and not answer any of their questions at all. “When the police come to talk to you, tell them you don’t want to answer any questions until your lawyer is present and that I’m already on my way.”
We disconnected, and I instructed my phone to call Anderson. The call went to voicemail. I left a brief message.
I decided to bypass the turn I usually took onto a gravel road. It was the shorter path and more direct, but the speed limit on the paved road was faster. I should get there just as quickly as I normally did, but I wasn’t quite as comfortable driving my new car yet as I had been with my old one. The steering and brakes were both more sensitive. I’d never live it down if I landed my new car in the ditch less than a month after buying it. Tony, my mechanic, would make some joke about adding training wheels if I did.
By the time I got to the museum parking lot, it was full of official vehicles and Mark’s truck. In the last case I’d worked, I’d had the advantage of calling on Mark’s medical wisdom to look at the autopsy results. We’d technically be on opposite sides this time.
