Page 20 of The Best Lawyer
“And the texts,” Eric said.
“Which isn’t enough,” I said. “I’m sorry but they don’t read any worse than a normal bitch fest between two friends. In one thread, her friend is complaining about her own husband in the same terms.”
“Is Quick offering anything yet in terms of a plea?” Ericasked.
“I don’t think it’s ripe yet,” I answered. “If I win this suppression hearing, then we’re in a different world.”
“A pretty big if,” Eric said.
“She asked for a lawyer,” I said. “She asked for me. If I can get Quick back on his heels right out of the gate, then we’ve got the upper hand. Castor set my hearing for six weeks from now. We’ll take this one step at a time.”
“Great,” Jeanie said. “What’s the next step?”
I sat down on the couch along the opposite wall. My bones felt heavy and we were only just getting started.
“If Katy’s not guilty,” I said, “then someone else is. We’ve been sitting here talking about the case against Katy in a legal sense. In a practical sense, who killed Tom?”
“What you need,” Eric said, “is some old-school, gumshoe detective work. If we think somebody else killed Tom Loomis, it’ll be up to us to find out who.”
“Where do you suggest we start?” I asked.
“Well,” he said. “If I were the detective on this case and Ididn’tyet have a person of interest, I’d want to get to know my victim a lot better. The best way to do that is to find out who’s closest to him. Odds are always that your murderer is somebody who knows the victim.”
“It’s a start,” I said. “I think we’re both going to need to dust off some black suits.”
“You’ve got it. Tom’s funeral is tomorrow,” Eric said. “I think a little black ops surveillance is in order.”
Chapter 8
Pine Hill Cemeterywas one of the more exclusive places in Delphi. It surprised me a bit that Tom chose to be buried here. He wasn’t from Delphi originally and had lived here a little more than five years when WLAN-7 hired him as their roving sportscaster. He rose up the ranks quickly, moving into the lead sportscaster, then morning anchor slot seven months ago. But other than Katy, he had no other ties to this town.
“According to Katy,” I said, “Tom bought this plot right after they got married. She’s got the adjoining one. Which I find a little odd. Their marriage was short-lived and tumultuous at best.” Eric chose a parking spot at the top of the largest hill in the cemetery. It was the perfect vantage point. We were nowhere near any of the invited mourners, out of the way of their traffic flow, but able to see everyone who gathered around the grave overlooking a reflecting pond on the east side.
Eric got out of the car. As funerals go, Tom Loomis couldn’t have picked more perfect weather. We had a cloudless day and temps in the high sixties. April was only a few days away. Idared to hope we’d seen the last of winter weather, but you never know in Michigan.
I climbed out of the passenger seat and joined Eric at the hood of the car. He leaned over it, using it for stability as he aimed the zoom lens of his camera toward the small gathering down the hill.
“We’re lucky,” he said. “No tent set up.”
“Not even any chairs,” I said. All of Tom’s mourners stood forming two rows in front of his open grave. The funeral director had set up an easel with Tom’s WLAN-7 headshot smiling at all of them. The memorial service back at the funeral home had been far more chaotic with a larger turnout. Here, only those considered closest to Tom had been given invitations. Someone at the station had made all the arrangements.
“I count twenty,” Eric said. “Eight of his on-air colleagues. I recognize two pairs of neighbors. A handful are probably producers and that’s the station owner on the far right. The four left, I can’t say.”
Eric quickly snapped several photos of each mourner. We would sort out who they all were later.
The service was brief with no clergy members. The funeral director himself led the group in a small, generic prayer and invited anyone who wanted to speak to come forward. There was an awkward shuffling among the crowd. Then, Gloria Blaine, a woman I recognized as the evening news anchor from one of the larger Detroit stations, stepped forward and said something. We were too far to make out her words.
After that, another woman I didn’t recognize stepped up and sang a clear, bright version of Ave Maria.
“This is just … sad,” I said. “There’s barely anyone here for him. He lived in Delphi for what, four years? Is Katy the only person he made a real connection with?”
“How well did you know the guy?”
“Barely,” I said. “It’s not like I had an incentive. He helped break up my brother’s marriage. All I really knew is that he had money. He let Katy spend it on whatever she wanted. The first year they were together she spent it on plastic surgery. She really did become a different person around him.”
“Hmm,” Eric said. “Or maybe who she was with Tom is more who she really was. You just never know about people.”
“We’re supposed to be on her side, remember?” I said.
