Page 111 of The 1 Lawyer

I was stupefied. It took me a minute to compose myself sufficiently to speak. “You haven’t offered up an explanation. You skipped right over the issue of why. Why would Rue do it? What possible motive would she have to either kill Iris or frame me?”

“Eh, motive. Well, that’s always a mystery, right? That’s why they don’t include it in the criminal charge. Hell, I’m not a mind reader, and I don’t know the girl. You do, though. Could it be jealousy? Resentment? Did you do something that made her mad?”

Adamantly, I shook my head. He was mistaken, way off the mark. It wasn’t possible.

My father’s voice grew strident as he argued his point. “With women, you never know what sets them off. Women are vengeful creatures. Who knows how their minds work? That’s why people used to think they were witches. Women are sneaky, secretive, underhanded.”

Jenny appeared in the doorway. I’d been so focused on my father’s accusations, I hadn’t heard her come in.

Her eyes narrowed as she glared at my father. “What did you just say about women?”

For an old guy, he moved pretty fast; he shot up out of his chair. “I said I’m on my way out.” He looked back at me. “Stafford Lee, you think about what I told you!”

CHAPTER 88

JENNY FLOPPED down into the seat my dad had vacated. She propped her feet on the edge of the desk and said, “One of these days, Stafford Lee, I’m afraid I’m going to deliver a slap-down to your dear old dad.”

“When it happens, I want to be there to watch. Promise me.”

“Okay, I promise. If I know about it beforehand.” She gave me a keen glance. “How’s it going? How are you doing?”

“Hmm. Not great.”

She dropped her feet back to the floor. “Okay, I want to pitch a theory. You up for this?”

Jenny was buzzing with excitement over something, I could tell. And I was certainly in the market for ideas. “I’m listening. Run it by me.”

“I think we’re looking at the wrong member of the Caro family.”

Well, that wasn’t what I expected. “What? You’ve been harping on Daniel since he was on trial for Aurora Gates.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m starting to wonder whether it’s Hiram Caro. Some pieces have surfaced that point in his direction. Should we be focusing on the father rather than the son?”

Her switch made my head spin. I couldn’t even pretend to be encouraging. “Come on, Jenny. This isn’t helpful.”

“Think about it. Hiram would have every opportunity to enter the Caros’ home. Iris wouldn’t raise an alarm if she saw her father-in-law in the house. And that old reprobate could take her down. He’s not too old to win a wrestling match with a woman her size. Shoot, what did she weigh? A hundred twenty pounds?”

“Opportunity isn’t enough to even raise a suspicion.”

“Did you know he has a cache of weapons? A whole collection of them. Handguns, rifles, shotguns. I was talking to Red about it at the shooting range.”

“But Iris wasn’t shot with a firearm. She died of suffocation after she sustained a blow to her head. The head wound resulted in heavy bleeding, but it wasn’t the cause of death, although it may have rendered her unconscious.” I was reciting the coroner’s report from memory. I’d had a lot of time to study it.

Jenny said, “About the weapons in Hiram’s collection. They could connect him to the other murders we’ve looked at—Aurora Gates, Desiree Whitman. Those were committed with handguns. Maybe if we go back and check ballistics in old cases, the guns in his collection would match up. He also owns a custom shotgun, a very special model. Testing could show if the projectiles from his shotgun make a specific pattern.”

Once I realized she was talking about Carrie Ann, my gorge rose. Closing my eyes, I willed myself to calm down.

Whether she was aware of my discomfort, I didn’t know. But Jenny kept talking. “And Hiram has ties to organized crime. I mean, your dad was his lawyer when he was part of the Dixie Mafia. You know what that means. He has minions who would plant evidence for him, people who wouldn’t hesitate to take a flip-flop from your closet and use it to create evidence against you.”

“This is so far-fetched, Jenny.”

“More far-fetched than you and Rue and Iris in a love triangle? Here’s something I just found out. Hiram Caro had an insider working at Gulfport PD, someone on his payroll. Whoever it was, he or she bungled the Whitman investigation on orders from Hiram Caro.”

That gave me a jolt. “Wow. That’s something. Who is it? Did you get a statement?”

“I talked to Bill Pettus, a former detective. He’s not ready to go on the record yet, but I think I can wear him down.”

It was apparent that Jenny had been striving to make a breakthrough. God knows I appreciated her efforts, but she had only gathered fragments, bits and pieces that didn’t fit together to create a substantial defense. It meant the world to me that she’d put up such a valiant fight. I reached out, squeezed her hand, and said, choosing my words carefully, “Jenny, speculation won’t turn this case around. And casting suspicion in a random fashion isn’t going to convince anyone of anything. It’s too late to try to raise a nonspecific Other Dude Done It defense. The ODDI defense works only when there’s a plausible, solid, substantial reason to point the finger at another person.”

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