Page 46 of Dead Man's List

“How did you choose him?” Kit asked.

“Found him online. His rates were reasonable. I didn’t tell anyone else. Once my life started to unravel, I would have used anything I could find against Munro. I didn’t care how the information had been obtained. But by then it was too late.”

“If Munro used money orders, there will be a paper trail,” Kit said thoughtfully.

“He didn’t buy them himself. His assistant did.”

Kit tilted her head. “The same one he has now? Veronica Fitzgerald?”

“Yes. She’s been with him for at least fifteen years. Long before he was married to Wilhelmina.”

That was consistent with what Wilhelmina had shared. They hadn’t talked to Veronica yet, having spent so much time tracking the landscaping trailer. They’d stop by city hall first thing in the morning, before they drove out to the prison to see Ronald Tasker.

“What do you think of Miss Fitzgerald?” Connor asked.

“She’s fierce. Guarded Munro’s privacy zealously.”

“Anything between them?” Connor asked.

“I don’t think so. She’s got to be sixty.”

“Munro’s wife is sixty-one,” Kit commented.

Weaver blinked. “I guess she is. Maybe he likes them older.”

“Mr.Weaver, do you have anything more to tell us?” she asked.

“No, Detective. That’s all.”

She gave Weaver one of her business cards and Connor did the same. “Call us if you think of anything, no matter how small,” she said.

She and Connor thanked him for his time and didn’t speakanother word until they’d buckled their seat belts in the department car.

“We need to talk to Munro’s admin ASAP,” Kit said. “Especially if they were seeing each other outside of work.”

“I don’t know anything,” Connor said as he drove away from the parking lot, “but I called my mom again before we left for Weaver’s, and she said that Munro brought Veronica with him to a few country club events.”

“Should we put your mom on the payroll?” Kit asked dryly.

“She would absolutely love that,” Connor said fondly. “She’s already told me that I can ask her for any information I need when it comes to ‘that horrid man.’ ” He pitched his voice high in a poor imitation of his mother.

Kit had met the woman a few times and she was lovely, her voice melodious. A different kind of mom than Betsy McKittrick for sure. Susan Robinson had a cook and a maid, and Kit didn’t think she’d ever gotten on her hands and knees to scrub a floor. But she clearly loved her family and would do anything for them. In that sense—the most important sense—she and Betsy were the same.

“We might need to pick her brain. That Munro brought his admin to country club functions is interesting. Munro’s only been on the city council for seven years. Both Weaver and Wilhelmina said that Munro and Veronica Fitzgerald had worked together for fifteen years.”

Back then, Munro had been in real estate development. Made some money, but nothing like he gained when he married Wilhelmina.

“I don’t know. I’m sure we can verify that, though.”

“Tomorrow,” Kit decided. “My brain is tired.”

“Thank God,” Connor yawned. “How are you not falling asleep?”

“I will when I get home. That I guarantee.”

“Where are you going?” Connor asked. “To the boat or McKittrick House?”

“McKittrick House. Snickerdoodle is there, probably being spoiled rotten by Rita, Emma, and Tiffany.” Emma and Tiffany were the teenage girls her parents had begun fostering just before Thanksgiving. The girls hadn’t trusted any of them right away. But Sam and her parents had quickly won them over. They were good kids, all of them. Kit was relieved they were all safe.

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