Page 23 of Dirty Liars

Jack’s lips twitched and he moved to stand in front of the whiteboards, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Explain to me what you did, Margot,” Jack said.

“I’ve culled the list and organized it,” she said. “The first column is family, listed in order from immediate to extended. The next is the wedding party. I ran a probability scan, using the data from Dr. Graves’s autopsy findings, and the viciousness with which the female victim was killed, including the gunshot wounds to the genitalia. That would suggest the killer is male based on similar data.”

There was a slight pause as the whiteboard continued to be filled with data.

“If you want my opinion,” Margot continued, her voice lowered as if she was telling someone’s deepest darkest secret. “This seems very personal to me. Jealousy could be a factor. There’s nothing like a lover scorned.”

Jack’s lips twitched with humor and he raised his eyebrows at me. “Thank you, Margot. We’ll take it into consideration.”

“Terrifying,” I mouthed so she wouldn’t hear me.

“As I was saying,” Margot said. “List three is male attendees between the ages of eighteen to fifty, though according to the data I’ve accessed from FBI profilers on similar cases you are probably looking at someone between the age of twenty-five to forty-five.

“List four is male attendees who attended the wedding solo. List five is the names of females who have been romantically involved with the groom. I have no known data on the female victim in that regard.”

“Nothing like bringing your past to your wedding,” I said, surprised to see a rather lengthy list of Theo’s past relationships.

“Humans have considerable hang-ups in regards to past relationships,” Margot said. “I’ve found it quite fascinating the insecurities that come to light when confronting a spouse’s prior lover. I would have no such issue with this.”

“You wouldn’t mind if Doug brought Magnolia back on the occasional case?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Doug looked at me with panic in his eyes and used his hand to make a slicing motion across his throat.

“That would, of course, be Doug’s prerogative,” Margot said, though her voice was several degrees cooler. “But I would take my solace in knowing that I was Doug’s current choice and that Magnolia had been stripped of every wire and circuit board and thrown in the trash. At least, he told me he threw her in the trash. Right, Doug?”

“There’s nobody but you,” he assured her quickly.

“Huh,” I said, lips twitching, and Doug glared at me.

“This is a good list,” Jack said, breaking in to defuse the tension. Jack was always a little bit concerned that one of Doug’s devices would self-destruct at some point and take us all out with it. “And I agree with you on the male shooter. He made it personal in the way he killed her. Maybe a jilted lover. But we can’t overlook the fact that he’s also an experienced shooter. Maybe former military. There was a precision to those shots on Chloe Vasilios.”

“I’ve highlighted names of those who have registered weapons, who are former military, or belong to associations such as the NRA,” Margot said.

“Thank you,” Jack told her politely. “That makes the list more manageable.”

“Jack,” I said, coming to my feet to stand beside him. “Look at list four.”

“What am I looking at?” he asked. “Or should I ask who am I looking at?”

“Richmond Dexter Harlowe IV,” I said.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Jack said, taking out his phone. “How in the world would he have any ties to the former ambassador to Greece?”

“You never know with Dickie,” I said. “He’s an enigma.”

Dickie Harlowe had been one of my and Jack’s closest friends in high school. There’d been five of us, and a ragtag group we’d been. Jack had been captain of the football team and the most popular guy in school. He’d been one of those guys who’d been destined for success. You could look at him, even at fifteen, and know that he was going to make an impact in some capacity. It didn’t hurt that he had the alpha charisma that made men want to be him and women want to throw themselves at him.

Dickie had been Jack’s total opposite in high school. He was the math whiz,Lord of the Ringsenthusiast, and wouldn’t know a football if it hit him on the side of the head. Dickie’s real name was Richmond Dexter Harlowe the IV, and he’d inherited the presidency of First National Bank from Dickies I, II, and III. His destiny had been chosen from birth. The Harlowes were old money, alcoholics, and womanizers. Unfortunately, Dickie hadn’t made an attempt to break any of those cycles.

Our merry band had been rounded out by Vaughn Raines and Eddie Turner. Vaughn and Eddie were both upstanding citizens and led regular middle-class lives. We didn’t see them as much as we once had, but we stayed in touch.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I came to be part of our gang. I’m a couple of years younger than the guys, and I’d been the ugly duckling wallflower. Back when I was a kid, there’d been no other families on Heresy Road besides Jack’s, so I’d been trailing after him ever since. My parents hadn’t spent a lot of time at home, so they hadn’t noticed my daily ramblings across tobacco fields or harrowing adventures climbing down to the Potomac to skip rocks.

When I’d said Dickie was an enigma I meant it. I’d known Dickie almost my whole life, and I wasn’t sure I really knew anything about him. Dickie was all surface. He was a smart guy, but I’d always thought there was an underlying jealousy in Dickie that he’d never been as likeable or popular as Jack, no matter how much money he had or how much smarter he was.

But things had changed for Dickie when he’d gone off to college. He’d filled out in his shoulders and he’d started going to the gym. Gone was the scrawny nerd with glasses and a shy smile. It was a transformation that took all of us by surprise when he’d come home for Christmas break the first time. Along with his new physical appearance, he’d taken on some characteristics that reminded me that he was very much still a Harlowe. He hadn’t changed toward us so much, but you could tell a lot about what kind of person someone was by how they treated other people.

---