Dunnegan nodded stiffly and showed us out. The lock clicked behind us.
“I don’t think we’ll be talking to Mr. Dunnegan again without his attorney,” Cole said.
“I think you’re probably right,” Jack said. “I’m interested to see what Dunnegan would’ve lost in a divorce settlement and what he’ll gain through the death of his wife.”
“On it,” Cole said.
The rain was still coming down in a steady drizzle, but it had gotten colder and I wished I’d worn my longer jacket. I think it was vanity that kept it hidden in the back of my closet. My great-grandmother had worn a down puffy coat for the short amount of time I’d known her because she was always cold and that’s the only thing that kept her warm. There was something inside me that rebelled about looking like my great-grandmother, even if my jeans were damp and the cold was seeping into my bones.
“What about a phone?” I asked. “He said he texted her about the divorce on Saturday.”
“We found one in her dressing room, but it wasn’t charged,” Cole said. “It’s with evidence. I can have someone plug it in and we’ll take a look. How many people can I pull in on this?”
“Martinez just cleared a case,” Jack said. “Use him. And Plank and Chen might as well help with the interviews and any paperwork since they’re already up to speed. If you need anyone else let me know. I’m sure Plank would love some time with Wachowski.”
Cole laughed. “I heard they were going to shack up. Does Plank’s mama know about that?”
“Wachowski isn’t one to hide her light under a bushel,” Jack said.
“They all grow up so fast,” I said. “Come on. There are things frozen on me that do not need frostbite if I hope to have children one day.”
“Hey, you hardly looked like you wanted to vomit at all at the mention of children,” Cole said, grinning as he got into his truck. “Must be getting used to the idea.”
“Shut up,” I said, but I could see him laughing as he drove away.
Jack turned the heater up on full blast, and it didn’t take long to warm up since it hadn’t taken long to deliver the news of Juliet Dunnegan’s murder.
“Can you drop me at the funeral home?” I asked. “I’ll go ahead and get started on Juliet. Should only take me a couple of hours.”
“Sure,” Jack said. “I need to check in at the office and see what else is going on. There was a shooting a couple of hours ago in King George. Armed robbery at a convenience store. Clerk took one in the arm tackling the guy to the ground, but it looks like he’s going to be okay.”
“Lucky guy,” I said. “That could’ve ended badly.”
“Clerk said this was the third robbery this month and he’s sick of those punk bastards thinking he’s an easy mark,” Jack said. “His words, not mine. He told Nash he would have shot the guy in the face with the sawed-off he brought to work, but he didn’t have time to reach for it.”
“Well, in that case, I’m glad he jumped him,” I said. “I’ve waded through enough blood and guts today and getting shot with a sawed-off never ends well.”
Jack drove around the square that connected the four towns of King George County. It was where all the municipal buildings and the courthouse were located, but the county had done a revitalization several years ago that had brought unique shops and events to the Towne Square.
Jack’s wipers swished back and forth like a metronome, and I looked out the side window at the soggy cupids and hearts that decorated the lampposts. It was another week until Valentine’s Day, and with it would come the Love Run 5K that would end at the courthouse and a matchmaking event for singles at the Knights of Columbus Hall.
He turned left off the square and drove another block and the funeral home came into view. It sat large and stately on the corner of Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. It was a traditional, red-bricked Colonial my grandparents had built decades ago, and like most things involving my family, I had a love-hate relationship with it. My grandmother had met her death after she’d fallen out of the third-story window. Legend was that my grandfather had helped her with a strong push, but it had never been proven. Graves men were good at evading the law.
I’m fourth-generation mortician. It was my great-grandparents who’d opened Graves Funeral Home back in the early part of the twentieth century. They’d started as gravediggers and earned enough money to open the first funeral home in Bloody Mary. I wasn’t naïve. My ancestry wasn’t known for being law-abiding citizens. So more than likely they earned enough money to open the first funeral home from grave robbing instead of grave digging.
“You’re worried about something,” I said, just as Jack was pulling into the driveway of the funeral home. Even the towering oaks in the front yard looked like they were tired of the wet and cold. I felt their pain.
“Carver,” Jack said immediately.
I hmmed in agreement. Doug wasn’t the only Carver who’d moved to Bloody Mary in the last week.
“Something is going on there,” I said. “He’s trying not to show it, but he’s scared.”
“I know,” Jack said. “Michelle is a partner in a very prestigious law firm, they’ve got the four girls so they’re close to Michelle’s mother, and Carver is close to work and all of his doctors for rehab. It doesn’t make any sense at all to move away like they’re doing.”
“Michelle said she’s decided to resign from the firm and put out a shingle for herself here,” I said. “I don’t think she knows what’s going on either. She didn’t seem to know why it was the best thing for their family, only that Ben thought it was. She’s not going to let him keep it from her for long though. You know how she is. She’ll let him tug the line for a good distance and then she’ll reel him in and whack him over the head.”
Jack laughed. “Nice analogy. And exactly how you have to deal with Carver.”
“I hope he’s not in trouble,” I said. “They’ve been through enough over the last year.”
Carver had been one of many who’d been collateral damage at the hands of my father. Carver had been helping us on a case and was carrying sensitive information when my dad ran him off the road and down into a ravine at high speed. Carver’s SUV had smashed headlong into a tree, crushing his pelvis and breaking multiple bones in his body, not to mention the internal injuries. It was a miracle he was still alive at all, and Carver had been through hell these last months trying to relearn everything he’d lost. But his mind was still as sharp as ever, and there was a part of him that knew the chances that he’d be confined to the wheelchair he was currently in might last forever.
“I think it’s probably safe to say that whatever is going on, he’s worried for his safety and the safety of Michelle and the girls. I’m not going to let him swim out much further either before I reel him in and conk him on the head. I’d like to know if we’re about to get a federal level spike in crime in my county. And I want to make sure they have the kind of protection that computers and alarm systems can’t offer.”
Carver was in charge of all cybersecurity and the technology side of things for the FBI. I wasn’t exactly sure what his official title was, but his direct boss was the FBI director and he always joked that his security clearance was higher than the president’s. I didn’t doubt it. Carver had considerable resources in the personal computers he’d built, and I was pretty sure he could run every country in the world from his wheelchair at the touch of a button.