Page 87 of Deadline

“His wife’s lover framed poor Willard for her murder.”

“The lawyer didn’t use those words, but that’s essentially the seed of reasonable doubt he tried to sow.”

“Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell of being acquitted?”

“Juries sometimes pull surprises.”

Dawson was past ready to wrap up this obligatory call. The less interaction he had with Harriet, the happier he was. Beyond that, he was whipped. Straight from that disastrous meeting with Headly and Amelia, he’d gone to the courthouse. Having invested days in Willard Strong’s trial, he needed to come away with something to show for his time and expenses or there would be hell to pay with Harriet when he got back to DC.

When court was adjourned, he’d been tempted to cruise River Street until he found someone of Ray Dale’s ilk, who could replace the stash of pills he’d flushed away. He resisted the temptation. Deputies Tucker and Wills would love nothing better than to get another crack at him, and he hadn’t been completely cleared of suspicion of murder.

Besides, taking prescription drugs bought on the street was stupid, self-destructive behavior. He hadn’t needed Headly or Amelia pointing that out to him.

So he’d returned to the hotel room and, with no more fortification than a shot of whiskey, finally responded to the dozens of voice mails Harriet had left for him. The first sixty seconds of their conversation had been a blistering diatribe about his unreliability. Was it true that he’d been questioned by police about a young woman’s murder? Someone in the magazine office had seen it on the Internet. She wouldn’t have believed it had she not linked to the story and read it for herself.

Finally cutting in, he threatened to hang up if she didn’t shut up. “Keep talking to me like that, and I walk, Harriet, and I mean it.”

“Like I fucking care.”

“Fine. You can explain to your new boss why your best staff writer sold his sensational story to another magazine.”

He’d hooked her with that, and she had calmed down enough to listen to his glossed-over, abbreviated explanation about his night in lockup and how it had come about. “I was questioned along with everybody else who was seen with the victim that day.” Which wasn’t quite true, but it wasn’t wholly false. “Worse thing about it, I didn’t get to brush my teeth till this morning.”

He’d then outlined the story he wanted to write.

She said now, “I have to hand it to you, I thought you were blowing smoke. This is a great story, especially since Jeremy Wesson was a decorated war veteran.”

“That’s the angle. War hero meets a bad end back home.”

“Good, good. Go with that. What’s Willard Strong like?”

“Mean-looking. Hulking.”

She picked up on his qualifying tone of voice. “But what?”

“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “He also seems thick-skulled. This was a complex crime.”

“You don’t think he’s capable of committing it?”

“Capable of shooting the cheating pair with a shotgun, yes. But then I think his instinct would be to run like hell and keep running until he was caught. To hang around and try to destroy the evidence, especially in such a bizarre fashion…That strikes a sour note with me. The overkill seems out of character, too well planned. I think—”

“That’s your problem, Dawson. You think too much. Analyze too much. Not every story has to be about the subject’s goddamn psyche, originating when the cell divided. Just write the story as though it’s a crime piece. For once, don’t trowel on the psychological bull crap. Make it titillating, make it gory, make it sentimental from the war-hero angle. Readers will eat it up. No pun intended.”

“Ha-ha. I get it.”

“Can you finagle an interview with him?”

“With Willard? Not until after the trial, if then.”

“What about Amelia Nolan?”

A shaft of desire and pain went straight through him. “I gave it a shot. She slammed the door.”

“Figuratively or literally?”

“Doesn’t matter. She’s not talking. Especially now that she’s dealing with another tragedy.”

“The nanny’s murder. Hmm. The dual tragedies could be a new angle. Try again. Use your charm.”