In Self Defense Susan Sloan (summer reads .txt) 📖

Fear and panic notwithstanding, Erin felt they could also show that Clare knew her husband was returning a day early from his trip, and therefore knew she might well shoot him instead of the stalker.  And then the most telling thing of all -- when she in fact did shoot her husband, she tried to cover it up by hiding the suitcase.  In Erin’s book, that showed consciousness of guilt.  Had Clare really been as fearful or as numb as she claimed, she would simply have left things as they lay.

Erin was fairly confident they could show means and opportunity.  Which meant the only thing lacking was the motive.

And that was what was keeping her awake this night.  Richard Durant had apparently abandoned his pursuit of a divorce, despite what he might have led Stephanie Burdick to believe, so the marriage was not in jeopardy.  On the contrary, everyone she and Dusty had spoken to seemed convinced that things were just fine between them.  So was Clare’s motive simply revenge for the pain and anguish that his consulting with John Fowler had caused her?  Not to mention his ongoing adultery.  And could they sell that to the prosecutor’s office?  And could the prosecutor, in turn, sell it to a jury?

Erin sighed. Pride?  Humiliation?  Women had murdered for less, she knew.  But there was something else here, something she couldn’t quite grab hold of that bothered her, that didn’t fit.  And she knew enough to believe that whatever it was had a great deal to do with Richard Durant’s death.

***

Through black-framed eyeglasses, King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Mark Sundstrom stared dourly at the file in front of him, and then looked up at Dusty and Erin, who were sitting on the edge of their seats across the desk.

“Please don’t tell me this is all you’ve got,” he declared with a groan.

“So far,” Dusty replied, a shade defensively.  “But we’re still working on it.”

“Let me see if I have this straight -- you convince the Nicolaidis heiress that a stalker is coming to get her, and by mistake she shoots her husband, who’s supposed to be out of town, and you think it’s murder?”

“We don’t think she shot him by mistake,” Erin replied.

“Well, maybe she didn’t,” the prosecutor conceded with just a hint of exasperation in his voice, “but what makes you think you’ve got anything here that would convince a jury?”

“No need to get testy,” Erin said with a toss of her head.  “If you don’t think we’ve got it, then don’t file the charge.  We’ll just close the case and let her get away with it.”

“Oh, don’t even go there,” Sundstrom snapped.  “You know damn well it doesn’t matter what I think -- it’s what I can prove.  We’re talking Nicolaidis Industries here, not some indigent with an overworked public defender I can run rings around.”

The two detectives exchanged sidelong glances.  It was all they needed to hear.  They had worked with Mark Sundstrom a number of times over the years, and they knew the man well enough to know when a “no” was really an “I shouldn’t do this, but I’m going to.”

“Talk to John Fowler,” Sundstrom said.  “See if he corroborates his wife’s statement.  If he does, then I’ll think about it.  But do us all a favor, would you please, and try to come up with something that looks like evidence?”

***

“In case you still want to know, we found the truck that ran Clare Durant off the road on Mercer Island,” a police officer told Dusty and Erin two days later.

Erin was instantly alert.  “Where?”

“In a scrap yard south of Olympia.”

“Conclusive?” Dusty asked.

“Yes,” the officer confirmed.  “We matched the first two numbers on the plate to the numbers one of the witnesses gave the Mercer Island officer at the scene, and then CSU found a scrape on the front right fender with red paint on it that was a match to the BMW.”

              “What do we know about it?” Erin inquired.

The officer shrugged.  “Not much.  It’s a 1986 black Ford Ranger, and it was bought about two weeks before the incident off a used car lot in Tacoma, from an owner who prides himself on not asking too many questions.  He said the guy paid cash and gave him a name, address, and driver’s license that all turned out to be phony.”

“Any kind of description?”

The officer glanced at his notes.  “He was tall, dark haired, and scruffy is all the dealer could remember.”

“Any prints?” Erin asked, knowing it would be too good to be true.

“A lot of smudges, but nothing usable,” the officer confirmed.

“Great,” Erin muttered.  She would add the report to the case file.  The stalker was alive and well, and she still very much wanted to get him.  But there was a bit of irony in the realization that his latest target might well have turned out to be a killer in her own right.

***

“About six months ago, Richard told me that Clare was having an affair,” Jeffrey Durant, Richard’s brother from Bellingham confided.  “I told him I didn’t believe it, not for an instant, but he assured me he had the proof.”

“He had proof that his wife was cheating on him?” Dusty asked.

“Yes,” Jeffrey confirmed.  “He said he’d hired a private detective to follow her, and the guy had gotten pictures.”

“Did he ever show you those pictures?”

“No, and I didn’t ask to see them,” Jeffrey said.  “Richard claimed he didn’t care so much about the affair, but he was afraid Clare might get it into her head to divorce him, and he was worried about his position at Nicolaidis.  Hell, he had a right to be worried.  Gus may have started the company, but it was Richard who brought it into its own.  I think he was afraid that, after she dumped him, she would have had the Board of Directors dump him, too.  She could do that, you know.  She has control.”

“Your brother