Vera leaned against his truck once more, feeling the exhaustion creeping up on her again. “Sorry, I meant to call you before now. But I couldn’t exactly call you during the drive back, and as soon as I got to town, I had a call from Eve telling me that Geneva Fanning had hired an attorney.”
“Yeah. I heard.” Bent shook his head. “That’s her way of making noise. She wants us to know she’s serious.”
Vera bit back what she wanted to say—that she would love to punch the woman. “I was headed to your office, and I decided to stop at Erwin’s place. I thought I’d talk to her neighbors and see if she actually was home last weekend. Just to confirm what the across-the-street neighbor’s camera showed. Particularly considering what I learned today.”
Bent didn’t ask what she’d learned. Rather he suggested, “She could have slipped out the back door. That Ring doorbell camera only captured the front of her building.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” She had this feeling about Erwin. The woman was hiding something. “While the neighbor thought she heard noise in Erwin’s apartment over the weekend, she couldn’t say with any certainty that Erwin was home. She suggested we talk to Sam Scott, who lives across the hall.”
“I can have someone follow up.”
Vera nodded. “But as I was leaving, Erwin’s door opened just a crack like she was checking to see what was going on. When I glanced up that way, she quickly closed it as if she didn’t want me to see. It was weird. Why wouldn’t she come out to ask why I was there? We both know she’s not shy at all.”
“Maybe she was worried about what the neighbor would say or hear.”
Vera bit her lip. “Maybe.” The urge to tell him everything that Luna had spilled was nearly overwhelming. “Then I got a call from Luna and had to rush to the library. Geneva showed up and made a bit of a scene. Anyway Luna was so upset telling me what happened that she threw up all over me.” She exhaled a big breath and looked directly at Bent then. She couldn’t wait any longer for him to ask what she’d learned. “But that isn’t the strangest thing that happened today.”
“Maybe being chauffeured by Nolan Baker?” He grinned, knowing full well she wanted him to ask.
Vera rolled her eyes. “Almost. The first part of the big news is that the nurse told me Alicia Wilton’s MRI showed a second blow—this one to the back of her head.”
Bent nodded. “So maybe she was running from an attacker. He may have thought she was dead and decided to hide the knife under her to incriminate her.”
“Part two,” Vera went on, “is she’s twelve weeks pregnant.”
Bent’s eyebrows shot up. “Well that certainly changes things—assuming the baby is her husband’s and not Seth Parson’s.”
“Exactly. Then, while I was talking to her—you know the way they tell you to talk to people in comas—she had some sort of physical response.” Vera shivered at the memory. “She started moaning. Her body shook. But the truly bizarre part was that she held her arms up as if she were trying to protect herself from something or someone.”
Bent’s gaze narrowed. “What did the staff have to say about what happened?”
“One of the nurses said it happens sometimes when a patient is getting closer to coming out of a coma, which is good news. The reaction I witnessed may have been related to a dream or a memory.”
“You’re thinking she was remembering what happened at the cabin?”
“I am.” Vera was certain what she saw today was a game changer. “Of course it’s just a gut feeling, and I could be way off. But it felt real. Visceral.” She thought for a moment. “Whatever part Alicia played in what happened, I still feel like Erwin was involved somehow. Maybe she didn’t kill anyone, but she played a part. And if someone else is the father of the child Alicia is carrying, then Thomas Wilton may have been involved, and his death was a mistake.”
“We certainly can’t rule either of them out until we know more.” Bent reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I trust your instincts as well or better than I do my own.”
Vera smiled. His trust meant a great deal to her. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”
“Always.” He hitched his head toward his truck. “I have to go back to the office to follow up on a couple of things. Want to ride with me? We can pick up your SUV later. I’m cooking again tonight.”
Vera would be only too happy if the man cooked every night. “I still have one more stop I need to make. I’ll meet you at your place.”
He kissed her cheek. “See you then.”
24
Fayetteville Hardware
1100 Winchester Highway, 4:30 p.m.
Vera wanted to get this thing done. The uncertainty was making her crazy. She almost told Bent before they parted ways, but she’d decided she needed to confirm one way or the other first.
She sat in the parking lot, stared at the dozens of sales being advertised in the hardware store’s windows. She was prepared for the worst-case scenario. That was her motto: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Luna was counting on her to turn this situation around either way. On the drive here she had considered that perhaps she would need to have a friendly drink with the ME as an excuse to pick her brain about Jackie’s injuries.
Vera knew many things about murder, killers, and all the working parts and broken pieces that went together with a homicide. But she was not a medical doctor. She did not know all the what-ifs related to the human body to make informed, accurate conclusions on the many possible scenarios associated with injuries and death. It was one thing to have experienced a situation—she always tried to learn the ins and outs of every homicide she investigated—but it was another to simply know because you’d studied and practiced the subject.
