Chapter Two
Blair Caldwell was thirty-five, a year older than her husband, and a successful corporate attorney in Scottsdale—at least until she was arrested for murder. Her specialty was tax law, which Max supposed made her compatible with John, a financial consultant.
Blair was an attractive woman. Her long blond hair was straight, clean, and brushed back into a neat ponytail. She wore minimal makeup, an expensive but subdued suit not unlike something she might wear in court. Her blue eyes were sharp, focused.
Max had a bad habit of judging people instantly at first meet. Nine times out of ten, she nailed their core personality. Sometimes she was wrong, so she tried to avoid snap judgments.
Okay, she didn’t really try to avoid such judgments because being right 90 percent of the time helped her.
Max had Blair pegged from when they’d first met more than ten years ago, and time had only confirmed Max’s assessment. Smart—to the point of being shrewd—ambitious, and image-conscious. Never a hair out of place, never a style out of date. Max knew the basics: Blair was born to an upper-middle-class family in Boston, graduated from Boston College, and attended law school at Fordham in New York. The one thing she and Max had in common was their love of art and art history, and Blair had exquisite taste in that field. That had been the one thing Max liked about Blair—they’d first met at an art gallery after John and Blair started dating, and Blair had a keen eye.
While smart to the point of thinking herself an intellectual, Blair had a deep disdain for stupidity. A lot like Max, she realized, so maybe it wasn’t surprising that while Max respected Blair, she didn’t like her.
Maybe, perhaps, because Blair wanted everyone to know that she was smarter than most people. Image and status were extremely important to her, and that separated her from Max—Max couldn’t care less about what people thought of her.
Blair sat down at the conference table, directly across from Max, and crossed her hands in front of her. Blair seemed a bit harder around the edges today compared to when she’d been a law student, but being accused of killing your son might do that to a person.
With her chin tilted up, Blair said, “I’m only here because John asked me to meet with you.”
Just as Max expected. Didn’t mean she couldn’t learn something.
Blair continued. “Maxine, you and John have been friends for a long time. I respect that. You don’t know me as well, but I’m asking you for a favor. You must convince John to drop this—for now. After the trial, after I’m exonerated, we can hire a private investigator to find out who killed our son. And if you want to help us then, I would appreciate it. But right now, my freedom is at stake. I just need … I need John to understand that this isn’t helping me.”
“You think that I can convince John to forget that Peter’s murder is similar to three other crimes spanning twenty years.”
“The trial begins in less than three weeks. I need him to be with me, supporting me during the trial, showing a united front. That is extremely important to the jury. I can’t have him chasing answers that he may never find. John respects you, Maxine. If you tell him there’s nothing here, he’ll believe it.”
“I won’t know if there’s anything to his theory until I investigate.”
Max found it interesting that Blair was doing all the talking. Max had yet to ask a question, but sometimes, she learned more by letting her subjects talk at will than by focusing the discussion.
“I’m not going to discuss my trial with you, Maxine.”
“I didn’t ask about the trial, Blair.”
She looked perplexed. “Then why did you want to meet?”
“Because John is convinced that you’re innocent and he felt it was important that I talk to you—as if by talking, I would agree with him and take on this investigation.”
“And what? You don’t agree?” Did she sound defensive? Or angry?
“I’m not here to investigate Peter’s murder. I’m here because there are compelling similarities between his death and the deaths of three other young boys. As you well know, Blair, I only investigate cold cases.”
“Then you obviously don’t need to talk to me because I don’t know anything about those crimes—other than what John has told me.”
“Based on what John has uncovered, what do you think?”
Max glanced over at North, who was surprisingly quiet. But again, this was the first real question Max had asked.
“I think it’s awful that three other mothers lost their only son, like I did. On the surface—yes, there seems to be a pattern of sorts. But I can’t focus on that right now. This trial is tearing me apart. It’s eating John up from the inside out. He wants answers, and the police aren’t getting them because they think I did something so awful—” She stopped, took a breath. She reached for a decanter of water on the table. North took it from her, poured a tall glass, and handed it to her.
“Thank you, Charles.”
“Ms. Revere?” North asked.
“Thank you.”
Charles poured her a glass, then walked over and placed it in front of her. “I think you’ll agree, Ms. Revere, that the stress of the trial coupled with the strain at the Caldwell house over this theory of Mr. Caldwell’s is severely affecting my client’s well-being.” He sat back down, looked at Blair then Max, and said, “It would benefit everyone, including Mr. Caldwell, to … temporarily put aside any hunt for the real killer, and focus solely on clearing Mrs. Caldwell’s name.”
“It would seem to me that the only way to clear Blair’s name is to find out who killed Peter,” Max said.
“Yet she’s the one standing trial. This is the legal system. Not always swift, but there is a process. Bringing up alternate theories of what may have happened is not the defense’s role.”
“I’ve covered enough trials, Counselor, that I’m surprised that you would even say that.”
“There are on occasion strategic reasons to suggest to the jury possible alternatives to interpret evidence that the State has presented, but that is my job, not yours.” He had a sparkle in his eye, knowing she would immediately recognize him using her earlier comment against her. Yes, she definitely liked Blair’s attorney.
“And wouldn’t it benefit your case if I uncovered evidence of similarities that may give the jury reasonable doubt?”
“Yet if you conclusively prove there is no connection,” North countered, “and word gets out that you were investigating these cold cases with the goal of exonerating Mrs. Caldwell, then that information could sway the jury against us.”
“My goal isn’t to exonerate Blair,” Max said.
“Then why are you here?” Blair snapped, her composure crumbling. “Do you think that you can just waltz back into John’s life when I’m in prison?”