“I was ten years old,” she grumbled. “She took my room from clouds and butterflies to her vision of a fairy tale.”
“You were so upset, your dad and Jack painted it white the next day while Ruth was in court. She was furious when she found out.”
“The story of our relationship. We never saw eye to eye on anything.”
“She loves you anyway.”
Finley turned to him, studied his face. “Whose friend are you, hers or mine?”
He held his hands up, palms out, and moved them side to side as if erasing the words. “My bad. I guess being in this room had me sentimental for a moment.”
“What’s going on, Matt?”
“Briggs has openly voiced that he wants you off the Legard case. He’s claiming you’re unreliable. Lawrence has that new detective, Houser, digging up all the dirt he can on your and Derrick’s relationship and his . . . murder.”
“Briggs wants the Legard case to go away again without any new bones being unearthed,” Finley said, anger and frustration fighting for equal billing. “His one and only daughter was connected to the sister Holmes named as the one who supposedly wanted Lance Legard dead. I’ve already gotten too close for his liking.” Besides, he was looking for a way to ensure anything she did or had done didn’t make him or his office look bad. Protecting his office—or, more specifically, himself—was his top priority.
Matt sat down on the bed. “Fin, there is no doubt in my mind that there’s something bigger than we know here. The question is, are you willing to pay the price for finding the answer. You’ve just regained your balance after what happened last year. I don’t want to see you taking the wrong risks too soon.”
“Houser came to see me.” She couldn’t keep this from Matt any longer, and it was the perfect segue for moving on.
He nodded. “You mentioned he had.”
“What I didn’t mention was his claim that Derrick bought the house only a couple weeks before we met.”
“How’s that possible? Derrick had been working on the place for months before you met.”
“That’s what he told me. But when I called the previous owner, he said the same thing Houser did. In fact, the house wasn’t even for sale, but Derrick just kept upping the offer until the guy sold it to him. Derrick insisted his wife had seen the house and fallen in love with it. Derrick and I hadn’t even met at that point.”
“Damn.”
Finley sat down beside him. “Exactly.”
“I can do some digging if you want. See if Houser has found something more he hasn’t shared yet.”
“I would appreciate it very much. Obviously my contacts at the DA’s office and Metro are a little thin right now.” She’d never had that problem before.
“I really hate to broach this subject, but how well did you research Derrick before you married?”
She shrugged. “The usual. No criminal record. Not even a speeding ticket. Good credit. Solid work record. He didn’t have any close family, so I don’t really know anything about his relatives.”
Matt leaned forward, braced his forearms on his knees. “I’m guessing the Judge conducted a similar background review. If there was anything to be found, she would have found it.”
“Unless,” Finley braced herself for saying out loud the possibility that had been nagging at her, “he was using an alias.”
“Unless that, yeah.” Matt looked her in the eyes. “Any reason to suspect he did?”
“Not yet.”
At this point she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“We’ll figure this out,” he promised. He touched her elbow. “Come on, let’s get back to the celebration before the Judge sends the cavalry looking for us.”
They were halfway down the stairs when something in a photograph caught Finley’s eye. She paused, stared at the framed eight-by-ten. It was one of the Judge’s pet-project committees. There were photos like this all around the house. The Judge never met a bragging opportunity she didn’t like. Finley couldn’t recall the name of this particular committee. Something related to preserving the history of the city. But it was the face next to her mother’s that had caught her eye.
Sophia Legard.
Finley leaned forward and looked more closely. Sophia’s left arm was coiled around the Judge’s right. What the . . . ? How old was this photo? She stared at her mother to try to gauge when it was taken.