Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

"I'm sorry," Dance offered.

"It totally sucked, yeah."

She added, "Hard about the money too, I imagine. The alimony payments?"

"Oh, yeah. I think they called it something else."

"Maintenance," O'Neil chimed in. Of the two of them, Dance and O'Neil, he was the only one with firsthand knowledge of the dissolution of a marriage.

"Oh, yeah, that's it. They don't know that I know. But I heard them talk. Really big checks. Like fifteen thousand a month."

Dance assumed that, while child support would go on as long as the girl was under eighteen, maintenance payments would terminate upon the death or remarriage of the ex-spouse. So Martin would save nearly two hundred K a year. For a man living in a small house in the valley, presumably with limited income, that could be a huge windfall.

Motive number two.

And Martin would have known Michelle would be at the club. He would have given instructions to the unsub to make sure the girl was safe.

Or would he?

Dance felt her gut flip. If the girl had died too, was her father the beneficiary of her will? Would he have gotten the entire house and estate back in that case?

Then Trish was saying, "It's, like, too bad Dad'll lose all that."

"Too bad...what?" Dance asked.

"I mean, he does okay at his job but he could really use that money. Trying to go back to school and everything."

Silence for a moment. The girl's words spun like a top through Dance's thoughts.

"Your mother was paying your father maintenance?" she asked.

"Yeah."

O'Neil asked, "Why did your parents get divorced?"

Trish looked down. "My mom kind of cheated on him. And he's such a nice guy. Really cool. But Mom, she just sort of...you know, she ran around a lot. And not just with one guy but a bunch of them. Dad worked part-time to raise me and put Mom through school. He didn't finish his degree. So when he found out she'd been cheating on him and went for the divorce, the judge made her pay maintenance. Man, I don't know what he's going to do now for money."

Dance would have TJ check out the facts but Frederick Martin's motive for killing his wife was looking pretty flimsy; any inheritance would surely be held in a trust for the girl. "Well, thanks for your help, Trish. I'll let you know if we find anything else."

"You really think somebody hurt Mom on purpose, to get out of the club?"

"It doesn't seem likely, what we're learning," O'Neil said.

"If they did," the girl said, "I don't really blame them. What happened that night, the panic and everything. It wasn't human beings doing that. Like you can't blame a tornado or an earthquake. They don't think, they don't plan on doing anything bad. They just happen."

Chapter 69

At her desk, O'Neil beside her, Dance answered the phone. "'Lo?"

"Boss."

"TJ. On speaker with Michael," Dance told him.

"Hey, Michael. I love it when people say they're on speaker. Think of all the juicy things they were about to say but can't."

"TJ?" Dance cleared her throat.

"I pulled strings and got into the courthouse. Yes, on Sunday. The girl's story checks out. Trish. It's confirmed. I read the settlement agreement and court documents, talked to the lawyers. Frederick Martin had zero to gain if his ex was gone. He had negative to gain--except it's not like you gain anything negative. You know. Anyway, it's going to cost him a lot now that she's dead. Michelle didn't leave much to her daughter either. The house, in trust, is hers but it's mortgaged to the throat. Trish gets a small stipend. Somebody named Juan got the rest but it's only fifty K. Not worth killing for. Yep, I said, Juan. I'm betting the pool boy."