“Big guy. About your height. I know that because he stood when she walked in. He was white with short dark hair that had some gray. Maybe about fifty. Real professional-looking.”
“So what did you do?”
“I sat in my car for about half an hour. Then Pam came out and I took off.”
“Why didn’t you wait around for the guy to come out and then confront him?”
“I told you, he was a big guy.”
“Is that the only reason?”
Silence.
“Tuck, talk to me!”
“Okay, okay. He was dressed in a suit. I could see them looking at papers. They never did anything lovey-dovey. So, I suddenly started thinking…”
“What, that maybe he wasn’t her lover boy? That maybe he was a lawyer and Pam was thinking about divorcing your ass?”
“Or that he was a PI like you that she’d hired to check up on me.”
That was probably what Pam had wanted to meet with me about.
“Wait a minute, if you thought that, why did you come back from Florida early, the night Pam was killed? You said you wanted to catch them in the act, maybe kick the guy’s ass. But now you just admitted you took off before because he was a big guy. And you also admitted that you started thinking he wasn’t her lover but maybe a PI. Stop the bullshit. I want the truth.”
“This is embarrassing, Sean.”
“Tuck, do you want to get Willa back?”
“Of course I do!”
“Then forget your feelings of embarrassment and tell me the truth.”
Tuck blurted out, “I thought if I caught the guy coming out of our house, I could intercept him and maybe buy him off.”
“Why?”
“The same reason why Dawson obviously did what he did. If Pam found out about the affair and went public the contract was down the crapper. I couldn’t let that happen, Sean. I’d worked my tail off. It meant everything.”
A big part of Sean wanted to reach across the ephemeral mist of cellular signals and flatten Tuck Dutton.
“Well, obviously it meant more to you than your marriage. And that story you and Jane fed me at the hospital? About your partner trying to force you to sell because you needed the money. That was all BS!”
“It wasn’t exactly the truth, no.”
“And Jane knew it wasn’t the truth?”
“She was just trying to protect me, Sean. She always has. And I keep letting her down.”
“Look, do you think Pam had anything written down that would lead us to this guy? Or maybe his business card if he was a lawyer or a PI?”
“Why? He’s not connected to Willa and what happened to Pam. It must have to do with my fling with Cassandra.”
“Tuck, will you pull your brains out of your crotch and stick them back in your head for just one damn second? This having to do with your fling with Cassandra is only one theory and a pretty implausible one at that. Think about it, okay? Why kill your wife and kidnap Willa over a government contract? Dawson was already set to screw you over with Cassandra, so why would he do it? Are there any other competitors out there willing to risk the death penalty for that contract?”
“Well, no, not really. Government contracting is brutal, but not that brutal.”
“Great, thanks for employing some logic. Now, another take is that this guy had something to do with Willa’s disappearance and Pam’s death and it’s totally unrelated to your mess.”