Exit Strategy (Nadia Stafford 1)

"Yeah. I'm going after Baron."

"Do you think Evelyn will have a lead for you?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't? I'll find one. Legwork."

"Evelyn wants us to talk to Volkv tomorrow, but I think Baron is the better lead. Where do you want me?"

He considered this as he scraped chocolate icing from his plate. "Shouldn't focus on one thing. Do I want you along? Sure. Need you? Hard to say. More than Evelyn will? No."

"So I'll stay with her. If you find Baron...I know you don't need backup..."

"I find him? I'll call."

* * *

NINETEEN

Again, Evelyn met us at the door. "About time. I'm getting a little tired of this, you two. I find all your leads, then I'm stuck in this damned house waiting for you to get your asses back and start investigating them."

"You find all our leads?" Jack said as we hung up our coats.

"Most."

"Is this one about Baron?" I asked.

She waved the question aside. "Later. I have something better--a fresh avenue."

I groaned. "The only thing worse than not having any theories? Having too many."

She herded us to the living room, impatiently waiting while we settled in, then said, "Earlier, you asked me to look into criminal records for the other victims. What you failed to ask for was arrest records--"

"I did ask. You said you'd look into--"

"I found one." She eased back in her seat and smiled. "Murder."

"Who?"

"Mary Lee."

"You don't mean the--"

"Old lady?" Her brows arched. "A murderous old lady? Heavens, what a thought."

Before she could have the satisfaction of drawing out the explanation, Jack walked to the computer desk, flipped through the papers, brought one to the sofa and sat down beside me where we could both read it firsthand.

Mary Lee had indeed been charged with murder, almost twenty years ago. From the article, it wasn't clear whether the charges had been dropped or whittled down to something that hadn't shown up in our earlier search. We could tell only that the case had never gone to trial.

The victim? Lee's husband. Smothered with a pillow. She'd confessed to the crime even. But after every member of her family told a story of years of escalating abuse, backed up by medical records, the DA's office had decided that Lee had been in justifiable fear for her life and acted in self-defense. She'd been lucky. It didn't always work out that way, especially twenty years ago, but she'd been set free and gone on to live exactly as she had before, as a law-abiding member of society.

Evelyn said, "So we have six victims so far, and two confirmed killers--"

"I wouldn't put Mary Lee in the same category as Leon Kozlov."

She waved me off. "Details. They're both killers. Two out of six. Seems a little high for random sampling, don't you think?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on circumstance. Like Dee said--"

"There's more. What do those two crimes have in common besides being homicides?" She didn't wait for an answer. "In Lee's case, the charges were dropped. In Kozlov's they were reduced. Did the crime, but not the time."