Free Blood Silence by Roger Stelljes

that there is no chime,” Meredith answered. “Of course, Frederick might not have locked the door, either.”
    “That’s possible,” Lyman answered.
    “Lyman, can I ask a question that’s been bothering me?” Meredith asked.
    “Shoot.”
    “I’m no criminal lawyer, but I was arrested awfully fast. Did they even look at any other possibility?”
    “I don’t think they did,” Lyman replied, shaking his head. “And I think that’s one place where we can start chipping away at this thing. They didn’t look at other possible killers. It was pretty easy to focus on you. You were the low-hanging fruit, and you look very good for it—motive, prints on the gun, seen leaving the scene. Right now, it looks open and shut. To start deconstructing that narrative, we need to find someone else plausible for a jury to focus on.”
    “You’re talking reasonable doubt?” Meredith asked.
    Lyman nodded.
    “Reasonable doubt isn’t good enough,” Meredith pleaded. “Reasonable doubt destroys my reputation, my career, my life. I’ll be the person who got away with it. Except I didn’t do anything I have to get away with.”
    “That beats prison, Meredith,” Edmund counseled.
    “That it does,” Lyman added and folded one leg over the other and leaned back in his chair. “Listen, Meredith, this case is almost”—he struggled for the word—“too perfect. I mean, it is so obvious you did it that I don’t buy it.”
    “So you believe me?”
    “Let’s say for now, despite the evidence, I’m choosing to. Listen, first we walk, then we run. I used the term chipping away for a reason. We create reasonable doubt, and we win. That’s priority number one. Now, if we can actually prove who killed your husband, then you’ll be completely exonerated.” He stood up and walked to the window and looked out over the Mississippi River to the south, deep in thought. “This gets to one thing I was thinking earlier.”
    “Which was what?” Ann Hilary asked.
    “To find someone else to point the finger at besides Meredith here, we’re going to need a top-flight investigator. We need someone who can pick apart the Hennepin County sheriff’s investigation. Someone who is good, who will look good on the witness stand if need be, someone with the skill that would make the Hennepin County attorney stand up and take notice.”
    “Like who?” Meredith asked.
    “I usually use John Biggs, but since you used him to investigate your spouse, and that’s going to be a big part of your case and theirs, I don’t know that we can use him here, which is unfortunate. He’s really quite good. We’ll have to find someone else.”
    They spent fifteen minutes discussing options, and nobody really struck them as right. “I’ll have to give it some more thought,” Lyman muttered. “But we’ll need to find someone soon.”
    “I have a somewhat out-of-the-box idea,” Ann Hilary suggested. “I know someone who is not working right now, who is in town, and is really good—better than anyone you could possibly find.”
    Meredith looked at her mother. “Who? Who do
you
know?”
    “Think about it.”
    She read the mischievous look on her mother’s face and saw the twinkle in her eyes. “Mom, no.”
    • • •
     
    They’d both digested the Sunday morning papers with particular interest in the coverage of the Sterling murder. A reporter had an anonymous source inside the investigation and provided a fair amount of detail on the case against Meredith.
    “She’s in a world of hurt,” Mac muttered, staring at his laptop screen, “although it’s still a pretty quick arrest.”
    “It’s going to be a show trial,” Sally suggested, folding her paper. “At least Lyman will love it.”
    “That will be months from now,” Mac answered. “I’ll want to make sure I’m not around.”
    “Would it be tough for you? Would it be hard for you to watch?”
    Mac sat back, stirring his coffee. Sally was asking an important question for