LUKE SHOT AN aggravated glance at the balding Chatham County police officer sitting across from him in the E.R. waiting room. “I’ve already told you all this, Detective Cornell.”
“Then tell me again. You said you’ve never met Mrs. Ashton before today?”
“That’s right.”
“What time did she arrive at your office?”
“About 9:10.”
Cornell wrote something on the old-fashioned little spiral notebook he carried. “And she was in your office how long?”
“Ten minutes, give or take. She wanted to hire a bodyguard. She signed a boilerplate contract, gave me a retainer—”
“How much?”
“How much what?”
“How much was the retainer?”
Luke shook his head. He was never big on patience anyway, but answering the detective’s relentless questions had destroyed what little patience he had.
“My standard fee for a full-time assignment, two thousand a week, plus expenses.”
The detective whistled. “Sounds steep.”
“You get what you pay for. Look, I want to check on Mrs. Ashton.”
“There’s no point in checking with the nurse again. Once a doctor has time to examine her, we’ll be updated about why she fainted.”
Luke laughed without humor. “She didn’t just ‘faint.’ There’s something wrong with her. I couldn’t wake her up. And there were bruises on her wrists, bruises that looked like handprints. Do you know how hard someone would have to squeeze a woman’s wrist to leave marks like that?”
“You think her husband hurt her?”
“Don’t you?”
He shrugged. “You think she was justified in killing her husband?”
Luke stilled. “You don’t seriously think she’s the one who killed him.”
“She’s the wife. She’s the first person I’ll look at.”
“Richard Ashton was already dead when we arrived at the house. And if she’s the one who killed him, why would she hire a bodyguard?”
Detective Cornell slid his notepad and pen into his shirt pocket and sank back against the unyielding hard plastic chair as if it was the most comfortable of recliners. “Sounds like a good defense, something that might give the jurors reasonable doubt. Pretty smart, if you ask me.”
“Do you know the time of death yet to see if she has an alibi?”
“No. And that’s the main reason I haven’t arrested her.”
“That, and the fact that she’s unconscious, I suppose.” He couldn’t help the sarcasm that crept into his tone.
Cornell smiled as if amused by Luke’s statement. “Yep. There’s that, too.”
Luke stared at the exasperating police officer. Part of him thought the detective was latching on to the easiest explanation, but another part of him agreed with Cornell. If Caroline Ashton was abused, as Luke believed, she might have planned her revenge. She may have used Luke and his company as part of that plan so someone would be with her when she “discovered” her husband’s body.
That possibility didn’t sit well with him. But he’d signed a contract, and he’d given her his promise. He was duty-bound to protect her until the contract expired this time next week, or until she released him from that promise.
“There’s another angle to consider,” Luke said. “The killer’s target may have been Mrs. Ashton. After all, it was her house. The killer could have been waiting there for her, but the husband showed up. The killer may have felt cornered, so he shot Mr. Ashton and ran off.”
The detective pursed his mouth. “I won’t dismiss that out of hand. But it’s not high on my list of probable scenarios.”
It wasn’t high on Luke’s, either, but he was trying to keep more of an open mind than the jaded policeman across from him.
“I’ve got to make a call.” Luke shoved out of the hard, narrow chair he’d stuffed his body into for over two hours while waiting for a doctor to see Caroline Ashton.
He hurried outside the waiting area and turned his cell phone on. When Mitch answered his call, Luke didn’t waste time on small talk. “Have you found out anything?”
“Sure did. I called a buddy of mine who works for Stellar Security. He said they keep a log of everyone going in and out of the Ashton mansion, right down to the minute. And Mr. Ashton keeps a GPS tracker on his wife’s car. Can you believe that? I have a printout of every place she went this morning, with the exact times.”
A GPS tracker sounded invasive, controlling, which made Luke’s suspicions about abuse even stronger. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Richard Ashton’s attempt to keep a tether on his wife ended up proving her innocence? “Go ahead. Tell me.”
“Mr. Ashton left the house at 7:55. His wife left fifteen minutes later. She drove directly to a dry-cleaning company and stayed there for ten minutes. After that, she drove across town to Wiley & Harrison, again without making any stops along the way, arriving at precisely 8:40.”
“Wiley & Harrison, the law firm?”
“One and the same. Her visit at the law office lasted twelve minutes. After that, she headed down Highway 80, pulled over and stopped for fourteen additional minutes.”
“Any clue why?”
“You’ll have to ask her that.”
“Okay, then what.”
“You know the rest. She drove straight to our office, arriving at 9:12, hired us, and you followed her to the cottage, arriving at 9:47. You placed the 911 call four minutes later.”
Luke considered what Mitch had said. “I haven’t been told an official time of death yet, but Richard Ashton’s body was still warm when I checked for a pulse. From what you just told me, there’s no way she had the opportunity to kill him.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Some of the tension went out of him. It was only then that he realized how much he’d hoped Caroline Ashton was innocent. He was normally an excellent judge of character, a skill that helped immensely in his line of work. From the beginning, Caroline had seemed kind and caring, as evidenced by her concern about whether he might get hurt protecting her. She didn’t strike him as the type of woman who could murder someone, even if they deserved it.
“Thanks, Mitch.”
“You bet. You need me to follow up on anything else?”
“Not right now. Just keep the office going. I’ll call you later.”
He headed back into the waiting room. When he updated the detective about what he’d found out, disappointment flashed across the policeman’s face.
As if noticing Luke’s puzzlement, Cornell gave him a lopsided smile. “I’d hoped for a quick open-and-shut case. The coroner called while you were outside. He said the victim was killed within an hour of when the body was discovered. I already confirmed Mr. Ashton arrived at his office at 8:30 and left again at 8:45. His limo driver said he dropped Mr. Ashton off at the cottage, per his instructions, twenty minutes later. That would have been about the same time Mrs. Ashton arrived at your office. If everything you just told me checks out, she didn’t have the opportunity to shoot her husband.”
“His limo driver dropped him off? And left him there?”
“Apparently. I’ve got another detective interviewing the driver right now to find out more. I’m also sending someone over to your place of business