"You can still smell it, can't you?" she asked, whiffing the air.
Serena didn't smell anything. "What?"
"The sweat of all the cops. And the superglue from the print box. It was two days ago, and I can still smell it."
Serena thought that Maggie was imagining things but didn't want to say so. "You hungry?" she asked.
"Not much."
"I've got smoked trout in the truck."
Maggie screwed up her face. "Yuck."
"Yuck? You were the one who turned me on to that stuff."
"I've been off it lately," Maggie said.
Serena was stretched out on a sofa in Maggie's den. It was a man's room with walnut paneling and a mounted deer head staring down from the wall with two glass eyes. The furniture was black leather. A grandfather clock ticked hypnotically in the shadows. The wood fire gave off a semicircle of heat. Serena had been here for nearly an hour, but they had spoken only sporadically.
"Jonny was sorry he couldn't come," she said.
"Yeah, I'm a leper," Maggie said. "Don't get too close to me, you might catch something."
"If there's anything he can do for you behind the scenes, he'll do it," Serena said.
"What can he do? This is the Abel Teitscher show."
Serena knew that was true. "Has Abel talked to you?"
"Oh, yeah. Three hours yesterday. He treated me like I was no better than one of the drug dealers at First and Lake. He wants me up on his wall, like Bambi there. Shot and stuffed. This is like déjà vu for Abel, you know. His own partner Nicole was guilty of killing her husband, so I must be, too."
"Maybe you shouldn't be talking to him," Serena advised her.
"Yeah, I know, but what would you think about a suspect who shut up and hired a lawyer?"
"Guilty."
"Exactly. I didn't do it, so the truth can't hurt me, right? That's why I let Abel question me. Except I know I'm being an idiot. I called Archie Gale today, and he told me the same thing, so now I'm lawyered up and not saying another word."
"Abel's reporting directly to Dan," Serena said.
"Oh, great. More good news. That would be a nice going-away present for Dan and Lauren. My head on a plate."
"You know, if you want an investigator to run down leads for you, you've got one," Serena said.
Maggie smiled and whistled the Charlie's Angels theme.
"Ha-ha," Serena said.
"If you were an angel, would it be Kate, Jaclyn, or Farrah?" Maggie asked.
"Jaclyn. Cool as ice."
"Farrah," Maggie said.
"Oh, yeah, you as a blonde, that works."
Maggie flashed a toothy grin.
"Seriously, is there anything I should look into?" Serena asked.
"I'll talk to Archie and let you know. It's a different world, you know, being on the other side of the case. Anything we find out about Eric may just make it worse for me."
"Okay, what about you?" Serena asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean old cases. People you put in prison. Could someone be out for revenge?"
Maggie wrinkled her nose. "I don't think there were any perps where it was personal between us."
"Not for you anyway. Maybe for him."
"Have you ever had a perp come after you?" Maggie asked.
Serena nodded. "A couple of times. Maybe Las Vegas killers are more prone to settling scores. It's the mob influence. There was a sack of shit that I sent up for aggravated assault because he was cutting up his girlfriend. Tommy Luck. Great Vegas name, huh? Tommy got out and tried to return the favor."
"He attacked you?"
"He never got the chance," Serena said. "He was stalking me, but he got caught running a protection racket on some local dry cleaners before he could move in for the kill. They found photos of me all over his apartment. He'd cut the eyes out of most of them. Slashed me up with a knife. Smeared my body with red paint."
"What happened to him?"
"He's rotting in prison again."
"I don't think there's a Tommy Luck in my past," Maggie said.
"Then someone else must have had a motive to kill Eric."
"I'm glad you think so. Most people think all the motives point back to me. I killed him for the money. I killed him because he was having an affair. I killed him because I was having an affair." Maggie ducked her head and shoved her hair off her forehead.
Serena wasn't sure how far to push her. "Look, it doesn't take a mind reader to know you two were having problems."
"I can't talk about it. My lawyer will kill me."
"This conversation never happened, you know that. Something's been bothering you for weeks. Was it Eric? Was he involved with someone else?"
Maggie rolled her eyes. "For Eric, women were like potato chips. You can't fuck just one."
"What about you? Were you having an affair?"
Maggie had her chin on her knees. She cocked her head and gave Serena a sideways glance. "Eric thought I was."
"Oh?"
"He was convinced I was sleeping with Stride."
This was delicate ground between them.
"I know how you feel about Jonny," Serena told her softly.
"I know how he feels about you, too."
There was a trace of bitterness in her voice. They had become close friends, but Serena knew that Maggie resented how quickly Jonny had overturned his life to be with her. That was something he had never chosen to do for Maggie, even after his first wife died.
Serena was jealous, too. She sometimes felt like an outsider when the three of them were together, because Maggie shared such an easy friendship with Stride with so much history between them.
"I shouldn't be saying any of this," Maggie added. "If Eric thought I was having an affair, it gives me one more motive to blow him away."
"You weren't."
"No, but if he believed it, he might just decide to leave me, right? High and dry with no money. That's what Teitscher will think."
"Was Eric planning to leave you? Was that the problem?"
Maggie snorted. "No, that's the irony in all this. Eric said he'd do anything to make things better. He loved me, he was sorry for his mistakes, he was committed to me, he'd keep it in his pants. Sweet, huh?"
"But?"
"But I was planning to leave him. Not by killing him, Serena. I was going to divorce the bastard. I was planning to tell him that night."
"Do you want to tell me why?"
"Let's just say there were things going on that I couldn't stomach," Maggie said.
"Like what?"
Maggie shook her head. "I'm not going there."
Serena persisted. "A few months ago, you asked me about sex. I got the feeling that Eric wanted you to do things you weren't comfortable with."
"Just drop it, okay? Please?" Her voice rose.
"I'm sorry," Serena said. She added, "Are you getting help?"
"What makes you think I need help?"
"Come on, Maggie."
She shook her head. "No, I haven't talked to Tony since before Thanksgiving."
"Why not?"
"I dealt with the miscarriages. I'm okay. I'm past that part of my life now."
Serena was frustrated. "You're not past anything. You were so upset about something you were ready to get a divorce, and now someone just killed your husband."
"Sure, go see a shrink," Maggie said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. "That'll help. Give me another motive, Serena. I'm nuts. Maybe I can plead not guilty by reason of mental defect."
"That's not what I mean."
"I know." Maggie held up her hands in surrender. "I'm sorry for being a pain in the ass. I'll go see Tony again when I'm ready. I promise. But I can't face any of this right now."