“Thanks, Perry Mason. I’m just not sure how I work on behalf of a guy that I think might have killed his girlfriend.”

  “What about the case here?”

  “Inconclusive, but Faust has a few irons in the lab fire, so to speak.”

  “So let the evidence be your guide. Don’t second-guess everything. He deserves you on his side until Faust shows otherwise.”

  “I’m not a lawyer. I already gave that speech.”

  “Do you know for sure he did it?”

  “I do not.”

  “Then proceed until and unless you learn he did.”

  “And then?”

  “If you get proof? All bets are off. If he’s a murderer, you help bury him.”

  I nodded and rubbed my face.

  “You tired?” she asked.

  “I’ve been doing nothing on a plane for hours, but my brain’s whirring.”

  “Then let me tire you out.” She gave me the half smile, then she kissed me. It was like a peanut butter sandwich, only way better.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I was out and about early the next day despite getting in so late and being up even later. But some sleep is long and poor, and some quick but so deep you wake ready to take on the world.

  The latter had given me not only energy but focus. I wanted to look in Greg Baxter’s eyes. The drive was short but included one of those east–west cutovers that always slowed things down in South Florida, so twenty minutes later I parked in front of an apartment building squeezed in between I-95 and Lake Mangonia. It was one of those complexes that catered largely to golfers who came down to Florida for a week of hitting the greens and the beers.

  I had gotten Greg’s apartment number from Rod Barron, so I followed the plaques up a level to his door. There was an actual doorbell, but I knocked. A moment later, Greg opened up.

  “Mr. Jones,” he said.

  “Greg. Wanted a chat before the meet today.”

  He was in a T-shirt that said Got Water? on the front and some shorts. He stepped aside, and I walked into his bland, hotel-style apartment. Lots of taupe and wall hangings of beaches that were more New England than South Florida. I passed a small kitchen with two bar stools and stood beside a brown sofa. I could see into his pristine bedroom. It looked like he had moved in about five minutes ago.

  “You keep it neat,” I said.

  “A messy mind produces messy results.”

  It wasn’t going to make it onto a motivational poster, but I understood the sentiment.

  “Would you like some ice water?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  I moved to stand beside a stool at the counter while he opened the fridge and took out a jug of filtered water. He put it on the counter and turned back to the freezer, where he grabbed some ice cubes from a gas station bag of ice and tossed them into two glasses. After pouring two waters, he handed me one. I noticed there was nothing else in the fridge, and the only foodish item in sight was a tub of protein powder in the corner near the toaster.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He held up his glass but made no move to go back to the living room, so I stayed put. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what I would say or how I wanted to say it, and I was suddenly indecisive. I could go in full throttle, hit him with Detective Schultz’s suspicions, and with Kellie Almonde’s contention that Deena was going to leave him, and see how he reacted. But on the other side of the scale sat Rio. The meltdown. If that was an innocent reaction to losing someone he loved, then a lack of tact might bring it all rushing back. And despite Detective Faust’s assurance, I wasn’t convinced Rod Barron would pay my invoice if I tanked his premier swimmer.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Doing all right. Won all my finals so far.”

  “Last one tonight?”

  “Two hundred fly. Feel good about it.”

  “Great. You’ve come a long way since Rio.”

  “The only way was up after that.”

  “But the Forrest thing triggered something, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I guess it did. I thought I’d gotten past it, but . . .”

  “You spoke to a psychologist about it?”

  “Sure. We do all the high-performance stuff. Better out than in, right?”

  “A wise man once said a problem shared is a problem halved.”

  He sipped his water and then nodded. “That’s a good one.”

  “On the first night, you said you left in a minivan.”

  “Yeah, the sponsors supplied them. They’re pretty sweet for a soccer mom’s car. The seats go back so you can sleep, like business class.”

  Soccer moms would be delighted to know.

  “Do you know who else was in your minivan?”

  He pouted like he was giving it some thought. “Not really. I was in my own headspace. But it was full. I know that.”

  “You were where? In the front?”

  “No, I had one of the business-class seats in the middle row.”

  “Who was in that row with you?”

  “Mikey Stokes. He put his seat all the way back and nearly squashed Missy.”

  “Missy Callahan?”

  “Yeah. She was behind him. You don’t want to be in the back row. It’s pretty tight if you’re tall.”

  “What did Forrest say to you that night?”

  He frowned. “I told you.”

  “No, Greg, I don’t think you did. He said something that got to you. More than just ‘I’m going to tell on you.’ He told you exactly what he had on you.”

  Greg shook his head.

  “If you don’t tell me the truth, I can’t help you,” I said. “No, scratch that. I won’t help you.”

  He stared intensely at the counter for a moment, as if there was a blemish in it that annoyed him.

  “What he said, it just wasn’t true,” said Greg.

  “Then why hide it?”

  He shook his head again, like trying to make the whole thing go away through body language.

  “Tell me, Greg.”

  “He said he knew I killed her.”

  “How did he know?”

  “He didn’t. He was wrong. I didn’t do anything to Dee. I loved her.”

  “But Forrest thought he had something. And he told you. The investigating detective has a witness who says you told Forrest that if he repeated it, you would finish him. You weren’t talking about the accusation against you. You were talking about the reason behind it.”

  “He said she was planning to leave me.”

  And there it was. The heart of the matter, but also the biggest, juiciest motive in the history of motives.

  “He said Deena was going to leave you?”

  “Yes. I told him that was crap. She wasn’t. We were a team. But I wasn’t having him torch her memory. He wasn’t going to take that from me.”

  “What did you do?”

  He glared at me. “I pushed him away and told him I wouldn’t let him do that.”

  “Did you say you’d end him?”

  “I said something like that. But I didn’t mean to kill him. Geez, Mr. Jones, I didn’t mean that.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I was angry, that’s all. But it doesn’t matter. He left the pool, and I warmed down, but I didn’t see him again. I was with other athletes the whole time. Then I got in the van and went home. I have an alibi.”

  Again, I thought.

  He finished his water and asked if I wanted more. I declined. A man might not be a camel, but he also isn’t a reservoir. Greg got more water for himself.

  “What’ll happen after Paris?” I asked.

  “Career-wise? I think I’ll be done swimming.”

  “You couldn’t do another one? You still seem in good form.”

  “I’ve been lucky with my body. One minor shoulder thing and the usual niggles, but that’s it. So I could go on, but the mind must be willing.”

  “Motivation not there?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I feel good about my training right now, but after the Games? I think I’ll likely do something else. There’s a big price to pay to swim at this level.”

  “I can see that. What do you think you’ll do?”

  “Stay out of the water for a while.” He smiled. “Then, maybe coach. And there are some business opportunities to look at.”

  “You wanna coach at National Performance?”

  He glanced toward a door at the opposite wall.

  “Don’t tell Coach, it’s nothing firm. I might change my mind.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “But I think I might need to do my own thing. Coach Collis has been like a second father to me, but just like a real dad, you can’t stay at home forever, can you?”

  “I don’t think so. We’re meant to spread our wings.”

  “Yeah, maybe it’s time.”

  “What will happen to National Performance once you’re gone?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re kind of the leading light there,” I said. “Not a lot of national team members on the squad.”

  “He’s the head coach of the team. I think people will come.”

  “Can I ask you something about the night Deena, you know . . .”

  His face creased. “I’ve told you everything.”

  “You went to a house party.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you do that often in college?”

  “No, I was always training. Late nights are not conducive to early mornings.”

  “So why that night?”

  “Just finished trials. Blowing off steam.”

  “But the Games were what, six weeks away? The job wasn’t really done.”

  “Coach thought we needed to chill out. The trials were pretty intense.”

  “I’m sure. I heard you hit the hard stuff.”

  “It’s not a night I want to remember.”

  “But isn’t that the point? You don’t remember. Do you?”

  “I remember going there. I remember some guys dragging me to the kitchen. And yeah, I had a bit too much, a bit too fast. I don’t usually drink. I don’t really care for it, to be honest.”

  “And you left early.”

  “That’s where it starts to get fuzzy. Honestly, Mr. Jones, at this point, I don’t know if I remember this or if it’s just what I’ve been told, but they said I was wasted, and Dee took me home. I kind of remember leaving, and I think I remember getting to the rental house, but after that, it’s not even a blur. It’s a blank. It’s the only time I’ve done anything like that in my life, and look at the result.”

  I did look at the result, and my conclusion was that this guy was either innocent or an Edward Norton-level actor. And there really was only one Edward Norton.

  Tears welled in his eyes, and he sniffed.

  “She was the one, Mr. Jones.” He wiped his hand across his nose. “Swimming or no swimming, I didn’t care what I was doing as long as I was doing it with Dee.” He looked directly at me. “Do you have someone like that?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “You’re lucky.”

  “Yes, I am. But you know something, Greg? It took a long time to find her. A lot of twists and turns and false starts. I thought I’d found the one once or twice before. I didn’t know I hadn’t until they went their way, and I went mine. But at my darkest point, that’s when I found my wife.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t met anyone like Dee.”

  “And maybe you never will. But if you leave the door open, maybe you’ll find the right one for the person you’ve become, not the person you were.”

  “I wish it were that easy.”

  “It’s not. Loss is never easy, don’t trust anyone who tells you different. But when you find the right one, they’ll know that Deena is part of your story. And they’ll be thankful she helped make you who you are.”

  He sniffed, and I felt like I had outlasted my welcome. “You at the pool today?”

  “Not for the heats. Fifteen hundred and a few others. My last race is tonight. Actually, I should check what time we’re leaving.”

  He stood and stepped over to that opposite door.

  “You have connecting rooms?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but he gave me the good one.”

  Greg knocked and opened the door immediately like only people who are intimately familiar do. I moved over to him as he went in. He was right; he did have the better room. This was more like a typical hotel room with a bed, a fridge, and a microwave.

  “Coach?” said Greg, but it was obvious Collis wasn’t there. It wasn’t that big a room that it took much probing. It was the antithesis of Greg’s room in that it was a mess. The bed was unmade, and there were clothes strewn across it and on the solitary chair. A laptop sat askew on the small café-style round table. There were some Chinese food containers sticking out of the trash can that gave the room a certain MSG funk. A few opened beer bottles sat discarded on the dresser beside the television.

  It looked like every room I’d ever stayed in during my baseball career.

  “He’s probably at the gym,” said Greg. “I might wander down there.”

  He closed the door and went to slip on some running shoes, then he grabbed his key off the counter. I opened the front door, and he followed me out into the shade of the outdoor breezeway.

  After taking the stairs down to the ground level, he pointed his direction, and I said I’d see him later.

  “Will you be there tonight?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Then his face changed. The softness that the tears had brought forth disappeared and was replaced with the intensity I had seen when he was preparing for his heat on my first morning at the pool.

  “Good,” he said. “Time to work out.”

  He jogged away, and I watched him go. I got in my car and drove south.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It was still early, so I didn’t bother heading for the arena. I went to Gun Club Road instead. I signed in at the front desk. Detective Faust smiled when she saw I had bought coffee on the way.

  We sat in the conference room. She took the top off her coffee and blew on it. “So, what do you know?”

  “Five minutes with Detective Schultz yesterday, and I was ready to hang Greg Baxter. Five minutes with Greg Baxter today, and I’m ready to defend him with my life.”

  “You’re a sucker for a sob story, Jones.” She sipped her coffee. “So?”

  I told her what I learned. About the crime scene and the car. The parking brake and ignition both being off. The bottle and the tops and the car flipping over. About the statements and Neil Bracken. The theory of where Deena might have been sitting when the vehicle went over the edge. I gave Faust a moment to absorb it all.

  Finally she tried her coffee again, then nodded as if was good. Everything was good compared to police station coffee.

  “So, was it a waste of time?” she asked.

  “On the face of it. But last night, I felt like I was this close to seeing the link.”

  “There might not be a link.”

  “Forrest Simpson thought there was a link. He wrote it down.”

  “He might have been wrong.”

  “Nothing he wrote on that page has been proven wrong.”

  Faust shrugged and took another sip. “Where did you get this coffee?”

  “I know a guy.”

  She dropped the eyebrow.

  “Did you check the vans?” I asked.

  Now her expression soured. “We spoke to the cleaners last night. Turns out they brought a different van on the first night.”

  “Why?”

  “They like to mix it up? How would I know? Anyway, we’ve got a print crew meeting them this morning. They’ll show us the right van, and we’ll see what we can get from it.”

  “Was it a completely different type of van last night?”

  “No, same basic config. And before you ask, yeah, there were places to hide. They have industrial vacuums and stuff. Plastic tubs with cleaning solutions and that sort of thing. Rags, tarps, and other things a person could hide under if he was bold enough.”

  “Or she was desperate enough.”

  “She?”

  “Just trying to keep an open mind.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What about the recycling cans?”

  “We got some prints. Partials from the underside of the lid.”

  “A match?”

  “Not yet. Partials are harder. But how many people would have scratched the underside of a new can?”

  “You found scratches?”

  “We did.”

  “DNA?”

  “The cans are at the lab. Nothing yet. There’s always a backlog.”

  “And the top?”

  “The handles were clean or wiped.”

  “But the lid. Right on top.”

  “No prints.”

  “I mean DNA.”

  “Why would there be DNA if there are no prints?”

  “Forrest Simpson was drowning in that can. He’d fight hard. He could put his feet down and push up on the lid. You don’t keep that closed by using the handles. You’d have to lay on top of it. Put your full weight onto it. And this is Florida—you’d be sweating. Maybe that sweat is on the lid.”

  “Sweat doesn’t contain DNA.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No. But it can carry things that do, like skin cells.” She pulled out her phone.

  “You should push,” I said.

  “I’m pushing.”

  She made a call to the ME’s office. Asked for Lorraine Catchitt. Waited a moment, then asked her to check the top of the lid. She listened, said aha a few times, and ended the call.

  “She’s pretty smart,” said Faust.

  “Lorraine? She’s good people.”

  “Funny. She says the same thing about you.”

  “She gonna do it?”

  “Already did. She swabbed the top. She said that was the only way to keep it closed if you were drowning someone inside. A smart lady indeed.”

  I had come to the same conclusion, so I waited for my compliment, but it didn’t come.

  “Okay. Did you ask Amanda about how someone might get into the locked refuse room?”