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does it?”
    “For Shea to do that if Shea was the killer.”
    “Exactly.”
    Killers tend to make mistakes, especially if they panic. “How about motive?”
    “None. Closest of friends.”
    I remembered Beth’s comment. “Maybe closer than that?”
    Lacouture shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
    “What did the friends do for a living?”
    “Hale Vandemeer, he was a doctor. Also had some kind of business deal with his brother. Vivian Vandemeer was a housewife.’“
    “How about Sandra Newberg?”
    “She wasn’t working.”
    “I thought you said she kept her name for business reasons.”
    “She got laid off. Some insurance company down in Boston.”
    “Which one?”
    “Empire, I think.”
    Small world. “I used to work for them.”
    “Great. Might save us some time.”
    He was going a little too fast. “What exactly do you want me to do, Gil?”
    Lacouture spread his hands over the file, as though he were blessing it. “I’d like you to look into things up here, get a handle on what happened. Since this isn’t a bailable offense, Steve can’t be very much help to me. Then I’d like you to dig around down in Massachusetts, see if you can find anything I can use with a jury to get them to see another way this could have happened without my client being involved.”
    I glanced through the notes I’d taken. “The TV news said Shea was with some defense contractor, right?”
    “Steve is an executive with Defense Resource Management down by you.”
    I’d vaguely heard of them as their initials, “DRM.” I said, “Is the company standing by him?”
    “Absolutely. The general counsel there is the one who brought me into the case.”
    “Name?”
    “Anna-Pia Antonelli.”
    “She a classmate of yours, too?”
    “No. I’d represented Steve when he bought the land on Marseilles. When he was arrested, he called Antonelli.”
    “He called her, not you?”
    Lacouture gave me a strange look. “Yes. She checked me out, found I’d done a stint in the defenders. Steve trusted me from the property deal, and here I am.”
    “Any way this could be connected to his work?”
    “Steve seems to think so, but you’d have to ask him.”
    I started a new page in the pad. “Any kids in either family?”
    “Not for Steve and Sandy. The Vandemeers had one son, Nick.”
    “How old?”
    “Teenager. Still in high school and I guess not exactly a credit to the bloodline.”
    “Addresses and full names for everybody in your file?”
    Lacouture brightened. “Does that mean you’re coming on board?”
    “I won’t be making up my mind until after I meet with your client.”
    “I can arrange it for tomorrow.”
    I closed up my pad. “Might be a help for me to see the crime scene beforehand.”
    The grin. “I thought you might feel that way. Sheriff Willis can run you out there this afternoon.”
    “The sheriff will take me there?”
    “You bet. P. W. Willis was the first cop on the scene that night. Took the state police an hour.”
    “Where do I meet Willis?”
    “Marseilles Pond is two counties over from here, but even so, it’s ten miles from the jail. Be easier for you to just go to the inn and wait for the sheriff there.”
    “The inn.”
    “Marseilles Inn. It’s in the village and about the nicest place we could put you up.”
    “So I’m on expenses till I meet with your client.”
    “Steve insisted.”
    “I notice you keep calling him by his first name. Practicing for the jury, Gil?”
    Lacouture lost a little of the grin. “No. This is Maine, John. We personalize our clients even when we don’t have to.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Forget it. But actually, there’s another reason, too.”
    “What’s that?”
    Lacouture made the grin go sly. “I’d like to tell you that after you’ve met with Steve, okay?”
    “Okay. One more thing.”
    “Sure.”
    “Can Judy tell me how I get to the Department of Public Safety?”
    I left the department’s annex in Gardiner carrying a blown-down white