A couple of tables away from the booth were four young guys. If they’d been carded, I had to guess their IDs were borrowed from older friends. But this seemed to be the kind of place where they didn’t worry much about that kind of thing.
George made no move to stand as I arrived. He let me slip in opposite him. My jeans got caught on sticky spots as I shifted in. George was dressed casually this time, a button-down shirt and a denim jacket. There was a bottle of Heineken in front of him.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“You didn’t want to say what this was about when you called,” I said.
“It’s not the sort of thing to discuss over the phone, Glen. Can I get you a beer first?”
“Sure.”
George caught the waitress’s eye and I asked for a Sam Adams. George sat with his hands on the table, folded together, his arms forming a defensive V around his beer.
“This is your meeting, George,” I reminded him.
“Tell me about that envelope full of cash you delivered to my house.”
“If you know about it, but you don’t know what it’s for, that tells me Belinda hasn’t told you. But she told you it was from me?”
“I saw you put it through the mail slot,” he said.
I glanced over at the table with the boys. They were starting to whoop it up. They had three pitchers of beer on the table and their glasses had been filled.
“Well, there you go. Anything else you want to know, ask Belinda.”
“She’s not very forthcoming. All she’ll say is the money is a down payment on a property. Are you buying another property, Glen? Tearing down a house and putting up a new one on the site? Reason I ask is, I had the sense things were a bit tight for you right now.”
The waitress delivered my beer and I took a sip. “Look, George, I don’t know where you get the idea I owe you a favor or an explanation for anything. I understand you’re the one who persuaded Belinda to open up to the Wilkinson lawyers, to tell them Sheila had the odd drink and once smoked pot with your wife and-”
“If you read the transcript of my wife’s statement closely, you’ll see that it says Sheila smoked marijuana in my wife’s presence, but it does not state that Belinda was also smoking it.”
“Oh, I see. So you don’t mind tearing my wife down, but you’re careful to protect yours at the same time. Did the Wilkinson woman promise you a cut if she gets everything I own? Is that how it went down?”
“I was doing what I thought was right.” He unclasped his hands, extended an arm and tapped the table dramatically with his index finger. “Here’s a woman who’s lost her husband and a child, and you want my wife to lie and deny them justice?”
“If my wife had a history as a pothead and a record for driving around stoned, you might be on to something, George. But she had no history, and she didn’t drive around stoned. So blow your self-righteous crap out your ass.”
He blinked furiously. “I believe in doing things right. I believe people need to live up to a certain standard. And envelopes stuffed with cash, without any explanation, that’s just not the way one does business.”
Three of the boys were chanting “Chug! Chug! Chug!” as the fourth downed a glass of draft in a matter of seconds. They refilled his glass and started chanting again.
I looked back at George, down at his tapping finger, then suddenly dropped a hand down on his extended arm, pinning it to the table. George’s eyes opened wide. He tried to pull his hand away but he couldn’t do it.
“Let’s talk about standards,” I told him. “What sort of standards would a man have to have to let a woman other than his wife slap some handcuffs on him?”
When he’d stuck out his arm, I’d gotten a good look at his wrist. It was red and angry, all the way around. In a couple of spots, the skin was just beginning to heal, as though it had been scraped recently.
It was, I knew, a stab in the dark. But George Morton was within Ann Slocum’s circle. And Ann, in that snippet of video I’d seen, wasn’t exactly talking to a total stranger.
“Stop it!” he whispered, still trying to wriggle free. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell me how you got those marks. You’ve got two seconds.”
“I-I-”
“Too long.”
“You just, you caught me off guard. I did that-I did that working in the garden.”
“Both wrists, same marks? What kind of gardening injury was this?”
George was stammering, none of the words making any sense.
I let go of his hand and wrapped mine back around my beer. “Ann Slocum did that to you, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know what you’re-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he blustered.
“Since you’re all about being honest and forthright, why don’t I ask Belinda to join us, save you having to tell this story twice.” I started reaching for my phone.
He reached out and held my arm, giving me an even better look at the marks. “Please.”
I pushed his hand away but didn’t go for the phone. “Tell me.”
“Oh my God,” he whimpered. “Oh my God.”
I waited.
“I can’t believe Ann would have told Sheila this,” he moaned. “And that Sheila would tell you. That’s how you found out, right?”
