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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Dammit. That stupid asshole."

Laura Hagerty chose to go by her maiden name. She lived in Marietta, a half hour northwest of Atlanta and a forty-five-minute drive from her husband's home. Faith and Michael arrived just as the sun poked its gaze over the horizon.She had answered the door wearing only a bathrobe, and that, accompanied with the eye roll and the lack of any visible sign of grief gave Faith and Michael pause.

"All right," Laura said. "Come on inside. You can make yourselves coffee if you want. The stuff's on the counter. I'm going to go get dressed and tell my boss that I can't come in today. After that, I'm all yours."

She headed upstairs and Michael and Faith stepped inside, Turk following. Turk sniffed around, trying to find a scent that matched what he'd detected from the crime scene. He didn't get anything. Apparently, it had been a while since Mr. Evans and Ms. Hagerty had seen each other.

The house itself was stylish and well-decorated. The furniture was high quality, and the appliances were top-of-the-line models. It was noticeably nicer than the furnishings at Evans' house.

"I guess we know who ‘won' the divorce," Michael quipped.

Laura came downstairs a moment later in a t-shirt and sweatpants. Her expression betrayed no grief, only irritation. "I'm gonna need to cancel my vacation," she said, "I was really counting on next month's alimony payment. Hey, do either of you know how to petition the court for a judgment on his assets?"

"We don't," Faith said, "that's not what we're here for."

"Well, what are you here for?"

"To find out who murdered your ex-husband."

Laura paused. "Ah," she said, her voice much more subdued. "I didn't realize he was murdered."

"We hadn't mentioned it yet," Michael said.

"Am I… do I need a lawyer?" Laura asked.

"Not at this time," Faith said. "We don't suspect you of being involved."

Indeed, Faith found it difficult to imagine the five-foot-one, hundred-pound Laura of killing three grown men, especially in that manner. She definitely didn't overcome Harvey Harris in a fistfight before murdering him. It was an outside possibility, she supposed, that Laura could have paid someone to murder the three men, but Faith didn't think that was likely, and if it was, she didn't want Laura to think they thought it was likely. Not yet, anyway.

"Got it," Laura said. "That's good. Do you mind if I smoke?"

Faith gestured for her to go ahead. Laura walked to the kitchen and pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from one of the drawers. Faith noticed her hands were trembling. "Is everything all right, Ms. Hagerty."

"Please, call me Laura," Laura said, lighting her cigarette. "I hate that name, Hagerty. It sounds like hag and haggard, and I left Bobby to try to put both off as long as possible."

"But you still went back to your maiden name," Michael pointed out.

"Yeah, well," she took another drag. "I guess I hated Bobby more."

"Enough to kill him?" Faith asked.

Laura met her eyes. "I thought you said I don't need a lawyer."

"I'm pretty sure you don't," Faith said, "but since this is a murder investigation, and you did say you hated our victim, I have to ask."

Laura scoffed. "Well, to answer your first question, no, everything is not all right. You might think me a gold-digger for saying this, but I've been living primarily off of Bobby's alimony for the past seven years. If I don't get at least some of his assets, then I'm royally screwed. I'll have to sell my house and end up living in a crappy apartment on Hansen Street again."

Faith's ears perked up at the mention of Hansen Street. "When did you move out of Hansen Street?"

"When Bobby married me fifteen years ago," she said, "back when I was a na?ve twenty-four-year-old and having a man who could do passably well in bed was all that mattered to me." She chuckled. "Silly little me, I never considered that a man who was good in bed might be good to other women too."

"When you lived on Hansen Street," Faith said, "did you have any interactions with the Georgia Syndicate?"

"The who now?"

"Did you ever run into trouble with any of the street gangs?"

She chuckled. "The gangs? No. I made sure I was inside with my doors and windows locked and my gun loaded. I kept waiting for someone to try to convince me to work at one of the clubs, but no one did. I guess I wasn't as pretty as I thought I was."

In Faith's opinion, Laura would be a very handsome woman if she smiled more and was no doubt breathtaking, not to mention the petite figure that so many men preferred.

Then again, it was easier to work with willing women than to force unwilling women, and the Syndicate was seemingly very concerned with minimizing trouble. Faith wouldn't be surprised to read about Roman Kerry having an accident in prison, whether he talked or not. The other organizers had gotten away, meaning leadership would hear that it was entirely Roman's fault.

"When did you and your husband divorce?" Michael asked.

She smiled slightly. "You really need to know all that?"

"You can assume we need the answers to every question we ask," Faith replied.

"All right," Laura said, lifting her hands placatingly. "I was just asking. Well, like I said earlier, I've been living off of alimony for seven years, so that's when I left him. I caught him with one of my coworkers. It was the eighth time he'd cheated on me in eight years, and that's only the women I know about."

She took another drag on the cigarette. "The crazy thing is that I didn't mind that he ran around with other women. Not all that much, anyway. I get that men need a lot more sex than most women do, and I'll admit I was never a ‘freak in the sheets.' If he had kept it quiet and away from our house, I would have been perfectly content to look the other way a few days a month." She took another drag. "But I draw the line at being treated with no respect. I told him we were through, and he… do you need details on the divorce?"

"If you think they're relevant."

"Well, I don't think any of this is relevant," Laura said, "but I'll just leave it at this: he was very confident that I wouldn't win the judgment that I, of course, ended up winning. He fought the judgment until the court ordered him to pay up or sell his house and give me half."

"Did you have any contact with him after the divorce?"

She shook her head. "He tried to come over about six months after we split. He was drunk and wanted to have sex. I told him to get lost and find one of his whores. After that, he just sent the checks, and I just cashed them."

She looked at Faith's expression and smiled slightly. "You think I'm a special sort of evil, don't you, for talking about a dead man like this."

"My standards of evil are very different from yours, I'm sure," Faith replied.

Laura chuckled. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Well, I don't know what else I can tell you. I figured he would get himself killed sooner or later, so I guess I just dealt with those emotions a while ago."

"Why did you feel he would get himself killed?"

Laura paused with her cigarette halfway to her lips. She frowned slightly, then finished the drag. She tapped the ashes directly onto the table and said, "Well, he was involved in… something. I don't know exactly what, but I know that I didn't want to be involved in it."

"But it didn't have anything to do with your divorce?"

"You'd think it would, wouldn't you?" Laura said with bitter sarcasm.

She lifted her cigarette again and found it was spent. She returned to the kitchen and got another cigarette. She lit it and took a drag, then said, "No. I just looked the other way. I was really good at doing that. I think that's why it pissed me off so much that he had eight women in our house. I mean, for Christ's sake, spend fifty bucks on a motel room and wear a condom."

"Are you familiar with the name Harvey Harris?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't know that name. Is he a suspect?"

"No, he's another victim."

Laura's eyes widened in shock. "You mean there's more than one murder?"

"Three so far," Faith confirmed. "Vincent Mariano, Harvey Harris, and your ex-husband."

She watched Laura carefully as she mentioned the names. Laura showed no sign of recognition.

"Jesus," Laura said, "am I in danger?"

"That depends," Faith said, "are you familiar with Roman Kerry?"

Laura flinched and paled considerably. "Roman Kerry?"

Michael leaned forward and said, "This is when you might need a lawyer."

"No, no," Laura said, shaking her head. "No, I didn't have anything to do with Roman Kerry."

"But you know the name," Faith said.

"Yes, I…" Laura sighed and took a deep drag on her cigarette. "I…" she sighed. "Okay, I lied earlier when I said that I hadn't seen Bobby in years. I…" she slumped. "I went over last month."

"Why?"

She met Faith's eyes and said, "Well, it turns out that finding men who do passably well in bed is not as easy as you'd think."

"So you went over for sex?"

Laura lifted her hand and let it drop. "Yeah. It had been nine months since I… well, you don't need the gruesome details. Yes, I called him and asked him if he wanted to get laid. I don't know that a man's ever lived who's answered no to that question. So I went over, we…" she shrugged bitterly. "…did it, and while I was lying in bed after, I overheard him on the phone with a man named Roman Kerry."

"What did you hear?"

"Not much. Bobby just kept reassuring him that he would fix it. He didn't need to send anyone over, Bobby would take care of it."

"Did you ask him what he meant by that?"

She shook her head. "I asked him who was on the phone, and he just said he had made some powerful new friends who needed a favor from him."

"You didn't ask who his powerful new friends might be?"

"Hell no. I went home as soon as I could."

"So you never saw Roman Kerry personally."

"No, and I don't want to." She took another drag and said, "Look, agent, Bobby was many things, but he wasn't a coward. So when I tell you that he looked pale as a ghost after talking to Roman, you know I mean something serious."

"Very serious," Faith said, "Roman Kerry is a high-ranking member of the Georgia Syndicate."

"Is that like the mob?"

"More or less," Faith confirmed.

Laura scoffed and shook her head. "Figures. Of course, Bobby would do something stupid like that. Well, I'm glad that's the last time I saw him." She shook her head again. "That stupid son of a bitch."

"And you never talked to him in any way?"

"I keep saying no," Laura replied, "and you keep asking. That means you don't believe me. Why?"

"I don't disbelieve you," Faith said, "but I have Roman Kerry in custody, and I will be asking him if he knows you."

Laura paled. "I don't suppose you could avoid that?" she said, "I really don't know him, and I don't want a target on my back."

"If you have a target on your back," Faith said, "it won't have anything to do with Roman."

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