“Perjury for lying to a cop? Not a crime. Obstruction, maybe. No way are we going to be cleared to spend a few hundred bucks to fly to Chicago and interview the woman. Look, I get it, I would love to fly around the country interviewing witnesses, but it just doesn’t happen like that. And you know it.”

“She’s an accessory after the fact in a felony, which means you can charge her with a felony.”

He was listening.

“This case is about more than murder,” Jennifer pushed. “Lucy believes that Victoria was involved in a money-laundering operation to clean illegal gambling profits for Harrison Monroe.”

Mike nearly jumped out of his seat and stared at Lucy. “You have evidence of this?”

“No,” Lucy said. “It’s a theory that developed when I connected the three-year-old Albright murders to Victoria Mills’s homicide. I can’t prove it, but I think we can prove that Clemson was lying about his alibi—both times. I think he picked up the killer at the crime scene. And if we can get Randolph to recant that she was with him, we can bring him in.”

“He’ll call for his lawyer.”

“Yes, he probably will.”

Jennifer said, “We’re going to give his entire life a goddamn rectal exam, Mike. He’s not going to know what hit him.”

“Shit,” he muttered. “Have you even cleared this with your boss?”

“If you’re on board, he’ll let me go.”

He was thinking. “I can’t go with you, but you get her to admit to lying, I’ll work on getting her a deal. If she didn’t know that there was going to be a murder committed. If she knew about the crime in advance, all bets are off, got it?”

“Got it.”

“Devil’s advocate here,” he continued. “What if she took a bribe? What if she really didn’t meet with Clemson but instead got a pay raise and a transfer into a better position? What’s in it for her to come clean? We can’t prove she didn’t meet with him.”

“And believe me, I’m kicking myself for not going to Russo’s and verifying the information with the bartender. But there was no reason to at the time.”

“Because Stanley Grant confessed,” Lucy interjected.

“That changed the trajectory of our entire investigation. His alibi was weak—he was at home. We couldn’t prove that he was or wasn’t. We found the embezzled money, clear trail to Grant. And it made sense, because he’s not a financial genius, so he didn’t cover his tracks well. It was common knowledge among his friends and family of his gambling addiction when he was younger, it made sense—on the surface. And he knew specifics about the crime scene that we didn’t release.”

“Someone coached him,” Lucy said.

“So the guy goes in for murder?” Mike said. “Why?”