“Or a young man making sense of something that had confused him for years. Rand could have come to it long before his release, but who would he tell? The prison staff was unresponsive, they never even followed through on teaching him to read. His only confidante was Cherish. But his trust was misplaced.”

“Once he was out, he thought of someone else,” he said. “A guy with a Ph.D. who’d been fair and warmhearted and objective.”

He looked at me. “The meeting he never made. Maybe that was the point of killing him.”

* * *

We walked back up to the house, popped a couple of beers, and sat at the kitchen table.

Milo finished his bottle and put it aside. “How’s this for ugly, Alex: What if Cherish and Malley didn’t meet at the trial. They were getting it on before Kristal’s murder. She wanted to marry him, needed to get rid of the competition. As in his existing family. So she found herself a little killer for hire and started with the offspring.”

“Cherish paid Troy to murder Kristal?”

“She knew Troy from before. She’s into psychology, went looking for a cold-eyed little psychopath and found one. Troy told you he was gonna get rich. Cherish strung him along by promising to get him out early, with some pot of gold at the end of the goddamn rainbow. Instead, she got him bumped. Six months later, phase two: Lara goes down.”

“Lara was shot with Barnett’s gun,” I said.

“So either Barnett did her himself, or Cherish, being his girl, had ample opportunity to pick the thirty-eight out of the collection. My bet’s on them both being dirty. Remember how pissed Nina Balquist was about Barnett cremating Lara instead of holding a funeral? Why be in such a rush unless you had something to hide? And if Barnett abducted Rand, he’d have to know what was going on.”

“The only problem is,” I said, “it’s eight years later and Cherish and Barnett aren’t married. Why would they go through all that for the sake of an illicit affair?”

“Hey,” he said, “relationships are tough. The passion cooled, whatever.”

“Not enough to stop the motel trysts.”

“Okay, they discovered that hot-bedding it is more fun than going domestic. Or Cherish doesn’t want to give up all that county money and the income from Drew’s moonlighting. Divorce usually hurts the woman, right? Look at Weider. Cherish keeps the house, the kids, the holy-roller persona, and has her fun on the side.”

“Could be,” I said. “It sure fits with Allison’s guess about premeditation. Troy was paid and brought Rand along as backup. Rand wasn’t in on it from the beginning, but somehow he figured it out.”