CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Yes?” she asked.
“Are you Claudia Ashford?” Miles asked.
“I am. Who are you?”
Vic showed her badge and ID. “Agents Stone and Sterling, with the FBI. We were hoping you’d have some time to talk.”
Ashford seemed to consider this for a moment before finally nodding. “Is this about things going under all that time ago? Is that still a topic of interest?”
“We believe it may be connected to a case we’re currently working,” Miles explained.
“Ah, I see. In that case, yes, please come on in.”
She led them inside as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
The apartment itself was small, but she had made it warm.
A patterned rug covered most of the living room floor, and the shelves were full of framed photographs and a few pieces of jewelry displayed in shadow boxes, the kind of thing someone keeps when they're proud of the work and have nowhere else to put the pride.
A window with gauze curtains let in the late morning light and a kettle was already going on the stove when she answered the door.
"Coffee?" she asked. “Tea?
"Coffee would be great, thank you," Miles said.
She brought three cups and settled into a chair across from them, pulling her cardigan a little tighter. She was studying them the way people do when they're not quite sure what kind of meeting this is going to be. “So…what can I help you with?”
Over coffee, they gave her a brief but honest outline of why they were there.
They spoke of the two victims and how it seemed that they had been targeted because of their platinum jewelry.
They also mentioned the method of murder (though they were light on details here), and that it seemed that whoever was responsible had specialized knowledge of the material, the kind that came from years of working with it professionally.
“One of the victims came to your old company for business,” Vic said. “And given how things ended with your business, we were hoping you could help us figure out if there was anyone among your former staff who might have the capability or even the motive to do such a thing.”
Miles had watched Claudia’s face closely as they had explained things.
He expected to see the shutters come down, the defensive pull-back he'd seen from people whose past professional failures were being dredged up in connection with something terrible.
But Claudia Ashford surprised him. She listened carefully, and when they finished, she set down her coffee cup and nodded.
"I figured it was something like this," she said. "I mean, my case is old news." She paused. "You want to talk about the people who worked for me?”
"We do," Vic said.
"All right." She settled back. "I'll tell you whatever I can."
There was no bitterness in her voice about it, no defensiveness about the business or what had happened to it.
Miles had done enough of these interviews to recognize when someone was performing composure versus actually having it.
Claudia Ashford had it. She'd been through prison, through the collapse of a four-generation family business, through the public exposure of everything she'd done wrong, and she had come out the other side of it with a different kind of quiet.
Not broken. Just very finished with pretending.
"Talk to us about your craftsmen," Miles said. "Specifically, the ones who worked with platinum. Who had the deepest knowledge of the material?"
She thought for a moment. "Platinum is unforgiving.
It requires specific tools, a controlled environment, and a kind of patience that not everyone has.
Most of my jewelers could work with it in a basic sense, but the real expertise was in three people.
Daniel Hartley, Rebecca Voss, and Thomas Brennan. "
Miles noted the order she put them in…and also noted that it matched their top three targets exactly.
"Tell us about Brennan first," he said.
Claudia's expression shifted slightly. Not hostile, but careful.
"Thomas was one of the best craftsmen I've ever worked with.
Technically gifted. He understood platinum the way some people understand music, intuitively, in his hands.
" She wrapped her fingers around her cup.
"But Thomas had a very difficult time when the business closed.
He'd been with me for nearly twenty years.
He'd taken out loans against the expectation of continued income and when everything stopped, he lost his house. "
"He filed a lawsuit against you, correct? Vic said.
"He did." She said it without flinching.
"He argued that I owed him compensation for what happened.
The judge disagreed. The court found that his financial situation was the result of his own decisions, not my obligation.
" She looked out the window for a moment.
"But Thomas didn't see it that way. He came to my home twice before I went to prison.
He was angry and he wasn't rational about it.
I seriously considered filing for a restraining order. "
"But you didn't," Miles said.
"I was about to go to prison," she said simply.
"I had other things consuming my attention.
" She looked back at Miles. "He wasn't violent. He was just very, very bitter. But his anger was at me. At the situation. It was personal in a way that had nothing to do with the clients. He honestly didn’t even seem to care about them. "
Miles thought about that. It was the same gap he'd identified over breakfast. Brennan's grievance seemed to run in a straight line toward Claudia Ashford and the perceived injustice of the bankruptcy, not toward the wealthy clients who had worn the jewelry.
That mattered when you were trying to understand a killer who had chosen his victims specifically for what they wore and what it represented.
But then again, Miles had learned enough about Kane's influence to know that it could redirect a pre-existing rage.
Take a man already burning with resentment and give him a framework, a philosophy, a reason to aim it somewhere new. He made a note to himself.
"What about Hartley?" Vic asked.
Something shifted in Claudia's expression, genuine and without calculation.
"Daniel." She almost smiled at the name.
"He was with me for fifteen years. Exceptionally talented, good with clients, just a lovely man to have in the shop.
" She paused. "He left five years before everything fell apart.
He had an opportunity to work at a medical device company, applying his platinum skills in a different field.
I hated to lose him but I understood. I always felt that he deserved every good thing that came his way.
" She looked at them steadily. "If you're asking me whether Daniel Hartley could have anything to do with this, I can't imagine it. I genuinely cannot."
“And what about Voss?” Miles asked.
“God, such a sweetheart. Not too long after things went south, she moved up north. To Maine, I believe.”
“And she’s still there?”
“Yes, I believe so. I haven’t spoken to her, but I see her posts on Facebook from time to time.”
"Well, we certainly appreciate your time and your honesty," Vic said, bringing things to a close. "This helps tremendously."
"Can I ask," Claudia said, "whether you're close to finding whoever this is?"
"We're working on it," Miles said.
She nodded and didn't push further. She walked them to the door and held it open for them, and there was something in her manner as they left that made Miles think she was going to think about this conversation for a long time after they were gone.
They said goodbye and went back down to the street. The morning had warmed up while they were inside and the light through the oak trees was sharp and clean. Miles put on his sunglasses and stood for a moment by the car.
"Brennan," Vic said.
"Brennan," he agreed. "She confirmed the technical ability. And the anger. Even if it was pointed in the wrong direction initially." He opened the car door. "Kane's whole philosophy is about redirecting that kind of resentment. Giving it a target that makes ideological sense to the disciple."
"You think Brennan found Kane."
"Or the other way around. Either way, I think we need to find Brennan and see." Miles pulled out his phone and checked the address Kim had sent them over with her initial list of data. “He’s in New Jersey. Not a drive I was expecting to have to make, but…let's go."
Vic got in on the passenger side and Miles started the car. As he pulled out onto the street, he took one last look up at Claudia Ashford's window. She was standing there, watching them go, her arms folded across her cardigan in the morning light.
He turned his eyes back to the road and headed for the highway, suddenly curious if maybe her agreeable nature had been a front after all.