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reached her. She must have been out of town.”
    â€œSo you spent the weekend by yourself?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’ll need your girlfriend’s name and phone number?”
    â€œHer name is Erin Rogers. The number is (702)678-9924. That’s her cell.”
    â€œWhat does Ms. Rogers do for a living?”
    â€œShe’s a dancer at the Mirage.”
    â€œHow about receipts?” said J.D. “Would you happen to have receipts—credit card charges or the hotel receipt?”
    â€œUm, not with me, but I can get them for you.”
    â€œAdd that to your list. You said you left for Las Vegas on Saturday morning. What time was that?”
    â€œMaybe nine o’clock.”
    â€œAnd returned today at….”
    â€œI got back by early afternoon, two, maybe two-thirty.”
    â€œWhen was the last time you saw your husband alive?”
    â€œDavid left the EEWA office around four o’clock Friday afternoon. That’s the last time.” She choked off a sob.
    Books handed her a fresh tissue. “Sorry, Darby, just another question or two, and then I’ll be finished.”
    She nodded and dabbed at her eyes.
    â€œWhat did you do on Friday evening after David left?”
    â€œI worked until about six and then went out to dinner with Celia Foxworthy. Celia’s the lady who’s here with me today. She’s a volunteer at the office, and she’s also our next-door neighbor.”
    â€œSo you went to dinner with Ms. Foxworthy and got home at about what time?”
    â€œYou can check with her, but I think around eight-thirty.”
    â€œAnd what did you do for the rest of the evening?”
    â€œI just tucked in, watched TV, and read until I fell asleep.”
    Books ended the interview by asking Darby for permission to search her husband’s EEWA office. She consented but demanded to be present during the search.

Chapter Seven
    Books followed Darby to the EEWA office. The organization leased space in an old pueblo-style complex on the north end of town just off Main Street. He was struck by the security measures inside the office. The public entered a large, sparsely furnished foyer with an array of environmental publications stacked on a coffee table in front of a leather couch. The inner office was separated by a wall with a steel door at one end and a small plexiglass window in the center, through which a visitor could speak to a receptionist. Access to the inner sanctum was controlled from the window.
    As soon as they entered the foyer, the receptionist buzzed them through the locked door and immediately gave Darby a tearful embrace. The two exchanged whispered words of comfort. The inner office consisted of a conference room and two small private offices, one of which had belonged to David Greenbriar.
    Books spent the next hour searching the victim’s office with Darby looking on. Citing privacy concerns, she refused to allow him to remove hard copies of documents or provide him with a list of EEWA members. For that he would need to get a warrant. He paid special attention to the e-mail messages Greenbriar sent and received as well as the files on his hard drive and on a CD Rom.
    He hadn’t expected the search to yield a smoking gun and it didn’t. That’s not to say that the search was for naught. Two things struck him. The first was the general tenor of Greenbriar’s correspondence. During the past several months, he seemed preoccupied with the issue of road expansion into wilderness areas. When Books asked Darby about this, she confirmed it.
    â€œThe environmental issues we focus on shift periodically depending on what our political adversaries are up to,” she explained. “Around here, livestock grazing often becomes the focus of much of our time and energy. At other times, our emphasis shifts to logging, mining, or all-terrain vehicle use in sensitive ecosystems. For the last maybe six to nine months, our