“Impossible,” said Lynch, “why would he want to?”
“To keep you away from your son. Dawl feels the boy belongs to him,” said Mattheus.
Lynch couldn’t seem to compute that. “It doesn’t make sense,” he murmured, “I was going to keep away from the kid anyway. My mother said Tara would forget about it after the honeymoon.”
“Is there anyway your mother would have told Dawl about your decision to see the child after the wedding?” Mattheus probed.
Lynch stopped cold and stared at him. “What kind of crazy question is that to ask? My mother wants nothing to do with that family, and absolutely nothing to do with the child.”
“Maybe she wanted you to cut the payments off, or cut them down?” Mattheus continued.
“Never,” Lynch made a strange face. “The money means nothing to my mother, either. There’s plenty more where that comes from. Why would she go and ever talk to Dawl?”
“Just curious,” Mattheus replied.
“She has more important things to do than that,” said Lynch angrily. “Like dealing with the company, taking care of the guests, finding a way to make sense of this nightmare and prevent it from ruining us all.”
“Who else could have done it then?” Mattheus was insistent.
“Why would anyone want to?” Lynch cried out. “There wasn’t even one person who didn’t love Tara. Go speak to others, speak to her friends, they’ll tell you so.*
*
When Cindy and Mattheus left Lynch’s room they both felt wiped out, went down to the bar and ordered a drink, to try to make sense of it all.
“Lynch was definitely not trying to protect himself,” Cindy commented immediately. “He wasn’t throwing the blame onto Dawl.”
“Lynch is an innocent bystander,” Mattheus remarked, “he’s confused, he’s mixed up. He didn’t mean any harm.”
“Being an innocent bystander can be a wonderful disguise, an alibi in itself,” she remarked.
Mattheus lifted his hand and ran it through Cindy’s hair. “Don’t just focus on Lynch, please,” he murmured. “You’re mad at him because of his son, just like you were upset with me about my daughter. This case has hit too close to home. Just give us both a break, Cindy.”
Cindy hadn’t actually thought about Mattheus’s daughter for quite a while and the mention of her, brought a shiver. “We’ll talk about your daughter, later,” she said intently.
“Not later,” Mattheus remarked, “let’s do it now. Don’t hold this over me. You see what a mess it could create.”
“Mattheus,” Cindy insisted, “we have all we can do to focus on this case, I’m not talking about your daughter now.”
CHAPTER 15
Before they went any further, both Cindy and Mattheus knew they had to talk to Tara’s friends. It was entirely possible that Tara had said something to one of them that would hold the key to a new trail. Lea, the maid of honor, would be a good place to start. She and Tara were very close and she would also be privy to whatever any of the other girls had heard.
Even though it was later by now, there was still a little sun left in the day and Cindy and Mattheus found Lea resting in the garden in back of the hotel. She was stretched out on a lounge chair, aimlessly flipping through a magazine. They knew the police had already questioned her, but they needed to hear from her on their own.
“Remember us, Lea?” Cindy asked as they approached.
Lea bolted straight upright and stared at them, her eyes tight with pain and fear. “Have you heard anything? What more can you tell me?” she urgently needed to know more.
Cindy and Mattheus pulled up two chairs beside her. “It’s okay, sit down, relax a minute,” Cindy said.
“How can I ever relax again?” Lea asked staring at her. “I’m completely in shock.”
“So is everyone,” replied Cindy, “it’s going to take a while to absorb everything.”
“What is there to absorb?” Lea looked horrified and completely on edge. “I’ll never come to peace with this, never, ever. Tara was my best friend. Who did this to her?” Lea’s eyes looked both terrified and enraged. “How dare someone harm her?”
“Who do you think could have done it?” Mattheus asked bluntly.
“That’s just it,” Lea backed down a moment. “I have absolutely no idea. There wasn’t one person in the world who didn’t just love her. She never said a bad word about anyone, did her best to make people happy.”
“You’ve known her for a long while?” asked Cindy.
“We’ve been best friends for years,” Lea said, her eyes filling with tears. “Tara was always really strong and happy until her mother died. That was really horrible for her.”
“I can only imagine,” said Cindy.
“But then she met Lynch shortly after and it helped a great deal,” Lea went on. “He was the rock she leaned on. He made her feel good again.”
“She leaned a lot on him?” asked Cindy.