Jake found himself worrying briefly if the construction workers could see him and checked around for security cameras. He knew he was being paranoid but he couldn’t help himself. He’d driven here with an eye on the rearview mirror, checking to make sure that the detectives weren’t following him.
Jake breathed in deeply, trying to relax. The air carried the familiar grit he remembered from his childhood, making it hard to breathe, but that could have been his memories. He glanced inside the enormous crater at the greenish brown water below, slightly choppy in the wind off the surface of the deep cliffs. A jagged vein of darker rock ran around the circumference of the quarry, a high watermark like the dirty rim of a bathtub, and his gaze traveled upward, over the strata of the limestone, its streaks of gray, tan, and brown formed over centuries.
It struck him that he was looking at a cross-section of time itself, if not his own personal history. His childhood would’ve started somewhere in the grayish streaks near the top, forty-odd years ago, and his father’s and mother’s would have started an inch below that, almost a century into the past, as if the layers of the limestone were the pencil lines they used to draw on the kitchen doorjamb when he was growing up, to chart his height. He and Pam drew the same lines on their kitchen doorjamb to mark Ryan’s height, the only tradition of his family’s worth keeping.
Jake realized with a deep pang that his mother would weep if she knew that her son had just been questioned by the police, after he’d left a young girl dead on the road. He also knew what his father would say.
Just my luck.
Jake swallowed hard, eyeing the strata of rock in the sun, which spilled into the countless crevices on the face of the cliff, illuminating even the tiniest of crevices, indentations, and faults, making shadows everywhere. The quarry kept no secrets, hiding nothing, but lay bare every buried sin, exposing it to light and air. Jake sensed he was looking at his own history, in which his decision on the night of the hit-and-run would become the blackest vein, a fault line that would render him and his family unstable, forever.
Story of my life.
There was a noise behind him, and Jake turned to see Pam driving up, on the phone. He wondered if she was talking to Dr. Dave, which brought him a stab of pain. He couldn’t read her expression because she had designer sunglasses on and she was dressed for work in one of those jackets-over-a-dress combinations that she favored. She turned off the engine, hanging up, then threw open the car door, jumped out, and let it slam behind her.
“Pam.” Jake walked toward her, raising his arms to embrace her, but she stiffed-armed him.
“Why am I here?”
“What happened with Voloshin last night?”
“I told you, I took care of it.” Pam slipped the phone into her blazer pocket and folded her arms. Her tone was cold, and her hair blew in the wind off the quarry. “I cleaned up your mess.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Jake had thought of nothing but that question on the drive here.
“What?”
“Andrew Voloshin is dead. He was found stabbed in his apartment last night. Two detectives were just at my office questioning me. They said one of the tenants saw a brunette leaving the complex last night. He was also heard arguing with a woman. Kathleen’s mother is brunette, but so are you. It wasn’t you, was it?”
“Are you serious?” Pam asked, sounding for the first time like herself. She tore off her sunglasses, revealing a horrified expression.
“You would never kill anybody, even for Ryan, would you?”
“Of course not.” Pam’s eyes flared in disbelief. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Voloshin’s not dead, he can’t be. I just saw him.”
“He is dead. Murdered.” Jake’s thoughts raced ahead. “If you didn’t kill him, who did? And why?”
“I just saw him,” Pam repeated, shaking her head.
“What time? Where did you see him?”
“Around ten o’clock, at his apartment.”
“You went to his apartment?” Jake asked, dumbfounded. “Why? What were you doing? How do you even know where he lives—”
“If you let me explain, I will,” Pam snapped, her eyelids fluttering briefly. “I looked him up online, like you did, and I found his address. I decided to go over there.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Pam shot back. “You drove us straight into a ditch. You kept everything from me and you instructed Ryan to keep everything from me, so I had no say in what was going on. But once I found out, did you think I was going to sit around and do nothing?”
Jake didn’t interrupt because she was on the warpath.
“I used to be a pretty good litigator, remember? I still have sharp teeth and I’m not without resources. I decided to go over there and give him a piece of my mind. I wanted him to back off of Ryan and I wanted him to know that he wasn’t getting any more money after this initial payment. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t about to be blackmailed into bankruptcy.” Pam paused. “Wait, what about the transfer? Did you pay him?”
“I stopped it in time. It never went through.”
“Good.” Pam rubbed her forehead irritably, leaving pinkish welts with her nails. “So I drove over and knocked on his door. The apartment complex is one of those with townhomes stuck together, only two stories. Duplexes, and it’s kind of run down. His apartment is on the second floor of one of the townhouses. His name was on the mailbox. I went in the downstairs door behind the first-floor tenant—”
“The tenant let you in? Just like that?”
“Please, he’s an old man and I gave him a big smile.”
“Did you tell him that you were there to see Voloshin?”
“What’s the difference?”
“I’m thinking about the police. I’m wondering if you’re the brunette that they were referring to or if the old man can identify you—”
“Of course he can’t. It was dark. He could barely see me through his trifocals, and anyway, I didn’t explain anything to him. I just walked in behind him, smiled, then went upstairs.” Pam threw up her hands, with the sunglasses looped around her thumb. “Honestly, Jake! What are you so worried about?”
Jake let it go. He didn’t want to tell her what he was so worried about, not yet.
“Anyway, I went upstairs, and Voloshin’s apartment door was open partway. I knocked and called for him, but it swung open all the way.”
“He leaves his door open?”
“It was the only apartment on the floor, so I assume he wasn’t worried about it. I went in. He came up later with a basket of laundry. I guess he’d been in the laundry room, wherever that was.”
“So he came into his apartment and found you there?” Jake was trying to imagine the chronology.
“Yes, but not before I did some snooping.”
“What did you do? What did you see?”
“Hold on. When he came in, I explained to him who I was and why I was there.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him that I was Ryan’s mother and a judge, and that he was the lowest form of life on the planet. I told him that if he ever breathed a word of what he knew or bothered us again, then I’d go to the police myself.”
“Did you raise your voice?”
“Of course. That’s my forte.”
“Did he?”
“Not really. He asked me to leave, but I wasn’t about to go until I said my piece. Then I left.”
Jake couldn’t hide his dismay. “The police said one of the tenants overheard a woman arguing with him.”
“That would be me. That little bastard, he’s the worst kind of bully. A coward.” Pam paused. “It’s too bad he’s dead, murdered that way, even if it means he can’t blackmail us anymore. I mean, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
“The killer made it look like a burglary, or it was an actual burglary. But Voloshin was alive when you left him?”
“Of course. He threw me out. Walked me to the apartment door.”
“And you went downstairs. Did you see anybody on your way out?”
“No.”
“What about the old man? The first-floor tenant?”
“No. I didn’t see anybody. Why are you asking me all these questions?”
“I want to know. Then what did you do?”
“I went to the car and left.”
“Were you wearing your sunglasses?”
“Of course not. It was nighttime.”
Jake tried to imagine it. “Did the place have a security guard, like a gatehouse at the front?”