On her way back from Somes Sound, Abigail stopped at the diner where she’d had her fried shrimp roll with Lou Beeler and Doyle Alden the other day. It seemed like a hundred years ago. She ordered another one to go. She hadn’t eaten with O’Reilly before he headed back to Boston, after making her promise to stay in touch and behave and not do anything stupid—a whole long list.
She took the steaming roll down to the picturesque harbor and watched the working boats and the pleasure boats come and go on what was a stunningly perfect Maine summer afternoon.
The harbor was also one of the few places with cell phone service.
“Abigail,” her father said when he picked up. “Is everything all right?”
“Was Mattie Young an FBI informant?”
Silence. Her question wasn’t altogether the stab in the dark it felt like now that she could hear her father’s voice. Lou Beeler had hinted at something her father knew. And Chris and Mattie—the tension between them before the wedding. The pieces were coming together.
“Maybe we don’t have a good connection,” she said. “Let me ask again. Was Mattie Young an FBI informant?”
“It’s complicated,” her father said.
“No, it’s not complicated. It’s a yes or no question. Yes, he was. No, he wasn’t.”
“You should talk to Lieutenant Beeler.”
“I did.” She could hear the edge in her voice. But if anyone would know, it was FBI Director John March. Her father. “Have you talked to him?”
“You’re a homicide detective yourself, Abigail. You understand there are details of an investigation that you keep to yourself.”
“Lou, yes. But you? You’re not on this case. Or are you?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Mattie was Chris’s informant.” There was no hint of apology in her father’s tone. “I didn’t find out until after Chris was killed.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“Lou Beeler knew.”
And that was enough as far as her father was concerned. The lead investigator had the information, even if Abigail didn’t. “Chris never said a word,” she said.
“He wouldn’t have. In his position, you wouldn’t have, either. He cut Mattie loose in the weeks before you two got married. He had other things on his mind, Abigail. He was on his honeymoon. There was no need—”
“Apparently there was a need since he ended up with a bullet in his gut, bleeding to death—since he was murdered.” She sucked in a breath. “Damn it.”
“Remember, you weren’t a homicide detective seven years ago.”
“Yes, I know.” She set her shrimp roll on the dock rail, half-covered in seagull droppings. “It’s a lot to absorb. What kind of information did Mattie provide?”
“To be honest, I think Chris was just trying to help a friend, to give him a sense of purpose, keep him busy.” She could hear the emotion in her father’s voice, not a common occurrence for him. “I can get on a plane now and be there in a couple of hours.”
“I know, Dad. Thanks. I’m okay. I just wish you’d told me about Mattie a long time ago.”
“I couldn’t.”
“I know that, too.”
After she disconnected, she fought off a seagull interested in her shrimp roll and watched a battered lobster boat circle into the harbor with a man and a boy going through their routines after a day at sea. She wanted to call to the boy to keep fishing. Be satisfied. Don’t go away and fall for the daughter of the future director of the FBI.
“Your husband had secrets.”
That Linc Cooper was their burglar. That Mattie Young was his informant.
That Grace Cooper was in love with him.
In time, Abigail wondered if Chris would have told her—if they weren’t secrets so much as things he just hadn’t gotten around to sharing with her. They’d been focused on their wedding and honeymoon, their future together.
But they hadn’t had time.
CHAPTER 27
Doyle read a chatty e-mail from Katie three times before he shut down his computer and headed to the kitchen to take some pork chops out of the freezer. His wife had told him in great detail about what she was doing in England—the kinds of things she was learning, the people she’d met, the sights she’d seen. She wrote like she talked. They hadn’t called each other much since she’d left, with the time difference, their busy schedules, the cost of international calls.
As much as he missed her and would have wanted her counsel—her support—if she’d been there, Doyle didn’t want to tell her about what was going on at home, not when there was nothing she could do about it but worry.
The boys liked to instant-message her right after dinner. Doyle had never figured out the whole IM thing.