Her Perfect Secret

“It said Jacob, but I didn’t want to presume anything. I’m Emily Lindman.”

I’m eager to talk to Mooney, but she doesn’t seem to be around. Past Jake, through the kitchen, a living room with tall windows overlooks the water. The home is more timber-frame-rustic than our modern lake house. It’s smaller, but charming. And I can smell something — perhaps liquor. Could be coming from Jake.

“Let me get you a towel,” he says. “Be right back.”

He walks through the kitchen and turns. I stand there a moment, dripping, then take off the raincoat I’m wearing and find a free hook. That done, I’m less drippy and risk venturing into the kitchen. More smells hang in the air — garlic, basil. I see the remnants of pesto pasta in the sink. On the fridge, a picture of Jake holding up a big fish.

In another photo, a woman in a sunhat. The angle is bad, the sun silhouetting her. She’s adjusting her hat, and I can just see the whites of her teeth as she smiles. I inch closer.

A creaking board over my head grabs my attention. I stare up at the ceiling as someone upstairs walks from my left to my right. The rain continues to beat down, but beneath the white noise, I hear muffled voices.

Something about it sends chills down my back. I need to get out of here. This was a mistake. I don’t know these people. I don’t belong in this house . . .

I start toward the entryway. As I walk, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I stop where I’ve hung my coat and check — it’s a voice mail from Paul. My phone never rang. But that happens sometimes — bad cell service and the call won’t come through, only the message indicator. I’m about to listen when someone speaks behind me.

“Here you go.”

Jake holds out a towel.

“Oh, thank you.” I take it, force a smile, and dab my face and hair with it.

Jake watches. He’s a bit awkward. “Rebecca usually takes a nap after lunch. Sometimes she sleeps straight through.”

Straight through what? I wonder. To dinner? Not unheard of, but it seems out of character with the Mooney I remember. “Is she . . . upstairs?”

“Yeah. She’s up in the bedroom. You can go on up. She said she’ll see you.”

“Okay. Great.”

Jake doesn’t move for a moment. He keeps his blue eyes on me. “I’ll show you up,” he says finally.

I follow him through the house. Curiosity has replaced my sudden fear. The stairs are open to the living room as we ascend to the second floor, providing for an elevated view of the lake. “This place is wonderful,” I say.

Jake, lumbering ahead of me, says, “My father and I built it. Thirty years ago. Started as a little hunting camp. Just the kitchen. We kept adding to it.”

The upstairs has a carpeted hallway — a kind of balcony. The first door is shut, the second door ajar. He pushes it the rest of the way and stands aside for me to enter.

I hesitate.

But this is what I’ve come for.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I step into the room. It’s dim, with one lit lamp on the dresser to my right. Two windows overlook the gravel driveway; I can partially see my car. In the bed, the woman is in shadows. Like in the picture on the fridge, she’s backlit, obscuring her features.

“Hello,” I say. “Been a long time, Rebecca.”

The woman in the bed says, “Fifteen years?”

“About that. Maybe exactly that.” There’s a chair between the dresser and the bed. I sit down.

Jake says, “Need anything, honey?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“All right.” He gives me one last look, and I see it this time, unequivocally: He’s not thrilled that I’m here. She’s obviously sick, and this is their hideaway, and I’ve just brought the world with me. The past, her career, all of it.

After Jake leaves, I turn to Mooney. “I’m really sorry to intrude.”

“He said you seemed desperate.”

“I guess I am.” As my eyes adjust to the light, I can see her features a little better. She’s thin. She’s wearing a handkerchief on her head. “I didn’t know that you weren’t feeling well.”

She laughs, and it turns into a coughing fit. I tense, ready to do something, but who knows what. When it subsides, she says, “Not feeling well. Yeah, you could put it that way.”

There’s the tough chick I remember. The no-nonsense New Yorker personality coming through, even when she’s clearly been weakened by a debilitating illness. Cancer, no doubt.

“You’re from the city, originally — is that right?”

“Queens. Born and raised. I worked there for almost ten years before I got transferred up to Westchester. Then I did a little over ten more. But I got sick with breast cancer. I retired, I beat it, and then it came back. It’s in my lymph system.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She waves a hand. “That’s not for sympathy. That’s so you don’t have to sit there guessing, and we can get on to whatever it is you’re here to see me about.”

I open my mouth, but Mooney says, “Well, I know, though. Why you’re here. I remember you. As soon as Jake said your name. Laura Bishop is out on parole, right? I got a courtesy email, since it was my investigation. They let her go yesterday. Did she call you? Harass you?” Mooney starts coughing again.

“No, nothing like that.” I wait until Mooney’s lungs settle down and tell her the story. The whole story. She listens completely and doesn’t interrupt. Once I’m finished, I ask her what she thinks.

“Arnold Bleeker,” she muses. “I remember, he was a real handful. He and his wife — Annie, I think her name was . . .”

“Alice.”

“They made a big stink when their sister-in-law was convicted. Even before that. They said we were harassing her. That she was a grieving widow and we were heartless.”

“Did you . . . were you very interested in Laura Bishop as a suspect?”

“Oh sure, we liked her for it. Of course we did. Eighty percent of the time it’s someone close to the victim. And we had two witnesses — good witnesses — say that their marriage was on the rocks. That she and her husband were partiers, you know, maybe even swingers. We knew that her business — she was into art dealing, or something — wasn’t doing so hot. The life insurance paid her a million and a half. Plus, she had no alibi. What’s not to like? But we had no hard evidence. And we had a crime scene that was wrecked.”

“Wrecked,” I repeat. “What do you mean? Contaminated?”

Mooney’s face is cloaked in shadow, but I sense the air tighten with her trepidation. The word contaminated seems to have caused it. Good. That’s what I’m here for.

“A few things were suboptimal,” Mooney finally admits. “For one thing, the first cops to respond to the 911, two local PD, they did a perimeter check, walked all around the house. It’s procedure, but they ruined all our tracks. Then the sun took care of the rest the next day.”

She sighs. For a moment, I think it’s all she’ll say. But then she continues. “The other thing — we had a witness say there was someone parked in the street just prior to the murder, and cigarette butts were found, but the tech had a tear in his glove. Cross-contamination.”

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