She listened because after he snapped out answers, he snapped out questions. Obviously the answers didn’t satisfy him.
“Give me a break, Detective. Give me a fucking break. She might be alive if I’d made that call sooner, if I’d connected with her. Because it’s Hobart, goddamn it. She’ll have stalked in person, through social media. She’ll have a place—or had one—within an easy walk or drive. She’ll know Emily Devlon’s routine. Where she shops, banks, drinks, eats. She’ll have documented every last detail. Did Devlon routinely go out on Sunday nights?”
Reed shoved at his hair, paced.
“For fuck’s sake, call the FBI. The SAC is Andrew Xavier. But right now you’re standing over a dead mother of two. I was there with her in the DownEast Mall. I didn’t know her, but I was in there, too. And I … Jesus fucking Christ, are you trying to be a dick? Then give me TOD, and I’ll tell you where the fuck I was.
“I was at the home of my former partner and her family. That’s Detective Essie McVee.” He rattled off her phone number and address. “She’ll verify. I left her place, drove to the ferry back to Tranquility. I contacted Emily Devlon, left the message while on the ferry. Prior, I contacted Max Lowen in Fort Lauderdale, as I believed Hobart to be in Florida. The message has a time stamp, goddamn it, you know damn well I called her right before or right after TOD.”
He listened and, oh yes, Simone could see that rage in every line and muscle of his body.
“You do that. Fucking do that. You know where to reach me.”
He spun around, and the wild fury on his face had Simone taking a step back. He caught himself.
“I need a minute.”
But when he reached for the door, to close it between them, she stepped forward.
“Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out. I heard enough to understand she killed someone else. Someone you tried to warn. Come in, Reed, put some clothes on. You don’t know it yet, but you’re freezing.”
“A lot of fucking good it did. She didn’t answer the phone. Maybe already dead. Too fucking late.” He tossed his phone on the bed, grabbed his pants. “And this Homicide asshole’s grilling me about why I left the message, why I left the Portland PD, how I know so much, where I was during the time in question. Fucking cocksucker.”
He caught himself again. “Sorry. I have to go.”
“To do what? Put your fist through a wall somewhere else? Once the fucking cocksucker does a minimum of checking, he’s going to know he’s a fucking cocksucker.”
“That won’t make Emily Devlon any less dead. She had two little kids. I was too late.”
She moved to him, wrapped around him.
“Damn it, Simone. I was too late. She got by me.”
“You?” She squeezed hard, eased back. “Why you, and you alone?”
“I’m the only one she’s tried to kill who’s looked her in the eyes and lived.”
“So you’re not going to stop. Right now you don’t think that counts for much, but it does. I predict the cop in Florida will call you back, apologize, and ask for your help.”
“I don’t want his fucking apology.”
“You’re probably going to get it anyway. But now, we’re going to take a walk on the beach.”
“It’s cold, it’s the middle of the damn night. I need to go,” he insisted. “You should go back to bed.”
Odd, she thought, he usually held on to his calm. Now that his had slipped, she had a good grip on her own.
“You’re going to wait until I get dressed, then we’re going to walk. It’s something that helps me, at least sometimes, when I’m really pissed off. Let’s see if it helps you.”
She went to her dresser for a sweatshirt, sweatpants. “Seeing you in full-blown rage? I realize just how lucky the island is to have you.”
“Yeah, nothing like a pissed-off chief of police.”
“You have a right to be pissed, and still, already, you’re banking it down. And part of the pissed, the part that’s still showing, is sad. I knew you were smart and clever as a cop. I knew you respected the job you do, and want to do it well. And I knew you cared about people, but tonight I saw just how much you care.”
She got a scarf, wound it around her neck. “We’re lucky to have you, Chief. I’ve got a warm jacket downstairs. We’ll get it, and yours, on the way out.”
“I’m in love with you. Dear Christ, don’t let that scare you off.”
It stole her breath for a minute, and she had to take a firmer grip on her calm. “It scares me. It’s not scaring me off, but I need a little more gathering myself together before I’m sure what we’re going to do about it. I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. I just need to figure that out.”
“That works for me. And I’m less pissed off now.”
“Let’s take that walk anyway. You’re the first man who’s said that to me I’ve believed. I think we both need a walk on the beach.”
It helped, and though he didn’t go back in, back to her bed, she knew he’d steadied himself. He kissed her, drove away after he waited for her to go inside.
She didn’t go back to her bed, either. Instead, she made a large cup of coffee, went to her studio.
There she found the sketch of Emily Devlon she’d made from the photo on Reed’s board. And gathering her tools, began to do what she could to honor the dead.
PART THREE
Proof of Life
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He did get an apology—stiff and obviously on orders—from the Florida detective. And a follow-up call from the detective’s lieutenant, who didn’t appear to have his head up his ass.
They exchanged information and promises for updates as they came.
Donna rapped on his doorjamb. “We got a call from Ida Booker over on Tidal Lane, and she’s fit to be tied.”
“About what?”
“Some dog got into her compost bin, and dug up her flower bed where her daffodils were just coming up, and chased her cat up a tree.”
“Whose dog is it?”
“It’s nobody’s dog, that’s the other problem. She’s saying it’s the second time in two days its treed her cat, and she asked around having never seen the dog before. The thinking is somebody dumped it. Came over with it on the ferry, went back without it.”
“Do we have a stray dog problem on the island I don’t know about?”
“We didn’t, but it appears we’ve got one now. Ida says if she sees that dog again, she’s going to shoot it in the head. She loves that cat.”
“We’re not going to have anybody shooting a dog.”
“Then you’d better find it before she does. Her blood’s up.”
“I’ll handle it.” He could use the distraction.
He drove to Tidal Lane, a pretty neighborhood of eight permanent homes where the residents took pride in their gardens and had formed a kind of informal commune of craftspeople.
Ida, a sturdy woman of fifty, wove textiles, had raised two sons, and loved her cat.
“He scared Bianca, and God knows what he might’ve done if she hadn’t made it up the tree. And look what he did! Dug up my bulbs, spread my composting all over hell and back. And when I came out, he ran off like a coward.”
Reed thought he’d rather deal with a cowardly dog than an aggressive one. “Did he have a collar?”
“I didn’t see one. For all I know he’s rabid.”
“Well, we don’t know that. Give me a description.”
“Some brown mongrel dog, and dirty. Fast. First time he came around and chased Bianca, I was right over there, prepping that bed for planting. I stood up, yelled, and he ran off. Same thing today. I heard the barking and carrying on. Bianca likes to nap on the porch. I came out, and he lit out.”
“Which way?”
She pointed. “Tail between his legs. He’s lucky I didn’t have the shotgun.”
“Mrs. Booker, I’m going to advise you against getting that gun and firing it.”
“My cat, my property.”
“Yes, ma’am, but deploying a firearm in a residential area’s against the law.”
“Self-defense,” she said stubbornly.
“Let’s see if I can round up the dog. You say he ran off, so he didn’t come at you?”