I went online to see if I could learn anything more about what had transpired on Friday night. There was nothing, just a few newspaper articles that repeated the information from the Globe piece. I thought more about the murder, and how Miranda had engineered it. It had to have been Brad that pulled the trigger. There was a possibility that there was a third person involved, but I doubted it. So how did they work it? Miranda leaves town and makes sure that Ted will be home alone on that Friday night. Brad drives down from Maine. First, he breaks into a neighbor’s house and burgles it. It would have been a neighbor about whom Miranda had information. She would have known the homeowner was away, and that he didn’t have an alarm system. That would be fairly easy. After the burglary, Brad must have gone to Ted’s house and knocked on the door. Ted would have let him in, then all Brad had to do was shoot him. It would look like a burglary gone wrong. Then Brad returns to Maine.
I wondered about Brad’s alibi. He had to have one, but how could he if he drove from southern Maine to Boston and back and committed two crimes? It would take at least three hours, probably more, because he’d need to keep to the speed limits on the highway. Maybe Miranda was counting on the fact that absolutely no one knew about her and her building contractor. But was that a possibility? Ted had found out. Someone else in town must have known. Members of his crew? The bartender at the Kennewick Inn? It didn’t seem likely that they’d managed to keep it a total secret.
I knew, of course. It put me in a unique position—possessed of all this information from Ted Severson, and no one in the world was aware that we had even known each other. I could go to the police, of course, and tell them everything, without ever mentioning that Ted had also been planning on killing his wife. But I wasn’t going to do that. There was a good chance that the police would botch the prosecution and Miranda would go free. And even if she was arrested and convicted, she would become a national celebrity. I could see it already—a woman with her looks who had convinced her lover to murder her husband. It would play out on television for years to come.
Miranda deserved punishment, now more than ever.
I sent a text message to my friend Kathy, telling her that I didn’t feel well and canceling our plans to catch an afternoon movie. Then I sent an e-mail to my boss at Winslow College, letting him know that I felt a cold coming on, and planned on taking the following day off. My boss was deadly afraid of germs, and always happy to grant sick days.
I had work to do, and the first step was to visit Kennewick and meet Brad Daggett. I knew I had to move fast, because the police might already be closing in, and I needed to get there ahead of them.
CHAPTER 17
MIRANDA
It was just past ten in the morning and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. There were dots of sweat along his hairline, and the skin under his eyes was puffy and bruised-looking.
“You here alone?”
“Yeah,” Brad said.
We were standing on the gravel driveway of the half-finished house in Maine. It was Sunday. Brad had killed my husband on Friday night, and I knew, just looking at him, that I’d misjudged his capabilities. He looked feverish, his eyes too bright.
“It went okay,” I said. “Police think it’s a burglary that went wrong. Just like we planned.”
“Yeah,” he said again.
“How do you feel? You look sick.”
“I don’t feel so good. It was harder than I thought it would be.”
“Baby, I’m sorry,” I said. “You won’t feel that way for long. I promise. We’re going to get married. You’re going to be rich. Trust me, this feeling won’t last.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“Then you’ve got to pull yourself together. If the police come and talk with you, you can’t look like a zombie. Okay? It’s done now. Ted is dead, and there’s no going back.”
A car slid past on Micmac Road, and Brad turned his head to watch it. I watched Brad. It was a cold morning, and his breath condensed in the air. He turned back to me. “I don’t know if we should be meeting here like this,” he said, and pulled a Marlboro Red out of the hard pack in his jacket’s front pocket. He lit it with a match, cupping with both hands even though there was no wind.
“You’re my building contractor. My husband was just murdered, and I needed to tell you to suspend work for a few days, just while I figure out what needs to be done. It’s no big deal. I’m on my way to see my mother. No one knows about us. No one. You’ve got to pull it together, Brad.”
“I know. I will. It’s just that . . . You weren’t there. He looked scared.”
“Of course, he looked scared, baby.”
“And there’s something else, too.”
“What?”
“I think he knew about us.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said some things. He said you’d never be with me, and that you were using me.”
“He probably just put it together. As soon as he saw you coming through the door with the gun, he figured that you and I were together. There’s no way he knew about us before.”
“I think he did. It’s not like he was surprised. He acted like he’d known all along.”
I thought for a moment, wondered if it were possible, but decided it wasn’t. “How would he have known?” I said to Brad.
“I don’t fucking know, Miranda, but I’m telling you. He knew.” His voice was pitched high, and his hand with the cigarette bobbed up and down as he spoke.
“Shhh, it’s okay. Maybe he knew about us, but now he’s dead, so it doesn’t matter, okay?”
“He could have told someone.”
“Who would he tell? I know him. He had no close friends. Maybe he just suspected us, but he wouldn’t have told a soul. I promise.”