“Well, then, I’ll call you a taxi. I can’t thank you enough for coming in and looking at our sketch. You’ve been very helpful, and in my experience, once we get a likeness, an arrest is not far behind. Someone will know this guy.”
I continued to stand for a moment, hesitant to leave, knowing that things might start to unravel fast. My mind reeled, knowing that Brad would be questioned, probably within hours, by the police. I’d coached him, but not enough. And then there were other things, like the fact that Ted, on that last visit to Kennewick, had met up with Brad and gotten drunk with him at that bar at the beach. It was such an odd thing for Ted to do. It made me wonder about what Brad had said the day before—how he was convinced that Ted knew about us. Maybe he did, but how was that possible? And if he did, would he have told anyone? But even if he hadn’t known, the fact that Brad and Ted had drinks together would only make the police more suspicious of Brad.
“You okay?” Detective Kimball asked awkwardly, and I realized he’d caught me standing there, lost in thought, for about five seconds. I dropped my shoulders, pretended to suppress a sob, then looked up at him, and let tears run out of my eyes. He quickly glanced around the office, but I stepped into him and he was forced to take me in his arms. I began to sob, pulling him in close to me, burying my head under his chin. I pressed hard enough so that I could feel my breasts flattening out against his chest. “It’s okay, Mrs. Severson,” he said, and put a hand around my shoulders, keeping his other one down by his side. I separated from him, apologizing madly, just as Detective James, his partner, a tall, black woman, floated over, and asked me if I needed anything.
“Just a taxi,” I said. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I totally understand.” Detective James had smoothly taken over the distraught widow and was gently but firmly leading me away from Kimball’s desk. I stopped and turned.
“Oh, Detective,” I said. “Remember what you asked me yesterday, about whether I knew anyone from Winslow?”
He was still standing, his cell phone in one hand. “Yeah, I remember.”
“I thought of someone. Her name’s Lily Kintner. I went to Mather College with her. I’m sure she has nothing to do with why Ted went out there on Friday, but . . .”
“Did they know one another? Were you close with her?”
“No. We weren’t. She stole my boyfriend in college, actually, so I’m not a huge fan . . . but Ted and she didn’t know . . . well, they might’ve met a couple of times, if I think about it. I ran into Lily in Boston a couple of years ago.”
“How do you spell her name?”
I told him. There was obviously no connection between Ted and Lily, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to give the police another lead to track down. It might delay what now seemed inevitable—that Brad was going to get caught, and that he’d most likely give me up as well.
I told Detective James that I was okay, that I’d just like to leave. “You sure I can’t get you a drink of water before you go?” she asked in her husky voice, looking down at me. I figured she was close to six feet tall. She must have been a little bit self-conscious about it, because every time I’d seen her she was wearing flats. Dark pantsuit, collared shirt, and flats. And she never wore jewelry. She made me nervous in a way that Detective Kimball didn’t. It wasn’t that I thought she suspected me; it was that I truly had no idea what she was thinking. She looked at me the way she might look at a tollbooth collector.
“Can I walk you out, Mrs. Severson?”
“No. I’m fine. And it’s Miranda.”
She nodded at me and turned away. I was pretty sure she didn’t wear any makeup either.
Detective Kimball must have made a call because when I got to the front of the station a taxi was waiting. It was already dusk, rain beginning. It felt as though the bad weather had followed me all the way down from my mother’s house.
CHAPTER 22
LILY