I pause, the plastic pen hovering over the screen. “You knew her?”
“A little bit. Work a route long enough, you meet everyone at least once.” He shoves the computer back into his pocket. “I was sorry to read that she’d died. You know she laid there for five days before she was found by the woman who cleaned her house?”
“It was a man,” I say.
“Sorry?”
“The person who found her. It was a man.”
“Is that right?” He shrugs. “I heard it was the housekeeper, so I assumed it was a woman. Anyway.” He pulls down his hat and tucks into his collar as he steps onto the cold porch. “Have a good one.”
I wait for his taillights to recede over the hill before going into the kitchen for the blue Home Health Angels apron I couldn’t bear to throw away after losing my job. I tie it around my waist and fill the pocket with my supplies—a tube of Neosporin, a fresh bandage, and a pair of latex gloves. I head down the hall, insert the key quietly into the lock, and flick the light switch when I enter. Sam’s stirring in his bed and murmuring his wife’s name. I close the door and go to his side, my back straight, my heart full, feeling more useful than I have in a long time.
Chapter 28
Annie parks between two police cruisers and pulls up her hood, sick to death of the rain. John Gently is behind the desk when she steps into the waiting room.
“Is Chief Sheehy here?”
Gently picks up the phone and presses a button. “You hear from your husband yet?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
“Hello, Chief,” he says into the phone, adding some heft to his voice. “That doctor’s wife is here. She wants to talk to you.” He nods twice and hangs up. “Last door on the right.”
Franklin Sheehy is sitting behind his desk, his sleeves rolled up, the buttons of his shirt straining against his stomach. “Come right in, Mrs. Statler,” he says, waving her inside.
“It’s Potter,” she corrects him.
“Sorry, I keep forgetting. Want some coffee? It’s not the fancy stuff you’re probably used to, but it’s hot.”
“I’d do a line of coffee grounds if you offered,” Annie says. “I’ve hardly slept in three days.”
Sheehy presses a button on the desk phone. “Two coffees, Gently,” he says. “Milk and sugar on the side.” He hangs up. “He hates when I do that.”
“I brought you a few more photographs of Sam,” Annie says, digging in her bag for them. She slides them across the desk—three photos, taken the day they were married in their new backyard by a local yoga instructor. Maddie was on FaceTime, serving as Annie’s maid of honor from the phone screen, propped on a branch of the tree they stood under. Annie had printed these photos at the CVS and given them to Sam, suggesting he send them to his father. Instead he shoved them into a kitchen drawer and forgot about them.
“I also printed the specs for Sam’s car, his exact make and model,” she says, fighting the urge to use her nickname for the car: Jasper, the douchiest name she could think of.
She had been upstairs in their apartment, packing for the move to the prairie, when he called and told her to look out the window, like some sort of John Hughes movie. He was parked in front of a fire hydrant, his face lit up. “I bought a Lexus,” he said into the phone.
“I see that.” A Lexus 350, with leather interior and automatic ignition. He used to love doing that: standing in the living room and pressing the button, watching the car light up and the engine start. (“Look at you,” Annie said the first time she saw him do this. “Proud as a southern dad at a purity ball.”)
The door is nudged open, and John Gently enters, two paper cups of coffee balanced in his left palm, milk and sugar in the right. “Here you go, Chief,” he says, extending the cups toward them, spilling a few drops on the desk. He makes a show of pulling the door firmly shut behind him as he leaves.
Annie watches Sheehy comb through the sugar packets until he gets to the Splenda. “Is there any news at all on Sam, or his car?”
“Gently!” Sheehy yells.
The door flies open, as if he’d been standing in the hallway, listening. “Mrs. Statler would like an update on the investigation.”
“Yes, sir.” John Gently steps into the room. “We sent an APB out on the car three nights ago, immediately after you reported him missing. A silver Lexus 350 with automatic ignition and leather seating. A very nice machine. We also contacted the thruway department and area agencies with license plate readers. If he passed any of those, we can get his route of travel. We are now going through footage from public and private video cameras throughout the area. If his car’s out there, we’ll find it.”