That afternoon, mild for a Christmas day, Jake walked down to the shingled cottage. It hadn’t snowed yet, and there were damp, darkened leaves piled all across the yard. The windows were unlit. The cottage had probably been sold to people who wanted to use it only as a summer house.
The next day Jake returned to Amherst, knowing that he would never go back to Menasset. His parents weren’t helping out with any of his college expenses, so there was no reason to ever see them again.
Chapter 24
Now
After spending a good portion of the morning discussing the transportation of Grace’s body with one of the funeral directors back in Ann Arbor, but mainly trying to come up with a way, any way, to meet and talk with Harry Ackerson, Caitlin went back to the police station to see if one of the detectives could help her.
She parked across the street from the station, about five car lengths down from a news van belonging to what Caitlin recognized as a Boston news outlet, and idly crossed the street. A woman who had to be a reporter—shiny blouse, black skirt, streaky blond hair—watched Caitlin as she approached the front doors of the station. Sensing the eyes of the reporter on her, Caitlin walked with neutral purpose. She knew she looked like Grace, the murdered girl, and if she showed any signs of grief the reporter, smelling family member, would pounce.
But she made it into the station unmolested, and was buzzed past the front desk when she identified who she was and said she was looking for Detective Dixon. A uniformed officer met her in the main room of the station house, told her that the detective was currently busy but would be free soon, and could she wait. Caitlin said yes, and she was brought to a chair in front of what was probably Detective Dixon’s desk, which was cluttered but orderly. She wondered if there was information on her sister’s death in one of the neat stacks of manila folders. She waited, checking her phone, texting her mother the details and costs she’d gotten from the transportation company.
When she looked up, she saw that the detective, in a light grey suit, was now standing outside of the same meeting room where he’d shown Caitlin the photograph of Grace the day before. His back was to Caitlin, and he was talking with a young man wearing dark jeans and a green Oxford shirt that was untucked and wrinkled. It had to be Harry Ackerson, even though she’d never seen a picture. He was the right age, couldn’t have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old, and he looked enough like that picture of Bill Ackerson that Caitlin had seen on the Internet. Dark hair, lanky, narrow faced.
She stood and walked toward the two men across the open space of the station. When she reached them, Detective Dixon turned and spotted her, smiled. “I’ll be with you in just a moment, okay?”
Caitlin wondered if he didn’t use her name because he didn’t want to say it in front of Harry. It didn’t matter. The young man was staring at Caitlin, his eyes wide, and his mouth slightly open. It was obviously Harry, unnerved by how similar Caitlin looked to Grace.
“Okay,” Caitlin said to the detective, then added, “Is this Harry?” She met his stare. There was fear in his eyes, and something else. He looked distraught.
The detective rubbed the side of his nose, then quickly said, “Harry, this is Grace’s sister, Caitlin. Caitlin, this is Harry Ackerson.”
“Sorry I was staring,” Harry said. “You look just like—”
“I look like Grace. I know.”
“I’m really sorry,” he said, and his eyes now looked sad instead of scared. He had long, thick eyelashes like a girl’s, and high cheekbones.
“Thank you. I’m sorry you had to . . .” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say find the body.
“Caitlin, I’m going to walk Harry out, then we can talk,” the detective said. “Should we meet again in here”—he indicated by turning his head toward the conference room—“or back at my desk?”
“Either one. We can talk here. That’s fine.”
It was clear that, for whatever reason, the detective was hoping to shuttle Harry as quickly as he could away from the police station, so Caitlin said, “Harry. Can we meet, and maybe talk sometime today?”
Detective Dixon answered, saying, “I’d rather that Harry not discuss details of the case.”
“We won’t. He won’t. I just want to talk with him since he was spending time with my sister.”
Harry was alternately looking at Detective Dixon and Caitlin, not speaking, and Caitlin thought of someone at a tennis match, watching the ball go back and forth over the net.
“I can’t stop you,” the detective said, and Caitlin turned toward Harry.
“Will you meet with me?”
“Okay,” he said.
“Will you wait for me, outside of the station?”
Both Harry and the detective, speaking at the same time, said that there were too many reporters outside.
“I could meet you somewhere else,” Caitlin said. “Just tell me where.”
“Where are you staying?” Harry asked.
She told him, and they agreed to meet in an hour at the Agamenticus Diner, near her motel.
“I don’t know what you hope to get from talking with Harry,” Detective Dixon said, after returning to the conference room. “I’d rather you weren’t talking with him at all.”
“He was spending time with my sister. I need to know what she was like during her last few days. Is he a suspect? Is that why you don’t want me to talk with him?”
The detective hesitated fractionally. “No, not a suspect, but we believe that whoever killed Harry’s father also killed your sister.”
“And is Harry a suspect in his father’s death?”
“No, no. He wasn’t here. He was at his college in Connecticut. And he’s been very helpful to us.”
“You’re looking at his stepmother?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, Caitlin, sorry. What can I do for you? Did you think of something we didn’t talk about yesterday?”
Suddenly, Caitlin couldn’t remember why she had come back to the station, then recalled that it was to find out if she could get contact info on Harry. She said, “I just wanted to find out if you had any new information.”
“Just that your sister’s body will be released later today, and we’re hoping to get autopsy results anytime now.”
“But you know how she died?”
“She most likely died from trauma to her head. It was very fast, like I told you.”
“Okay.”
They were each quiet for a while. Caitlin’s eyes went again to the whiteboard, erased now of all words, although there was a faint trace of two drawn boxes, arrows going back and forth between them.
“Can I ask you to do me a favor?” the detective asked.
“Sure.”
“If you do wind up talking with Harry—and I’d rather you not talk about the details of the case—but if you do, will you consider giving me a call and letting me know what you talked about? I’m sure he won’t say anything he hasn’t already told me, but he might.”
“Okay,” Caitlin said.
“And one more thing. Please don’t talk to reporters, and if you do—”
“I won’t. I have no intention of talking to reporters.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I’m going to show you to the side door. They’re forming a blockade at the front as we speak.”
When she got to the diner early, she found Harry already seated in a booth, a cup of coffee in front of him. She slid in across from him, and said, “Thank you for meeting me here.”
“You look so much like her. I’m sorry if I stared earlier.”
“I know we did look alike. I didn’t see it myself, and people who knew us both said we were very different.”
“But you’re twins.”
“We’re fraternal twins.” Caitlin caught herself using the present tense and almost corrected herself, but didn’t. Instead, she said, “Grace was more outgoing, talked a lot, always did whatever she wanted to. She was fearless.”
“And you’re not like that.”
“No, not particularly. Not like Grace was, anyway.” Caitlin felt the ache in her throat that meant she was about to cry again, tried to stifle it, but couldn’t. She let out one smothered sob then pressed both palms against her eyes. Her chest hurt.