And Detective Prew sat on the sofa, a small blond woman at his side.
‘Okay,’ Gwyn said slowly. ‘But we didn’t expect you.’
‘No,’ Thorne agreed, wondering what the hell was going on. ‘We did not. Frederick and JD, this is Detective Christopher Prew, recently retired. Detective, my associates, Frederick Dawson and JD Fitzpatrick.’
‘My wife, Delia,’ Prew said.
Eileen Gilson motioned to the four chairs she’d pulled from the dining room table into the sitting room. ‘Now that we’ve made all the introductions, please have a seat. I apologize in advance that I don’t have more comfortable seating for you.’
‘You knew we were coming,’ Gwyn said.
‘Yes,’ Eileen confirmed.
‘Why are you here, Detective?’ Thorne asked when it became clear that she planned to say no more than that.
‘I’ll explain,’ Prew promised. ‘I did call Phil, hours ago, but he’d been moved to another hospital. I wasn’t at home and didn’t have the business cards you gave me. Is Phil okay?’
‘He’s fine,’ Thorne answered. ‘Just . . . security.’
Prew’s gaze flicked over to JD. ‘I understand. I was sorry to see your house in the news, Detective Fitzpatrick.’
JD nodded once. ‘It’s just stuff. Everything precious is safe.’
Prew smiled. ‘I’m very glad to hear that.’
Gwyn’s eyes narrowed. ‘How did you know we were coming?’
Prew cleared his throat. ‘Well, I may have been a trifle harsh with the hospital, trying to reach Phil. They wouldn’t give me Jamie’s number either, but after they hung up on me, they called him to tell him that I was pestering them. Jamie called me and I told him that I was here. He said to sit tight, that he’d let you know, but that was only a few minutes ago. I’m sensing that he didn’t tell you.’
Thorne’s phone picked that moment to buzz. He checked it to find a text from Jamie, complete with their code word. ‘He just did. So back to my question. Why are you here, Detective?’
‘My wife was at the beauty parlor today. She called me on my cell and told me to haul ass over there.’
‘Not in those words,’ Mrs Prew protested mildly. ‘Chris had asked me to keep an ear open for any rumors or gossip about Patricia Segal. I was stunned to see Ms Gilson in one of the chairs, though. We hadn’t seen each other in quite a while.’
Eileen nodded, meeting no one’s eyes. ‘She overheard me talking to my son on the phone. I was telling him that we had a last-minute trip planned and that he should meet me here.’ Her smile was strained. ‘He’s in college. He had plans already. I was rather . . . insistent. I didn’t realize that my voice had carried.’
Mrs Prew looked a little uncomfortable. ‘It really didn’t. I was actively listening because I knew that Ms Gilson was a person of interest for you. After she hung up with her son, she called a neighbor to ask her to collect her mail until she could have it forwarded. I got the impression she was leaving town for a while. So I called my husband.’
Thorne wasn’t sure how he felt about the retired detective sharing facts about the case with his wife, then realized he’d have done the same with Gwyn.
‘We followed her here,’ Prew said, ‘saw she was loading up her car, and asked her to stay. You need to tell them,’ he said gently to Eileen.
She drew a shaky breath. ‘I know. It’s just hard after all these years.’ She rose and walked to the front window, wringing her hands. ‘I wish my son were here. I’d feel a lot better about telling you this if I knew he was safe.’
‘Your son was threatened?’ Gwyn asked, her voice much softer.
‘Yes. He’s the only reason I kept this secret for so long. Him and the fact that I didn’t want to go to prison.’ She rubbed her arms briskly. ‘Okay. My husband, Kirby, worked for the ME’s office when Richard Linden was murdered. He prepped the body. You already know about the key ring. And according to Detective Prew, you’ve already figured out that Kirby took it.’
‘Why did he?’ Thorne asked.
‘Because . . .’ Eileen closed her eyes. ‘He was honest. Until that moment, he was so honest. And that moment, that bad decision, it ruined our lives. The victim’s father asked him for it. Came right into the morgue and asked him. Kirby said he was shocked and said no. So the man offered to pay him.’ She shook her head. ‘We were pretty desperate at the time. I was pregnant with our son and on bed rest. I’d lost my job and we had loans and . . . He did the wrong thing.’
‘Come and sit down with us, Eileen,’ Gwyn said kindly. ‘The window may not be the wisest place to stand right now.’
Eileen jerked away and walked back to her seat, nervously looking out of the window from across the room. ‘God. This is a nightmare.’
Gwyn patted her hand. ‘I know. We’ve been living it this week, but you’ve lived with it a lot longer, haven’t you?’
She nodded, swallowing thickly. ‘Yes.’
‘When did you know what your husband had done?’
‘Not for five years.’ She covered her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I always knew something had happened, because one day Kirby was happy, and then he wasn’t. He wasn’t the same after that. For a while I thought he’d cheated. I was flat on my back and not able to do anything. But he insisted that he hadn’t, that the body of the Linden boy had just hit him hard. And I’d read about the case in the paper, so I believed that.’
Mrs Prew pulled a tissue packet from her purse and gave it to Eileen. The woman nodded her thanks and dabbed at her eyes.
‘It was when our son was four and a half that it all came out. He was diagnosed with leukemia and we . . . we were devastated. We were also poor. Kirby was going to school at night, and I was working part-time and we had insurance, but it didn’t cover everything. And what it didn’t cover bankrupted us in the first month. We were desperate. And then, all of a sudden, we had money. Lots of it. Enough to pay for our son’s treatment. I demanded to know where Kirby had gotten it, and that’s when he told me about the key ring. That he’d gone back to the boy’s father and told him that he’d tell the police about it if he didn’t pay him more money. Linden did and our son lived.’
‘But your husband didn’t,’ Thorne said quietly.
‘No. He never got over any of it, though. If he’d had a bad time when he took money for the first time, he was overcome by guilt the second time around. He’d stand at our son’s bedside and cry. He swore me to secrecy. Said we’d go to prison if anyone found out. And then one day, I got a visit from the police saying that my husband was in the morgue. That he’d responded to the scene of a shooting and a “stray bullet” hit him. But I knew the truth. I knew he’d been silenced.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything then?’ Prew asked.
She laughed bitterly. ‘And end up like my husband? My son was in remission, but that could have changed at any moment. I knew that. I was the only person left to take care of him. And then, about two weeks after I buried Kirby, there was a knock at my door. It was Mr Linden. He said that he knew I’d said nothing and that I was smart. He said that if I continued to be smart, everything would be fine. I was too scared to say a word. The next day, money was deposited into my account. That’s continued, every month, ever since.’
Frederick leaned forward. ‘Where does the money come from? Is it an account in Linden’s name?’
‘No. It comes from a corporation. I tried once to dig through the layers to get to who actually owned the company, thinking that if I could show it was Linden, I could get free. But I couldn’t untangle it.’
‘What do you mean, get free?’ Gwyn asked.
‘I tried to keep working, deposited all my paychecks in a separate account, figuring that if I had to, I could just walk away. Then one day one of Mr Linden’s attorneys showed up with the keys to this place. Said that Mr Linden was afraid I’d leave town. That if I tried, he’d claim that I’d extorted money from him and that I could go to prison. Which is ironic as hell. So I’ve stayed here where he can watch me.’