Jenny was just plain better than Tim at planning ahead, at making things happen. Their relationship had started years earlier when Jenny befriended Tim as he struggled to recover from his head injury, and it still retained a bit of that big sister–little brother flavor. Once Tim got better, and went back to school, Jenny would stop in to Shecky’s a couple of times a week to say hi and check up on him. When Tim turned eighteen, she brought him a pint of Jack Daniel’s with a bow on it (she was twenty-one by then, and legal), and they drove out to Dunbar Meadows on a muggy night to celebrate. They got trashed on a blanket under a big yellow moon to the sound of crickets chirping, and made out like crazy. The next day, they pretended it never happened. He came to her graduation and sat with her family, but after Carlisle, Jenny moved to New York. Tim went off to UNH, and they kept in touch only sporadically.
When her father died unexpectedly, about five years after her college graduation, Jenny came home to help her mother sell the hardware store. It was supposed to be temporary. But one night, bored and casting around for something to do, Jenny dialed Tim’s number for the first time in a long time. Tim was not long out of college then, working for his dad’s construction company as a job foreman, learning the ropes. When Jenny saw him that first night, outside the movie theater on College Street, she actually said “wow” out loud. Maybe it was all that physical labor. He was taller and bigger and tan from the sun. He was handsome. They went to Shecky’s for a burger for old times’ sake, and, sitting opposite Tim in the booth, Jenny realized that she’d never felt as comfortable with any other guy. In that moment, she knew what she wanted, and she wanted Tim Healy. She never stopped to think that there was a lie between them that could never be made right.
Tim switched off his bedside lamp without saying a word. Usually they kissed good night, but not this time.
“Good night,” she said tentatively. But he didn’t reply.
Jenny’s stomach hurt, and she tossed and turned. For a long time, Tim had been able to put Lucas’s death out of his mind, but with Kate back in Belle River, he couldn’t do it anymore. It ate away at him. That’s why Jenny cared so much about keeping the secret buried. Not because the scandal would rock her political career, or imperil their business, although those things mattered to her a great deal. Her biggest worry was for her marriage. Jenny would love nothing better than to come clean and fix things. But how could she, when she’d been lying to Tim for so many years?
With Kate dead now, the problem should go away. That would be a relief.
24
Owen Rizzo had handled plenty of murder cases, but never one where he knew the victim personally. He hadn’t known Maggie Price long or known her well—known Kate Eastman, that is. But the intense evening they spent together had stayed with him to the point where he wasn’t entirely objective when it came to working her case. It didn’t matter, though. He could recognize and make allowances for his own bias. Owen was a better investigator blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back than any of the men who worked for him. But they might not see it that way, and he didn’t need them questioning his judgment, so he was careful not to let slip that he had a personal interest in the case. Especially given how personal his interest was. In the few short hours they spent together, Kate had gotten under his skin.
His task this Monday morning was to rally his troops, such as they were, and they weren’t much. These guys were better at finding lost dogs than solving crimes. But you went to war with the troops you had, and if the troops were weak, then the commander better be strong. For starters, Owen needed to make them understand that this was indeed a murder case. The forensic evidence left room for doubt—though not really, not if you knew what you were looking for. A woman might fall into a river by accident, or she might decide to end her life and jump of her own accord. Then again, somebody might bludgeon her with a rock and throw her lifeless body into the water. Those three scenarios might produce similar-looking head injuries, so that the local coroner (who, Owen learned to his shock, hadn’t autopsied a single murder victim in his entire career) couldn’t tell the difference. Owen had appropriated money from an overtime fund to pay an independent expert to review Kate’s autopsy report. (That was his prerogative as chief, and he saw no need to run that decision by anyone.) He was expecting a fax any minute that would back up his strong feeling that Kate didn’t kill herself, or carelessly fall into the Belle, but rather that somebody violently ended her life. Like maybe that lying drunkard of a husband of hers, whom Owen had the pleasure of meeting yesterday in the flesh. The guy clearly hadn’t remembered him from that night at the bar, but Owen remembered him all right.
Owen walked into the conference room at nine on the dot on Monday to find his three male officers lounging around shooting the breeze and eating doughnuts from a box that he’d paid for out of his own pocket. (He wasn’t above using food to get their attention.) His lone female detective, Keisha Charles, was out working leads already, as she should be. She was the only one he trusted. But then, he’d hired her himself, so he’d have at least one officer familiar with modern investigative techniques. Keisha was supremely qualified—graduated from Carlisle in criminal justice, aced the state police training, got picked to go to Quantico for extra training with the FBI. She also happened to be the daughter of a fine narcotics detective from the Bronx who, yes, all right, happened to be a good friend of Owen’s. The hire hadn’t sat well with the rest of the department, since it used money that had previously been allocated for a secretarial position. As far as he was concerned, they could type their own damn reports. And if Pam What’s-her-name lost her job—well, no harm, no foul. Rob Womack had gone behind Owen’s back and spoken to the mayor about that decision. When Owen made clear he wouldn’t brook any interference or second-guessing, the mayor wisely solved the problem by hooking Pam up with another position, which actually paid her more. So there was really nothing to complain about, and they should let it go already.
As Owen took the seat at the head of the table, Gene Stevens shoved the Dunkin’ Donuts box across to him.
“Saved you the last cruller at grave risk to my own safety, Chief. You don’t ever want to come between this guy and a doughnut,” Gene said, pointing at Marv Pelletier, who laughed so hard his beer belly jiggled. They were Mutt and Jeff, those two, Marv short and round and Gene tall and spare, and they gloried in the foolish chitchat.
“Look who’s talking. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he ate half the box,” Marv said.
“What’s this about, Chief?” Rob Womack asked. “We heard you caught a floater last night. Is that true?”
“Can we please not refer to her in a disrespectful manner?” Owen said.
“Sorry,” Womack said, his jaw setting. “A her, you say? So it’s a girl, then?”
“A woman. Yes.”
“We don’t get too many females jumping,” Gene said.
“Who says she jumped?” Owen said.
All three of them looked at him with surprised expressions.