Ice Shear (27 page)

I continued our friendly conversation. “Do you cook dinner every night?”

“Mostly. Jacqueline's always telling me she ate before, but I think she's not eating, not wanting to get fat. The doctor says she's healthy. . . .” He trailed off, lost in his own thoughts.

“Girls at that age don't realize how beautiful they are,” I said.

“She is beautiful, isn't she?” He frowned suddenly, as Jackie's voice rose above the din in the next room.

“Let me see my father,” she demanded.

I stepped into the hallway. Jackie was with Mrs. Jelickson and a lawyer. The guy didn't have a pin-striped suit on, but the casual loafers with jeans ensemble gave away his lawyerliness.

“What do you mean, DeGroot already has representation?” the lawyer was saying, the flatness of his
a
's more Connecticut Yankee than upstate New York. “Some public defender?”

I recognized Charles Van Schoon from the society pages. I didn't read them, but they were right next to the obituaries, which my dad read religiously. The guy was some big-shot New York City corporate lawyer who had a “weekend place” in Columbia County. He and his wife would go to all the social events when the Saratoga track was open, avoiding the lawn-chaired masses to sit next to the Whitneys in their box.

“No, me,” Fitzgerald said, coming from Chief Donnelly's office.

“Oh, Mike,” the man said. “Didn't realize . . .”

I caught Jackie's eye and waved her over. I stood in the doorway, trying to slow her down, but she barreled past and ran to her father. I did stop Mrs. Jelickson.

“Family only.” I shut the door in Linda Jelickson's face.

Chuck held Jackie at arm's length; her fingers caught in his sleeve. He turned his back on her, and tears welled in Jackie's eyes. It was not the happy reunion I was expecting.

“It wasn't like that, but with the baby . . .”

A baby,
I thought. That explained so much.

“And I told you I'd help,” Chuck said. “It's my grandkid.”

“The Jelicksons' grandkid, too.” Jackie's voice was high and frantic as she blurted her reasons. “They're pretty rich. And they're in California.”

“And I'm your father. You didn't come home last night—”

“I was talking with the Jelicksons. They're like family. They understand what it's like to miss Ray. Miss Ray so much I want to die, to be with him.” She looked down, tears rolling down her face, her jewel-studded hoops glinting softly. Were those Danielle's earrings? No, they were pastel stones and didn't glint quite as brightly. “You don't even want me to have this baby,” she said.

“No, I want you to have this baby.” His eye caught mine and his voice dropped low, but I heard everything. “But I don't want you to drop out of school, ruin your life. Like your mom. Like me.”

“I won't ruin my life!” Jackie yelled through angry tears. “This baby will be the best thing that ever happened to me. And I will love it so much, and be the best mother you ever saw, and this baby will love me and no one else. You don't want me to have his baby, or go with his parents. You want me to be a loser like you, being grateful for the scraps they drop like we're dogs!” Chuck looked stung, but Jackie didn't notice. She crossed her arms in front of her, the fabric pulling taut against a small, but visible, baby bump. “But I'll be eighteen in three weeks. I can leave the state. You can't stop me.”

Mrs. Jelickson's screech sounded faintly through the door. Chuck reached out, and despite her angry tears, Jackie let him put his arms around her and pull her close.

I cleared my throat. “Chuck, can I trust the two of you to stay put?” He didn't respond, and I left. The brightness of the main room blinded me, and I almost ended up running into R. Michael Fitzgerald's right-hand man.

Barely out of school, he had patronizing
down.
“Of course, now that Mr. DeGroot has counsel, anything said since then isn't admissible.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said.

The more things progressed, the more I—and the whole police department—were being cut off at the knees. The people we couldn't question, the information withheld by the congresswoman, the FBI. And I was tired and missed my daughter a lot. I decided a quick phone call was in order. Lucy was still in school, and my father knew I was working through the night and wasn't going to be worrying, but I needed to reconnect with real life, with a life outside cops and killers and murdered kids.

I sat down at my desk. No one noticed me. I dialed home, and as the phone rang, I bounced my Dude Lebowski bobblehead, his beard brushing against his blue bathrobe.

Dad picked up and immediately dropped the phone. I could hear it bounce off a chair and land on the floor.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I heard from a distance.

“Long day?” I asked, once he was on the line.

“I think that's what I should be asking you. You into double time yet?” He was a cop through and through, one who wanted to solve the case and catch the bad guy and who understood the value of overtime.

“Flipped into double time somewhere around Tuesday. How's Lucy?”

“Okay. I received a long speech about how I'm boring and how I comb her hair too hard.”

“Which you do,” I said, smiling even though he couldn't see me.

“Yeah, okay. You're not bald, though, and I'm sure she'll live. Anyway, I couldn't do anything right, which means she misses you.”

“I miss her, too.” I did, in a bone-deep way. Instead of cheering me up, this conversation was exhausting me. I needed something happy to look forward to. “Hey, let Lucy know that when I get home tonight, we can go ice-skating.”

“That'll keep our girl happy.”

“She's probably angrier at me than you.”

“Nah. You know, Luce brought home pictures of you fighting crime. In a cape, no less. She's good.”

“And you're good. You're a live-in babysitter when you were all set to enjoy your retirement.”

“Eh, I had to retire. No way I was going to
enjoy
it. Plus, now I'm a grandpa.” His tone was warm. “You seem to be enjoying yourself. Monsignor Ottario said you worked him over yesterday.”

I laughed. “Maybe I'm enjoying it a little. Still, I miss her.” I looked down at my desk, pretending to study a report. The only thing keeping me from tearing up was the knowledge that two Jelicksons, two lawyers, and Lorraine were ten feet away.

“I know. I remember. But Hopewell Falls has one murder a year, tops, and generally it's solved fast. This one's a big one. I think the last time we had one this rough was back in the eighties, where the father chopped up his family and made them disappear. If you ever figure out where he stashed those bodies, I'll sleep better. You'll solve this case, I know you, and you'll come home and spend more time with your daughter than you even knew you wanted. Okay?”

“Can I have a nap between now and then?” I asked, feeling better.

“The way you slept as a teenager, I'm amazed you managed to ever wake up. Now go finish up and be back in time for dinner,” he said. “Or so help me, I'll make sloppy joes again.”

I hung up and sank back in my chair, my body wanting rest, my mind tracing the room. Under the fluorescents everyone looked like they belonged in a wanted poster, including Dave and Lorraine, who were in intense conversations with the lawyers. Fitzgerald kept cutting off anyone who made a comment, and Charles Van Schoon's WASPy dignity couldn't cover the disgusted look that crossed his face whenever he scrutinized the station, Dave, Lorraine, or particularly Mrs. Jelickson.

I glanced into the chief's office. Chuck stood at the window. To be fair, Hopewell Falls crime was more of this type—folks getting into a tussle in public and needing to calm down under the watchful eye of the police. Admittedly, the tusslers weren't usually suspects in a high-profile murder. Still, the mundane police work had been what I needed when Kevin was sick, and even more now I was a single parent. The decision to return had been painful, but for the first time in my adult life—“First time in your whole life, you mean,” Dad later said—I needed help. Kevin had been the one to argue most against giving up my work with the FBI, but I knew I had to give up something I wanted for what I needed.

“LYONS,” DAVE SAID, STANDING
right in front of me. I was so out of it I completely missed his approach. “Got a minute?”

“For you? Sure.” I followed him into the interrogation room, where Hale was waiting. I hadn't even realized he was back.

“After consultation with the fine people of the State of New York—okay, Amanda Brouillette—Jerry has decided not to press charges,” Dave said. “He says he doesn't have enough evidence, claims that it's a misunderstanding. I disagree, so I get to spend a few hours on a conference call, explaining why one of the state's most prominent citizens was arrested on such a nuisance charge.”

“Tell those folks y'all were responding to a public disturbance this morning. You were just being neighborly. And you can't give them any details because I'm a controlling pain in the ass.” Hale's southernness always shone through when he was tired, drunk, or talking to his mama. The accent was out in force.

“I'll bet my firstborn,” Dave said, “that Amanda Brouillette instigated this phone call and will be listening in. Clearly, if she's wasting our time that way, she doesn't want her husband sprung from jail that quickly.” Dave sat down in a chair, tipping it back against the wall. “Since we're in no rush, I think Lyons, here, should go have that talk with Jason Byrne, track down those boots and what happened to the key. You, too.” He nodded at Hale. “Go see if you can get Byrne to confess to the whole thing so I can go home.” His eyes drooped closed.

“Are we dismissed?” I asked loudly.

Dave didn't open his eyes, just waved us out. “Be gone.”

G
REG BYRNE WAS NOT
willing to go quietly. While amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, had taken away many things, when we asked to question Jason, Greg Byrne had no problem speaking his mind, albeit slowly, with a voice scratchy from disuse.

“Need to stop Jason,” he said, “from selling self down river.”

Jason grinned as he set up folding chairs next to his father's bed, which sat in the corner. The room was cramped, less of a living room than a well-decorated hospital room. While the Byrnes were near neighbors of the Brouillettes, the Byrnes' house had been built twenty years earlier, smaller in size and intention, with narrow windows that received no afternoon light. The room was adorned with pink and gray pastel couches and a glass-top coffee table, the 51-inch flat-screen TV crammed in opposite Greg Byrne's bed a modern luxury out of place in the 1980s decor. Needless to say, I'd guess decorating was low down on their list of priorities, below keeping Greg Byrne breathing and keeping the drugstore afloat.

I had deep misgivings about doing the interview with Greg Byrne present. Jason was an adult in every sense of the word, so no parent was needed, and his missing key was probably the only way anyone else might have accessed the medical-waste Dumpster. Why someone chose to dump the boots and hat at the pharmacy rather than in one of the empty lots around here didn't make sense, unless like Marty they hadn't been here long enough to know what areas were abandoned and what areas just looked that way. Jason didn't think much of Danielle and clearly admired Marty, and I wondered how far he would go to protect his friend. Despite his earnest demeanor and eagerness to please, I didn't trust Jason.

We settled in, knees bumping and “Excuse me's” all around. Hale, energized by a sixteen-ounce coffee and his discomfort at being around someone so sick, jittered his leg on one side of me. Jason's leg bounced up and down on the other side of me, his arm poked through the bars on his father's hospital bed, unashamedly holding his father's hand. I was surprised that a young man—any man—would be that openly affectionate.

I started the questioning. “So, Jason, we'd like to again go over your movements two nights ago.”

“That's easy. I was home all night, watching movies with Dad.”

“And before that?”

He looked puzzled. “Before that I was at work.”

“And you weren't anywhere else?”

He darted a look at his father before answering. “No. Nowhere.”

“Marty says otherwise,” I said. I flipped back through my notebook. “Marty said you stopped at his place with food. Your mom says the same thing. How come you didn't mention that when we talked to you before?”

“But I didn't go in.” A flush ran up his neck to his cheeks, making him look very young. “I would have told you that. I dropped stuff off and I came home.”

“I don't know.” I read my pad as if I didn't have these facts memorized. “What time was that?”

“Around six or so,” he said, and stopped. “What?”

A small movement gave away what was going on—Greg Byrne was squeezing Jason's hand, signaling.

“We can continue this questioning back at the station if you'd like,” I said.

“I don't have anything to hide.” Jason pulled his hand from his father's. “I arrived home around six thirty. I hung out with Dad.”

“Your dad awake the whole time?” Hale asked.

Jason opened his mouth but said nothing as Greg Byrne cleared his throat.

“Yes, awake,” Greg said, each word deliberate, an effort. “Questions for me, ask me.”

It was quiet for a moment, all of us waiting for more. He slumped back on the pillow, and I asked my next question. “So you got home at six thirty, with the key to the Dumpster in hand, I assume?”

Jason looked relieved. “Mom told me you'd ask that, because of the boots and the hat you found. Yes. I came home with the key.” He absently grabbed his father's hand. It was their best mode of communication. “Actually, that's why I didn't remember Marty's, didn't remember it as important, because I had the key the whole time. I'm sure I remember coming home and putting it on the hook that night. I'm pretty sure. I do it every single night, so I don't know why I wouldn't have. My mom came in to talk when she got back from the pharmacy right at the end of the first movie, when Luke was destroying the Death Star, and told me if Celia managed to show up I'd need to come in to the pharmacy to work, including throwing some of the trash out, 'cause the guys were supposed to come, the waste disposal guys, either the next day or the day after, since they had missed the week before. Because of snow. Anyway, I got up when the movie was over, and grabbed it so I wouldn't forget it. I do stupid things sometimes.”