Long Lost (Myron Bolitar) (15 page)
“Casey used to sleep under Miriam’s bed. She would get low and scratch her way underneath and then she’d turn around so just her head was sticking out. Like she was on guard duty.”
Terese petted the dog and started to cry. I moved away, shielded them from anyone’s view, gave them their time. It took Terese a few minutes to put herself back together. When she did, she took my hand again.
We headed into the living room. There was a line of maybe fifteen people waiting to pay their respects.
The whispers and stares began the moment we stepped fully into the room. I hadn’t thought about it, but here was the ex-wife who had been gone for nearly a decade showing up at the home of the current wife. It would make tongues wag, I guess.
People parted and a woman dressed smartly in black—I assumed the widow—came through it. She was pretty, petite, and almost doll-like with big green eyes. A touch of Tuesday Weld, to quote a Steely Dan song. I didn’t know what to expect, but her eyes seemed to light up when she saw Terese. Terese’s too. The two women smiled sadly at each other, the kind of smile you give to someone you adore but wished you were seeing under better circumstances.
Karen spread her arms. The two women embraced, holding each other, staying very still. I wondered for a moment what sort of friendship these two women shared and figured that it had probably been something pretty profound.
When they finished the embrace, Karen sort of gestured with her head. The two women started out of the room. Terese reached back and grabbed my hand, so I went too. We headed into what the British probably called the “drawing room” and Karen closed the pocket doors. The two women sat on a couch as though they had done it a thousand times and knew their exact spots. No awkwardness.
Terese looked back at me. “This is Myron,” she said.
I put out my hand. Karen Tower shook it with her tiny one. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
“Thank you.” Karen turned back to Terese. “Is he your . . . ?”
“It’s complicated,” Terese said.
Karen nodded.
I pointed back with my thumb. “Do you guys want me to wait in the other room?”
“No,” Terese said.
I stayed where I was. No one was sure how to go on, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to take the lead. I stood as stoically as I could.
Karen cut right to it. “Where have you been, Terese?”
“Here and there.”
“I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
Silence.
“I wanted to reach you,” Karen said. “And explain. About Rick and me.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Terese said.
“That’s what Rick said. It happened slowly. You were gone. We started spending time together, for companionship. It took a long time before it became more.”
“You don’t need to explain,” Terese said.
“Yeah, I guess not.”
There was no apology in her voice, no waiting for forgiveness or understanding. They both seemed to get it.
Terese said, “I wished it ended better for you both.”
“We have a son named Matthew,” she said. “He’s four years old.”
“I heard.”
“So how did you hear about the murder?”
“I was in Paris,” Terese said.
That made Karen react. She blinked and backed up a bit. “That’s where you’ve been this whole time?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not sure I understand.”
“Rick called me,” Terese said.
“When?”
Terese filled her in on Rick’s emergency phone call. Karen’s face, already something of a death mask, lost even more color.
“Rick told you to come to Paris?” Karen asked.
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“I was hoping you might know,” Terese said.
Karen shook her head. “We haven’t been talking much lately. We were going through a pretty bad spell. Rick had become withdrawn. I was kind of hoping it was just because he was onto a big story. You know how he got then?”
Terese nodded. “How long had he been like that?”
“Three, four months now—since his father died.”
Terese stiffened. “Sam?”
“I figured you knew.”
“No,” Terese said.
“In the winter, yeah. He took a bottle of pills.”
“Sam committed suicide?”
“He was sick, something terminal. He kept it from us, for the most part. Rick didn’t know how bad it had gotten. I guess it got bad at the end so he decided to speed up the inevitable. Rick went into a funk, but then he started in on some big new investigation. He would disappear for weeks at a time. When I asked where he was, he’d snap and then he’d be sweet, but he wouldn’t tell me. Or he’d lie about it.”
Terese was still trying to get her bearings.
“Sam was such a sweet man,” Terese said.
“I really never got to know him too well,” Karen said. “We only visited him a couple of times, and he’d gotten too ill to come over here.”
Terese swallowed, tried to get herself back on track. “So Sam commits suicide, and Rick buries himself in his work.”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“And he wouldn’t tell you what he was investigating?”
“No.”
“Did you ask Mario?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
I didn’t ask who Mario was. I figured Terese would fill me in later.
Terese continued now, back on a roll. “Do you have any idea what it was Rick was working on?”
Karen studied her friend. “How well hidden were you, Terese?”
“Pretty well.”
“Maybe that’s what he was working on. Trying to find you.”
“It wouldn’t have taken him months.”
“You’re sure?”
“And even if that’s what he was doing, why would he?”
“I’m trying not to be a jealous wife here,” Karen said. “But I would think something like a father killing himself might make you question your life choices.”
Terese made a face. “You think . . . ?”
Karen shrugged.
“No chance,” Terese said. “And even if you thought Rick was trying to—I don’t know—connect or woo me back, why would he tell me it’s an emergency?”
Karen thought about that. “Where were you when he reached you?”
“In a remote spot in northwest Angola.”
“And when he said it was urgent, you dropped everything and came, right?”
“Yes.”
Karen spread her hands as if that answered everything.
“He wasn’t lying to get me to Paris, Karen.”
Karen did not look convinced. She had looked sad before we entered. Now she looked deflated. Terese glanced back at me. I nodded.
It was time to kick this up a notch.
Terese said, “We need to ask you about the accident.”
The words hit Karen like a stun gun. Her eyes shot up, and they looked dazed now, out of focus. I’d wondered about the use of the word “accident,” if she would understand what Terese meant. Clearly she did.
“What about it?”
“You were there. At the scene, I mean.”
Karen didn’t reply.
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
Terese seemed a little startled by the answer. “You never told me that.”
“Why would I tell you? Strike that—when would I tell you? We never talked about that night. Not ever. You woke up. It wasn’t like I was going to say, ‘Hi, how are you feeling, I was at the scene.’ ”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“Why? What difference could it make now?”
“Tell me.”
“I love you, Terese. I always will.”
Something changed. I could see it in her body language. A stiffening of the spine maybe. The best friend was slipping away. An adversary was coming to the surface.
“I love you too.”
“I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t still think about you. But you left. You had your reasons and your pain and I got it. But you left. I made a life with this man. We were having problems, but Rick was my whole world. Do you get that?”
“Of course.”
“I loved him. He was the father of my son. Matthew is only four. And someone murdered his father.”
Terese just waited.
“So we’re in mourning right now. I’m dealing with that. I’m dealing with trying to keep my life together and protecting my child. So I’m sorry. I’m not going to talk about a car accident from ten years ago. Not today.”
She stood. It all made sense and yet something in her tone sounded oddly hollow.
“I’m trying to do the same,” Terese said.
“What?”
“I’m trying to protect my child.”
Karen had the stun-gun look again. “What are you talking about?”
“What happened to Miriam?” Terese asked.
Karen studied Terese’s face. Then she turned to me, as if I might offer a glimmer of sanity. I kept my gaze steady.
“Did you see her that night?”
But Karen Tower didn’t reply. She opened those pocket doors and vanished into a pack of mourners.
16
WHEN Karen left the drawing room, I walked around to the desk.
“What are you doing?”
“Snooping,” I said.
The desk was rich mahogany with a gold letter opener that doubled as a magnifying glass. Slit envelopes stood vertically in antique holders. I didn’t feel great about this, but I didn’t feel terrible about it either. I took out my BlackBerry. The one Win gave me had a pretty good camera feature. I started opening envelopes and taking pictures.
I found credit card statements. I didn’t have time to go through them all, but all I would need is the account numbers anyway. There were phone bills (that interested me) and energy bills (that didn’t). I opened the drawers and started rifling through the contents.
“What are you looking for?” Terese asked.
“An envelope that says ‘BIG CLUE INSIDE.’”
I was hoping for a miracle, of course. Something about Miriam. Pictures maybe. Short of that, I had the bills, the credit card, the phone numbers. We should be able to get some information from that. I hoped to find a day planner, but there was none.
I stumbled across a few photographs of people I assumed were Rick, Karen, and their son, Matthew.
“Is this Rick?” I asked.
She nodded.
I didn’t know what to make of him. He had a prominent nose, blue eyes, and dirty blond hair that landed someplace between wavy and unruly. A man can’t help it—he sees an ex, he sizes him up. I started to do that and then I made myself stop. I put the pictures back where I found them and continued my search. No more pictures. No blond daughter he’d kept hidden for years. No old photographs of Terese.
I turned and saw the laptop on the matching credenza.
“How much more time do you think we have?” I asked.
“I’ll stand guard by the door.”
I flipped on the MacBook. It came up in seconds. I clicked on the iCal icon on the bottom. His daybook came up. Nothing in the past month. On the right, there was only one To Do note. It read:
OPAL
HHK
4714
I had no idea what that meant, but the priority was listed as High.
“What?” Terese said.
I read off the To Do and asked her if she had any idea what it meant. She didn’t. Time was still a factor here. I debated e-mailing the iCal contents to Esperanza, but that might get noticed. Then again, so what? Win, of course, had several anonymous e-mail addresses. I sent copies of the data on both the calendar and address book to him. Then I went into the Sent file and deleted them so no one would see.
Ain’t I clever?
Here I was, rummaging through the belongings of a man who’d recently been murdered while his widow and son mourned in the other room. I felt quite the hero. Maybe on the way out, I should kick good ol’ Casey.
“Who is the Mario you two talked about?” I asked her.
“Mario Contuzzi,” Terese said. “He was Rick’s best friend and assistant producer. They worked on everything together.”
I looked up his name in Address Book. Bingo. I plugged both his home and cell number into my phone.
Again with the clever.
“Do you know where Wilsham Street is?” I asked.
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