The Widow (22 page)

“He believed in you.”

“Yeah.” Linc shut his eyes. “I’m so ashamed. But I didn’t steal Abigail’s necklace. I didn’t hit her. I swear. But who’ll believe me?”

“That’s why you never told anyone?”

He nodded. “I thought no one else knew. I thought whoever did it was long gone. That’s what I told myself, I guess.” Linc tucked his knees under his chin. “I never lied outright to the police.”

“Mattie knew you were the burglar?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “He’s blackmailing me. He wants ten grand.”

“How much have you given him?”

“Four.”

“Who knows?”

Linc took a breath. “No one.”

“You’re twenty years old, and you’re carrying this thing by yourself.” Owen put out a hand, and Linc took it, getting up onto his feet. “That’s not necessary.”

“I know. I’m stupid—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Owen, I’m sorry. I opened my mouth a dozen times on our hikes to tell you, but I didn’t. My sister’s appointment—the house going on the market—” He swallowed, his panic rising again. “I was scared.”

“Linc,” Owen said quietly, “if I could figure this out, the cops can, too.”

Abigail ducked under a low branch that hung over the path. Owen knew she’d been there a while. “Did Mattie threaten you?” she asked.

Linc kept his cool at her presence. “Not with bodily harm, if that’s what you mean. He didn’t have to—just knowing what a screwup I am, knowing I could never let my family find out was enough. I never—” He raised his chin, but his lower lip quivered. “Chris died because of me.”

“Did you pull the trigger?”

“No!”

“Then he didn’t die because of you,” Abigail said. “He died because someone shot him.”

Linc obviously wasn’t used to that kind of clarity in the life he lived. “What happens now?”

“You tell Detective Lieutenant Beeler everything.”

“And the FBI?”

“They’ll be there, too.”

“Chris—”

Abigail nodded, as if she understood what Linc was trying to say. “He’ll be there in spirit. Think of that, okay? You can’t change what other people did. You can’t change what you did. All you can do is tell the truth and rely on it.”

“That’s what Chris said seven years ago.”

“I imagine it was.” She stood back, smiling unexpectedly, if a little weakly, at Owen, taking some of the tension out of the moment. “It was kind of fun seeing you in action. I got here just in time. I’m glad I didn’t miss that one.”

Owen pictured himself chasing her through the woods and smiled back at her. “I suppose you’ll want me to talk to the law?”

“Well, I can tell you they’ll want to talk to you.”

O
ut on his screen porch overlooking Somes Sound, Jason Cooper was dressed for sailing and a day spent pretending he had no problems he couldn’t control. He lifted little Sis into his arms and eyed Abigail with a superciliousness she found desperate more than genuine. She wasn’t annoyed. And she certainly wasn’t cowed.

“Where is my son now?” he asked.

“At my house talking to Lieutenant Beeler.”

“Without an attorney?”

“He’s twenty. He’s not a minor.”

“He’s my
son.
” Jason inhaled sharply, not easing up on the superiority. “We’ve all indulged your obsession over the years—your interference in our lives—because of your situation. Because we, too, loved your husband. But to accuse my son of hiding information from the police—”

“I’m not accusing him of anything,” Abigail said. “If you want to talk to him, you know where my house is.”

The little dog looked as if she wanted to lick her master’s chin—or bite him. He set her on the floor, and she stayed obediently at his feet. “Abigail, perhaps you should leave, before you say something you truly regret.”

“Or before you do,” she said.

Sis barked at her, as if the dog knew Abigail had been rude. Jason stared at her, but some of the raw anger visibly went out of him. “I love my son. I’m proud of him. I believe in him.”

“I wouldn’t expect otherwise.”

“Of course you would. Sometimes I’m not a very good father. I know that.” He stopped himself. “Well. I should go to Linc. I want you to know, however, that my son had nothing to do with Chris’s death.”

“Did you know he was burglarizing homes seven years ago?”

Jason snapped his fingers, and Sis scampered into the house through the open porch door. He turned back to Abigail. “If I did know or suspect anything of the sort—and I’m not saying I did—I wouldn’t have confronted him. That’s not how we do things in my family. I would let him sort out his own priorities.”

“He was thirteen.”

“Yes, I know he was thirteen. Everything stolen was returned.” Jason’s expression hardened, as if he was daring her to contradict him. “Whatever my son did, Abigail, he wasn’t the one who attacked you and stole your necklace.”

Making that his final remark, he followed his dog’s path back into the house. Abigail was faintly surprised that he’d left her to her own devices, but he would also know she wanted to talk to his daughter and that there was very little he could do to stop her.

She could see Grace dragging a bright orange sit-on-top kayak through the beach roses, down to the water.

Abigail quietly shut the screen door behind her and walked down the stone steps. The landscaping was more reserved than Ellis’s extensive gardens, but nonetheless tasteful and in perfect condition, thanks to the hard work of their solo yardman—presumably, given Mattie’s behavior, soon to be ex-yardman. She hadn’t pressed Jason Cooper on what, if anything, he knew about his son’s recent cash withdrawals. She’d leave that to Lou and his teams.

Following the path through the roses, she joined Grace down at the water’s edge. “I think those rosebushes have more thorns than they used to. Just what I needed, more scratches.”

“I do believe you relish every one of your scratches, Abigail.” Grace slapped the kayak into the water and stood up straight, her baggy sweater unbuttoned, blowing out in the stiff breeze. She squinted back at Abigail. “I’ll paddle with the wind and hope it dies down before I get back.”

“Where are you headed?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” She smiled without any pleasure. “Anywhere.”

“It’s a beautiful day for kayaking.”

“Do you kayak?”

Abigail shrugged, walking into the soft, squishy sand. “I’m not very good at it.”

“I love it. I wish I could get on the water more often, but my work keeps me very busy.” She pushed back her hair, strands rising up in the wind. “I’d hoped to spend more time up here, but I have to get back to Washington.”

“Must be a busy time for you.”

“Yes. Very.” She hugged her pilled, old sweater to her. “I’m not really dressed for kayaking. Well, I don’t care. I suppose I could paddle past Owen’s house. Then if something went wrong, he could rescue me. Although that wouldn’t look good on my FBI background report, would it?”

“Better to be rescued than—”

“Drown?” Grace splashed into the shallow water. The tide was coming in, rising steadily, the waves choppier out on the sound, away from the shore. She had on long pants and sports sandals, the gray sand seeping under her exposed feet, between her toes, as she sank into it. “I seldom paddle that way. Never, in fact. The water’s often rough, but that’s not the reason. I just don’t want to pass the cliffs where Doe drowned.”

Abigail sat on a wood bench on a grassy strip up against the beach roses. She could smell their sweet fragrance as she watched Grace lift the paddle off her kayak, almost banging herself in the head with one end.

She stabbed it onto the bow of her kayak, stopping it before it could float off. “Have you ever seen pictures of Doe?”

Grace was being provocative, mean, even. Abigail deliberately kept her tone matter-of-fact. “The other day,” she said. “Someone left a picture of her after she’d drowned for Owen to find. Unfortunately, the Alden boys found it first.”

It wasn’t the answer Grace had expected. “What?”

She dropped the paddle and lunged after it, falling onto the kayak and landing on her knees in the water. She awkwardly tried to right herself and not lose the paddle or the kayak.

Feeling the barest hint of guilt, Abigail ran to her, splashing into the chilly water with her own sports sandals, and offered her a hand.

“I’m all right.” Grace stood up, the bottom half of her sweater soaked and stretched down to her knees now. She got her balance and snatched her paddle, laid it back across the kayak cockpit, then grabbed the line tied to the bow and gave Abigail a cold look. “That was intentional. To shock me. Well. Mission accomplished.”

Abigail didn’t apologize. She jumped back out of the water, shook as much wet sand off her shoes as she could and watched Grace slide her kayak back into shallow water, where it scraped along the sand and rocks.

“Doe was as beautiful as Owen is handsome,” she said, her back to Abigail. “Even in death. The Garrisons are a good-looking family.”

“That they are.”

Grace plopped down onto the grass, with her feet in the rising water, up to her ankles now. “I’m surprised you notice such things.”

“Why?”

“Being a detective and all. Being a woman who doesn’t seem to pay much attention to that sort of thing. Being—I don’t know. Stuck in the past, maybe?” But she didn’t wait for the barb to strike and went on. “Do you know where this picture came from?”

“I assume Mattie took it.” Abigail could feel the rough sand rubbing at the bottom of her feet. “Where it’s been all these years and how it ended up on Owen’s doorstep—that I don’t know.”

“Well, I certainly don’t. And neither does Linc—or my father—or my uncle. Any of us.”

Abigail didn’t argue with her. “The day Dorothy Garrison drowned…”

“I was at what was then the Garrison house. We all were. Doe and I had argued. Just some stupid teenage fight that should have passed with us remaining the best of friends. She’d been miserable company all day. Sullen, teary, argumentative. I don’t know if it was hormones or what. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.”

“She ran down to the cliffs by herself?”

“We thought she was on the steps. At least I did. I know her parents did, too. Owen realized she was gone and walked down to the cliffs to see if he could find her.” Grace’s voice faltered. “He arrived in time to see her slip and fall.”

“You’re sure she slipped?”

Grace swung around but didn’t get up. “Of course she slipped! Do you think Owen pushed her?”

Abigail said nothing.

“You think Doe jumped? That’s outrageous. She was
fourteen
. She was full of life. No, she didn’t jump.” Grace yanked her feet out of the water and stood up, red from her toes to her ankles, her pants soaked, much of her sweater too. “I can’t believe you’d suggest such a thing.”

“I didn’t suggest it. I just asked a question.”

“Well, it was an outrageous question.”

“Maybe so. Did you go down to the cliffs that day yourself?”

She shook her head, her anger not taking root with a topic so tragic. “No. Chris and his grandfather heard Owen from their boat when he finally was able to yell for help. Mattie was with them. There was such a flurry of activity.”

“Did someone stay with you the whole time?”

“My mother did. She and my father were in the middle of their divorce, but she was there.”

“Do you remember anyone not being there, especially before you all heard Owen calling for help?”

Grace went very still. “No, I don’t. Abigail, what’s this all about? It’s well-known that Owen believed he heard someone in the trees. He was eleven—he couldn’t take in what happened. He felt guilty. There’s no reason, of course, but sometimes these things have very little to do with reason.”

“I’m just trying to figure out why the picture of his sister ended up on his doorstep.”

“Because some twisted son of a bitch put it there.”

Abigail nodded. “There’s that.”

“Dear heaven.” Grace shivered, and she seemed all of a sudden to notice her dripping sweater and cold feet. “I can’t start out on the water wet. I’d freeze in this wind.”

“Grace, you know your brother—”

“I heard the beginning of your conversation with my father.” She tried to button her sweater, then abandoned the effort. “That’s why I came out here. Fight or flight, you know.”

“You care about Linc very much,” Abigail said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Enough to lie for him when Chris asked you where he was?”

Grace lifted her chin, and Abigail could see the older woman’s self-control assert itself—could see glimpses, finally, of the intelligence and drive that had helped land her the State Department appointment. “What are you talking about?”

“I got pictures the other day, too. You told the police you never talked to Chris when he stopped up at your uncle’s house after I was attacked. But you did, didn’t you?”

“There’s a picture of us?”

“Yes.”

“I told the police I saw him. If the picture doesn’t show us actually talking—” But she stopped herself, then went on in a half whisper. “He asked me where Linc was.”

“What did you tell him, Grace?”

She looked down at her blue-red feet. “I told him Linc was at the old Garrison house foundation. That’s where I thought he was. I didn’t lie. Not to Chris.”

Something in her voice penetrated the wall of professionalism Abigail had tried to put up to steel herself—to give herself objectivity. She sat back on the bench, its wood warming in the midday sun. Bob O’Reilly had warned her to leave any questioning to the Maine CID detectives. And yet here she was.

“Linc wasn’t down at the foundation,” she said. “There was another picture in the packet on my doorstep. It shows him at the gate in your uncle’s yard. It was taken around the same time as the one of you and Chris.”

“Linc—” Grace seemed confused. “My brother was in the gardens?”

“Sneaking a martini.”

“But I thought he was…” She didn’t go on.

“Why did you think Linc was at the old Garrison foundation?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you know he was the burglar everyone was talking about that summer?”

“Suspected—I’ve never known it for a fact. I still don’t, no matter what Linc’s told anyone else.”

“My husband knew,” Abigail said, not making it a question—not wanting, she thought, to make it a question.

“He never said. But I assume he did know, and I assume he confronted Linc and gave him one more chance. And Linc—” Grace shrugged off her sweater and balled it up in one hand, turning back to her kayak. “I have to go.”

“Grace, Linc wasn’t the one who broke into my house and attacked me and stole my necklace. Chris knew that. I could see it in his face. He knew who’d done it, and he knew it wasn’t a troubled thirteen-year-old boy.”

“You sound so confident.”

“I’m not confident about much that happened that day, but about that—” She nodded. “Yeah. I’m confident. Chris wanted to know where your brother was to make sure he was safe. All this time, Grace, have you believed your brother killed Chris?”

She shook her head. “No. Never.”

Grace abandoned her thought and grabbed the line on her kayak, dragging the lightweight boat farther up onto the grass. She dropped it and tossed her sweater into the open cockpit, then threw her head back, staring into the sky as if she might see Chris’s ghost.

Finally, she turned to Abigail. “I just believed I sent your husband to his death.”

And Abigail knew what she was hearing in Grace’s voice now. She stood up, put a hand out to her. “Grace,” she said. “You were in love with him.”