“I’ve called her cell, but she’s not answering.”
“She only answers the calls she wants.” Laura sounded frazzled.
“Tell her to call me, then.” At least Laura was willing to have Marissa speak to him. That was an improvement over the last week, although it hurt a bit that Marissa was ignoring his calls.
He waited, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He’d driven into River Glen and parked near the town’s city center. He wanted to head straight to Jamie’s, but rather than having to worry about being late, it turned out he was too early. Instead, he was killing time.
His cell rang and he snatched it up, sure it was Marissa, but it was Dr. William Ryerson.
“Detective,” Ryerson greeted him in his gravelly voice. “Your persistence could be viewed as harassment, but I’m choosing to keep cooperating for now. Remember that. Now, what can I help you with?”
“Deke Girard.”
Cooper’s blunt response was met with an intake of breath and then silence. “What about him?” Ryerson said after too long a moment, but Cooper was tired of all the careful posturing. He baldly laid out what he’d learned from Hillary Campion, finishing with, “You hired Girard to go to your house that night and find your wife. But she wasn’t there. Emma Whelan was.”
He hesitated, then said, “I heard Deke Girard’s dead.”
“He is.”
“Dead men tell no tales,” he pointed out.
“Sometimes those tales live on. Here’s one about you. You thought your wife was having an affair, but you didn’t know with whom. You were more fake drunk than drunk. Deke was supposed to even the score somehow.”
“I don’t have to talk to you.”
“Whatever Deke was supposed to do, it never got done. And then Emma was hurt and you needed to cover up your plan. You tried to work things out with your ex. Managed to stick with her for about a year, but you kept seeing Kayla on the side and Nadine finally left.”
“I was the injured party, Detective. You’ve got this backward.”
Cooper went on, “But she finally left you and took her money with her. That wasn’t what you wanted. You needed her because your career was in trouble. You were rumored to be a ‘pill doctor.’”
“That had nothing to do with it!” he suddenly burst out. “My wife was having an affair with Alain Metcalf. She went home with him that night!”
“She said at the time that she turned to him because you were drunk. She didn’t know you were faking it, and probably still doesn’t. She swore she wasn’t involved with Metcalf.”
“Well, that’s a lie.”
Cooper needed to tread carefully here. He’d tapped into Ryerson’s anger and that could work to his advantage, as long as he didn’t push too hard, too fast. “You sent Deke to your house. What was he supposed to do? Attack her? Kill her?”
“No!”
“You sent him there.”
“To scare the shit out of her. Teach her a lesson. But he stabbed Emma instead.”
“He told you that?” His cell started buzzing with another call coming in. Marissa. He hesitated, then ignored her call. He would call her back.
“No. He said there was somebody else there and he ran away. He was lying, of course. Girard was a drunk, and drunks are liars. He was supposed to scare Nadine, that’s all, but he ended up attacking the babysitter. I didn’t want him to hurt Nadine. Not like that. He was just supposed to make her think he would, but he wasn’t supposed to go through with it. I stayed on at the hotel till the party was over. Last to leave. Everyone saw me, so no one would suspect I had anything to do with scaring her, but then . . .” He heaved an angry sigh. “Deke should’ve followed Nadine to Metcalf ’s place. That’s where she was those hours in between. In his bed. He was her lover, no matter what she says. Have you talked to her? Interviewed her?”
“She’s next on my list.”
“Make her tell you that Metcalf was her lover. I’m not sorry he’s dead, but it’s too bad you can’t get the story directly from him. You want a ‘pill doctor’? Metcalf was handing ’em out like candy. Maybe we all were a little too loose in our prescriptions back then,” he allowed, “but somebody killed him over it, so what does that tell you?”
Cooper thought about that. Metcalf ’s death. Though a good five years after the attack on Emma, maybe it had tentacles that reached back somehow. Could it be that both Ryerson and Metcalf, rumored to be free with their prescriptions, had run afoul of a killer, and that Emma had been an innocent victim?
Ryerson let Cooper know he was done by saying, “Deke Girard attacked Emma Whelan, but that had nothing to do with me. You want anything further, you talk to my lawyer.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jamie decided to wait to put the manicotti in the oven until she heard from Cooper. She checked the time. Harley had been gone her allotted hour and it would take a few more to walk down there, so she hollered up to Emma that she was going to pick up Harley as the doorbell rang.
Cooper?
She went to the door and was shocked to see Harley on the stoop. “I forgot my key and just thought I’d ring the bell because you were probably in the kitchen.”
“I told you to stay there and not walk—” She cut herself off as Harley waved to whoever was in the black Mustang throbbing at the curb. The driver put up a hand, then pulled away.
“Who’s that?” Jamie demanded.
“Greer gave me a ride home. You said an hour and I’m here early.”
“We were supposed to text. I was supposed to . . .” She drew a breath. “You were not supposed to get into a car with a driver under age thirty!”
“I’m safe. I’m here. All’s well.”
Jamie’s cell told her a text was coming in. She snatched up her phone and checked the screen. Cooper. Saying
