The phone rang, and the woman on the other end identified herself as Eugene Taft’s assistant and thanked him for his recent gift. Zachary almost laughed.
It had not been easy to pin down Eugene Taft to get access to the police file, and in the end, Zachary had resorted to simply sending him the bottle of red wine Bowman had recommended, with a card congratulating him on his anniversary. Zachary had no idea if Taft was married, or if he had any other anniversary in the recent past or near future, but everyone had significant dates that they celebrated, and Zachary had thought that an anniversary gift would go over better than Christmas wishes. Besides which, he didn’t want anything to do with Christmas.
“Yes, Officer Fitzgerald. I’m glad to hear he got it.”
There was a hesitation on the other end as Fitzgerald tried to couch her inquiry regarding the bribe appropriately. “You had called the other day to see if Eugene had some time to see you, hadn’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t need to take up any of his valuable time. He should have received a request through Mario Bowman about allowing me access to a file. It was pretty routine; I’m sure it’s just on his desk awaiting his signature.”
“Which file was this?”
“Declan Bond.”
“Declan Bond,” she repeated vaguely. “Oh, the little boy who drowned…?”
“That’s the one.”
“Are you a reporter?”
“No, ma’am. I’m a private investigator. The family hired me to take another look at the case. Just to ease their minds that he covered everything. I’m not expecting to find anything unusual in the file.”
“I see.”
“If the request is not there, you could ask Bowman about it. He knows me from other cases I’ve helped out with.”
“I think I will follow up with him,” she agreed. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Tell Eugene ‘happy anniversary’ for me.”
“I will.”
She hung up. Smiling, Zachary put his travel mug under the coffee maker and brewed up a coffee to take with him for the site survey.
The scene was bleak during the winter. The skeletons of trees and grasses were stark against the snow. There were no children playing, no dogs running, no ducks swimming. A few black birds flew overhead, the flapping of their wings loud in the silence.
The pond was iced over and had not been cleared, so Zachary could only see the ominous shape of it beneath the snow, like an animal trap waiting to be sprung.
Hopefully, there would be pictures on the police file, as it was surely a far different place during the summer. Zachary paced around the pond, breaking a trail in the snow. A couple of times he stepped farther down than he expected, into an unseen dip or hole. He scanned the yards that backed onto the property, looking for anything suspicious or out of place. Even putting on his most paranoid goggles, he couldn’t see anything that indicated danger.
The last thing he did was to walk to the Bonds’ back yard. He looked at it from the back, eyes alert for any hiding places, any breaks in the fence, anyone watching out their windows. He examined the gate, which could easily be opened from the back alley and still bore no lock. Anyone could have walked up to the yard and opened the gate. Would Declan have left with them? Would he have gone quietly with a stranger, or put up a fight? Had it been a stranger?
He examined the back of the house. He could identify Spencer’s office, the master bedroom, and Declan’s bedroom. They all had good views of the yard. A stranger would have had to be pretty bold or sure of himself to walk right into the yard in view of those big windows.
But during the summer, would there have been blinds drawn across the windows? Isabella claimed to have had a good view of Declan, but was she looking through the slats of blinds? Or was she standing in the full afternoon sun? Just because there were no blinds drawn during the winter, that didn’t mean they didn’t use them to keep out the full heat of the summer.
Zachary looked at his watch and started the stopwatch function. Then he walked back to the pond.
Zachary got to the restaurant before Kenzie, which was intentional. He didn’t want to be the guy who showed up late for a date, especially when she was also helping him out. He wanted to show her that she could trust him to be responsible and treat her with respect. After checking to make sure she hadn’t shown up there ahead of him, he went back outside and paced around a little, watching for her. Despite the weather having been only mildly cold when he had been at the pond, there was a biting wind. After a few minutes of toughing it out, he gave in and went back into the restaurant.
Old Joe’s Steakhouse was a landmark. Casual, but with great service and even better food, everybody knew about it, and it was a wonder that anyone could ever get in without booking reservations three months ahead. Somehow, people knew which hours were the busiest and scheduled their dinners for quieter times, so Old Joe was able to serve a thriving population without becoming elite.
“Are you ready to be seated, sir?” the college-aged boy leaned closer to Zachary to address him over the hum of the crowd. “I have your table ready.”
Zachary looked at the door. “I don’t know; I was going to wait…”
“We’ll bring your guest to you. You may as well sit and have a drink while you wait.”
Zachary gave a shrug and followed the boy
