“I would never criticize her for that. Parents are people too. You still have to take care of yourself. I would understand that she couldn’t take care of Declan all the time. She needed time to herself. Isabella has always needed alone time. Time to regenerate, to work on her art.”
“And she wasn’t getting that, not when she had to watch Declan while she painted. She didn’t really get alone, undisturbed time, did she?”
“She did. Mr. Goldman, you’re talking in circles. I know she needed time for herself. She had a husband. She had me. She didn’t need to do anything to get rid of Declan. If she wanted help for a few hours, she only had to ask.”
“But it wasn’t just a few hours. It was every day. Every single day, she had to look after him, listen to his inane, childish chatter, clean up after him. She had to make sure he didn’t touch any of her precious things. She had to feed him and change him and be there for him. Children take a lot of work.”
“You think I don’t know that? I raised Isabella as a single parent. There were no breaks for me. No husband, no grandparents. She was a very high-needs child, and there was no one to help me. Don’t you tell me how hard it is to raise a child.” She shook an accusing finger at him. “You don’t have children. You told me that. You can’t understand what it’s like to raise a child on your own, but I do. And Isabella wasn’t on her own.”
“Maybe not; but maybe she felt alone. You had raised her by yourself, but she couldn’t raise a child with the help of her husband. She felt like a failure. That’s why she killed Declan, and that’s why she tried to kill herself, overwhelmed with the guilt of it all. The guilt of not being able to be the parent she wanted to be and the guilt of killing her own child.”
Molly stood up. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Zachary didn’t move.
“Leave,” Molly repeated. She motioned to the door. “If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police and have them arrest you for trespassing. I’ve had enough of this.” Her lips twisted into angry shapes before she managed to spit the rest of the words out. “Please submit your final report to me. By mail. Then I don’t want you to investigate anymore. You will be done.”
Zachary stood slowly. He walked to the door and let himself out.
Chapter Eighteen
It had been an emotional day, and Zachary knew that he needed to take the time to complete the final report on the Bond case and get it off to Molly. Then he had to decide what he was going to do about the case. The more he looked into it, and the more he discussed the merits of the case, the more certain he was that the only culprit could be Isabella.
No wandering child killer had happened by their yard and spotted Declan. They hadn’t snatched the child or persuaded him to leave the safety of his yard, dosed him with cough medicine, and drowned him in the pond. The timeline was too tight. The killer’s goal had to be drowning him from the start. They hadn’t tried to kidnap him or harm him in other ways and been thwarted. They had to have gone straight from taking him from the yard to killing him within an hour or so. The crime suggested a parent. A frustrated caretaker overwhelmed with the pressures of taking care of a child.
But he couldn’t go to the police and say that he was sure that Isabella had murdered her only child. There was no evidence to clinch it. The case had already been closed and Zachary could offer nothing to change their minds.
He plowed through the written report anyway. He had already made his opinion known to Molly, so he didn’t mince words. He didn’t try to phrase the file diplomatically as he had before. She knew what he thought, and he needed to lay it all out without flinching. She could do with it what she liked. Shred it or burn it so no one else could ever read it.
When he was finished—or at least finished the first draft—he sat back in his chair, making it creak angrily in protest. He called Kenzie on an old flip phone he had just activated.
“Are you free for a late dinner?” he suggested.
“I’ve actually already had dinner. I was starving.”
“How about a nightcap, then?”
“Sure,” Kenzie’s voice was warm, “that would be nice. Where do you want to go?”
His options were getting more and more limited. Nowhere that Bridget might go. Nowhere any of his subjects might go. Not to the inn. Somewhere in town so he could get there easily by bus. Or he could call a cab when he was ready to go home. Maybe Kenzie would offer to drive him home, which might lead to better things.
“How about… there’s a little pub called The Four-Leaf Clover. Have you ever been there?”
“No… but I know where it is. It’s across from Old Joe’s, isn’t it, where we ate…”
“Yes.”
“And we’re not going to run into Bridget there, right?”
“No. She never went there.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t start.”
The nightcap went well. They were both relaxed, tired after a long day, but happy to have put their work behind them, not still stressing out over it. Zachary was able to stop being so self-conscious about his movements. To stop worrying that he looked like someone with brain damage, and just relax.
“You’re glad to be closing the Declan Bond case?” Kenzie asked.
“Yes. I wish I could do something more about it, but that will be up to someone else. I don’t have anything new to give to the police, so all I can do is tell Molly my opinion. And that’s that.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re getting that one
