Detective Cooper had taken the case shortly before his retirement and had only interviewed Rose Yates once for about fifteen minutes. Colin had told the sergeant that, in his opinion, Detective Cooper might have rushed through some of the standard procedure on his way out the door. He hadn’t asked Ms. Yates about her relationship with her husband or even if she thought her husband committed suicide. There were a lot of holes left to plug, including the question of why Ms. Yates had taken her son and quickly moved to New Hampshire after her husband’s death. Colin had conceded the move was not necessarily unusual for a grieving widow, but it was worth a few follow-up questions.
Capping it all off, Colin had told his sergeant about Ms. Yates’s alter ego, J. L. Sharp, a mystery writer. Not that being a mystery writer carried with it inherent suspicion or even the writer’s intricate knowledge of police procedure, case management, and suspect-interrogation techniques. What was suspicious was the scene in Yates’s most recent book in which a woman killed her forty-year-old husband by grinding up eight tablets of his prescription sleep medication and stirring the powder into his whiskey nightcap.
“That’s a reach,” the sergeant had said. “I’m not saying it’s not interesting, but you don’t really think she’d commit murder in the same manner as a character in her book, do you? That’s pretty blatant.”
“Maybe the wife had written the scene based on watching her husband regularly mix meds and alcohol,” Colin countered. “And on that night, she acted impulsively. Maybe didn’t think about the connection to her book.”
“Sounds like she’s smarter than that. Statistically speaking, it’s probably equally likely the husband offed himself in that manner to frame her.”
Colin nodded. “Could be. But we don’t have him around to ask. Just the wife.”
“And her motive? Money?”
“Don’t think so,” Colin had said. “They didn’t have much. Had a small life-insurance policy on him, but they’d stopped paying the premium a year ago.”
“Who paid the bills? Did the wife know the policy lapsed?”
“That’s one of the questions I want to ask her.”
“Other assets?”
Colin shrugged. “They have, or Ms. Yates now has, about twenty grand in credit-card debt and less than three thousand in a checking account. Couple older-model cars. A small IRA, about seven thousand.”
“So he wasn’t worth more dead than alive.”
“No. And the wife comes from money. Her father runs an investment firm in Boston. Maybe they’re estranged, because Ms. Yates appears to be just getting by.”
Sergeant Brennan had taken everything in and leaned back in his chair. “Maybe it was just an accident.”
“It’s a possibility,” Colin had conceded. “But I don’t think we’re close enough to determining that right now.”
The sergeant hadn’t outright agreed, but he hadn’t dismissed Colin’s request either. He’d said he’d take it to the captain for review, which was the best thing Colin could have hoped for.
Now, two days later, Colin got his answer in an email from Brennan with the subject line McKay Case.
Approved. Two nights max. Pick the cheapest hotel you can find. Ditto airfare.
Colin gave the top of his desk a satisfying pound with his fist. It was the first time he’d be traveling out of state to interview a person of interest, and he was going to make the most of those two days.
He tried to do what detectives were taught. Follow the facts. Don’t make assumptions. Be objective.
But there was that little voice, the one all people have, and with detectives, that voice is even stronger. Louder. And Colin’s voice hadn’t quieted since he read J. L. Sharp’s last novel.
She did it, the voice said, over and over again.
The wife did it.
Twelve
Bury, New Hampshire
First day of school and I think I’m more nervous than Max.
We sit in silence as I drive my father’s black Suburban, the tank of a car he designated for my use. It’s been a month back in Bury, and I’m already regressing to my childhood. Living in my father’s house, grocery shopping with his credit card, driving the car he provided for me.
I glance over as Max gazes out the window, and I see his ghostly image reflecting back, as if he’s staring at me and the rest of the world at the same time.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything, and it looks like he’s slipped into one of his fugues. Or maybe he’s just nervous about today. That’s to be expected. New school, and he doesn’t know anyone except his cousin, with whom he shares nothing in common. Max always struggled to make friends among kids he knew for years, and I can only imagine how isolated he’ll feel at Middleton Prep.
But when he answers, he doesn’t voice any of these things.
“Before Dad, had you ever seen a dead person?”
My stomach knots as I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles strain. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because of what Grandpa said. That I was the youngest to see a dead person. So I wondered if you ever had.”
I feel him looking at me. I don’t look back. If I do, he’ll know I’m lying.
“No,” I say. “I never had before.”
“What about your mom?”
“I was too young to remember, but I don’t think so.”
Max offers a soft mmm and looks out his window again. “I wonder how many more I’ll see in my life.”
“Can we not talk about this?” I say.
“Okay.”
How casual my son is about death. I sometimes wonder if the detachment with his own experiences is part of his grieving process or if it’s just that. Detachment. I think of what he told Willow when she asked what it was like to see his dead father.
He didn’t look angry anymore.
And that’s true. Riley didn’t look
