“The early hours of an investigation like this are absolutely critical,” Danica said, lecturing me. “We need everyone to be on the same team if we’re going to find the monster who killed Ashley.”
“In other words, I don’t want you and Charley Stevens going off the reservation again,” Menario snapped.
“Would you use that expression if Detective Soctomah was in the room?”
Menario’s supervisor was a Passamaquoddy Indian who’d grown up on sovereign tribal lands in easternmost Maine.
“Fuck you.”
The prosecutor rose to her feet. “Enough with the testosterone. We’re finished here.”
There was just one more lingering question on my mind. “I understand that there are similarities between this killing and the Erland Jefferts case.”
When I spoke that name, a look came over Danica Marshall that startled me. Her eyes hardened and her mouth drew taut. It was as if all the glamour had been sucked out of her, leaving her own death mask where her face had been. “There are no similarities between these killings,” she said. “And if you go around saying there are, you will be very sorry. Do I make myself clear?”
Both Menario and the evidence tech visibly shared my surprise at her transformation. Even ghostly, expressionless Atwood shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Say it.”
“I never heard of Erland Jefferts.”
“Now take your truck and go.”
But as it turned out, I was going to have trouble keeping my promises. After I left the training room, I paused outside the reception window and checked my cell phone for messages. There were two. I had expected to hear from Sarah, but neither of the voice mails was from her. Instead, I had a call from Lieutenant Malcomb, asking me to report in once I’d finished at the jail.
The second message was a curveball. The caller was a woman who identified herself as Lou Bates. “I represent a group called the J-Team,” she said in one of the thickest Down East accents I’d ever heard. “We’ve learned that an Oriental girl got killed last night in Seal Cove and you discovered the body. It is our belief that you might have information that would exonerate my nephew, Erland Jefferts, of the wrongful accusation and conviction against him. I would very much appreciate a callback at your immediate and absolute convenience.”
Now, how in the hell did this woman find me? I wondered. The local constabulary wasn’t known for having the tightest lips around, and I was fairly certain MaryBeth Fickett had been working the phones all morning. In a small town, gossip travels literally at the speed of sound. But who would have connected me with this so-called J- Team?
I was puzzling over this phenomenon when I felt a hard tap on the shoulder. Behind me stood a blond woman I’d never seen before.
“Warden Bowditch? I’m Jill Westergaard.”
16
She was tall, with high breasts that seemed too big for her narrow hips. Her blond hair was held back from her forehead by sunglasses that she had pushed up there for that purpose. There was no hint of a wrinkle on that forehead. She had large brown eyes that were red around the edges, as if she’d been up all night drinking or crying, or both. She wore a khaki raincoat over a high-throated brown sweater that hid her neck from view. Her chocolate- colored slacks were tucked into L.L. Bean boots. If I had to guess, I would have put her age somewhere in the late fifties, although she was doing everything in her power to tell the world she was actually a decade younger than that.
“Mrs. Westergaard, I can’t talk with you.”
She ignored my statement. “Warden Stevens told me I could find you here. He said you were the one who found Ashley.”
Of course Charley had told her where I’d be. That troublemaking old coot liked nothing better than to stir the pot.
“Do the detectives know you’re here?” I asked.
“I just drove up from Cambridge.”
Greater Boston was a four- or five-hour car ride from Seal Cove, depending on the season and the time of day. With her husband missing, and seemingly guilty of a violent crime, I could understand her wanting to be at the center of the action, although I doubted the investigators would open her house anytime soon.
I glanced through the locked door that led back to the sheriff’s office. “Mrs. Westergaard-”
“Jill,” she said.
“I really can’t talk with you. This is a murder investigation, and I’m a material witness.”
Her large eyes got even larger, but her forehead remained placid. “Please.”
“I’m sorry.”
I tried to step around her, but she reached out and grabbed my sleeve, not with any force, but just pinching the fabric of my uniform. The timidity of the gesture made me pause.
“We can talk outside,” she whispered.
“It’s not that,” I said. “I’m bound by my oath not to interfere in an open investigation.”
“Hans didn’t do this terrible thing.”
“Mrs. Westergaard-”
“He couldn’t have done it,” she said in a tremulous voice.
The desperation in her eyes provoked a strange emotion in me. I’m not sure how to describe the feeling except to say that it wasn’t sadness or pity; it was more like empathy. From my own experience, I knew how love can blind a person to certain vicious truths.
“Please,” she said again. “I need your help.”
In Jill Westergaard’s mind, she was the only person who could convince the police of her fugitive husband’s innocence. What would this poor woman do when they finally caught him and he confessed to every last bloody detail?
“I’ll meet you outside,” I said.
After she had left, I tied and retied the laces of my boots, thinking that what I was about to do was stupid and reckless. And yet I felt impressed by the nobility of my intentions. I might not be able to persuade Jill Westergaard of anything, but she would remember our conversation with gratitude.
She was waiting for me in the parking lot, wearing her sunglasses now and leaning against the hood of a sand-colored Range Rover, as if she might topple over without its support. The tone of the vehicle perfectly complemented her hair. This woman considers all her decisions very carefully, I realized.
She beeped open the SUV’s doors. With a quick backward glance at the jail, I climbed into the passenger seat. The interior of the vehicle still smelled of the automobile showroom. But there was a musky hint of perfume, too.
Jill Westergaard swiveled around to face me. “I need to know what you saw.”
The demand took me by surprise. I had expected her to continue her defense of her husband’s innocence, with me in the role of truth-hardened counselor. With her sunglasses down, I felt that she had me at a disadvantage. Given the immobility of her brow, I could read her expression only in the movement of her mouth.
“Mrs. Westergaard, I can’t tell you that.”
“No one will.”
So at least Charley had been mum on that point. “It’s a crime scene,” I said, trying to explain.
“But it’s my house. ”
