John. What are you doing here?
She turned the radio off and rested her hands on the handlebars.
She had planned to pretend it was a regular visit, just because she wanted to see her.
If I go up there now, I’ll need a plan.
She searched the street—almost positive he didn’t have police detail following him.
No one knows you’re here but me.
Half an hour passed, and each time someone exited the other doors of the triplex, her heart beat hard in her chest.
Maybe I should go in. Have Evette make the introduction.
Her cell phone buzzed beside her. A text from Will.
Babe, could you pick up chardonnay? The kind my mom likes. Two bottles.
She had two hours to get back to town, pick up the groceries, wine, and prep dinner before his parents arrived.
This dinner is important to Will.
I should go.
I’ll regret it.
Maybe just five minutes.
Five minutes turned into another half an hour, yet she couldn’t make a move to start the bike again or get off.
Now or never. Don’t chicken out.
Drew had repeated those words so often over the course of the seven years she knew him, she’d parroted them back to him when he needed an extra ounce of courage.
Despite the fact he’d never told her, she knew he didn’t think she was a chicken.
At times, when she opened up to him or their parents about the years previous to her adoption into the family, she’d catch a pitying stare from all three of them, but Drew had always tried to hide his.
He somehow knew that pitying stares upset her more than retelling the difficult parts of her past did.
He knew what she’d been through, and a time or two, he told her he thought she was brave. Once he uttered those words, she never wanted to live up to them more.
As Madigan climbed the steps, she tried to keep her composure.
I’ve been thinking about old times, she rehearsed, as she reached Evette’s first door.
I’ve been thinking about old times, and I want to be close again.
I want to get to know John.
As she reached the second door, it creaked open, and John stood on the other side, staring. A flicker of recognition filled his puffy bloodshot eyes, and Madigan stopped in front of him.
“You’re Madigan,” he said.
“Hello, John.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Has John been back here?” Mac asked Officer Malone in the patrol car out front.
“Nope. Only people to come in and out of this road are the other two neighbours. This is what happens when people want their privacy,” Malone said. “You wanna be alone. Fine, but no one’ll hear ya scream out here.”
Mac rubbed his forehead and stood up tall beside Grace.
Malone doesn’t mince words.
“That’ll be all, then.” Mac tapped the top of his patrol car before Malone started his engine.
As he drove off, they started up the steps toward the front door, and Mac’s keys jingled as he searched for the right one.
“Listen,” he said, staring down at the keys. “Sorry about back there.”
Grace frowned, not knowing what to say.
He stuck the key in the keyhole and paused.
“I had a meeting with my ex this morning at her lawyer’s office in the city,” he said without looking at Grace. “She wants more child support.”
“Oh.”
“Which is ridiculous,” he looked up at Grace, “because she was having an affair with some guy at her work. I think she’s living with him now. Can’t prove it, though. So she’s going to get the money.” He shook his head and twisted the key, opening the door for Grace.
“Sorry to hear that. Why don’t you know where she lives?”
“She’s probably nervous that I’ll pay her boyfriend a visit,” he said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t waste my time. This whole split has shown me a different side of her. We meet at a drop off point to drop our daughter off and pick her up.”
You didn’t answer when Mr. Martin asked if we had kids.
He separates his personal and professional life well.
“That must be tough.”
“Yep,” he said, clearing his throat.
They walked to the living room entrance and stared down at the bloodstain on the carpet and the rose petals that had turned a dusty rose colour, going on brown.
“Alright,” Mac said. “Friday night. No rain. John comes home late from work with flowers.”
“Lily puts them in that vase, and then puts them where?” Grace asked, taking out her notebook. “If she herself moved them, it could have been an accident, but if they were put here from the start, that rules out the possibility she broke it.”
Where were the flowers?
“Right,” she said. “Let’s say she put them in the middle of that table, okay? For the purpose of our re-enactment. We’ll ask John soon.”
Mac nodded. “They eat spaghetti, bread, and drink a bit of wine. John leaves soon after, just before eight.”
“Dorothy, the neighbour across the street, confirms that,” Grace said.
“Lily cleans up the kitchen,” Mac turned in that direction, “then she calls someone. She knows John is gone to Amherst. Knows he’ll be gone at least two hours.”
“So maybe she invites them over? No signs of forced entry.”
“So they come over,” Mac turned back to the door. “She lets them in. They talk? Have sex? Argue? They end up here.”
“If they fought, there’s not much sign of struggle. Nothing under her fingernails. Nothing out of place or damaged in here, except the vase.”
Mac nodded and stepped into the living room. “So does she pick up the vase, drop it, trip over her own feet, fall back and smack her head?”
“Or does someone else pick up the vase, smash it, and then push her over?” Grace asked.
“To hit her head like that, she had to be standing here, facing the front window. If someone pushed her, they wouldn’t have grabbed her from behind. There’s no room with the table and how she fell. She’d have been watching them.”
Grace nodded. “She’d have looked her killer in the eye.”
“If the call was insignificant, which I don’t think it was,” Mac said. “There’s a possibility John came home late, they fought, and he pushed her over by accident. If he put those bruises on her arm, he’s certainly capable of doing that much.”
“So he scrambled. As she bled out, he thought about calling for an ambulance, but he knew he’d look guilty?”
“Maybe,” Mac said. “I want to know what prints were on that vase. If any had been wiped away. I just don’t see how she could have tripped at that angle. There’s nothing to trip on.”
“It doesn’t make sense why she’d be moving the vase. Maybe she had it in the kitchen and moved it to the living room, but with the time of death closer to eleven than ten, I don’t see why she’d have waited that long to do it.” Grace scanned the room. “So can we rule out the possibility it was an accident and treat this as a murder investigation?”
“If John tells us the vase was in the living room from the beginning,” Mac said, nodding. “I think we have to treat it as a murder.”
As they locked the door, the neighbour, Dorothy, waved to them from her garden. They both waved back before walking to their cars.
“Meet back at the station to check out Lily’s cell?” Mac asked.
Grace nodded before they parted ways.
Back at the department, Mac made a beeline for the coffee, and Grace continued down the hallway.
“Hey,” Mac called. “Don’t touch anything ‘til I get there.”
Grace didn’t bother looking back, but by his lighter tone, she guessed he was smiling. Instead of going to their room where the evidence had been dropped off, she turned right and knocked at Chief Banning’s office door.
She had to let him know about Madigan’s discovery before she went any further in the case.
I should have come right here, right away this morning.
Why didn’t I?
“Come in,” he called.
Because this truth could take me off the case.
She opened the door, and he looked up from his papers. “Ah, Grace,” he smiled.
“I was hoping I could talk to you for a second about the Lily Martin case.”
He nodded, dropping his pen on the paper in front of him, and gestured to the seat across the desk.
“What about the case?” Mac asked as he bustled in with his foam coffee cup and sat in the chair next to her before she could.
I guess you might as well be here.
“There’s been a development I need to discuss with you,” Grace said. “Through research into one of our suspects, John Talbot, I’ve found a connection that might be of some concern to you.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of this,” Mac said to Banning, frowning.
“Chief, I discovered John was adopted by the same foster parents I had during the early part of my childhood, and while we were never at the household at the same time, and I’d never met him or heard of him, it loosely connects me to the case,” she said. She felt Mac staring at her, and she couldn’t read the Chief’s expression. “Of course, I understand if you have concerns with this connection, and so I wanted to bring it to your attention—“
“I don’t.” Banning pushed his chair back from the desk and folded his hands in his lap.
“You don’t have concerns?” Mac asked. “Well, I do. I’m concerned you didn’t come to me and let me know.”
“It’s the first time I’ve been back here since discovering this information, and I’m following procedure by bringing it to the Chief first.”
Mac laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Following procedure. You. That’s a good one.”
Chief Banning shot Mac a look, and he stopped laughing and continued fidgeting in his seat.
“I appreciate your candor regarding this recent development, Grace, but I don’t see how it affects the case. You did not know him previously, correct?”
Grace nodded. “I just found out about him now.”
“And are you still in touch with that foster family?” he asked.
“Not since I left them at age eleven,” she said.
He nodded. “I don’t see the issue, then.”
“The issue,” Mac said, standing, “is that even if she’s telling the truth, she could still have some bias toward the suspect, not to mention the issues with taking this case to the DA while connections can be formed. What if the media gets ahold of this? How could we prosecute if John Talbot is the killer, while the person collecting evidence, is what? His sister?”
“He’s not my brother,” Grace said. “We do not have any relation, only a shared home at separate times.”
“I’ll speak with the DA, but as I said, I can’t see this being an issue,” Banning said. “If it is, Mac, she’s already been on the case. Already been at the crime scene, questioned the suspects, had access to the evidence…”
“And everything would be thrown out in a court,” Mac said.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Banning said. “And both of you—not a word to anyone. I’ll clear this up with the DA and get back to you. Until then, keep working.”
“Banning,” Mac said. “What if the connection is discovered before then?”
“I hardly see it as a connection,” Banning shrugged. “In a small town like this, aren’t we all connected in some way? We’ll deal with it if it comes up. Back to work.”
“Thank you, Chief,” Grace said, and stood.
She walked past Mac out of the office. Mac and Banning exchanged words, but she didn’t catch what they said.
Why does a clear conscience feel less than clear?
She pulled out the small folder of John’s files she’d photocopied and sat down.
She needed the one thing missing from John: a motive.
Was it the cheating with Mickey? No, they made up.
Did she cheat again? Maybe.
Or was it a simple accident? Less likely, but possible.
“You know something?” Mac asked, stomping into the room. “You’re worse than I’d heard. Didn’t think it was possible.”
Many of the cruel things her colleagues at different levels in law enforcement said behind her back had gotten back to her when others threw it in her face. She’d heard much worse than anything Mac had said, and she promised herself she’d let it roll off her back. Keep the past far away from her future.
Grace stared up at him. “I’d like to focus on the case at hand.”
“No. No excuses or distractions. Why didn’t you tell me first?”
“It’s procedure—“
“I don’t want to hear that bullshit. We’ve been together all morning, which means you knew since then at least. Who knows? Maybe you saw him and recognized him.”
“I didn’t.”
“And you didn’t say a word to me.”
“Honestly, I didn’t think I had to. Banning doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal, so why make a fuss over nothing?”
“Banning’s checking into it, and you’ll be off this case by the end of the week. I guarantee it.”
Kicked off her first case back. Another dark mark to add to her file.
Grace sighed and closed the file. “Is this business or personal?”
“I know what you did in the city.”
“This feels personal. You’re so angry, and for a man who doesn’t believe in theories and hearsay, you sure gobbled up whatever gossip you heard about me.”
His brow rose. She’d caught him.
“They got their intel on you from the reports. Straight from your sergeant’s mouth.”
“It’s still gossip,” she said. “If you’re going to judge me so much on my past—which by the way, you only think you know—instead of getting to know me for yourself, we can’t work together.”
“No,” he said, “we can’t.”
He stared down at her, sneering.
Are you trying to intimidate me?
“This is my turf,” he said.
And the next piece of information I need is from the cell phone.
She stood and grabbed her purse and the photocopied files before strutting past him. Her heels clicked down the hallway, and the door slammed behind her.
She turned the corner and approached Tarek. “I’m looking for Lily Martin’s cell phone that’s been processed, sent over from evidence,” she said.
He nodded toward a box on the back counter. She opened the box and unzipped the bagged cell phone. She turned the phone on and the screen lit up. Footsteps slapped against the tiled floor behind her.
“Mac doesn’t like anyone touching his—”
“I’m Detective Inspector Grace Sheppard,” she said, extending her hand. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”
“I’m Tarek,” he said. “Tech analyst.”
“I’m on the Lily Martin case as well, as you know.”
“I know, but Mac—”
I won’t let him treat me like that.
“Mac needs to learn how to play well with others.” Grace smiled.
Tarek grinned and shrugged. “It’s on you then.”
“Yes, it is. Nice to meet you, Tarek.”
She turned back to the phone, and as he walked away, she tapped the messages. She scrolled thro ugh the ones marked “John.” The last text she received from him was at 6:30 the night before she died.
Hey baby, I’ll be a little late for dinner.
Lily hadn’t replied.
Grace read through the past texts.
How’s work?
Congrats on the sale, baby.
I’ll be late again.
John, where are you? You said you’d be back before midnight.
Pizza or Chinese?
<
br /> Thom’s wife’s retirement party is next month. What should we get her?
Something for her garden.
Great idea, baby.
Nothing out of the ordinary, so Grace scrolled back as far as she could through their text history.
Congratulations, Baby! That’s great news. How are we going to celebrate your promotion to partner?
How about dinner out tonight?
Sounds good, I’m thinking I’ve got dessert covered.
Lily had sent a risqué photo of herself in lingerie.
She’s beautiful, Grace thought.
You’re beautiful, you know that? How did I get so lucky?
The rest of the texts ranged from the mundane to racy, and at worst, impatient, as John seemed to be home late a lot.
Where were you, John?
Footsteps slapped against the tile behind her, and she turned around. Mac rested his hands on his hips, standing before her with pursed lips.
He expects me to be the shrinking flower I’ve been since I got here, but it’s gotten me nowhere.
“Since we aren’t working together anymore, you can have this when I’m finished with it,” Grace said.
Mac opened his mouth, but she continued, “Or, we can look at it together.”
He shook his head and walked away. Before he reached the door he pointed to Tarek. “You coulda given me a heads up,” he said.
Tarek raised both hands and laughed. “Sorry, Mac.”
“Bring it to me when she’s done,” Mac said.
Grace turned back to the phone and clicked on other texts.
Messages to her mom’s cell phone let her know she was alright and to stop worrying. She could feel the love her mom had through her worried messages and remembered being like Lily, just wanting space from her final foster parents.
The last number Lily called that night sat at the top of her call history list, and Grace wrote it down. Tarek told them it had been a burner phone, but Grace thought once she had more information, she could give it a call herself. Or a text.
As she left the department for the day, she thought about the chaos she and Mac working independently would cause.
She wanted to go back and ask John more questions, but their connection was more than she’d let on, even to herself. She was nervous to speak to him, knowing where he’d lived. Who his foster parents were and what they’d been capable of. What they’d made her and Madigan do.
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