by Harlan Coben
“I know him,” Simon said.
“Who is he?”
“His name is Aaron Corval.”
“He’s your daughter’s boyfriend, is that correct?”
Hester squeezed his arm. “It’s not his job to describe the relationship. Move on.”
Fagbenle pointed his finger at Aaron’s smug face. “How do you know Aaron Corval?”
“Seriously?” It was Hester again.
“Is there a problem, Ms. Crimstein?”
“Yes, there’s a problem. You’re wasting our time.”
“I’m asking—”
“Stop.” She held up her palm. “You’re embarrassing yourself. We all know how my client knows Aaron Corval. Let’s pretend you’ve already lulled Mr. Greene and myself into a state of relaxation with your insightful albeit obvious interrogation techniques. We are putty in your hand, Detective, so let’s cut to it, okay?”
“Okay, fair enough.” Fagbenle leaned forward. “Aaron Corval was murdered.”
Simon had been expecting that and yet the weight of the words still sent him reeling. “And my daughter…?”
Hester squeezed his arm.
“We don’t know where she is, Mr. Greene. Do you?”
“No.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Three months ago.”
“Where?”
“In Central Park.”
“Would that be the day you assaulted Aaron Corval?”
“Wow,” Hester said. “It’s like I’m not even sitting here.”
Fagbenle said, “Again I ask: Is there a problem?”
“And again I answer: Yeah, there’s a problem. I don’t like your characterization.”
“You mean my use of the word ‘assault’ to describe what happened?”
“I mean exactly that.”
He sat back and put his hands on the desk. “I understand the charges in that case were dropped.”
“I don’t care what you understand.”
“Getting off like that. With all that evidence. It’s interesting.”
“I also don’t care what interests you, Detective. I don’t like your characterization of the incident. Please reword.”
“Now who’s wasting time, Counselor?”
“I want the interview done right, hotshot.”
“Fine. The alleged assault. The incident. Whatever. Can your client answer the question now?”
Simon said, “I haven’t seen my daughter since the incident in Central Park, yes.”
“How about Aaron Corval? Have you seen him?”
“No.”
“So over the last three months, you’ve had zero contact with your daughter or Mr. Corval, is that correct?”
“Asked and answered,” Hester snapped.
“Let him answer, please.”
“That’s correct,” Simon said.
Fagbenle flashed a quick smile. “So I guess you and your daughter Paige aren’t very close, huh?”
Hester wasn’t having it. “What are you, a family counselor?”
“Just an observation. How about your daughter Anya?”
“What about his daughter Anya?” Hester countered.
“Earlier Mr. Greene mentioned that he and Anya were home alone all night,” Fagbenle said.
“He what?”
“That’s what your client told me.”
Hester gave Simon another withering glare.
“Mr. Greene, you took your dog for another walk about ten p.m., am I right?”
“You are.”
“Did you or Anya go out after that?”
“Whoa,” Hester said, making her hands into a T. “Time-out.”
Fagbenle looked annoyed. “I’d like to continue my questioning.”
“And I’d like to tongue-bathe Hugh Jackman,” Hester said, “so both of us are going to have to live with a little disappointment.” Hester rose. “Stay here, Detective. We will be right back.”
She dragged Simon out of the room and down the corridor, working her mobile phone the entire time. “I’ll skip the obvious admonishments.”
“And I’ll skip the part where I defend myself by reminding you that I didn’t know if the murder victim was my daughter.”
“That was a ploy.”
“As I was well aware.”
“What’s done is done,” she said. “What did you already tell him? Everything.”
Simon filled her in on their earlier conversation.
“You noticed that I just sent a text,” Hester said.
“Yes.”
“Before we go back in and say something stupid, I want my investigator to dig up all he can on Corval’s murder—time, circumstances, method, whatever. You’re not a fool, so you know what’s going on here with our hunky detective.”
“I’m a suspect.”
She nodded. “You had a serious ‘incident’”—Hester made quote marks with her fingers—“with the deceased. You hated him. You blamed him for your daughter’s drug problems. So yes, you’re a suspect. So is your wife. So is…well, Paige. My guess is, she’s the biggest suspect. Do you have an alibi for last night?”
“Like I said, I was home all night.”
“With?”
“Anya.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to hold.”
“Why not?”
“Where in your apartment specifically was Anya?”
“In her room, mostly.”
“Door open or shut?”
Simon saw where she was going with this. “Shut.”
“She’s a kid, right? Door shut, maybe blasting music on her headphones. So you could have sneaked out at any time. What time did Anya go to sleep? Let’s say eleven o’clock. You could have left then. Does your building have any security cameras?”
“Yes. But it’s an old building. There are ways of getting out without being seen.”
Hester’s phone dinged. She put it to her ear and said, “Articulate.”
Someone did. And as he did, Hester’s face lost color. She didn’t say a word. Not for a very long time. When she finally spoke again, her voice was uncharacteristically soft. “Email me the report.”
She hung up.
“What?” Simon asked.
“They don’t think you did it. Correction: They can’t think you did it.”
Chapter
Seven
Ash watched the target pull up to the dilapidated three-family home.
“Is he driving a Cadillac?” Dee Dee asked him.
“Looks like it.”
“Is it an Eldorado?”
Dee Dee never stopped talking.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“It’s an ATS. Cadillac stopped making the Eldorado in 2002.”
“How do you know that?”
Ash shrugged. He just knew stuff.
“My daddy had an Eldorado,” Dee Dee said.
Ash frowned. “Your ‘daddy’?”
“What, you think I don’t remember him?”
Dee Dee had been in foster homes from the age of six. Ash had entered his first when he was four. Over the next fourteen years he had been in over twenty. Dee had probably been in about the same. On three occasions, for a total of eight months, they had ended up in the same foster home.
“He bought it used, of course. Like, really used. The bottom was rusted out. But Daddy loved that car. He let me sit in the front seat with him. No seat belt. The leather in the seats? It was all cracked. It’d scrape my legs. Anyway, he’d play the radio loud and sometimes he’d sing along. That’s what I remember best. He had a good voice, my old man. He’d smile and start singing and then he’d sort of let go of the wheel and steer with his wrists, you know what I mean?”
Ash knew. He also knew Daddy steered with one hand while jamming his other between his young daughter’s legs, but now didn’t seem to be the time to bring that up.
“Daddy loved that damned car,” Dee Dee said with a pout. “Until…
&nb
sp; Ash couldn’t help himself. “Until what?”
“Maybe that’s where it all went wrong. When Daddy found out the truth about that car.”
Ash cringed every time she used the word “Daddy.”
The target got out of the car. He was a burly guy in jeans, scuffed Timberland-knockoff boots, and a flannel shirt. He sported a beard and a camouflage-colored Boston Red Sox baseball cap too small for his pumpkin head.
Ash gestured with his chin. “That our guy?”
“Looks like it. What’s the plan?”
The target opened the car’s back door, and two young girls wearing bright-green school backpacks got out. His daughters, Ash knew. The taller, Kelsey, was ten. The younger, Kiera, was eight.
“We wait.”
Ash sat in the driver’s seat. Dee Dee was in the passenger’s. Ash hadn’t seen her in three years. He’d figured that she was dead until their recent reunion. He’d expected it to be awkward—too much time, too many bridges—but they quickly fell into their old patterns.
“So what happened?” Ash asked.
“What?”
“With your dad’s Eldorado. Where did it all go wrong? What was this truth he learned?”
The smile dropped off her face. Dee Dee shifted in her seat.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“No,” she said. “I want to.”
They both stared out the front window at the target’s home. Ash put his hand on his hip, where his gun was holstered. He had his instructions. He couldn’t imagine what the burly guy had done—what any on the list had done—but sometimes the less you knew, the better.
“We went out to this fancy fish restaurant for dinner,” Dee Dee began. “This was right before my grandma died. So she paid. My dad, well, he was a steak guy. Always. He hated fish. I mean, really hated it.”
Ash had no idea where this was going.
“So the waiter comes over and starts reading off the daily specials. He has this blackboard with him and the specials, they’re all written out in chalk. Fancy, right?”
“Right.”
“So anyway, the waiter gets to the fish special and he has this weird accent and anyway, he says, ‘The chef strongly recommends the’—then this waiter, he waves at the board like it’s a car on The Price Is Right—‘Grilled Dorado with walnuts and parsley pesto.’”
Ash turned to look at her. You’d think the years wouldn’t have been kind to Dee Dee, all she’d been through, but she looked more beautiful than ever. Her golden-blonde hair was tied in a thick braid running down her back. Her lips were full, her skin flawless. Her green eyes were a bright emerald shade most assumed involved contact lenses or some kind of cosmetics.
“So Daddy asks the waiter to repeat that, the name of the fish, and the waiter does and Daddy—”
Man, Ash wished she’d stop calling him that.
“—and Daddy starts fuming. I mean, he just runs out of the restaurant. Knocks over his chair and everything. See, his car, his supercool car—it’s named for a fish! Daddy can’t handle that, you know?”
Ash just looked at her. “You’re serious?”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“It’s not named for a fish.”
“What, you never heard of a Dorado fish?”
“I’ve heard of it, but El Dorado is a mythical city of gold in South America.”
“But it’s also a fish, right?”
Ash said nothing.
“Ash?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Yeah, it’s also a fish.”
The target stepped back out of his house. He started toward his garage.
“They all have to be done differently?” Ash asked.
“I don’t know about differently, but they can’t be connected.”
Meaning it couldn’t be like Chicago. Still, that gave him plenty of flexibility on this one.
“Watch the house,” he said.
“I’m not coming with you this time?”
She sounded hurt by this.
“No. Take the wheel. Keep the car running. Watch the door. If anyone comes out, call me.”
He didn’t repeat the instructions. The target had gone into the garage. Ash started toward it.
Here is what he did know about the target. Name, Kevin Gano. Married twelve years to his high school sweetheart, Courtney. The four Ganos lived on the top floor of this two-family home on Devon Street in Revere, Massachusetts. Six months ago, Kevin had been laid off from Alston Meat Packing plant in Lynn, where he’d worked for the previous seven years. He’d been trying to find another job since, to no avail, so last month Courtney had been forced to go back to work as a receptionist at a travel agency on Constitution Avenue.
Kevin, trying to make himself useful, picked up the girls every day from school at two p.m. That was why he was home right now when the rest of this working-class neighborhood was quiet and still.
Kevin was standing by his workbench unscrewing a DVD or Blu-ray player—he earned a little money doing small repairs—when Ash approached. He looked up and gave Ash a friendly smile. Ash smiled back and then Ash pointed his gun at him.
“This will all be fine if you stay quiet.”
Ash stepped all the way into the garage and pulled the door down closed behind him. He kept the gun trained on Kevin, never taking his eyes off him. Kevin still had the screwdriver in his hand.
His right hand.
“What do you want?”
“Put down the screwdriver, Kevin. Cooperate and no one gets hurt.”
“Bullshit,” Kevin said.
“What?”
“You’re letting me see your face.”
Good point.
“I’m in disguise. Don’t worry about it.”
“Bullshit,” Kevin said again.
Kevin looked toward the side door, like he was going to make a run for it.
“Kelsey and Kiera,” Ash said.
Hearing his daughters’ names froze him.
“It can go one of two ways. If you make a run for it, I’ll shoot you dead. Then I’ll have to make it look like a bad home invasion. That means I go into your house. What are Kelsey and Kiera doing in there, Kevin? Homework? Watching TV? Having a nice snack? Whatever. I’ll go in, and I’ll do things so horrible you’ll be glad you’re dead.”
Kevin shook his head, tears coming to his eyes. “Please.”
“Or,” Ash said, “you can drop the screwdriver right now.”
Kevin did as he was asked. The screwdriver clanked on the concrete floor.
“I don’t understand. I never hurt anyone. Why are you doing this?”
Ash shrugged.
“Please don’t hurt my girls. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t…” He swallowed and stood a little taller. “So…so what now?”
Ash crossed the garage and placed the muzzle of the gun against the side of Kevin’s temple. Kevin closed his eyes right before Ash pulled the trigger.
The echo was loud inside the garage, drawn out, but Ash doubted anyone outside of it would take notice.
Kevin was dead before he hit the floor.
Ash moved fast. He placed the gun in Kevin’s right hand and pulled the trigger, firing a bullet straight into the ground. Now there would be gunpowder residue on the hand. He pulled the phone out of Kevin’s back pocket and used Kevin’s thumb to unlock it. Then he quickly scrolled through and found his wife’s contact information.
Courtney’s name was typed into the contacts with two hearts before and after her name.
Hearts. Kevin had put hearts next to his wife’s name.
Ash typed up a simple text: I’m sorry. Please forgive me.
He hit Send, dropped the phone on the workbench, and headed back to the car.
Don’t rush. Don’t walk too quickly.
Ash figured that there was probably an 80 to 85 percent chance the suicide scenario would hold. You had a gunshot wound to the head—to the victim’s right temple, the way a righty might do it if the wound was
self-inflicted. That was why Ash had made note of which hand Kevin was holding the screwdriver in. You had a suicide text. You had gun residue on the hand. The extra bullet would probably look like Kevin had tried once and chickened out and then steeled himself for the real deal.
So the suicide scenario would probably be a buy. Eighty, eighty-five percent—maybe more like 90 percent when you added in that Kevin was out of work and probably depressed about it. If some cop was super aggressive or watched too much CSI, he might find some stuff didn’t add up. For example, there hadn’t been enough time to prop Kevin up before firing the second shot, so if some crime tech really spent the money to study the bullet’s trajectory, he might notice the shot originated from near the floor.
Someone might even spot Ash right now, or the car, and that might raise a few eyebrows too.
But that was all doubtful.
Either way, he and Dee Dee would be long gone. The car would be wiped down and abandoned. Nothing would track back to them.
Ash was good at this.
He got into the passenger side of the car. No curtains on the block had moved. No doors had opened. No cars had driven by.
Dee Dee said, “Is he…?”
Ash nodded.
Dee Dee smiled and started the car down the road.
Chapter
Eight
Ingrid met Simon at the door when he arrived home. She threw her arms around him.
“I’d just crashed in bed,” Ingrid said, “when the police arrived.”
“I know.”
“And suddenly the door buzzer kept going off. It took me forever to wake up. I figured it was a delivery, except they always protect me from that stuff.”
By “they,” she meant the doormen in the building. Ingrid worked one overnight shift in the emergency room per week. The doormen knew that meant she slept during the next day, so if there were any deliveries, they were to leave them for Simon to bring up when he got home at six thirty.
“I threw on some sweats. This cop comes up. He actually asked me for an alibi. Like I was a suspect.”
Simon knew, of course. Ingrid had contacted him as soon as the doorman told her why she was being buzzed. Hester then had sent a colleague from her firm to be with Ingrid for the police questioning.