Neither detective said anything at the mention of George Goodman and Cullen picked up on their silence.
‘That bastard, it was him, wasn’t it? He did this to her!’ Cullen rose from his seat, fists clenched.
‘Mr Cullen, sit down. No one has been charged with her assault as yet. We have interviewed Mr Goodman and will do so again, if need be. Right now, we are interested in anything you can tell us.’ Bronski wasn’t about to give away the fact that George Goodman was in the cells, awaiting their return.
The man suddenly appeared wearier than he had when they first entered the interview room. He rubbed his eyes and looked quite distressed. ‘I loved that woman. We were so happy at first, but I had to share her with her mother and Charlie. That’s her brother, Charlie Hegarty.’
Annie nodded. ‘We know Captain Hegarty.’
‘Captain, eh? It has been a long time.’
But then Cullen realised that the two detectives were waiting for him to continue. ‘I was about to say, Angie was more of a mother to Charlie than their mother ever was. After their dad died, their mother went to pieces. Charlie was still a kid, needed support. Angie was there for him, more than she was for me, to be honest.’
‘Is that what broke up the marriage?’ Annie was still trying to establish the background.
‘I wanted a family of our own, but she said she wasn’t ready. She said she needed to support Charlie first, that our time would come. I got sick of waiting, I guess you could say.’ Again he rubbed his eyes. ‘The worst decision I ever made in my life was leaving that woman. I still love her. No one else has ever come close.’ Cullen hesitated for a minute, and then added: ‘Look, I’ll answer any questions you have, but right now, all I want to do is see her.’
Annie glanced over at Bronski and he took the cue. ‘All right, we’ll take you down to see her now and we’ll stay with you. Once you’ve seen her, we have more questions to ask.’
‘Fine by me.’
As they walked down the corridor, Officer Whelan stood up. Bronski and Annie showed their badges.
‘Officer, you can take a break, grab a coffee, and come back in twenty minutes.’
Officer Whelan nodded. ‘I just need the names for the log.’
Bronski filled in the three names, while Annie opened the door. She entered the room first, followed by Angela Goodman’s ex-husband. He pulled a chair up next to the bed and a moment or two later, took her hand in his and kissed it gently. Annie thought she detected a flicker of movement from Angela Goodman. Bronski came into the room and stood solemnly beside Cullen, ready to intervene if anything was required.
Annie positioned herself on the other side of the bed, remembering her own shock the first time she’d seen Angela Goodman in the bed, with tubes, drips, and the ventilator. It had taken her a minute to process the whole scene and Angela Goodman didn’t look any better now. Annie couldn’t help wondering how Charlie coped with being there over the past several days. It seemed clear that Angela Goodman was not going to recover.
As Charlie passed the nurses’ station, one of the nurses stopped him.
‘Captain Hegarty, your sister has three people in with her.’
Charlie looked a bit surprised. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone.’
The nurse looked down at her sheet. ‘Two detectives, Bronski and Macpherson and a Dennis Cullen.’
‘Dennis?’ Charlie didn’t wait any longer and hurried down the corridor. As he approached his sister’s room, he noticed that the cop usually on duty outside the room was gone.
*****
Jackie Winters looked in the parking lot on her way into her office building and couldn’t spot Jim’s car. Climbing the stairs to the office, her mind ran through excuses in case anyone asked about him.
‘Good morning Jackie, Jim not with you?’ It was Helen, one of the section leads.
‘I thought he was already here. I had to stay at a sick friend’s last night.’
There was a bit of laughter from one of the girls who overheard the conversation. ‘Lover’s spat, was it?’ Jackie wasn’t about to countenance the remark with a reply and simply went to her cubicle.
Settled at her desk, Jackie wondered what to do to save face. But more importantly, where was Jim? Last night talking things through with Charlie, it was obvious she would have to leave Jim. She told Charlie that she was frightened of Jim and what he might do to her. She hadn’t said outright that it might have been Jim who assaulted Angela, but her uncertainty had been enough to throw suspicion his way. For once, she didn’t feel safe at work. He could come in any minute and make a scene. When would all of this be over?
*****
The nurse had ushered them out of the room while the doctors did their rounds. Charlie stayed behind to speak to the doctor. The two detectives and Dennis Cullen arranged to meet him in the canteen, which was surprisingly empty considering the number of staff who worked in the hospital and the daily number of visitors. Bronski went off to find a table out of earshot, just in case the place did start to fill up. Annie scanned the list of food being served, but didn’t have much of an appetite. Hospitals did that to her.
Cullen picked up a tray and passed in front of her, ordering the all day breakfast. Seeing his plate being piled up with food made the decision for her. She asked for a muffin for herself and a pastry for Bronski and two large coffees. She got another coffee for Charlie and a second pastry.
Back at the table, they let Dennis Cullen eat in silence. Just as he was finishing his last mouthful, Annie noticed Charlie coming through the door. She motioned him to join them.
49
He was surprised when the bell rang. At first he was going to ignore it, but then considered it might be the delivery he was expecting. It wasn’t, but he recognised the guy on the intercom camera. He hadn’t expected it to happen this way, although there had always been a scenario for an eventuality like this. It was important to remain calm, remain focused. The guy was no match for him.
‘What do you want?’
‘I think we both know that.’
‘You don’t know anything,’ he said out loud as he buzzed the intercom.
The rest was easy, and it was surprising what he could get people to do. The story was convincing enough to get them both into the guy’s house. None of the neighbours seemed to take any notice, and once inside the garage, they were invisible to the road. When he had completed the first part of the task, he retrieved his sports bag from the car. An hour later, he checked the car one final time, meticulous as ever. After all, he’d had years to perfect his plans and was also very good at improvising.
Back at his apartment, he went through his cleaning ritual before carefully typing out a second note, and sealing it in a special delivery envelope. Putting on his motorcycle helmet, there was one final task for the day. The receptionist didn’t question the delivery.
50
Annie never ceased to be amazed at people who could eat heartily when they were stressed. Her problem was the opposite. The sight of food at that time made her feel sick. She’d lost nearly twenty pounds when she called off her engagement to Paul. Watching Dennis Cullen putting down his knife and fork and taking the last swig of his coffee, she wondered if the rest of the interview would play havoc with his digestion.
‘I wasn’t prepared to see Angie like that, Charlie. I’m so sorry.’
Charlie nodded. ‘It’s been a shock for all of us.’
Cullen then focused his gaze on Annie and Bronski. ‘You two need to find the bastard who did this to her. God, I hope she pulls through.’
It was Charlie who responded to the last part, ‘She will, Dennis, she has to.’ The strain on his face was really starting to show. Annie noticed a difference even from the previous night. She’d been hoping that a night’s sleep might have helped him
and wanted to have a quiet word with him, ask him how he was doing, but now was not the time. Bronski was in charge and clearly wanting to finish this interview and get back to the station. George Goodman was still waiting there to be interviewed. By now the doctor should have cleared him as fit to be questioned.
‘So, Mr Cullen.’
‘Call me Dennis.’
‘Thank you, but Mr Cullen will do for now. Is there anything from Mrs Goodman’s past that might help us to look at the motive for this assault?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that a lot, all the way here from New York. Angie was always a mystery to me.’
‘What do you mean by that, Dennis?’ Charlie asked.
Bronski, unhappy about his questioning being interrupted, cut back in. ‘Captain Hegarty, if you would let me ask the questions.’
Charlie leaned back in his chair and didn’t reply. Annie looked at him, trying to ascertain his thoughts, but his face was blank.
‘Mr Cullen, you were talking about Mrs Goodman being a mystery.’
Cullen shifted in his chair now and pushed his plate to one side, placing his elbows on the table and folding his arms. It was a few seconds before he continued. ‘I think something happened before I met her. It must have been when she was in the army, at least that’s all I can work out. There was always a distance, like there were places she wouldn’t allow me into, if you know what I mean.’
Bronski nodded for him to continue.
‘She kept diaries. I’m sure they went back years. Each year she would get a new one. Always took herself off to a private space to write in them, but I knew what she was doing. I asked her a few times about them, about what she was writing. She told me not to worry, that they were personal to her, and that she needed to keep them. It was obvious it was something she didn’t want to share with me.’
‘I remember the diaries too.’ Charlie added. ‘She always told me that she wanted to be a writer and that it was a good discipline writing every day. She said she’d read that in a magazine. I never took much notice.’
‘That wasn’t the impression I got, Charlie. I always saw them as her secret world, her innermost thoughts, and I must admit I sometimes thought of them as a wall between us. It got so she resented me asking her about them, so I gave up, but it was just another thing that remained a problem between us.’
‘Where did she keep these diaries? Were they locked away? It sounds as if she never wanted anyone to see them.’ It was Annie’s turn to become part of the interview and somehow she felt the diaries might be significant.
Both men responded almost in unison. ‘The blue trunk.’
Then Charlie continued. ‘It’s up in her attic. I remember putting it up there for her when she moved into her house, just before she married George. It was too heavy for her. Do you think there may be something in those diaries that might help?’
‘Charlie, that email from Angela …’
‘What email is that?’ Bronski interrupted. He had a vague memory of Annie mentioning an email before.
Charlie took out his phone and scrolled through his emails, as he had the previous night when he was with Annie. ‘This was it, written two days before the assault, while I was still in Livingston fishing. Let me see. This is the relevant part.’ Charlie read the passage to them.
‘You know there are things you never knew about me, reasons why I get nervy, and stuff I’ve never told you. Maybe when you’re here we can have a good heart to heart. It just seemed such an age gap when you were younger, but now you’re a serving officer, fighting for our country. There are things you need to know about my past so you understand me better, little brother. But all that can wait until you have your dream vacation. I don’t mind taking a back seat to the Yellowstone.’
Annie was relieved that he hadn’t read out the part about Angela’s visit to the police station and their interview. That would probably have incited Cullen. Annie would have to remember to thank Charlie for that when they were on their own.
Charlie turned to his former brother-in-law. ‘The crucial part is the reference to there being things about her I never knew. She was going to tell me something, and my bet is that whatever it was, it’s probably in the diaries. If you’re right, maybe it was something from her time in the army. I’m trying to think of what those years would be.’
By the time the four people left the canteen, they knew which years to prioritise, although Annie suspected that diaries either side of those years might also be important. There was another task at the head of the schedule now though, the interview with George Goodman. Cullen gave them further contact numbers for him, before the two detectives made their way to the parking lot.
Before Charlie and Cullen left the hospital, the former brothers-in-law went back to Angela’s room. Charlie watched while Dennis Cullen gently touched his ex-wife’s arm and leaned over and kissed her cheek. Memories came flooding back, especially the times Dennis had taken him to Red Sox games, while Angela spent time with their mother. Charlie had been too young to really understand that his mother was suffering from depression. Looking at Angie now in the bed, with her ex-husband holding her hand, he realised again how much she’d sheltered him and how much she’d sacrificed her own marriage to ensure that his childhood was full of happier memories than his mother could give him. Now he asked himself, what could he do for her?
The text alert sounded on Charlie’s cellphone, just as the two men left the hospital. The decontamination cleaning team were waiting to be let in, and Charlie had to get back with the keys. He was also anxious to assess the work he needed to do in the house once they finished the clean up. Now he had a further task, to get into the attic and search for the trunk storing his sister’s memories. He was haunted by the thought that, soon, those diaries might be all he would have left of her.
The two men hugged before going their separate ways.
51
When the alarm went off, Connie pressed the snooze button. It was now over a week since she’d heard from Jason. As she reached across and touched the pillow on his side of the bed, she forced back the tears. ‘Jason, where are you?’ she kept repeating as she hugged the pillow to herself.
An hour later, as she walked into work, she stopped suddenly. It was a sensation – a feeling that he was there, behind her. Jason – it just felt like him. Turning quickly, she faced a complete stranger. Clearly startled by her sudden movement, the man stopped abruptly.
‘Sorry, I thought you were someone else.’
But the grey haired man just looked at her as if she’d lost her mind and moved swiftly past her into the next doorway.
‘I have to find out,’ she mumbled to herself as she entered her office building, oblivious to people saying good morning to her. Opening her handbag, she took out the small address book and looked up the telephone number of the police station and dialled it. This time she was determined not to take ‘No’ for an answer.
‘Detective Kelsey, it’s Connie Lombardi. You took a statement from me last week about my boyfriend, Jason Craven, when I reported him missing.’
The flat, uninterested voice said, ‘I remember.’
Flustered, Connie started to feel foolish, picturing the detective twiddling with his pen and probably rolling his eyes at the others in the squad room. But now she had to continue, for herself if nothing else. ‘I just wanted to let you know that I still haven’t been able to contact him and I’m frightened that something has happened to him. Only I was thinking, what if I could give you something with his DNA on it?’ She’d been working through this idea for a few days now. She couldn’t quite remember how DNA was gathered but was sure she’d seen something on TV about it. Wasn’t there something about a toothbrush, or the hairs from a comb?
‘Miss Lombardi, I can’t request a forensic examination of something for DNA traces whe
n no crime has been committed. You seem to forget that Mr Craven is a grown man, and so far, you haven’t given us anything to investigate. People go missing all the time for all sorts of reasons. Now, if there’s nothing else.’
As she hung the phone up, she noticed a couple of her colleagues were eavesdropping and she felt her face flush. Grabbing her handbag, she made her way to the restroom. As she closed the cubicle door, tears started welling up. Rubbing her eyes, she tried to force back them back. The last thing she needed in the small office was to have red eyes and a blotchy face.
52
‘Morning Detective Macpherson.’ The desk sergeant smiled, always pleased to see Annie arrive at the station.
Annie smiled back, but Bronski was more abrupt. ‘So how is Mr Goodman doing today? I’m presuming he’s received medical attention and that we are clear to interview him Sergeant?’
‘That’s right Detective. He’s even had a shower, specially for Detective Macpherson.’ The desk sergeant winked this time.
‘Great. Have him transferred to interview room one. We’ll be there when we’ve caught up with messages.’
Dave Ellison was at his desk as the two detectives walked in. ‘How did it go at the hospital; get a confession yet?’
Annie smiled, but Bronski ignored the question and busied himself reading the messages on his desk. Annie wandered over to the coffee machine and Ellison joined her. They were out of earshot of Annie’s supervisor.
Det Annie Macpherson 01 - Primed By The Past Page 19