“He’s gonna let us do a voluntary search. He’s agreed to sign a consent form. CYA,” he added with a grin.
“CYA,” she repeated. Cover Your Ass: the cardinal rule of cops and corporate execs.
Jo felt a rush as they left, anxious to go through Jenny’s effects. Maybe they’d find something, anything, to help explain what—or who—had driven Jenny to her death.
I’m still shaking after what just happened. I nearly called Patrick to tell him, but I was afraid that he wouldn’t believe me.
The phone rang just after I’d gotten home from the library. It was the landline, which rings rarely. We don’t even have caller ID. Patrick says it isn’t worth it. He’s always using his cell, and no one much calls besides telemarketers.
“Hello?” I said, expecting it to be someone conducting a survey or a charity that had a truck in the area next week. I tried again. “Talk, or I’ll hang up.”
I heard a soft breath, a hesitation.
“Mommy, are you there?”
My knees turned to gravy, and I sank down to the carpet. “Baby?” I said, even though I knew it wasn’t possible. “I miss you so much.”
“Mommy,” said the voice once more, sounding so distant.
I lowered the receiver, cradling it in my arms like it was a child; then I closed my eyes and cried and cried.
At my core, I knew it was someone playing a very cruel trick—but I wanted so badly for the voice to be Finn’s that, for a second, I almost believed it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Good morning, sir,” Hank said as Patrick Dielman opened the door. “We appreciate your cooperating with our investigation, and we apologize for the intrusion. We understand what a difficult time this is.”
Her partner sounded so sincere that Jo didn’t even say, “Howdy.” She kept her mouth shut.
Patrick Dielman let them in.
It was barely nine o’clock.
Dielman’s eyes were bloodshot but dry. His skin looked paler than milk, but his cheeks were clean-shaven, and he’d changed into a clean shirt. Jo wondered if they’d interrupted him dressing. He still hadn’t put on socks or shoes.
He seemed subdued, and neither Jo nor Hank attempted to chitchat. He didn’t offer them anything to drink this time and made no apologies for the breakfast dishes and newspaper that littered the coffee table.
“How’re you holding up?” Jo ventured to ask as Dielman led them up the hallway. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Dr. Patil gave me something,” he said over his shoulder. “It put me out pretty good. Lisa told me I didn’t even move until the sun came up.”
“Lisa Barton?” she repeated for clarity’s sake as Dielman took them past a closed door to a room at the end of the hall.
He paused at the threshold and turned, meeting Jo’s gaze. “She slept on the couch.” He didn’t explain further. He just looked sad as hell. “Lisa’s strong. I can lean on her, and I need that. I’m sorry if that doesn’t sound right.” He had his hands on the doorjamb, blocking their way. “She said you wanted to talk to her more about Jenny?”
“Yes,” Jo confirmed. “I’m hoping we can go over there today, once we’re done here.”
“I’ll give her a call, and tell her to stay put. She’s taking off work.” He shifted on his bare feet. “She wants to help with the funeral arrangements.” He moved a hand from the jamb to touch his trembling chin. “I need someone to help. I can’t imagine doing it alone. I thought I could handle anything life threw at me, but I was wrong.”
“I get it,” Jo said for lack of anything better.
Dielman turned and led them through the door.
“This is our room,” he told them, though Jo could have guessed that from the king-size bed alone. The walls were neutral like the rest of the house, but a shade darker than beige. Everything was in its place. There were no clothes hanging from chairs or doorknobs. The dresser was as neat as a pin with only a smattering of perfume and cologne bottles, a silver-backed brush and comb, a crystal dish holding coins, and a smartphone.
“I looked around for a suicide note,” Dielman said. “I even checked in her special room.”
Jo raised an eyebrow.
Special room? Was that like a secret garden?
“I’ll take you there next. I couldn’t find anything besides her date book. All that was penciled in for this week were her blood tests at Dr. Patil’s office and a vet exam for Ernie.”
Jo had a hard time believing a woman with suicidal thoughts would schedule a doctor’s visit and a trip to the vet. That—on top of the Warehouse Club purchases—cast doubt in her mind that Jenny Dielman had planned her own death.
“Did Jenny have a computer?”
“No,” Dielman said. “My work laptop was always off-limits to her. I offered many times to buy her one, but she didn’t want one. She wasn’t very tech savvy. She said that if she needed to get online, she could use the public-access computers at the library.”
No wonder Dr. Patil had given Jenny an old-school composition book to journal in. “Did you ever see a notebook,” she asked, “one Jenny might have used as a journal?”
Dielman shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”
Jo felt like she was striking out all over the place.
“Have you seen your wife’s black coat?” she asked.
He looked puzzled. “But she must have been wearing it . . .”
“She wasn’t wearing it when she was found, and it wasn’t in her car or anywhere near the quarry.”
“I don’t know where it is.” Dielman ran a hand through his hair. “It isn’t here. I told you it was gone, Detective, when I saw you on Tuesday morning and reported her missing.”
“What about the locket?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“We didn’t find that either.”
Dielman’s brow furrowed. “But how’s that possible? She never took it off.”
Jo glanced at Hank.
“Are you sure she didn’t put it in a jewelry box,” her partner asked, “or take it somewhere to be repaired?”
“No,” Dielman insisted. “She always wears the locket. I’m sure she had it on Monday morning when I left for work.” He reached for a porcelain box on the dresser and dumped out the contents, frantically looking through them. “It’s not here. If it was being fixed, she would have mentioned it. You don’t understand. The necklace was too important.”
“I’m sure it’ll turn up,” Hank said, putting a hand on Dielman’s shoulder to calm him down.
Jo pointed at the cell phone. “Is that yours, sir?”
“What? Yes, it’s mine.” Dielman acted like he’d forgotten its existence. He snatched it up and slipped it into his back pocket. “It’s part of my job to stay in close touch with the office and the physicians.”
Jo cocked her head. “But you keep a landline, too?”
“Yes, mostly for Jenny’s sake. She despised cell phones. She complained about people using phones while driving, and she hated hearing phones ring in restaurants or the library. Sudden noises made her jumpy.” He frowned. “Don’t tell me you couldn’t find her phone.”
“No, sir, we’ve got it,” Hank replied. “It was in her car. The techs will go through it, and we’ll run down recent numbers.”
Dielman nodded.
Jo wasn’t done with the questions. “When you reported Jenny missing, you mentioned her antidepressant medication. You said she didn’t take it with her. Is it here?”
“Yes, of course.” He paused at the bedside table and reached for a brown bottle. “It’s her Zoloft. She recently had it filled, so there are twenty-eight pills. Just two missing that she’d taken already. I counted.” He shook it. “Don’t you see? She would have taken the bottle if she meant to leave. She wasn’t running away,” he insisted. “And she didn’t kill herself.”
“You’re very thorough,” Jo said and glanced at her partner.
“If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Di
elman”—Hank walked the guy toward the door—“we’d like to get started.”
Dielman turned. “You said that I needed to sign something?”
“Oh, yeah.” Hank grumbled to himself, digging out the consent form from his inside coat pocket. “It’s just a formality so there aren’t questions about us poking around.”
Dielman took the pen Hank offered and made quick business of his signature.
“Whatever it takes,” he said, stony-faced. “You need anything from me, you just ask.”
“Will do.” Hank put away the papers, and Dielman left them alone.
Jo pulled a pair of disposable gloves from her coat pocket and snapped them on. Hank did likewise.
She approached the dresser, sliding open drawers to find socks arranged in rows by color and underwear folded. She ran her hands beneath everything, checking for anything hidden, while Hank worked on the bureau across the room.
Jo peered under the bed, expecting to find discarded shoes, but she didn’t spy even a single dust bunny. The place was pristine. Either Patrick Dielman had OCD, or he’d done a fine job of covering any tracks.
The closet was no more revealing. Clothes hung carefully on the racks, arranged according to color. Shoes were displayed on wooden shelving beneath.
Jo slipped her hands into pocket after pocket but unearthed little of value: old laundry tags, a few pennies, and a stub from a two-year-old movie ticket. She went through shoe boxes and purses but turned up zilch. She took her time scrutinizing Dielman’s footwear, turning each shoe over to check the treads for any sign of the yellow mud from the quarry. But everything looked clean.
Heading into the master bath, she homed in on the wicker hamper. It was half-full, and she carefully removed each rumpled piece of clothing for inspection. She didn’t find so much as a spot of blood or a smudge of yellow mud on anything.
Likewise, the wastebasket held nothing more exciting than discarded tissues and cotton swabs, used strands of dental floss, and a soap wrapper.
She tackled the medicine cabinet, but uncovered nothing beyond the usual array of cold medicines, tweezers, Band-Aids, aspirin, and foot powders. There were no contraceptive pills, which made sense if Jenny couldn’t have children. But there was a bottle of prescription sleeping pills.
Jo removed the bottle, unscrewed the cap and checked the contents.
There couldn’t have been more than a few pills missing.
The label bore Jennifer Dielman’s name, not her husband’s. So it wasn’t the sleeping aid that Dr. Patil had prescribed for Patrick. Jo stared at the bottle, thinking that if Jenny was hell-bent on suicide, she could have swallowed the whole damned lot and died at home atop her neatly made bed.
Why drive out to the quarry to do the deed?
Hank came up behind her. “Got something?”
She showed him the bottle, and he took it, squinting at the label. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?” she said.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Why do it the hard way when you can go easy?”
Jo nodded, drawing in a deep breath. She detected it then, hadn’t realized what it was before: a floral scent, soft and sweet.
Squatting down, she opened the under-sink cabinet and saw a plethora of lotions and gels from Crabtree & Evelyn, all lily of the valley. She touched a gloved finger to the top of the talc, drew it back, and rubbed the powder into the latex. So maybe Jenny wasn’t completely plain vanilla after all.
“Are you done?” Hank said from behind her, and she got up.
Patrick Dielman was standing in the doorway to the bedroom when they emerged from the bathroom. “Any luck?” he asked.
“Could we see Jenny’s special room?” Jo said. They had yet to find Jenny’s journal. It had to be somewhere.
“Follow me. It’s just up the hall.”
He led them to the closed door they’d passed earlier. He paused before he pushed it wide and switched the light on. “This was her sanctuary.” He gestured at shelves of books above a built-in desk, at the rainbow-colored finger paintings on the walls. “It was the one spot in the world where she could be with him.”
“Him?” Jo repeated.
“She’d put on music and thumb through those,” Dielman replied and gestured toward the leather albums lying on a wicker table. “They’re full of Finn’s photos. She would stare at them for hours, like she was—” He stopped himself. “I don’t know, looking for something.”
“The anniversary of his death,” Jo suggested. “It’s next week, right?”
Dielman nodded. “You’ll tell me if you remove anything?”
“Yes, sir,” Hank assured him.
“Excuse me, will you? I have some calls to make. I’ve been trying to reach Jenny’s sister. I keep getting her voice mail. Could be she’s avoiding me.” He glanced around the room before he shuffled out, though Jo noticed he didn’t close the door.
“Let’s get started,” Hank said.
Jo sighed.
For a moment, she simply stood in the center of the room, taking it all in. Unlike the blandness of the rest of the house, the walls were a rich yellow, the color of butter. Bursts of sunlight filled the windows, further brightening the space. The mismatched pillows in primary colors and the purple futon reminded Jo of a box of crayons. No wonder Jenny had escaped here.
“I’ll check for the date book,” Hank said and headed toward the desk. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and find the journal, too.”
“Maybe,” Jo said, but if the journal were in an obvious spot, wouldn’t Dielman have already found it? Unless he had and he wasn’t telling them, which Jo figured was all kinds of bad news.
She nosed around the futon, checking beneath the mattress. She didn’t see anything but tufts of black cat fur, although there was a spot on the carpet nearby that had the imprint of a rectangular object. More fuzz framed whatever had been there. Was it some kind of box for Ernie? Jo figured it would have kept him close enough that Jenny could have touched him with her fingertips. But whatever it was, it was gone.
She picked up one of the photo albums from the table and sat down with it. The cover made a sucking sound as she pried it open. Inside the sleeves were countless pictures of a child she knew was Finn.
The first was a blurry shot of the baby cradled in Jenny’s arms, the child’s head ringed with dark hair, eyes squeezed shut, and tiny fists tucked under his chin.
As she flipped through the pages, she realized that every stage of the boy’s life had been carefully chronicled. She followed his growth from infant to towheaded toddler to boyhood. There was Finn learning to crawl and then to walk, blowing out candles on various birthday cakes, opening Christmas gifts, on the swings at a park, goofing off at the swimming pool, and clutching an Elmo backpack. More than a few later shots showed him climbing a ladder nailed against a tree trunk that led up to a tree house with guardrails and a handmade sign that read: FORT FINNEGAN.
The kid had led a charmed life, or so it would seem.
Jenny appeared in a few photos, her eyes always on Finn, often with one hand touching his hair or shoulder.
Jo found no shots of the boy with his father, though a handful appeared to have sections cropped off. Not a bad way to get rid of an ex, short of tossing the photos altogether, which was what Jo’s mother had done after Daddy had left them. Jo had nothing but blurry recollections of the man who’d helped create her. Mama had professed she’d wanted no reminders of him and had followed through, wiping out any evidence of his existence: his clothes, his music, his tools, even his smell. All had vanished before Jo could firmly stamp his image in her brain.
Had Jenny wanted to cut Kevin out of her memories, too? Did she resent him so much? Was she afraid of him, or just angry? Dr. Patil had said Jenny hadn’t been home when Finn had his fatal accident. If Jenny had blamed Kevin Harrison, could that bitterness between them have led him to a deadly confrontation three years later?
Jo had seen hate destroy a lot of lives, so she couldn’t discount its po
wer as a motivator. People had killed for far less.
Hank was pulling out books one by one from the shelves above the desk, opening the pages and shaking them.
Jo left the photo albums on the futon and went toward the room’s only closet. She pushed the folding door to one side and tugged a dangling cord to shed light on the small walk-in. For a long moment, she stared in and said nothing.
The space was crammed with stuff. The clothes racks were jammed so tightly, Jo couldn’t fit a hand between the hangers. Labeled boxes sat in tight rows below. Stuffed animals lined the shelves above, sitting side by side, all staring at her with their blank button eyes.
Dear God.
She tugged out the first piece of clothing—an extravagant christening gown—before she tucked it back in beside baby onesies with snaps. Farther along were toddler-size shirts and pants, little OshKosh overalls, even a lone snowsuit, everything in perfect condition, pressed and preserved, draped over padded hangers.
Jo reached for a hanger at the tail end of the rack. It held a pint-size Dallas Stars jersey stashed between colorful T-shirts and jeans that were all sized for a six-year-old. That was as big as Finn had gotten.
She felt a tweak in her chest, knowing the boy had never had a chance to grow up.
Kneeling on the carpet, she looked at the boxes beneath the clothes. She drew one toward her marked Baby Shoes.
She set aside the lid and reached in to find a cocoon of white tissue. She peeled it apart to reveal a pair of tiny saddle shoes, small enough to hold each in a palm.
Jo exhaled a soft, “Whoa.”
Dr. Patil, Patrick Dielman, and Lisa Barton had not lied about one thing: Jenny had never gotten past losing Finn, not by a long shot.
Jo rewrapped the shoes, put them back in the box, and tucked it away. She rose to her feet and glanced up at the stuffed toys that watched her from the closet shelves.
She reached for a teddy bear, its fur pilled from many handlings. The button nose was missing, bits of thread in its place. She drew it to her face, closed her eyes and breathed in. She imagined she would smell a little boy’s scent, something soft like baby powder.
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