Thread of Truth

by Jeff Shelby

  “You didn't talk to her again?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. I was almost certain I would and she scared me enough that I checked the locks on my home and put a baseball bat near my bed. But, no. I didn't hear anything from her again.”

  “And she was clear? She found an email?”

  She nodded. “Yep. Was the first thing out of her mouth. 'I read the email.' I don't know which one, but that was the first thing she said.”

  “And you never spoke to Desmond about her coming to see you?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “I'm pretty sure it was the same day he went missing, if I remember right.”

  I gave her the date.

  “Yeah, that was it,” she said, nodding. “It was the same day.”

  Christine could've been making up the story to try and confuse me, but I didn't think she was. She'd already admitted the affair to me and she knew what the consequences would be. She wasn't trying to redirect me. So I assumed she was telling me the truth.

  She got up from the desk. “I need to...do some things.”

  I stood as well. I needed to do some things, too.

  “I was serious about the attorney thing. I'm happy to give you a couple names.”

  “I'll be fine,” she said. “Well, not fine. But I'll handle it.”

  She didn’t look fine but I took her at her word.

  “Will you talk to Olivia?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Because if she was as mad at him as she was at me?” Christine Gonzowski shook her head. “She could've done anything.”

  THIRTY ONE

  I drove back to Coronado, thinking about everything Christine Gonzowski told me, trying to put it in some order that made sense. I was pretty certain she hadn't done anything to harm Desmond. She offered up too many things that would prove her innocent, at least from an alibi standpoint. But I just didn't see the anger in her that I would've expected to see if she'd been ready to kill him. It wasn't there. She was angry with herself, and maybe with me for forcing her to admit what she'd done, but it hadn't boiled over into some unmanageable rage.

  And what she'd told me about Olivia confronting her had me rethinking everything I thought I knew about what happened to Desmond.

  I got home, jumped in the shower, and did a little more stretching. My legs and back were still stiff from the day before and the morning stretching hadn't done enough to make me feel like I was walking normally. When I finished, I took far too long picking out clothes to wear to dinner. I settled on a pair of jeans and a plaid, short-sleeved button down that I hadn't worn in ages. It felt unfamiliar and awkward on me, but by the time I'd settled on it, it was time to walk down to Danny's and I couldn't change again.

  Sutton Swanson was waiting out front of Danny's. She held up a hand when she saw me walking toward her on the sidewalk.

  “You have to park far away?” she asked.

  “I walked,” I told her. “Easier than parking.”

  “Must be nice.”

  I smiled. “It is. I'm lucky.”

  We went inside and found a table by the front window. Danny's was a local bar and grill, with a mostly local clientele from both the neighborhoods and the air station on the corner of the island. It was a mix of fit-looking men sporting crew cuts and older people with excellent tans. I'd been eating and drinking there ever since Lauren and I moved onto the island.

  The waitress came and we each ordered a beer. She returned with them and said she'd give us a few minutes to look over the menu.

  “Do I need to look over the menu?” Swanson asked when she was out of earshot.

  “If you're a carnivore, burgers are good,” I told her. “Not sure I've had anything else.”

  “I put my bacon on my bacon.”

  “Then you'll be fine.”

  The server eventually returned and we each ordered cheeseburgers.

  “I was surprised you called,” she said, after the server left with the menus.

  “So was I.”

  She laughed. “That was a weird response.”

  I picked up my beer. “I suppose it was. Sorry. I just...it was sort of spur of the moment.”

  She nodded. “Fair enough. I just thought maybe I came at you a bit hard about the stuff with your daughter. I was so surprised that it was you. I'd read about you for years so it was strange to be standing there with you.” She smiled a little sheepishly. “Although I guess I’ve already told you that.”

  “I understand.”

  “But I don't want to bog you down with talking just about that,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I think I've reached a point where it's easier to talk about.”

  “I assume it hasn't always been that way.”

  I shook my head. “No. It's probably unhealthy how little I've talked about it. A couple of friends encouraged me to seek counseling, but I just knew that wasn't going to be my way. Slowly, but surely it's gotten a little bit easier to talk about. Not publicly. I knew I'd never do that.”

  “It's shocking how little information is out there directly from you,” she said. “Meaning, after you found her. There's almost nothing that's quoted from you. Most pieces that I found said you didn't participate in whatever the piece was.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I just didn't feel like we owed anything to anyone. And there was a lot of stuff that I was never going to put out there because it didn't belong there.” I thought about Anchor.

  “Sure,” she said. “That makes sense. I assume you know there are a lot of theories out there about your wife.”

  I nodded, but didn't say anything.

  “I assume you don't give a shit about them.”

  I smiled faintly and shook my head.

  She held up her beer. “Good for you.”

  I clinked my glass against hers. “So I have a question for you,” I said, hoping she didn’t mind the change of subject.

  She raised her eyebrow.

  “The Desmond Locker case,” I said. “Anything weird showing up?”

  She eyed me. “Did you just ask me to dinner to see what you could get on the case?”

  I shook my head. “No. I'm asking because I learned a few things after I asked you to dinner.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Now I'm intrigued,” she said. “Anything weird...” she said, repeating my words and then thinking for a minute. “Not that I'm aware of. Pretty routine hit and run, if you can call something like that routine.” She paused. “Is there something I should know?”

  “Can we do it off the record?” I said. “I'll explain why.”

  “I'm halfway through this beer,” she said. “Probably won't even remember we had the conversation.”

  I smiled and told her about Christine Gonzowski.

  Our food arrived just as I finished talking. Our server set the plates down. “Anything else right now?”

  “I'm gonna need another beer,” Swanson said.

  “Make it two,” I said.

  The server nodded and hurried off.

  “Well, that's some shit,” she murmured. “And that does make me think a little differently. You check any of her alibis?”

  “No,” I told her, pulling the napkin from my silverware. “Didn't have time and not my place right now. For what it's worth, I think she was telling me the truth about all of it. She might've left stuff out about her relationship with the kid, but for the most part, I think I got the truth.”

  She picked up her knife and cut her burger in half. The server returned with our second round and we both reached for our respective mugs.

  After downing a mouthful, I offered her the half empty bottle of ketchup for her fries.

  “Not ever,” she said, waving it away.

  “You don't like ketchup?”

  “No one should like ketchup. The devil's sauce.”

  “Wow.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me again. “Is that a make or break thing for you?”

  “It mig
ht be.”

  She picked up a fry and pointed it at me. “So are you telling me that you don't think the kid's accident was an anonymous hit and run?”

  “I haven't even told you everything I know yet,” I said. “Eat and then we'll talk.”

  We worked through our food. I'd thought it might be awkward to have dinner with her, but to that point, it had been fine. Comfortable, even. Granted, it wasn't much more than eating and some benign conversation, but, for me, that was something.

  She pushed her empty plate to the side. “Okay. Talk.”

  I laughed. “I hope you don't get sick from eating so fast.”

  “You can't leave me hanging like that.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, then told her what Christine had told me about Olivia confronting her at the school.

  Swanson leaned back in her chair. “That's pretty interesting.”

  “I thought so.”

  “But we're still making a jump.”

  I nodded. “Agreed. I'm not saying it's a definitive thing, but those were things I didn't know when I found him or when I was looking for him.”

  She thought for a moment. “Still feels like we'd be taking a leap to assume anyone purposely ran him down. I'd say the teacher was the one with the most motivation, but you said you think she's clear.”

  “I think she is,” I said. “But still, someone other than me should probably talk to her and verify what she said.”

  Swanson nodded. “I can go talk to Carr tomorrow and see if I can get anywhere with him.”

  “I mean, if someone was angry with him, there's no reason to just assume it was random, right?” I said, pushing my own plate away. The only thing left on it was a tiny smear of ketchup. “At the very least, you have to consider that angle.”

  “I'm not disagreeing with you,” she said. “It's just a matter of getting the wheels that are already in motion to turn a different direction.”

  “Would seem silly to not look at it.”

  “Again, not disagreeing with you,” she said. A thin smile crossed her lips. “I'm assuming this is how you found your daughter.”

  “What is?”

  “The doggedness,” she said. “The turning over every rock until you found the right one.”

  “I guess. But isn't that what every investigator should do?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, but you were a cop. You know it doesn't always work like that.” She picked up her beer. “And not everyone can keep up that pace for years at a time.”

  “Depends on the person.”

  “It does,” she said, nodding. “It does.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Enough about work stuff. Tell me about your name.”

  She smiled, and I really liked her smile.

  “Okay. It's not a family name, because that's what people usually guess.”

  “It's what my daughter guessed.”

  “You talked to your daughter about me?”

  That was the first awkward moment of our so-called date. “Yeah. It's...complicated.”

  She eyed me, but with more amusement than suspicion. “We'll come back to that. But it's not a family name. It's where my parents met. A small town in Massachusetts.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” she said. “They met there as teenagers and I was apparently conceived there, but I've asked them to not reveal those details to me because even I have my limits.”

  “Wow,” I said, chuckling. “They must really love their town. Is that where you're from?”

  She shook her head. “No. They moved before I was born. Phoenix first, then Los Angeles. I came down here to go to State for school and never left. Have you always been here?”

  I nodded. “Always. Wouldn't know how to live anywhere else. I lived out of hotel rooms for too many years, but this is the only place that really feels like home to me.”

  Our server dropped the check off and cleared our plates. Swanson reached for the check, but I snagged it before she got her hands on it.

  “You don't have to pay,” she said.

  “I called you.”

  “I sort of asked you to call me.”

  “Doesn't mean I had to,” I said, dropping bills on top of the check. “And I'm well aware that you'd really like to talk about my daughter and that's the reason you wanted me to call.”

  “It's not the only reason,” she said.

  I let the silence linger because I didn't know how to respond.

  We stood and walked outside. The evening air was cool and the breeze made the palm trees dance above us.

  “That was kind of a fast dinner,” Swanson said, as we stood on the sidewalk.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You wanna walk a little bit?” she asked. “Maybe down to that deck on the back of the hotel? I need coffee before I head home.”

  I hadn't been to the deck, not for a drink, since Lauren had been gone. It was a place we'd spent a lot of evenings, unwinding, watching the sun set over the water. I saw it nearly every day on my beach runs, but I hadn't been on the deck since she'd been killed.

  But I'd had a nice time with Swanson and I wasn't ready to go home, either.

  I nodded. “Sure, let's go.”

  THIRTY TWO

  I was up early the next morning and the morning fog turned my morning run into more of a jog, as it was so thick across the beach that I could only see a few feet in front of my face. The marine layer wrapped the entire coast in a wet, gray blanket, bringing the typical June gloom to San Diego a month early.

  I got back to the house, did several sets of pushups and squats, showered, and ate a plate of eggs before heading out.

  I'd been restless for most of the night, sleeping in fits and starts, unable to shut down my brain. Part of that had to do with my evening with Sutton Swanson.

  But I was also running through all of the things I'd learned from Christine Gonzowski. I wanted to talk to Olivia Cousins. I knew that her father had asked me to stay away, but the situation felt different now. I thought about calling, but decided that I didn't want to give her any advance warning that I was coming.

  She was sitting on the front stoop of her house when I pulled up, hunched over and scrolling through her phone. She eyed me as I parked and recognition flashed through her eyes when I stepped onto the sidewalk.

  I held up a hand in greeting. “Hi. How are you?”

  “I'm okay,” she said.

  “Where's the baby?”

  “My mom took him for a walk,” she said. “He was up a bunch of times last night so she's trying to get him to sleep for a little while.”

  “Long nights are hard,” I said.

  She nodded. She wore a pink long-sleeved T-shirt and denim shorts. Her toenails matched the color of her shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. There were gray circles under her eyes.

  “Do you know anything else about Desmond?” she asked.

  “I'm actually not sure if I do or not,” I told her. “That's why I'm here.”

  She picked up her phone and set it in her lap. “You don't know if you know anything?”

  “Do you mind if we go inside?” I asked. “Would that be okay?”

  She looked unsure for a moment, then stood. “Okay.”

  I followed her into the living room. She immediately sat down on the sofa, in the same spot she’d occupied the other times I’d stopped by. She tapped at the screen on her phone, then set it down on the arm of the sofa. She looked at me, but didn't say anything.

  I sat down on the opposite edge, facing her. “I spoke to Christine Gonzowski yesterday. At Seaside.”

  She glanced at her phone. “Oh.”

  “You know her, correct?”

  “Uh huh.”

  I waited for more, but didn't get anything else.

  “She told me a few things.”

  Olivia's bare foot tapped against the carpeting. “So?”

  “You learned that she and Desmond had a relationship, correct?”

 
Her foot tapped faster. “Yeah, but that was...that was a long time ago.”

  “But you found out about it, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  She bit the tip of her tongue.

  “I had to use Desmond's phone for something. I saw a text.”

  “And Desmond hadn't told you anything about that?” I asked. “About he and Gonzowski?”

  She shook her head.

  “What happened after you found the text?”

  She looked away from me. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Yeah, nothing,” she said, still not looking at me. “I mean, I talked to Desmond about it. But it was...fine. It was nothing.”

  “Did you go to school to confront her?” I asked.

  “I should probably call my dad,” she said. “He really didn't want me talking to you anymore.”

  “You can call him, but I'm going to ask the same question again,” I told her. “And so will the police when they come to talk to you.”

  “The police?” she said, finally looking at me again. “Why?”

  “I think they're going to want to talk to you about what was going on before all of this happened,” I explained.

  “I don't see why it matters. It was private. It's our business.”

  “Did you go to school to talk to her?”

  “She's a liar,” she said, frowning. “Did she tell you that? Because she's a total liar. Desmond told me she's a liar.”

  “Yes, she told me you came to school to confront her,” I said. “She told me where it happened, and she gave me some pretty specific examples of what you said. Are you telling me you didn't do that? That she's making it up?”

  She pushed her toe into the carpeting and studied it for a moment.

  “The police will be talking to her, too,” I said. “She's going to tell them what she told me. So if your story is different, I'd like to hear it.”

  She shook her head in disgust and looked away. “Such a bitch.”

  “Did you talk to her? Did you go and talk to her?”

  “Yes, I went and talked to her,” she snapped. “Fuck her. What she did was gross and awful, and I wanted her to know I knew and what I thought of her. Yes, I went and told her what a bitch she is.”

  “And this was at school?” I asked.