He gave her a look and said, “Shit, if I didn’t have that appointment, I’d do the same thing, but I need a sale. I need a win, Jess, and I don’t need being thought of as a suspect.”
“I know.”
He headed to the door and turned so quickly it surprised her.
“I need to ask you a question. Serious, question, straight up.”
“Go ahead, Ted.” She thought she knew what he was going to say, and she was right.
The voice was flat, deliberate. “Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “Why didn’t you ask me if I killed that boy?”
Tears came to her eyes and she stepped forward, and he hugged her, and she kissed his cheek and said, “Because I knew you couldn’t do such a thing. Honest.”
After she saw Ted drive off, Jessica got to the phone and made a quick call to Warner Savings. Luckily it was Amber who answered the phone.
“Amber, I feel awful this morning. I don’t know if it’s something I ate or what, but I’m staying home today.”
“Not a problem. I’ll tell Ellen when she comes in. Anything else?”
Jessica remembered leaving the branch yesterday. “Percy—is he at work today?”
Amber lowered her voice. “Yeah, can you believe that?”
“Did he say anything about what we . . . what you and I saw yesterday?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Amber said, “and he’s in a mood, so I’m not going to ask him.”
“Makes sense.”
Amber said, “But tell you what, if he lightens up later, maybe I’ll just mention that I left and saw him arguing with a cop out on the sidewalk. Maybe he’ll let me know, and then I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Amber, I appreciate that. I’m just curious, you know?”
“Sure,” the younger teller said. “But you don’t think he’s a murder suspect, do you?”
Jessica said, “Amber, I have no idea what to think nowadays,” and as she hung up the phone, that was the absolute truth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
After she got off the phone with Amber, Jessica waited a few minutes more—in case Ted came back because he had forgotten his briefcase or some file folder—and then she left the house, got into her Sentra, and started it up. The engine still sounded rough. Then she remembered that she had only a couple of days left before applying to Northern Essex Community College to take that management course.
Jessica backed out of the short driveway, thinking, Well, what’s the point now, with the scholarship disappearing at the bank? But no, she would get to it. One way or another, she would make it work.
Jessica would make everything work.
Twenty minutes later she was at the Warner Public Library, having taken a circuitous route. She didn’t want to pass Ellen Nickerson at the local Dunkin’ Donuts while she was supposed to be home sick.
There was parking at the back of the library, hidden from the street, and she sneaked in through the children’s room, which was in the basement of the old building, one of the hundreds of Victorian-style libraries that had been donated more than a century ago by Andrew Carnegie.
Up on the first floor she went past the main desk, smiling and waving at two of the women working there, and walked to the far end, where a bank of public computer terminals were available for use by Warner residents. She dropped her purse on the floor, slid out the keypad from a spot underneath the long desk, opened Google, and started to work.
“Hey,” came a voice, and she turned. It was Betsy Dummer, one of the assistant librarians and the mother of Patty Dummer, a track team member.
“Hey, Betsy, how goes it?” Jessica asked. Betsy was brunette, about her age, but she liked to dress to show off, wearing tight capri pants and sparkly sandals in the summer, tops that showed just maybe an inch more cleavage than was necessary, all in an attempt—or so Jessica thought—to try to shoot down any idea that she was a typical boring librarian.
“Not bad,” Betsy said. “Terrible thing about Sam Warner, huh?”
“The worst,” Jessica said.
“Paul says he hears the cops are making lots of progress, and I sure as hell hope so.”
Jessica blanked for a moment, then remembered that Betsy’s husband, Paul, was a captain at the Warner Fire Department.
“That’d be great,” Jessica. “I agree.”
Betsy nodded, and then said, “Oops, looks like there’s a line forming at checkout. See you at the field next Saturday, okay?”
Next Saturday. Track meet. Of course.
“You bet.”
Betsy said, “Good to see you again. Hope you get your computer problem at home fixed. I’d think with all the times you’ve come in here, Ted could get you both a new one.”
“You’d think,” Jessica said.
Jessica waited until Betsy got to the main desk, then went back to work. Thank God all she had up on the screen was the Google homepage.
She checked the time. Lots to do.
At the Exit 5 Truck Stop on Route 128 in Avon, Gary Talbot had a booth to himself. It was 10:20 A.M. Ten more minutes to go.
On the drive down here from Portland, the traffic had been a bitch at the Maine tolls in York, despite its being morning, and then he had got caught up in the madness that struck Route 128 in the morning and late afternoon. The highway was a semicircular route surrounding Boston and its immediate suburbs, and by the time he pulled into the crowded parking lot he was sure that about a third of the population of Massachusetts had been driving on Route 128. The speed limit of 55 miles per hour was observed by no one, and quick lane changes and cutoffs seemed to be the rule of the day.
He sipped at his cup of coffee. It was 10:26 A.M.
In the nearly two-hour drive from Portland, Gary had worked and reworked in his mind what he was going to say to Jessica Thornton when she arrived, and what he would tell her about her former sister-in-law, Grace Thornton, and the woman’s thoughts about her brother’s death. Gary was pretty sure that Jessica was coming in here with her own plan, her own agenda, and, no offense to the woman, he planned to blow her plan out of the water within ten minutes of her getting here.
Which was now.
Through the miracles of the internet, he had seen two photos of Jessica Thornton online, both of her with her daughter and others at some track meet in Warner. The woman coming through the main door looked just like her: plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, light makeup, dressed in an ankle-length tan coat with flapping belt, black slacks. She was a good-looking woman, but it looked like she took the opportunity to wear dull clothes that didn’t show off her body.
He stood up, held out his hand. “Mrs. Thornton, thanks so much for coming.”
“Sure,” she said, holding his hand just long enough to be polite, he guessed, and then she sat down.
“I bet your drive was better than mine,” he said, trying to ease into things. “I always forget just how dangerous Massachusetts drivers can be.”
“Some of us are proud of it,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was trying to make a joke. Her voice didn’t seem to be in a joking mode.
Gary said, “Just before I pulled in, I passed one of those twelve-theater movie complexes, and can you believe it? Three of those theaters are playing the same movie. The new Tom Hanks movie—have you seen it?”
Jessica nodded, picked up a menu, put it down. “Yes. My husband and I saw it this past Saturday. I fell asleep during a good chunk of it. Please, I don’t really want to be here, so can you get to the point? What the hell is Grace’s problem, and why did she hire you?”
“It’s about your husband’s death.”
“My first husband. Bobby.”
“She has questions about it.”
“What kind of questions? He died in a single-car accident, heading up I-95. Hit a deer, went off the road, hit a tree. State police found he had a blood alcohol content
exceeding the legal limit. What is she up to?”
“Well, she thinks there are a few outstanding questions.”
“Like what?”
A pudgy older waitress in a black uniform and with heavily tattooed forearms came over, and Gary said, “Please, a cup of coffee? Would you like some toast or a muffin, Jessica?”
And damn did Jessica give him a sharp look. “Coffee, that’s all.”
The waitress left and Jessica said, “All right, what kind of outstanding questions?”
“Before I get into that, I want you to know that I’ve done a fair amount of research into your husband, the accident, and you, Mrs. Thornton.”
She gave him a blank stare.
He went on. “That’s what I have to do, in my position, to make sure my client gets her money’s worth.”
Jessica remained silent. Her cup of coffee arrived. She tore two Equal packages and stirred the contents in, then pushed the cup aside as if she were waiting for it to cool.
“Mr. Talbot?”
“Yes?”
“Please excuse my language, but get to the fucking point.”
Gary had been expecting a lot of possible reactions from this woman but hadn’t anticipated this one, the one filled with hostility, with seemingly not a care in the world. Well, it was time to rock her world.
“I’ll get to the point,” he said. “But it’s going to take a few minutes.”
She glanced up at a wall clock over near the lunch counter. “Make it five, or I’m out of here.”
“Very well,” he said. “I know from my research that you and Mr. Thornton had a troubled relationship. The police were called to your home in Haverhill three times for domestic disturbances, and your husband even spent a night at the Haverhill Police Department before assault charges against him were reduced and eventually, as we say, ‘swept.’ He was also arrested twice on drunk-driving charges, and those violations were taken care of as well. The fact that your husband was prominent in the Haverhill community and that his car dealership gave substantial donations to the Haverhill Police Relief Association may have had a bearing on that.”
Jessica picked up her coffee cup, took a sip, put it back down. “Go on.”
“At one point,” Gary said, “from what your ex-sister-in-law stated, you two were headed for a divorce. But Bobby—er, Mr. Thornton—claimed he would do whatever it took to keep your marriage intact. He went to counseling, he started attending AA meetings on a regular basis, and his sponsor said that for more than eighteen months he had kept perfect attendance and never once had a drink.”
The woman made a point of looking again at the clock.
“Then came the night of his death. At first I thought Grace Thornton was . . . exaggerating what she had found. For all intents and purposes, it did seem to be an accident, although a sad one, involving drunk driving and your husband not being able to avoid that deer. But I did some more research, more digging, and found some discrepancies.”
There.
Jessica Thornton looked like the booth seat had suddenly become magnetic, holding her into place.
“What kind of discrepancies?” she asked.
“About his drinking,” he said. “I visited his old dealership and talked to six of his former employees, and every one of them said that Bobby Thornton had turned over a new leaf. He wanted to make amends, make your marriage work, and make sure that your daughter, Emily—”
“Emma,” Jessica corrected. “My girl’s name isn’t Emily.”
Gary nodded. “My apologies. Yes, Emma. He wanted to make sure that Emma was taken care of. He told his employees months earlier that he had removed every trace of alcohol from his residence. At lunch he no longer had a beer or two while eating with his fellow salesmen. He really had stopped drinking.”
Jessica said, “So he had.”
From an inside coat pocket, Gary took a folded sheet of paper, which he unfolded on the table.
“From my interviews with his employees and the accident report from the Maine State Police, I’ve come up with this timeline. On the date of the accident, he was traveling to Kennebunkport to a retirement party for a car dealership owner who had once worked with your husband. Do you remember?”
Jessica calmly took another sip of her coffee. “I remember everything about that night.”
Gary said, “I’m sure you do. Well, the evening event in Maine was to begin at six thirty. He left work that day at four twenty and went straight home.”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that,” she said.
“I am, Mrs. Thornton. Three witnesses separately told me he left the dealership at four twenty. One of your former neighbors, a Thomas Laney, said he was trimming shrubbery next door when he saw your husband drive in. It was at four forty P.M.”
She waited. Didn’t say anything.
Gary said, “Don’t you want to know how certain I am about the time?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” she said.
That damn face was still blank and calm. An irrational anger started building inside him. He wanted to shake her up, make her stutter, tear up, anything to wipe away that calm suburban-mom exterior.
“Your former neighbor was using an electric hedge trimmer in front of his house when the power cord got stuck,” Gary said, remembering his visit with the man, who was at least thirty years older than he. “This happened at about the time your husband came in, driving a dark-blue Mercury Grand Marquis with dealer plates. About ten minutes after your husband drove into your driveway, Mr. Laney made a mistake while untangling the power cord and cut three of his fingers.”
Gary recalled how the old man recalled every detail of that day, and even made a point of showing him the white scar tissue on the three stumps on his right hand.
“Do you remember that?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
Somewhere out in the kitchen area several plates crashed to the floor. The loud noise startled Gary, but apparently did nothing to the woman across from him.
“Well, you can understand that Mr. Laney remembers every detail. He remembers going back into the house, wrapping his hand in a dishtowel, and then dialing 911. And when the Haverhill Fire Department was leaving the scene with him in the rear of an ambulance, they nearly collided with Mr. Thornton as he was leaving the house. I checked with the fire department’s records. It took some time, as you can imagine, and they verified that they left Mr. Laney’s residence at five twenty.”
Jessica seemed to make a point of looking up at the clock one more time, and Gary felt a sadistic pleasure in driving home the next point. This was one of the few pleasures of his job, confronting a reluctant or obstinate witness or interviewee with a hammer-hard recitation of facts that couldn’t be challenged or disproved.
“Mrs. Thornton,” he went on, feeling so cool and collected with having the evidence to back him up, as if some angel from his Catholic Youth Organization days were standing behind him, complete with sword. “Your husband left your residence at five twenty P.M. The car accident in York that killed him took place at six P.M. As part of my investigation, I’ve traveled that route twice. Each time, it took exactly forty minutes.”
He paused, letting her stew, but she didn’t waste any time. “Meaning what?” she asked.
“Meaning that your husband was sober when he left the car dealership, and he came straight home. When he left your Haverhill residence and drove north to Maine, it took him exactly forty minutes—the time I have double-checked—to have a fatal car accident in York. The autopsy later showed that your deceased husband had a blood alcohol content level of zero point zero nine percent. The legal limit is zero point zero eight. Yet Mr. Thornton had no opportunity to consume any alcohol at the dealership, on his ride home to Haverhill, or on the trip north for that retirement party.”
One more pause for effect.
“Mrs. Thornton, I just have to point this out,” Gary said, carefully and deliberately choosing his words. “The only time and place t
hat your husband could have consumed alcohol was at your home before he departed. And based on his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, his vows to his coworkers and family members that he would never, ever drink again, there seems to be just one explanation for what happened that evening.” Gary picked up his coffee cup. “Mrs. Thornton, somehow you got your husband drunk that night, and you’re responsible—as Grace Thornton believes—for his death.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jessica was quietly listening to the plain-looking man with the thin brown hair and the plain-looking suit sitting across from her at the truck stop, and when he started going on and on, like some high school lecturer intent on making a point, she knew where the story would end up.
No real surprise, she thought. Old secrets and old actions never really went away, and they always remained just out of reach, out of time, until they roared back and stood in front of you, demanding attention, ready to disrupt everything.
She gathered her strength, her thoughts. “That’s one hell of an accusation.”
He smiled at her, the self-confident and pleased smile of a man who thinks he knows it all, and who’s also sure that he has this particular woman trapped. Like men everywhere.
“That’s what the evidence points to,” he said.
“Perhaps he had a bottle in his car,” she said, wanting to draw this out. “Maybe that’s how he got drunk.”
“You know that no evidence of any alcoholic beverages was found in his car.”
“Then maybe he tossed the bottle out before the accident,” she said. “Mr. Talbot, it’s clear he was drunk that night, isn’t it? What’s the confusion here?”
Talbot raised an eyebrow. “After his AA meetings? After telling coworkers and friends that he would never slip? That he would never, ever do anything to threaten his marriage with you? That seems . . . improbable.”
“It happens all the time,” she said. “You’ve never heard of alcoholics falling off the wagon? Getting drunk because of one moment of weakness, one slip-up? I’m sure that’s what happened.”
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