Page 39 of Nine Lives

Jessica spelled out the name, and her mother promised to ask her father about him. She doubted it would lead to anything, but it couldn’t hurt.

After finishing the call with her mother, she punched in the number that Aaron had given her for Art Kruse in Florida. After several rings, a man’s voice, hoarse-sounding, said, “Hello?”

“Is this Art Kruse?” Jessica said.

“Depends on who’s calling.”

“Mr. Kruse, this is Agent Winslow calling from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m pretty sure that you’ve talked, already, with my colleague...”

“Yes, yesterday. He gave me a list of about a hundred people, none of whom I’d heard of, but wouldn’t tell me what it was all about. Something to do with my son’s death, I guess.”

“I’m very sorry about that, by the way, Mr. Kruse,” Jessica said.

“Oh, well. We weren’t close, but he was my son, I guess.”

“I’m not going to ask you a lot of questions, but I did want to follow up on just one of the names, and make sure that he’s not someone whom you know. Is that okay?”

“Sure. I doubt I can give you any more information today than I could give you yesterday, but go ahead anyway.”

“It’s Gary Winslow. He’d be about the same age as you are now. Take a moment and think about it.” She wondered if he’d remember that she introduced herself as Agent Winslow and make a connection, but somehow doubted it.

He cleared his throat. “I knew a couple of Garys in my lifetime, and it’s possible that one of them was named Winslow, but I’m not so sure.”

“How did you know this person?”

“Well, let me think a moment. It was a long time ago now, but I think there was a Gary who came to visit at the lake house in New Hampshire. I would’ve been in college then.”

“Whose lake house?”

“My parents bought a lake house up on Squam after I graduated from high school. It’s not there anymore, or it’s there but no one in the Kruse family owns it. I remember there was this kid, Gary, with long hippie hair and a beard. His parents were friends with my parents. And I think those parents were called Winslow. I’m not really sure about any of this, but it sort of rings a bell.”

“Do you remember anything else about Gary, other than the hair?”

There was a long pause, and Jessica wished very badly that she could see Art Kruse’s face at this particular moment. Even listening to him on the phone she felt certain he was holding something back. “Nope,” he finally said. “Bit of a druggie, I remember thinking.”

“What about Gary’s parents. What do you remember about them?”

“I’m not too sure I could pick them out of a lineup. They looked like my own parents, and they all played cards together. And I remember my mother complaining that they’d overstayed their welcome.”

“How long did they stay?”

“I have no idea. A couple of weeks, probably, and Gary stayed the whole summer.”

“Gary stayed the whole summer?”

“Yeah, he got a job up there at the gas station on the lake, and he stayed with us.”

“So you must have known him pretty well.”

“Like I said, not really.”

Jessica asked him a few more questions, hoping to shake something loose, but he either couldn’t remember much about her father or he wasn’t saying. Before ending the call, she told him again how sorry she was about his son.

“Right,” he said.

“I spoke with him, on the phone, less than a week ago. He seemed very nice.”

“Yeah, well, I guess he made his choices.” Jessica imagined she heard a little crack in his voice, some vestige of emotion, but maybe it was just the hoarseness of his voice. Like her own father, he’d probably been a heavy smoker.

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