Page 58 of Cougar Point

There was a long silence. Lucas held Anderson’s gaze, and he could feel Mac’s expectant gaze on him from across the table. He realized why they had made the time to catch up with him. It wasn’t just professional courtesy; they needed to hear from someone with a little distance from the department.

Eventually, Mac replied with his own question: “What do you think?”

The two Cincinnati cops exchanged glances. Lucas could tell they were reluctant to show their hand first. But after a minute, Anderson shrugged and jutted her thumb at her partner, “He does. I’m not so sure.”

Mac gulped the last of his tea and slammed the glass down on the coaster like a judge banging his gavel. “Innocent men don’t do the things Greenwood did.” He held up his index finger. “One, he reports his wife missing, then says she showed up fine. Which we now know was a lie.”

Middle finger next. Lucas was gratified he hadn’t led with that one.

“Two: he says later the kidnappers told him to say that. How do we know? There’s no note, no email, no goddamn carrier pigeon, nothing to tell us anyone else was involved but him. Just the finger, which he could have done himself.”

Mac raised his ring finger. “And three: right after we find the body and work out he had a sidepiece, he kills himself. It’s like an admission of guilt. He knew he was caught; he knew what he did.”

“We didn’t have anything concrete,” Anderson said, examining her own drink in the glass.

“Sometimes you don’t need anything concrete,” Mac said. “You know what you know. And I have probability on my side too. Nine times out of ten, when a woman dies violently, the husband or the boyfriend did it.”

Lucas held his gaze and, without even consciously thinking about it, said, “My wife died violently.”

It was as though someone had hit the mute button on their conversation. Anderson’s eyes widened. Mac’s jaw hung open like he had just taken an unexpected punch to the gut. Perhaps it was just Lucas’s imagination but he thought the chatter from other tables around them ceased immediately. Even the song playing on the speakers seemed to be quieter. Lucas felt the pulse thudding in his head.Why the hell had he said that out loud?But he held Mac’s gaze, unblinking.

“Oh my god, seriously?” Mac said after a minute. “Jesus, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

Lucas cleared his throat, a little worried that his voice would catch, but the words came out sounding normal, matter of fact.

“She killed herself. Put my Glock to her temple and pulled the trigger. Right after she killed our daughter.”

Anderson blinked. He saw her fingers tighten on her glass.

“Jesus,” Mac said again. “When did it happen?”

Lucas made a decision. He had said what he had said, and there was no taking it back. But if he wanted to make any sort of progress with this investigation and with these two cops, he would have to start rowing back toward normality. So he lied.

“It’s okay, it was a long time ago,” he said. “It stays with you but eventually you learn to live with it.”

Anderson nodded. She hadn’t said a word since Lucas had dropped his bombshell, but he was grimly amused that her ever-present look of mild contempt had vanished for the first time. Perhaps his unplanned opening up might even pay dividends.

Lucas shrugged, leaning into the part of the trauma survivor who’s made it through the worst. “And what helped me was the job. Helping other people. Finding the people who took the lives of others. I think it’s made me a better cop.”

“Right,” Mac said.

“Enough about the past,” Lucas said. “Talk me through the present. Why is Greenwood guilty?”

Mac looked grateful to be steered back to the conversation they were having before. He continued, though his voice still had a hint of the quiet, shellshocked tone with which he had pressed Lucas on his wife’s death.

“Okay, so he lied to us and he killed himself, like I said. But there’s more. We looked into his background. Turns out he was in a little bit of financial trouble. His wife had a two-million-dollar life insurance policy.”

“Not out of the ordinary, for a couple that rich,” Anderson said, speaking for the first time since the revelation. “Greenwood himself was insured for the same.”

“Still,” Mac said. “Being in deep financial shit is a motive. And that’s not the only one. There’s the girlfriend. Maybe the both of them cooked it up. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Doesn’t sit right with me,” Anderson said.

Lucas was interested. He thought Mac’s explanation was a little too neat himself. “Why not?”

“We interviewed both of them. They were both in shock about what happened to his wife. But neither of them acted guilty; not in that way anyway. I could believe one of them could put on a good enough act to fool me, but both of them?”

“So maybe the girlfriend didn’t know about it,” Mac said. “Doesn’t mean Greenwood didn’t kill his wife.”

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