Page 55 of The Note

She scrolled back up to a batch of redacted photographs from the crime scene that theGlobehad obtained pursuant to a public records request. The driver’s-side door was wide open, but most of the window’s shattered glass was inside the car. The consensus was that the shooter had fired through the window while the door was still closed and then grabbed the money Luke had been taking to the bank.

The glove box was open. Most of the amateur sleuths on the board agreed that the killer had been in a rush to make off with the deposit envelope that must have been stashed inside. But May found herself agreeing with the commenters who thought the cash had been stored somewhere else. When she was the only person in the car, she always threw her stuff on the passenger seat. The glove box also looked like it was already crammed full of papers.

At least when May had worked service jobs in high school and college, the bank envelopes that managers left with after closing had been floppyvinyl bags. She wasn’t convinced one would fit in Luke’s glove box. Even if Luke had wanted to conceal the money for some reason, it would be easier to simply stick it under the car seat. Glove boxes were for longer-term storage, things like service receipts, owner’s manuals, and proof of registration and insurance.

She pictured Luke, alone in the car, pulled over to the side of the road. A bullet through the window into his left temple. Had he even seen the killer? Why had he stopped there? Was he still alive as his shooter rifled through the car for the cash?

She replayed the scene in her head again, this time rewinding even further to imagine Luke slowing his car and pulling over. Looking in the rearview mirror. Seeing someone approach. Someone who would have first stepped from their own vehicle. She imagined Luke reaching for the glove box. In the scene playing out in her mind, he was the one who opened it, not the killer. He needed something.

His insurance and registration. Then the gunshot.

She recalled the sound of Detective Decker’s voice imploring her to stop thinking only about herself and her friends.I just had to ask David Smith’s mother to identify him from a tattoo on his ankle because the gunshots to his face made him unrecognizable. We only knew it was him because the killer left his driver’s license on his lap.

It was so clear now. She knew exactly what had happened, first to Luke, then to David Smith.

When she stepped from the office, Josh was on the sofa with his laptop, Gomez at his side.

“Another refill?” he asked, starting to get up.

She shook her head and picked up her cell phone from the coffee table.

“I’m calling that cop.”

“I’m so relieved. It’s the right decision.”

“Kelsey did it, and I think I know why.”

33

Today was the fourth time Carter Decker had to tell someone they’d never see a person they loved again. For all the complaints he’d heard from other cops about the job’s burdens, he’d carry them all at maximum weight if he never had to be the one to shatter a person’s world like that again. It would have been easier to keep Tinsley Smith in the dark when he first heard about the body found inside the car on Old Stone Highway. But after meeting her in person, he could no longer think of her as the rich lady used to getting her way with peons like him. She was a mother who loved her son. He didn’t want to leave her clingingon to a nonexistent glimmer of hope any longer than necessary.

We do have new information about your son. We located him, and I’m very sorry—

No, please—

It’s not the news I had hoped to be giving you.

Her sobs had filled the living room of the friend’s home where she was staying. Carter stood and placed one hand on her back, patting gently in a steady rhythm to help slow her breath. His father had done the same thing for him after their beagle Joey had gotten out of the yard and was struck by a speeding car right in front of Carter, and twenty years later, Carter had found himself offering the same attempt at comfort the first time he had to notify a homicide victim’s family.

He was my only son. The last remaining piece of my husband.

Carter had promised to do everything he could to find her son’s killer.

The medical examiner was at work on David Smith’s autopsy. The cause of death was obvious, two bullets fired through the open driver’s-side window, directly at his face. Carter was eager for the toxicology results, but thanks to the fentanyl crisis he could be waiting for up to two months. He still had not written off the possibility that it was a drug deal gone bad.

David’s friend Simon said that a younger David had gone on a binge during a rough period aftercollege. Carter now knew that the rough time was over Marnie Mann’s death. It was possible that Christine’s calling things off, plus the end of the relationship Carter suspected David was having with Kelsey Ellis, had been enough to send him searching for drugs to dull the pain.

If nothing else, Carter could look himself in the mirror, knowing that he had made the right calls from the case’s outset. And one of his calls now was to circle back to Gurney’s. He had already overseen a thorough search of Smith’s hotel room after he was assigned to the case, but he now knew that the staff had failed to notice the absence of the black clay bird that Christine had admitted to throwing once she confirmed he had been seeing other women. He wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anything else before having a crime scene team do a thorough search for forensic evidence.

As he was pulling back the yellow crime scene tape from the hotel door, a woman stepped into the hallway from the next room. She did a double take.

“Are you with the police?” she asked. Her long gray hair was piled on top of her head in a bun. Her beach dress reminded him of Mrs. Roper from theThree’s Companyrepeats his mother used to watch while she cooked dinner.

He produced his badge from his back pocket.

“That yellow tape is all anyone’s been talkingabout—even more than the supposed influencer taking pictures of her butt all day by the pool. The management assured us there’s no risk to any of us, but it’s still so disconcerting.”

“I can second the assurances. Nothing to worry about, ma’am.”

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