Page 102 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

Cote’s lips quirked at the corner. “Assuming his roommate can be believed, he wasn’t present when the bomb went off.”

Which wasn’t exactly the same thing. “Do you not believe the roommate?”

Cote shrugged. “Sometimes people lie. Not saying he did, but…” He walked a few steps before continuing. “Brent Salcito, who was, by all accounts, your mother’s…” His words faded, and he glanced her way. “Your mother was, uh…”

“Brent believed they were in love,” Aspen said. “Deborah said they weren’t even dating.”

Cote seemed relieved that Aspen already knew that. “I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. Brent was in love with your mother. How your mother felt about him—that I don’t know. But, based on all the information we got, they were together. Dating.” He seemed to cringe at the word. “Sorry. I’m sure that’s?—”

“Finding out my mother wasn’t faithful to my father ranks lower on the worst-news-ever scale than finding out she was a killer.” Aspen tried to keep her tone light even if the words twisted in her heart. “Keep going.”

“Brent was with his father in Boston. Or so they claim.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“The Salcitos had an apartment in the city, and they say they drove down Thursday afternoon. Nobody saw them in the city that night, so we only have Brent’s word and his father’s. They did have an appointment at Boston College the next day, though, which they’d made weeks before. Brent transferred to BC the next semester. Martin, Brent’s father, claimed he and Brent planned the father-son weekend because his wife and daughters were at some cheerleading competition in Massachusetts.”

“Do you believe them?”

He shrugged. “Good police work is ninety percent guessing.” He smiled to show he was kidding. “Martin Salcito’s a good man who loves his kids. He’d never been in any scrapes with the law,and neither had Brent. We had no good reason not to believe him.”

“But you don’t,” she guessed.

“We couldn’t prove they were lying. We couldn’t put Brent with your mother at the lumber company or anywhere else in Coventry or in Plymouth the night of the bombing. And, honestly, nobody thought the kid was a killer.”

“Maybe everybody was wrong about him.”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“My motherwasa killer?”

“Your mother was mentally ill and, by all accounts, not thinking straight. I’d like to believe that, if she’d been thinking straight, she would have seen the car in the parking lot that night and decided not to detonate that bomb.”

They reached the end of the alley, and he turned right. They passed an attorney’s office and an insurance agency. Beyond those was the coffee shop she’d been to twice already. It must be a local favorite.

“Somebody died,” Aspen said. “I know you think Mom did it, but you also think somebody else was involved. It seems to me it might’ve been worth the effort to dig a little deeper into their alibis. Maybe put a little more pressure on them.”

“You’re not wrong. The lead detective was a local. He knew all the families. He was happy to be able to strike those kids off the list of suspects.”

“Even if they were guilty?”

Cote didn’t respond to that.

“If you’d been in charge…?”

“I might have done things differently, but I wasn’t in charge. Truth is, they were good kids. They were A-students. Smart and hard-working. They’d never gotten into any trouble. They obeyed their fathers and kissed their mothers and went to church. They weren’t bad kids.”

“But my mom was, I guess. Her family was new to town, so that detective didn’t have any problem pinning the whole thing on her.”

“Your mother wasn’t in her right mind, Aspen. Witnesses saw her car—she drove a red hatchback—turning off the road that led to the lumber company. They saw a woman driving. Her car was found abandoned up on Rattlesnake Road.”

“Rattlesnake? My road?”

How had she not known that?

“Ayuh. At the top, though, a mile or so past your place. There’re houses up there now, but back then they were just starting to clear the land. Your mother’s involvement was never in question.” Cote continued in a gentle tone. “Your mother needed to be hospitalized. Your father was right about that. Unfortunately, until she did something to harm herself or others, nobody could force it.”

They entered the coffee shop. Cote ordered a drink and offered to get hers as well.

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