Page 45 of Golden Girl
They have only thirty minutes, so they can’t go far. The Chief goes around the small rotary, then the big rotary. Traffic is bad; everyone is driving while talking on a cell phone or texting. It’s amazing there aren’t motor-vehicle homicides every day.
“I know Donald found running shoes in the trash of the break room,” Cruz says. “I didn’t put them there. Why would I have Vivi’s sneakers?”
“They went missing from the hospital,” the Chief says. “Somewhere between the hospital and the station, we lost track of them. The clothes still haven’t been recovered.”
“Check my car, check my house—I don’t have the clothes. I never touched or saw or knew about any of this. Why would I?”
“Calm down, son,” the Chief says.
“I’ve been pulled out of work to ride around with the chief of police,” Cruz says. “Would you be calm in this situation?”
“No.”
“I didn’t hit Vivi,” Cruz says, and again, there’s something in the tone and timbre of his voice that makes the Chief want to believe him. “Ifoundher. Finding her wasn’t a crime.”
The Chief takes a left off Polpis Road toward Monomoy. It’s been three years since the last homicide on Nantucket. The maid of honor in a lavish wedding at a waterfront estate called Summerland was found floating in the harbor. They chalked that up to an accident, but it still irks the Chief and he knows it bothers the Greek as well. If Ed called the Greek now, he would jump at the chance to investigate this hit-and-run—maybe. Or maybe he’d think it was a lost cause, or maybe he’d think the answer was sitting right there in the front seat.
“You lied to me, Cruz.”
The kid says nothing.
“You told me you were driving to the Howes’ from your house. But you weren’t.”
“No.”
This admission is a start. “Where were you coming from?”
“Hooper Farm.”
“What were you doing on Hooper Farm?”
“Does it matter?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if it didn’t.”
“I went to see someone.”
“A girl?”
“This kid, Peter Bridgeman.”
Bridgeman?Ed thinks. “He’s Zach and Pamela’s kid?”
“Yeah, he’s my year. Just graduated. I needed to talk to him.”
“At seven in the morning? What was so urgent?”
“Something.”
“Son.”
“It’s just high-school stuff, Chief, okay? But since you asked, that’s where I was coming from.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“I didn’t want to get into it.”
“You do realize that a woman isdead,and, like it or not, you’re part of theinvestigation,and you owed me the truth no matter the question.” He’s using his full-on chief-of-police voice now and he can see from a glimpse of the kid’s face in the rearview mirror that he’s nervous.
