Page 45 of Death in the Family
As for Philip Norton, it was true he’d been with the family for close to twenty years. He had accounts with the local market, hardware store, and fishmonger on the Sinclairs’ behalf, and when he wasn’t on the island he rented an apartment in a small complex in Alexandria Bay. Everything our witnesses said about their everyday lives looked to be accurate. Unfortunately for me, the real value lay in what they were keeping back.
“Your turn,” McIntyre said when she was through.
“God, where do I start? Jasper’s sister is sleeping with his brother’s lover, and they think Jasper caught on to the affair yesterday afternoon. Jasper’s brother has a history of treating him like garbage and busted his lip last night. Jasper planned to propose to his girlfriend, but his sister’s husband’s daughter has a thing for him that’s not exactly aboveboard for a teenage girl. We’ve got a terminally ill grandmother sitting on a fortune, and a longtime caretaker about to be out of a job. But right now my money’s on the siblings. They’re trying to save the family business, and Jasper’s due for a big inheritance when his grandma dies. If he’s not around, it could go to them instead.”
“So just your average open-and-shut case.” She snorted. “What does Tim think?”
The question made me hesitate. In the parlor, Tim had looked utterly at ease. Had nothing we’d learned over the course of the day changed his mind about the magnitude of Jasper’s disappearing act? “The blood indicates assault, but last I checked, Tim thinks Jasper left the island on his own.”
“Okay, what am I missing?” I could hear the confusion in McIntyre’s voice. It sounded much like my own.
“Bebe says Jasper gets a kick out of messing with her and Flynn. I guess it’s possible he could have staged this, but everything about that feels wrong. Tim’s hoping we’ll find him in Canada, or back in the city.”
“Tim’s always been the optimistic type,” said Mac. I got the sense she didn’t think the personality trait was all that useful. “For what it’s worth, I talked to the manager at Jasper’s building. He checked the apartment for me. All clear, no indication of anything unseemly.”
I nodded to myself. Figured as much.
“I called the hospitals, around here and in Kingston, too,” she said. “Jasper hasn’t turned up and they’ve got no John Does that fit his description, dead or alive. If he did leave on his own, he couldn’t get back to Tern now if he wanted to.”
The storm, she explained, had gotten worse. The National Weather Service was predicting it would rage all night, with gale-force winds and more flooding. Waves were breaking records, and there were fallen trees and downed power lines all over the mainland. An apartment building had caught fire, and the flooding displaced a half-dozen families from their homes. Since I last spoke with Mac, A-Bay had gone from a town quietly shouldering a bit of rough October weather to a community in full-on panic mode. With the trooper boat out of commission, she’d been working on another way to get help to the island. There were available patrol boats a couple towns over, but McIntyre hesitated to dispatch them in such rough waters.
“So,” she said after a beat. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. A little peckish?”
“Shay.”
“What? It’s been a while since lunch.” McIntyre went silent,and eventually I sighed. The truth was, I didn’t feel great. There was still no infallible evidence of a murder on the island to validate my gut instinct. Every time I thought I had the case figured out, something happened to make me question my lead. I was sinking deeper and deeper into the family’s dark and convoluted lives, and I was running out of air.
How would I have handled this situation a year ago, before Bram and Carson and everything that came with them? I was definitely more suspicious now. Less self-assured. When I pressed him on it, Carson said Bram would make me stronger in the long run, both as a person and a cop, but he made sure to add that I wasn’t there yet. I couldn’t even use Tim as a barometer to measure how well I was doing my job, not now that Carson had me doubting him. I hated that Carson didn’t trust Tim, but I couldn’t ignore his warning. There was a reason why my fiancé said what he did.
I used to be a good judge of character. Separating the heroes from the villains was my specialty. It was all so simple back then—get the bad guys, avenge the good. As I listened to McIntyre try to convince me I could count on Tim’s help all over again, I thought about how Tim had behaved since arriving on Tern Island. Despite evidence to the contrary, he refused to believe Jasper was dead. I’d relayed every bit of what I’d gleaned from our witnesses. Tim ignored it and stuck to his sunshine-and-rainbows theory that all was well.
Tim knew the islands, and he knew the Sinclairs. At least, he knewofthem. He seemed relaxed around the family. Like his guard was down. I thought it was an act, his way of getting on their good side, but what if there was more to it? Was it possible he’d met the Sinclairs before? Could it be Tim was concealing something? A relationship of some kind with our witnesses?
I trusted that Tim was a competent investigator, but nothing about his behavior today buoyed my confidence about his ability to help solve this unusual case. He’d tried to incriminate Abella with a ridiculous theory about the blood in the bed. He’d allowed Jade to wander off on her own in the middle of our investigation. When Abella came to me asking to talk, at the exact moment I needed her to break, Tim sent her packing.
Like everyone else in the house, Tim wanted to convince me his account of the situation was the gospel truth. Now, when I pictured him, all I saw were the smiles he’d traded with the Sinclairs and their guests over lunch. How quick he’d been to let me take the reins, and satisfied he was to fade into the background. His confidence on the water and on these islands. The muscles that strained against his clothes.
I thanked McIntyre for her concern and reiterated that I was in full control.
Then I closed my eyes and counted the heartbeats resonating in my hollow chest.
TWENTY
Trust is a trickster. A con man. A shark. We think we know it. We tell ourselves it’s a simple emotion. Either it’s present or it’s not.
Before Bram took me, I trusted in myself. I knew where I came from and where I was going. I was sure about my life. If not for him, I’d still be in full possession of the mettle I once prided myself on. I’d never have drawn my weapon during an interview with a witness. And I would know with certainty whether Carson’s warning about Tim was a harbinger of dangers to come.
Bram changed everything.
It was a Friday, and after a week of long hours collaborating with the Seventh Precinct on the murders of Becca, Lanie, and Jess, I was spent. I’d followed a breadcrumb trail of eyewitnessaccounts, had spoken with everyone from the missing women’s friends and loved ones to bar patrons and strangers on the street. I felt duty bound to find the guy. The fact that he claimed to be from Swanton made me feel connected to him. I had an obligation to figure out how my hometown could have produced such a monster. I needed to know who he was.
I should have gone home to a hot shower and a cold glass of wine, but instead I walked to Tompkins Square Park. Bram’s most recent victim had been found across the street at a construction site. I wanted to take another look around to see if there was something I missed.
I wandered the park for twenty minutes before it started to rain. There was an Irish pub down the block, its picture window emitting a warm and welcoming glow. A beer. That’s what I needed. A few minutes to clear my head.
Scanning the bustling pub from the threshold, I shook off my coat and took a seat at the bar. The bartender, a freckled brunette like me, smiled and said, “What’ll you have?”
