Page 48 of In the Bones
Shana told him about her talk with Mac then, and Woody’s connection to Mikko Helle. The Rivermouth, the partnership, and his investment. Tim caught her up on Helle’s confession about the house party he’d held that Saturday of the holiday weekend.
“It’s where and when Angelica died,” he said. “Has to be. The timing’s right for the disappearance, and that’s where her remains were found. Helle said Angelica and Molly look familiar, but claims he can’t place them. In the same breath, he told me the house was full of strangers. Woody seems to have been the exception. He was at the party too. Helle referred to Woody as a friend.”
“I don’t like how this is looking for him,” said Shana. “If he regretted sleeping with her, or suspected Nicole might find out, that’s motive. And now we know he had opportunity.”
That was true, and it was sounding more and more like Woody was their man. Tim wondered what it must have been like for Mac to talk to Shana about her sister and brother-in-law in the context of a murder case. Airing the Durham family’s dirty laundry for the whole troop to inspect and turn over in their hands. Woody wasn’t Mac’s blood relative. That didn’t mean she wanted to see him go to prison.
Tim knew Mac would be stressing about her nieces too. She was close with them, almost like they were her own kids. It was only recently, right after Darcy was born, that Shana had told Tim about Mac and Nicole’s childhood. The infidelity, first by Mac’s father, then Nicole’s, and the endless string of boyfriends that followed. Shana hadn’t wanted to betray her friend’s confidence, figured Mac would have told Tim if she’d wanted him to know, but then it had come time to pick a godmother.
Tim had proposed his sister, who had kids of her own and experience raising them, but Shana had pushed hard for Mac. “She’ll probably never have kids of her own, but I know she feels the same way Nicole does about the importance of family. She’s like a second mother to her nieces, and they’ll be leaving for college soon. Plus, she’s done so much for me.”
Shana had stopped talking then, her voice thickening, but Tim had heard enough. He’d experienced a rush of fondness for Maureen McIntyre, a person for whom he already felt profound love and respect. What Mac had done for Shana was save her: first from a fiancé who got off on psychological manipulation, then from post-traumatic anxiety that threatened to cripple her. Mac had taken Shana in, giving her a job and even a home when she found herself in need. Mac had invested in Shana and her skills when she’d lost all faith in herself. Of course she should be Darcy’s godmother. Already, in her own way, Mac was one of the best moms Tim knew.
When Woody’s connection to the crime got out, it was going to splinter Mac’s family like an axe slamming down on a piece of kindling. Tim’s job was to find out who killed Angelica Patten, and why. But if in the process of finding Angelica’s killer he could protect Sheriff McIntyre’s kin, he swore he would do all he could.
“Maybe he didn’t do it,” Tim said, meeting Shana’s gaze. “That’s still a possibility, right?”
Shana stretched out her lips. “It is. Forensics could still find DNA evidence that connects someone else to the scene. We know there were dozens of other people in that house.”
“Including Molly Kranz. I don’t like her for the crime,” Tim said, “but she’s still here in the area. Not only did she return to the scene nine months after the fact, but she stuck around after she fled even at the risk of getting caught.” Every year, the river towns grew swollen with visitors. It was happening again right now. But Molly wasn’t like those other tourists. She had every reason to leave, but she hadn’t. To Tim, that was a sign of either depraved curiosity or all-out guilt.
Tim watched Shana parse his comment, back rigid and hands on her knees. Criminal profiling was a subject that his wifeknew well, having developed an interest in behavioral analysis back when she worked for the NYPD. Some criminals returned to the scene of the crime, and the reasons for that varied. They needed to retrieve something they’d left behind, or wanted to assess how much the police had learned. They craved the opportunity to relive their violence, that savage, chemical rush. But it wasn’t just criminals who went back. Returning to a place of trauma could trigger intense emotions, and there were those who believed it could help you process pain. Purge the fear you’d experienced from your life once and for all.
Shana said, “If this all went down like we think it did, I could see Molly coming back for her friend. Wanting—needing—to find out what happened to Angelica. Maybe this woman is after the same thing we are: to find the person responsible for Angelica’s death.”
A frisson of hope skipped up Tim’s spine. “The house. It’s the scene of the crime, and maybe Molly knows that. Maybe,” said Tim, “she knows something about Angelica’s murder that we don’t.”
Leaning into him, Shana said, “Do you have any idea how hot you are when you theorize?”
“Funny,” he replied, pulling her onto his lap so that she straddled his hips. “I was about to tell you the same thing.”
FORTY-TWO
Nicole
The stretches of silence between them felt dense and packed with unspoken danger. Sitting on the back deck where, just last week, Nicole had told Maureen she’d gotten a weird vibe from Mikko’s house, she clutched her water with two hands. Nicole couldn’t stop the glass from vibrating, couldn’t calm her unsteady fingers. How could so much have changed so quickly? How could they have gone from that family dinner to an all-hands-on-deck emergency meeting to keep Woody out of prison? Somehow, Nicole’s husband was a suspect in the murder of a woman buried in Mikko’s basement. It didn’t feel possible, couldn’t be real, and yet here he was, face slack and blue eyes vacant. Woody looked catatonic. Stupefied into inertia. This was happening.
“They’re going to want to talk to you,” Maureen explained solemnly, “first thing tomorrow. There’s nothing I can do to protect you from that. They’ve been asking around, so they already know you were at the party. You’ll need to answer their questions honestly. What they’ve got so far is circumstantial, but you have to tell them everything about that night, Woody. Everything.”
“So far,” Nicole repeated. “You said the evidence is circumstantialso far.”
Her sister met her gaze. Nicole hadn’t bothered to turn on the outdoor lights, preferring to melt into the shadows. To Maureen the half-darkness was cruel. It deepened her cheekbones and hollowed out her eyes, so that Nicole had the eerie impression that her sister’s head was a fleshless skull.
“That’s right,” Maureen said. “At this point, they’re still collecting information. Looking for something concrete. They’ll be looking at other possibilities, too—trying to get prints offthat ring, for example, and uncover DNA from the house, which so far is proving difficult, but …” She paused to shake her head, and Nicole took the comment to mean the proof could come at any time. “Tim and Shana and the team will search for eyewitnesses who were at the party on the night in question,” Maureen went on. “People who could testify to seeing Angelica, whether with Woody or with someone else. They won’t arrest anyone until they’re sure they can make a murder charge stick.”
“Then it’s all fine,” said Woody, his face impossibly pale. “They won’t find anything if I didn’t do it, right? Jesus Christ, you have to know I didn’t do it.” He looked from Maureen to Nicole and back again. While his words conveyed outrage, his voice was that of a frightened child.
“Keep it down,” Nicole said harshly, scanning the fence line. She’d given the girls a couple of twenties and sent them out for pizza, but houses in the neighborhood were packed in close.
“If you’re innocent—” Maureen began.
“If!” Woody hissed. “If?”
“Listen to me. They can’t find evidence that isn’t there. But you knew Angelica,” she said. “You were intimate with her the night of her death—right? And her body was found in Mikko’s house, a man you claim is your business partner.”
“I don’t claim it,” said Woody. “He is. But I didn’t murder anyone, not there and not anywhere else.”
“Mikko obviously did it,” said Nicole. It baffled her that Maureen hadn’t yet brought Mikko up in connection with the crime. This was no intricate puzzle or convoluted mystery. Mikko was the killer the police were looking for. “You said it yourself, Maureen: it’s his house. Why aren’t Tim and Shana talking tohim?”
