The Widow (24 page)

A
n uneasy silence had settled in Abigail’s back room, which had finally been swept and wiped clean of any police presence. She’d ripped out the last of the old wallboard.

So many questions, she thought, tugging a red bandanna off her hair and shaking off the plaster dust.

Owen tied up a trash bag of the last of the debris and carried it back to the kitchen. Abigail watched him. He was a rock, as solid a man as she’d ever known. But how could she fall for him?

How could she fall for him
here?

MattieYoung had camped out in his childhood friend’s garage. Where was he now? Doyle hadn’t known he was there. Lou Beeler obviously believed the chief’s explanation—with Katie gone for most of the summer, he and the boys didn’t use the garage on a daily basis. It wasn’t as if Doyle’d had time in recent days to mow the lawn or trim the roses. He simply hadn’t needed to be in the garage for anything.

As far as anyone could tell, Mattie had slipped in there for shelter. If he’d thought about knocking on Doyle’s door and turning himself in, fine, but he hadn’t done it.

He could have gone anywhere from Doyle’s house. Into Acadia National Park, onto the ocean. He could have slipped into someone else’s garage or broken into a vacant summer home, or he could have crawled under a rock somewhere.

He’d avoid the police and anyone who’d recognize him. Although news of his disappearance had hit in the media, tourists on Mt. Desert would be relatively insulated from such goings-on. Mattie could have walked past hikers and campers, and they wouldn’t necessarily pay attention or recognize him as the man the police were looking for.

Abigail walked out to the porch. She and Owen had driven around, trying to spot Mattie. They’d checked his party spot in the old foundation. Nothing.

It would be a warmer, more humid night than last night, but cool for July, very cool in comparison to Boston. Far out on the water, she could see the lights of expensive yachts. Did one of them belong to Jason Cooper? Had he chucked his family’s problems and gone off to enjoy his wealth, be alone?

She became aware of Owen’s presence behind her, on the other side of the screen door. “I’ve changed in the past seven years,” she said without looking around at him. “I haven’t wanted to admit it. I keep thinking that if I did, I’d also have to acknowledge that Chris might not want me the way I am now.”

The door creaked open and shut. Owen brushed away a mosquito floating in front of her face. “His death pulled you up off the path you were on and hurled you back down onto a different one. But you’re the same Abigail.”

“I don’t blame Doyle Alden and the Coopers for resenting me.”

“You’ve had every right to push for answers.”

“I’ve done more than push for answers. Every time I come here I’ve reminded them of Chris. I won’t let them forget him.” She pushed her hands through her hair, her short curls more pronounced with the increased humidity. “I don’t even have to do anything. I’m his widow. That’ll never change. It’s like having a circle drawn around me wherever I go that keeps people at bay, that reminds them I lost my husband on our honeymoon.”

Owen placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not keeping me at bay.”

She smiled. “Maybe I should. Hell. I can’t believe I’m telling you all these things about myself. I suppose if I’d remarried sooner…”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

She looked back out at the dark water, the yachts gone now. “For seven years, I’ve thought if I’d just gone with him on those errands—if I’d taken a walk on the rocks or stopped in at Ellis’s garden party—that he’d still be alive. Now, I’m not sure that’s true. I’m not sure I could have done anything to keep him from getting killed.”

“The break-in, the attack on you—”

“An opportunity. Something the killer could capitalize on, but not the cause of Chris’s death.” She kept staring into the darkness, her eyes adjusting, picking out stars, seeing outlines and silhouettes of rocks and trees. “He didn’t tell me what was going on.”

Owen didn’t respond.

“It wasn’t about who I was. If I’d been a homicide detective seven years ago, he still wouldn’t have told me. He wasn’t keeping secrets from me so much as just not talking. It was his personality.” A firefly sparked in the trees to the side of the house, where the Alden boys had hidden just a few days ago, convinced they’d seen a ghost. “And what did I know of his relationships with the people on this island? I knew him for eighteen months. We weren’t even married a week.”

“Abigail…”

She seized Owen’s hand, intertwined her fingers with his. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“You don’t have to be.”

She raised his hand to her lips. “Not here. I can’t stay with you here.”

A nightmare woke her. Lying in the dark, Abigail didn’t know where she was.

She heard an owl outside on a nearby tree and felt the cool breeze from an open window and the warmth of the soft blanket over her, and she remembered the slick heat of tangled limbs and thrusting bodies, hers and Owen’s, as they’d made love long into the night.

She reached across the bed and touched his shoulder, thinking he was asleep. But his hand covered hers. She edged closer to him. She felt as if she’d known him forever, and yet there was so much more to find out about him, to the point that he might well have been a stranger.

“You don’t know anything about my real life,” she whispered. “I investigate homicides in Boston. I’m not just the widow out here on the rocks. And I know nothing about your real life.”

“There’s time for that.” He rolled onto his side, pulling her to him. “Plenty of time.”

She ran her fingertips over a scar on his shoulder and upper arm. “Where did this scar come from?” She eased her hand over his chest, unable to see, just to feel the firm flesh, another scar. “And this one…and this one…?”

“I don’t remember where half my scars came from. I don’t think about them.”

She rolled him onto his back and climbed on top of him, straddling him. “You don’t think about them, but you remember how you got them.” She scraped her fingernails along his hips and sides, feeling him shudder with desire under her. “Every single one of them.”

She lifted herself above him, and when she came down again, he was inside her, his arms around her as she drew down hard onto him, pulling him in as deeply as possible. She moaned, sinking her chest onto him, her orgasm instantaneous, racking her to her core.

He whispered her name, thrusting into her, shuddering with his own release.

The cold night wind gusted over their heated bodies, but neither made a move to pull the blanket back over them. Abigail laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes, hoping once she fell asleep again, there’d be no more nightmares.

T
he morning was warm enough for Abigail to walk barefoot on Owen’s smooth wood floors and open up the doors to the deck to let in the breeze and the sounds of the ocean. She wasn’t tempted to ask Owen to build a fire in the woodstove. She made coffee, feeling the sunlight streaming in through the tall windows. Her scrapes and bruises were better, her body loose and liquid after their night of lovemaking.

When the phone rang, it didn’t occur to her to answer it. Owen, seated at a bar stool at the kitchen peninsula, picked up. “Hello?” He rose, his eyes telling her everything as he handed her the receiver. “For you.”

Her caller.

Owen came around the peninsula and stood next to her.

She nodded to him, then said formally into the phone, “It’s Abigail Browning.”

“Detective. Good morning.” The voice had the familiar eerie muffle of the previous calls.

“I’m not in the mood for your games. What do you want?”

“Prickly this morning, aren’t you?”

“Just tell me what you want.”

“I want you to get back to Boston alive, Detective Browning.” The voice on the other end remained strangely toneless, impossible to recognize. “You need to be careful in the coming days. Very careful.”

“Why? What do you know?”

He ignored her. “How far will your husband’s friends go to keep their secrets?”

“How far will you go to keep your secrets? Everyone has secrets. What are yours?”

“Any secrets I have are innocent ones. Your husband—”

“Chris wasn’t talkative. He kept other people’s secrets to himself. He was the kind of man people liked to have as a friend.” Interrupting her caller had been a risk, but the status quo—being patient—hadn’t gotten her anywhere. Abigail licked her lips, listening for background sounds, anything that could help her identify the person on the other end of the line. “If you’re trying to make me think any less of Chris because of what he didn’t tell me when he was alive, it’s not working.”

“I just want to help you.”

“No, you don’t. If you wanted to help me, you’d tell me who you are. You’d meet me.”

“You don’t call the shots, Detective.” An edge had crept into the caller’s voice, the first sign of any real emotion. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

The coffeemaker hissed. Strong-smelling coffee dripped into the glass pot. Abigail felt a prickly sensation on the back of her neck. “Does that mean you’re calling the shots?” she asked mildly.

“It means you need to be careful.”

“How did you get this phone number?”

“Easy.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Even easier, Detective. You’ve become quite the slut, haven’t you?”

She didn’t let his jibe get to her. “Then you’re on the island. You’re watching me. We’ve interacted—”

“Don’t waste your time trying to figure out who I am.” There was no hint of worry in the eerily calm tone. “Think about the secrets people are keeping. Watch your back.”

Abigail didn’t move as she stood in front of the peninsula, paying careful attention to his every word.

“Promise me you’ll be careful, Detective.”

She could feel Owen’s gaze on her and turned to him, saw his set jaw, his narrowed eyes, and knew he was thinking what she was.

“Detective?”

“You’re the killer.”

“Don’t bother tapping your phone lines.” The voice was crisp now, efficient. “I won’t call again.”

Once he hung up, Abigail could have smashed the telephone on the rocks. Owen put a small pad and a pen on the counter in front of her. She started to speak, but stopped herself and quickly wrote down every word of her conversation with her anonymous caller.

With her husband’s killer.

Then, still without speaking, she called Lou Beeler’s cell number, got through and reported what had just happened.

The senior detective didn’t comment on her whereabouts. “You’ve got coffee on yet?”

“It’ll be ready in two minutes.”

“I’ll be there in five.”

“Five?”

“I slept on Chief Alden’s couch last night.”

Abigail didn’t blame him. She told him she’d be waiting, and hung up, noticing Owen scanning her notes on the call. His gray eyes connected with hers. “I’m sorry,” he said and walked out to his deck, leaving her alone in the kitchen.

She waited until the coffee finished brewing, then took two dark brown pottery mugs from an open shelf and set them on the counter. She filled the mugs and headed outside with them. The air was warm, but the deck was cool under her feet. She saw that Owen had gone down to the rocks. She debated leaving him alone there—at least putting on shoes before Lou arrived—but stepped off the deck and onto a sandy path, following it onto a sprawling, rounded boulder.

Mindful of her bare feet and the hot coffee, Abigail jumped to a smaller rock, making her way to Owen’s chunk of granite just above the tide line. She handed him one of the mugs. “I suppose I’d be better off in the wrong shoes than barefoot.”

He smiled, but she could see in his gray eyes that his mind was elsewhere. “Not necessarily.”

“The rough rock’s probably a good exfoliator.” She paused, seeing the emotion behind his impassive face. “Owen—”

“Why the picture of Doe?” he asked quietly.

She understood his question. Of all the pieces they had of whatever was going on, the photo of his drowned sister was the one that jarred most, that didn’t seem to fit. “There has to be a reason. It’s not necessarily a logical reason.”

“To us.”

She nodded. “Exactly. This caller isn’t trying to help us find Chris’s killer.”

“No, he’s not. But we have to be sure, Abigail.”

“I’m sure. This creep is Chris’s killer.”

Saying the words felt unreal to her. She tried to stand back from them emotionally and pretend she was a homicide detective working a case, not the victim’s widow, not a woman who’d lived with questions and doubts about how her husband had died for seven long years. But how could she pretend she wasn’t involved? With the strange voice fresh in her mind, with the photos, the cut on her leg, the memories of last night, objectivity was elusive.

“Your caller knows something about Doe’s death,” Owen said, staring down at a deep tide pool among the rocks. “He’s talked a lot about secrets. Maybe he knows a secret about her.”

“It’s possible. It’s also possible the picture of your sister could be a red herring designed to throw us off track, or just to upset you.”

A muscle worked in his already tight jaw. He seemed to force himself to drink some of his coffee. “I want this bastard.”

“I know. So do I.” Abigail’s voice sounded calmer than she felt. “This caller is daring and manipulative—maybe desperate, maybe at wit’s end. But it’s someone with a plan, even if it’s not a good plan. And if it is Chris’s killer, then it’s also someone who’s managed to go undetected for seven years, at least.”

“Yes. At least.”

She took a breath. “If you’re thinking your sister was pushed—”

“I saw her go over the cliffs. She wasn’t pushed. She was upset—more upset than her fight with Grace would account for.” Owen looked up, squinting at a trio of seagulls flying out across the water from her house. “What if someone was in the woods that day? What if I didn’t make that up?”

“Who?”

He watched the seagulls land on a finger of rocks that jutted out into the water. “It couldn’t have been Will Browning or Chris—or Mattie. They were on the boat together.”

“You’re sure Mattie was on the boat?” Abigail asked.

“I was eleven. I’m not sure of anything.”

Sean Alden’s age. She remembered his wide eyes yesterday, his fear, his desire to make sense of a situation he couldn’t understand. If she’d said there was a ghost in his father’s garage, he would have believed her.

She asked Owen, “Did someone tell you there was no one in the woods?”

“Everyone.”

“Specifically, who?”

Owen didn’t answer. He sipped his coffee and watched the seagulls. It was a bright, clear day, already warm. Finally, he said, “The Coopers. My parents. Polly. They were all there.”

“But who told you no one was in the woods?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did anyone take a look around?”

He shook his head. “There was no time. We had to get to Doe.”

Abigail didn’t even want to imagine that scene, the terror and grief and shock as they’d stood out on the stunning granite cliffs and realized fourteen-year-old Dorothy Garrison was in the water.

“Understandable,” she said. “Do you remember in what order people arrived?”

“My grandmother was the last to arrive. I remember that. The rest—” He shook his head, his emotions well in check. “I don’t know.”

“If you remember Polly was the last to get there, you might be able to remember who was first.” Abigail took another swallow of coffee, the rock suddenly feeling very hard and rough under her feet. “I don’t know that it’ll make a difference. After everyone arrived on the cliffs, what happened? Had your sister’s body been removed—or did they see her—”

“They watched Chris’s grandfather pull her out of the water into his boat.”

“Then what?” Abigail asked, pressing him, resisting the tug of her own emotions.

“We drove out to the harbor.”

“How? Who were you with? Where were the cars?”

“The cars were up at Ellis’s house. Jason Cooper and my father went to get them. The rest of us walked out to the road and met them there. I’m not sure I’d remember, but I saw an owl in a fir tree—it didn’t fly away. It perched on its branch and stared at me. My sister was into birds. I thought somehow…” He shrugged, tossing the last of his coffee out into the encroaching tide. “I thought the owl was trying to reassure me that whatever had happened, wherever she was, my sister was okay.”

Abigail touched his arm. “I don’t know who put that picture on your doorstep or why, but it was an awful thing to do.”

Owen turned to her. “If it helps find this killer, then it’s worth it.” He glanced out at the sparkling water. “I don’t need a picture to make me remember that day.”

“No. I imagine not.”

“When we finish up with Lou, I’m going up to Ellis’s house, then out to the cliffs. Maybe being there will jog my memory for any details I’ve buried all these years.”

“I’ll go with you.”

He managed a smile. “Somehow, I knew you would.”

“Unless you’d rather go alone—”

He shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t.”

Abigail refused Lou Beeler’s suggestion that she put herself into protective custody. She was polite and appreciative of his concern, but adamant. “Not a chance, Lou,” she said, refilling his mug with fresh coffee.

He didn’t give up. He’d perched himself on the bar stool Owen had vacated and had listened to her recap of the call, asking few questions. “At least let me post a trooper at your side.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“I don’t like this caller. I haven’t from the beginning.”

“You said it was probably a crank.”

“I did? Well, it still could be.” He blew on his steaming coffee. “Makes you not want to answer any more phones, doesn’t it?”

“No, it makes me hope he’ll call again.”

Lou didn’t comment.

Once the state detective was finished with him, Owen had retreated to the shower, leaving Abigail to fend off Lou by herself. From the moment he’d walked in the door, it was obvious his anxiety about the situation had been ratcheted up a few notches.

Not that she blamed him.

She dumped out the last of her coffee into the sink. “Next time this bastard calls, I want to have enough caffeine in me so I can figure out a way to back him into a corner and nail him. I hate it when I get calls like that before I’ve had my morning coffee.”

“I see you’re coping,” Lou said, just short of a grumble.

“I want this guy, Lou. This caller is Chris’s killer. I
know
it is.”

“Think he meant to give himself away?”

“Yes. I think everything he’s done and said is intentional.” She looked at the older man across the granite-topped peninsula. “And we’re using ‘he’ in the rhetorical sense. It could be a woman.”

“You have anyone in mind, Abigail? Any names you want to throw out there for consideration, just between us?”

She shook her head, then said, “Not Mattie Young.”

“Even with the pictures, the necklace, the attack on you, the blackmail?”

“Even with.”

Lou studied her a moment, nothing about him giving away what he was thinking or feeling.

“Hell, Lou, you’re like a stone statue,” she said with some impatience. “You could be sitting there thinking about blueberry pancakes for all I know. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing.” He picked up his mug but didn’t take a sip of the coffee. “Abigail—”