“No,” Ackerley said. “Not at all.” He paused. “Look, I know what you’re getting at. I didn’t see any scratches. He’s innocent. Why aren’t you looking for the person who stole that painting? The moon one? That’s who you should be after.”
“We’re following all leads,” Reid said.
“I mean, don’t you know what happened to Beth when she was young? All for that painting?”
“Yes,” Reid said. “We’re aware.” He paused for a few seconds. “Did you know he and Beth were having problems?”
“Of course,” Ackerley said. “Pete told me.”
“At the beginning, when I asked if you were close, you said you felt sorry for him. And you added until recently. What happened recently?”
“Maybe I didn’t put it right,” Ackerley said. “In fact, maybe I should have started feeling even sorrier for him. He screwed things up with Beth.”
Reid waited for him to go on.
“Nicola, the affair. Then having a kid with her. Jesus.”
“So, you’re saying it was hard on Pete?”
“Of course. He fell in love. He’s a middle-aged idiot who fell for a grad student. And he ruined his marriage.” Ackerley shook his head. “He couldn’t get out of his own way, just kept compounding his mistakes.”
Reid wanted him to say more about the mistakes, but Ackerley pushed back his chair and stood up. He pulled his sunglasses from his pocket and put them on, signaling that the interview was over.
“I have to get going,” he said. “Good luck finding who did it.”
Reid paid the bill and walked outside, caught up with Ackerley as he was unlocking the Jag.
“Listen,” Ackerley said. “Pete felt really bad about hurting Beth and Sam, wrecking the marriage, but it wasn’t all his fault.”
“In what way?” Reid asked.
“I loved Beth. But she never gave Pete any credit. He might not have grown up in the art world, but he caught on right away. He’s a member of Mensa, you know?”
“I’ve heard,” Reid said, trying not to roll his eyes.
“Well, he could have run that gallery like a real business instead of, to be honest, a family hobby. That’s all it was to Beth. A way of showcasing her family’s collection. She was all about coddling artists, not making money. Not turning a profit.”
“How did she coddle artists?”
“You know, they’re all so sensitive. A little crazy. Suffer for their art, you know? Pete would see her turning herself inside out, paying them more than their paintings were worth. Getting taken advantage of. She’d send them to the doctor if they were sick, including therapy in at least one case. She even paid for a sculptor to have a root canal. She’d get too involved with them.”
“Is that what Pete told you?”
“Well, yes,” Ackerley said, his brow furrowed. “But it was pretty obvious to anyone who knew her. She got more wrapped up in the artists than she was in her husband. Poor Pete.”
Reid looked at Ackerley’s troubled expression. Whether Pete was the killer or not, he was a manipulator. Guys like him wanted the world to feel sorry for them.
“Thanks for your time,” Reid said, handing him his card. “If you think of anything, don’t hesitate to call. And please text me that photo.”
“Yeah,” Ackerley said. He started the car. The engine gave a throaty roar as he pulled out of the parking lot. Within twenty seconds, Reid’s phone buzzed: Ackerley had texted the photo.
Reid drove up the I-95 entrance ramp, merging onto the highway and hitting normal summer-in-Southeastern-Connecticut traffic. As soon as he could, he sped up to eighty miles per hour and headed toward his office to meet Pete. He knew a lot more about him than he had at their first encounter, on the dock in Menemsha. He wasn’t sure what it added up to, but it made him all the more interested to hear what Pete would have to say.
14
“I want to take a polygraph,” Pete said the instant Reid walked into the lobby of the Major Crime Squad’s offices in Walboro. He was wearing pressed khaki pants and, as always, a long-sleeved shirt. He looked perpetually suntanned and windblown.
“You do?” Reid asked, surprised by the statement.
“Yes, absolutely,” Pete said. “Put this to rest so you can start looking for the person who really killed Beth.”
“Why don’t we go in here and talk about it,” Reid said, gesturing for Pete to follow him down the wide corridor, into an interview room.
Pete took a seat at the table. Reid told him to wait there, then walked into the control room next door to make sure the camera and microphone were turned on. Then he went to his office, picked up the accordion file in which he kept his case notes. He glanced into Miano’s office. She wasn’t in there, so he texted her:
Lathrop’s here for his interview. You coming?
Still at the ME’s. Talk later.
OK
She had told him she planned to stop by the medical examiner’s lab in Meriden because she wanted to push the coroner, Dr. Humberto Garcia, to speed up the autopsy, especially the DNA results.
Reid grabbed a notebook and two bottles of water. When he returned to the interrogation room, Pete was sitting very still, exactly as when he’d left, looking unperturbed. Reid always left suspects alone in here for a while before starting the interview. They almost invariably got nervous; it wasn’t unusual to return and find someone in a cold sweat, or pacing the floor, or asking to use the bathroom. But Pete seemed as comfortable as a man sitting on his own back deck in a summer breeze.
“Pete, before we start, I want to establish that you are here voluntarily, and you are not under arrest. You’re free to leave at any time,” Reid said, sitting across the table from him.
“Thank you,” Pete said.
Reid handed him a bottle of water. Pete didn’t open it. He let it sit on the table in front of him.
“So, Pete. Even though you’re not under arrest, I’m going to read you your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay, then. Are you comfortable? Do you want anything besides water to drink? A Coke?”
“Now you’re being nice to me?” Pete asked. “What happened to ‘I know you killed your wife’?”
“Did you kill her?” Reid asked.
“No, I definitely did not. And I sincerely hope you will schedule that polygraph right away, so you can get on with the right kind of investigation.”
Reid took note: the first two ly words. He’d found that suspects who turned out to be guilty tended to use adverbs, thinking they were being more convincing. He also noticed the way Pete emphasized “the right kind of investigation,” marking his territory as a genius and the smartest person in the room. Reid would use that.
“Yes, I will contact our polygraph examiner, and we will get you in right away.”
“Today?”
“It might take a little longer.”