“Well, I am tempted not to waste either of our time by answering questions twice,” Pete said. He opened the bottle of water but didn’t drink from it.
“The more you can tell me, the more helpful it will be,” Reid said. He placed the notebook on the table and took a pen from his pocket. “So, since you and I are here now, why don’t we start with a very simple question. When did you last see Beth?”
Pete sighed. “It’s burned in my brain. The morning I left to go sailing with my friends. She’d gone back to bed, not feeling great. To the point I genuinely considered canceling the trip.”
“About what time?”
“Around 8:00.”
Reid jotted down the time. “She’d already been outside gardening, is that right?” he asked, thinking of Scotty Waterston’s account.
Pete frowned. “Maybe. I guess so. She liked to garden before the sun got too strong.”
“But you don’t remember?”
“No.”
“That seems odd to me. The last morning of your wife’s life, and you don’t remember whether she was out in the garden, planting flowers to make your house look pretty?” Especially since Scotty had been over. Could Pete really have missed that?
Pete glared at him. “You want me to make up something I don’t remember?” he asked.
Like you tried to coach Leland Ackerley to do? Reid thought but didn’t say.
“What made you decide not to cancel the trip?” he asked instead.
“Beth. She insisted I go. It was an annual thing with the guys. She knew I enjoyed it.”
“But you could have decided not to.”
“I loved my wife. But I’ll be honest. We needed a break. We’d both talked about it.”
Reid’s goal was to be objective, but I’ll be honest was an indication of guilt, right up there with ly words.
“When you say you ‘talked about it,’ what do you mean?” Reid asked.
Pete narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure you know about Nicola and Tyler.”
Reid nodded slowly. Often suspects threw out a fact, seemed willing to discuss something difficult or embarrassing. In fact, coming in for questioning at all was frequently wanting to learn what the police knew.
“I’d like to know more,” Reid said.
“Well, feel free to talk to Nicola. She’s expecting it. She’ll tell you the same thing I will: we all got along. Beth wasn’t thrilled at first—not at all. I could have handled it better, I admit. But Beth was a grown-up. She knows people make mistakes.”
“So having an affair with Nicola was a mistake?” Reid asked.
“Twisting my words,” Pete said with a sarcastic smile, shaking a finger at him.
“Was I doing that? Hmm,” Reid said.
“If you would simply stick to the facts as I am presenting them to you, if you actually listened to me, you would do better—you’d rule me out and solve the case faster, because you’d start looking in other places.” He grabbed the water bottle and drank.
Reid was silent, watching Pete’s body language change. The finger shaking, the fact he straightened his posture and rewarded himself with a long drink of water. If the interview was a chess game to Pete, he felt he was winning.
“Let’s go back to the last time you saw Beth,” Reid said. He pretended to consult his notes. “Around 8:00 a.m. What was she doing?”
“I told you, she was in bed.”
“Did she have breakfast?”
“Yeah. We had it together,” Pete said.
“What did you eat?”
“Scrambled eggs. Cantaloupe and blueberries.”
“Okay, so she’s back in bed by 8:00. What about you; what were you doing?”
“I was getting ready to leave . . .”
“Packing?”
“I had already packed. I sat on the edge of the bed, told her she should call me if she didn’t feel better, or for any other reason. Then I told her I loved her and kissed her goodbye.”
“Why don’t you remember if she was gardening?” Reid asked, hammering the point.
Pete sat there drumming his fingers on the table and frowning, as if deciding what to say next.
“I was Skyping with Nicola. Okay?”
Reid could just imagine how that had gone over with Beth. No wonder she’d wanted to get outside, needed her friend Scotty for support.
“Did you and Beth fight about it?” Reid asked.
“Absolutely not.”
“Any physical altercation at all?”
“No.”
“Pete, will you roll up your sleeves and show me your arms?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s an intrusion,” Pete said. “It’s a complete insult. I’ve already told you—there was no altercation.”
“Then why have you been wearing long sleeves, on the boat trip and every time I’ve seen you, in the middle of the summer?”
“I believe I recall telling you that these are sunproof shirts—bought for me by Beth. I had a couple of skin cancers removed last year, and she wanted me to be careful so I didn’t get more.”
“So then, what’s the problem with letting me see? You said you wanted to clear things up so the investigation can progress. One of the surest ways is to show me your arms. And pull down the collar so I can see your neck and chest,” Reid said.
“It makes me sick that you’re treating me this way. Like a common criminal,” Pete said. “I’ve just lost my wife.”
“You going to show me or not?”
Pete let out what started as a sigh but turned into a guttural groan. His face turned red, and his gray-blue eyes narrowed. He stood up fast, unbuttoned his left cuff, and pulled so hard on the right that he ripped the button off. Reid saw him go from controlled to rage in two seconds, and that told him a lot.
Composing himself, Pete rolled both sleeves up to his elbows and displayed his arms. Without touching him, Reid examined the backs of his hands and arms and saw no scratches.
“Other side, please,” Reid said.
Pete rolled his arms and showed him the pale insides of his wrists and arms. Two long scratches, nearly healed, ran the length of his left forearm, from his wrist to the crook of his elbow. Reid leaned closer.
“Those are from thorns. I helped Beth prune the rose bushes in June,” Pete offered, even though Reid hadn’t asked.
The scratches were pink and looked as if the scabs had healed. Could they have happened in June, possibly over a month ago? He would take a photo.
“Will you take off the shirt, please?” Reid asked.
Pete complied. Under his blue sun-protection shirt, he wore a gray T-shirt that said Harvard in red. As far as Reid knew, Pete hadn’t gone there, but he would save the question for later. He examined both outside and inside Pete’s upper arms—no signs of a struggle.
“Would you mind removing your Harvard shirt?” Reid asked.
“I was in Cambridge for a seminar, in case you’re wondering,” Pete said.
Reid could almost feel Pete wanting to tell him he got an A; the statement served as a delay technique. Pete stood still, making no move to take off the shirt. Reid’s pulse kicked up a notch. He knew there was something Pete didn’t want him to see. Pete was in a bind. He had complied with the outer shirt; if he failed to take this one off, he’d be indicating some sort of guilt.