“Don’t do that again,” Lulu said. “Any of it. You have to take care of yourself and be strong. And I don’t want you making your aunt worry.”
“Sorry,” Sam mumbled.
Lulu and Kate hugged.
“What was that with Scotty?” Lulu whispered.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Kate said.
“She’s drinking more than ever. Is it Beth? Her way of dealing with losing her?”
“I guess,” Kate said. “Or maybe something with Nick?”
“All of the above,” Lulu said. “Remind me never to get married.”
“If you’ll remind me.”
“Later.”
“Yep, later for sure.”
Lulu got into her Range Rover and drove away. Kate disarmed the alarm, and she and Sam climbed the stairs.
“Sam,” she said. “How many times have you done it? Painted those things on the rocks?”
“A couple,” Sam said.
“You and your friends ruined something wonderful. Don’t you care about that?”
Sam shrugged. Kate gritted her teeth. How much of a cry for help was this, and what could Kate do about it?
“Your mother loved Little Beach,” Kate said. “How do you think she’d feel about what you did?”
Sam swallowed hard, looking away, as if she couldn’t meet Kate’s eyes.
“Call your father and tell him you’re staying with me tonight,” Kate said when they’d entered the loft. Popcorn came bounding over, barking to be fed and taken out.
“Can we clean it up?” Sam asked, watching Kate clip the leash onto Popcorn’s collar.
Kate looked at her.
“The paint?” Sam asked. “Can we try to get it off the rocks?”
“I don’t know if it will come off. I don’t know if the chemicals it would take would be bad for the sea.”
“Can we try?” Sam asked, her voice breaking. “For Mom?”
Kate stood still for a minute. If defacing the rocks had been Sam’s way of getting attention, then maybe this was the way she had to ask for help.
“Yes, we can do that,” Kate said. She put her arms around her niece, felt her shoulders shaking. “Come on now, call your dad so he’ll know where you are.”
“He won’t care,” Sam said.
“He will.”
“He won’t, and it doesn’t matter. Nothing does.”
“Sam, yes it does. I promise,” Kate said.
“I want my mom,” Sam said, her voice thinning out and rising to a shriek.
“Oh, Sam,” Kate said, dropping Popcorn’s leash and pulling her niece close.
“I want my mom,” Sam wailed. And she started to pull her own hair, scratch her own face, and even though Kate was grabbing her, holding her, trying to soothe her, Sam wouldn’t stop.
32
The brothers had been trying to get together, but until now, Reid hadn’t been able to break away from the case. He met Tom at the Y-Knot, a seedy, beer-sloshed bar, mostly frequented by sailors and fishermen, on the waterfront near the New London train station. They sat on red vinyl barstools and drank Jameson neat, just as their father had done. He had been in the navy, stationed across the river in Groton, then a cop in New London, where the brothers had grown up.
“So, fill me in,” Tom said.
“I thought we had it, right from the beginning,” Reid said.
“I know you did,” Tom said. “I was worried you narrowed in on Pete too soon.”
“Yeah, you let me know,” Reid said. “But I was positive—everything lined up: not just another woman, but he had a kid with her. He thinks he’s a genius, and the fact he turned up the AC—I mean it’s not the most original thing, but it takes some research.”
“Okay, then with the evidence you have now, you still think it’s him?”
“Trick question.”
Tom grinned. “Lay it on me.”
Reid took a drink. He ran through the autopsy results, the witnesses he’d questioned, the fact he was having a forensic accountant go through Pete and Beth’s finances, and the most recent development: Martin Harris.
“Icing on the cake,” Tom said. “A perv living at the Osprey House.”
“Yeah,” Reid said. “I’m not sure where he fits, but he fits. His parole officer is convinced his testosterone-blocking drugs have changed his life—”
“I thought those guys never change,” Tom said.
“Mostly true. But Harris even gave me permission to speak to his shrink, who claims he’s the poster boy for chemical castration. No bad thoughts whatsoever, doesn’t want to hurt women anymore, sex is nothing to him now. But he says he dreamed of seeing Pete kill Beth.”
“Dreamed?”
“Yeah. It all came to him while he slept.”
Tom chuckled. “He sounds like a nutjob. Could it be true, that he has some warped way of wanting to solve the case?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Reid said. “See, then there’s the postcard. Black Hall, the Lathrop Gallery. If you saw his name doodled with Pete’s, then Beth’s name at the head of the list of all the women he’d attacked . . . it was like a love letter.”
“To who? Pete?”
Reid drank from his scotch. “Yeah. Like, he’s in love with the idea of a buddy just a few miles down the road thinking like him, acting like him.” He paused, drank again. “Only the buddy takes it one step farther and actually murders his victim.”
“You said there was no sign of sexual assault on Beth,” Tom said.
“No fluids,” Reid said. “But she had bruising all over her legs, between her thighs. No sign of penetration.”
“So, does that jibe with Harris’s MO?”
“The thing with Harris is undies. He loves lace. When he’d go to a house, he’d be afraid his victim wouldn’t have pretty enough whatever, so he’d bring his own. He had charge accounts at Frederick’s of Hollywood and Victoria’s Secret. Spent twice as much at Fred, so I guess that’s what he preferred.”
“Classy guy,” Tom said.
“Yeah, all the way. So that’s where I get tripped up. I still want Pete for this, but Harris knew about the lacy underwear.” He glanced at Tom. He kept details of the case very close, but he told his brother everything. He needed his help.
“And the only way he could have known . . .”
“Not the only way—but the most likely way is that he was there,” Reid said. “Or whoever killed Beth told him about it. Or someone leaked info—from my squad, or the ME—it happens.”
“You think there was a leak?”
Reid had been racking his brain on that one. He shrugged.
“Let’s try this: Where do Harris’s and Pete’s lives intersect?” Tom asked.
“Dead end,” Reid said. “Nothing’s coming up. Harris can’t hold a job—he’s a drunk. Robin—his PO—is constantly on him to find work. When he’s sober enough, he sometimes picks up cash by washing dishes at Black Whale or the Rusty Anchor.”