“Bad person, terrible bad person,” Julie had said, shaking as she’d cried.
The rest of Julie’s diagnosis, receptive and expressive aphasia and language processing disability, meant that she experienced life in ways both simpler and more complicated than everyone else. She got so frustrated trying to get her thoughts and feelings out.
Scotty told the pediatrician, asking if it would be appropriate to give Julie something for anxiety. The doctor had suggested taking Julie to therapy. And Scotty was more than willing to do that, but in the last few days, Julie had seemed quieter, retreating into her safe, private world.
Nick was far from helpful. He would come home from the office, throw on his shorts and Nikes, and go running for hours, sometimes until dark. He was training for the Labor Day half marathon, aiming for next year’s New York City Marathon. He had told Scotty a bunch of people from work were doing it. Scotty pictured the women in his office. Everyone but her was in shape. She downed a big gulp of her drink.
“Let’s take a swim,” Lulu said, reaching for her hand. “It will be good for us.”
“I’m looped.”
“We don’t have to go out far.”
“That detective is coming to see Isabel later,” Scotty said. “I should go up to the house and take a nap. I have the G&T flu.” She paused, glancing at Lulu. “Who do you think did it?”
“Mostly I think Pete.”
“Me too, but sometimes I think Jed—I mean, she met him in prison.”
“I know,” Lulu said.
“And he’s an art person—it would make sense for him to take Moonlight. I’m sure he has a network; he could sell it. And we really have no idea how he took the fact Beth had cooled off, was seeing him less. I think she wanted to stop altogether.”
“She did?” Lulu asked, and Scotty couldn’t help feeling gratified that she knew at least some things Lulu didn’t.
“She had made a mess of things—to go from perfect Beth to being pregnant and having two men in her life. It was tearing her apart. Didn’t she tell you?”
Lulu shook her head. “She never talked to me about it, Scotty. You’ve told me more than she ever did. I only saw her with Jed that one time, on the ferry.”
Scotty sighed. “He made her so happy for a while. It must have felt so nice to have someone all for herself, someone who really wanted her. Not like Pete, off with Nicola.” She thought of herself and Nick. She couldn’t help wondering about the women he worked with, beautiful and thin, training for the half marathon. Surreptitiously, on the side Lulu couldn’t see, Scotty grabbed the roll of fat around her waist. The old commercial used to say if you could pinch more than an inch you needed to eat their cereal and get into shape. Scotty could pinch half a foot.
“I really need to get into shape,” she said.
“You look great,” Lulu said.
Scotty gave her a skeptical look. There was all this wise-woman BS about accepting yourself the way you were right now, not thinking about the body you had when you were twenty-five. Easy for Lulu to say it when she had a stomach as flat as a teenage boy’s.
“You’re beautiful,” Lulu said.
Scotty didn’t believe her, so she ignored her. “I hope Isabel remembers about the detective coming.”
“Want me to go get her?” Lulu asked.
Scotty nodded. “That would be really nice of you.”
“I need the swim anyway,” Lulu said. She gave Scotty a big hug and kissed the top of her head, then went running into the water, dove in, and started swimming fast out toward Isabel on the raft. Scotty gathered her towel, beach bag, and chair and walked as steadily as she could across the hot sand, toward her house on the other side of the boat basin. She couldn’t wait to close the door behind her. Emotions made her drink, and she was nothing but emotions these days.
Right now, she needed to lie down. She would hit the reset button and start fresh after her nap. She had to keep going on, but it wasn’t easy. Murder didn’t just take one life; it stole the essence, will, and ease from everyone it touched. It took their old lives and left them to make their way in a completely new and uncertain world.
Scotty had to find a way back to being alert and present for Julie and Isabel. Julie: hiding deep within herself. Isabel: her beautiful, troubled daughter. Scotty didn’t want to be a bad influence, drinking to escape the pain. Nick had grounded Isabel after she’d come home wasted the night of the graffiti.
Maybe Scotty should ground herself.
38
In Reid’s interviews with Pete and his friends, he had heard repeatedly that Pete was a member of Mensa, the high IQ society. Pete seemed determined that everyone know it, and to Reid’s mind, if someone had to brag about being a member, he might not be as smart as he thought.
Mac Green had relented and decided to let Pete take the polygraph. Reid had questions, a list of them, and he was going to request an interview after the polygraph. He met Jen Miano at the crime lab.
“Are we going to arrest him today?” Miano asked.
“I’d like to,” Reid said. “But we’re not there yet.”
“Jed is interesting.”
“Yeah, but he has an alibi,” Reid said. As soon as he had left Jed at the Paradise Drive-In, he’d called Lainie Stewart. She had told him that Jed had stayed in the main house with the family. His bedroom was between her grandson Terry’s room and the master suite where she and David slept. He had given art lessons in the living room of their guest house, reconfigured as an art studio, and had been with the family the whole time, including meals.
Reid had then checked with the ferry operators, determined that Jed had taken the boat only twice—on his way to and from the island. He hadn’t brought a car. The Stewarts had arranged for him to be driven back and forth to Black Hall. Reid had confirmed that fact with William Nelson, the owner of Admiral Limousine Service. The Stewarts were favorite longtime customers, and whenever they called, Nelson drove the passengers himself, as he had with Jed.
“Pete has an alibi too,” Miano reminded Reid.
“True, but the time line works against him,” Reid said.
“Jed was in love with Beth.”
Reid nodded.
“Then there’s the baby,” Miano said.
Reid felt the breath rush out of him.
“Don’t feel too bad,” she said. “Who would think of a paternity test? Pete was the cheater! Not one thing made us think Beth was anything but faithful to Pete.”
“Thanks,” Reid said, appreciating that she was trying to make him feel better. To everyone, Beth had been an angel. Humberto Garcia, the coroner, hadn’t tested Matthew’s DNA, and Beth’s body had been released to the family for cremation.
“What the hell was Beth Lathrop doing with a guy like that?” Miano asked. “It doesn’t track. He seems like kind of a loser.”
“He’s not, actually,” Reid said. “I could be wrong, but he seems like a decent, stand-up guy.”
“Yeah, but homeless?” Miano asked.
Reid remembered what Leland Ackerley had said about Beth: that she loved and nurtured artists whose talent she believed in. And how Jed had said she took care of everyone.