“Mr. Lathrop,” he said. “We spoke on the phone. I’m Detective Reid.”
“Can you take me to Beth?” Lathrop said, his voice quavering. “Right now? I’ve got to see her.”
“Yes, very soon,” Reid said.
“I have to know—what did they do to her?”
“‘They’?” Reid asked.
“Or he, whoever. You said she was murdered.”
“I said she was deceased,” Reid said.
“No, I distinctly heard . . . never mind. Just, can we go? Please.”
That had been a big slip on Pete Lathrop’s part, Reid thought. It would be helpful to use in court. He wished Miano had heard the exchange. Seeing the empty frame with the canvas cut out, it would have been normal to assume Beth’s murder was part of an art theft, possibly connected to the old crime, to what the Woodward girls’ father had done.
Reid thought it was more complicated than that. Based on Pete’s callousness toward Beth in other areas of his life—his infidelity and general lack of respect—Reid could not help believing that the missing painting was part of a staged scene. The connection to the earlier crime might have been Pete adding psychological torture, wanting to remind Beth of what had happened before.
The torn underwear, though: that was a new element. A stranger had broken in, raped, and murdered her? No, Reid didn’t believe it.
The medical examiner had made a very preliminary estimation. He had told Reid that, based on Beth’s body temperature and the fact it was still in rigor, it appeared that Beth had died a full day after Pete had left on the sailing trip. But there were other factors to take into account to gauge the time of death, starting with the piles of dog shit. Popcorn hadn’t been walked in days. There were five copies of the Day, New London’s newspaper, in and around the delivery tube by the road.
Once an autopsy was performed and they were able to determine her last meal, the time of death could be narrowed down even more. The bruises between her legs indicated sexual assault; if she had been raped, there would be semen or at least traces of fluid.
And now—Pete, on this hot summer day, was wearing shorts and a long-sleeved shirt.
No, Reid thought again—not a stranger.
“Why are you dressed so warmly?” Reid asked, pointing at the shirt.
“It’s sun protection, special fabric. My wife bought it for me so I wouldn’t burn.”
“Would you please roll up your sleeves and show me your arms?”
Pete recoiled. “What? Are you kidding? I need to get home.”
Reid didn’t lift his gaze from the cuffs, buttoned tight around Pete’s wrists. Strangulation victims often fought to get the ligature from around their necks, raking their killer’s skin in the process. He recalled how Beth’s hands had appeared to be unharmed, her fingernails unbroken, but he hoped that his initial assessment was wrong and that she had scratched her killer.
“Is there a problem with showing me your arms?” Reid asked.
“Yes,” Pete said, glaring. “I’m not going to stand here and be treated like a criminal when you can ask anyone how much I loved my wife.”
“Okay,” Reid said, nodding. “Fair enough. You don’t want to show me—that’s your decision.”
“Can I please leave?” Pete asked.
“Yes,” Reid said. “We’re going to fly you back to Connecticut on the state police helicopter.”
“Thank you.”
“And we’re going to talk,” Reid said.
“Good, because I want you to tell me everything, every detail. My mind’s going crazy,” Pete said, a tremor in his voice.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing right now.”
“What?”
Reid stared into Pete’s pale-blue eyes. The expression on his face was tense, as if he’d been practicing how to set his jaw.
“I think you killed your wife,” Reid said.
6
Tom felt gravity pulling him down as the helicopter lifted straight up. Conor and Pete Lathrop were across the aisle in two seats facing each other. Conor had arranged it so Pete was sitting backward. Tom looked out the window at the ocean below. They flew over the Elizabeth Islands—Naushon, Pasque, Nashawena, and Cuttyhunk.
“You comfortable?” Conor asked Pete.
“No. I’m not freaking comfortable,” Pete said. “How could you think that I could have done anything to Beth?”
“We’ll get to that,” Conor said.
“Should I have a lawyer?”
“That is absolutely your right,” Conor said.
“Right,” Pete said. “What a joke. You haven’t even read me my rights.”
“That’s because you’re not under arrest. This is just a courtesy ride.”
“But you just accused me of murdering her!”
“Was she giving you grief about your girlfriend?” Conor asked.
“You have no idea about Beth and me. We loved each other one hundred percent. We were devoted to each other.”
“I bet she loved the fact you have someone else.”
Tom watched the burning intensity in his brother’s face, the cold fear in Pete’s.
“You’re going to arrest me because I had an affair?”
“I wonder how Nicola would feel to hear you calling it an affair. Doesn’t she think it’s a whole lot more than that? Didn’t Beth? But no, I’m not going to arrest you.”
Pete’s eyes widened as he took that in. He looked surprised, then relieved: a pinched smile, as if he was getting away with something. His eyes were pale, more gray than blue, the color of spit. Tom glanced at Conor. His younger brother was staring at Pete with laser focus.
Tom loved when he and Conor crossed paths on a case. Two, including this one, were related to the Woodward family. Twenty-three years ago, when Tom was a USCG lieutenant and Conor was in his first year as a Connecticut state trooper, the shoreline had been rocked by the violence and brutality of what had happened to Helen, Kate, and Beth at their family’s fancy art gallery in Black Hall. The fact that their husband and father had paid people to commit the crime had made it all the more horrific.
Conor was new to the Connecticut State Police after a stint as a town cop. Tom was a relatively seasoned Coast Guard officer after four years at the Academy and six years climbing the ranks. The crime scene swarmed with town and state cops, but very quickly the FBI took control of the case. The Coast Guard never would have gotten involved if, the same night as the gallery heist, Tom’s vessel hadn’t performed what had seemed to be a relatively random boarding operation.
It was a Monday in mid-November, just before dusk. The sea off Montauk was dark and calm, the sky the color of a black pearl. Most of the New England yachts going south for the winter had left weeks earlier. Winter in the north Atlantic was nothing to mess with, and decent skippers knew that.
Tom was aboard Nehantic, a 270-foot cutter. Just a week before they’d had a successful narcotics operation and were still riding high from it. With a USCG helicopter hovering overhead, they had tracked a narco-sub, a semisubmersible reported to be stuffed with fifteen tons of cocaine. Nehantic had gone to battle stations, deployed two raid boats, and gotten to the sub just in time to catch the crew preparing to scuttle. They’d arrested six smugglers and confiscated the coke and a cache of weapons before the vessel sank, and they’d become cartel-busting heroes in the media.