Greg stared at Sellwin for a long moment. Something about him seemed off. But he dismissed it and shook his outstretched hand.
* * *
Across the hall, at the food table, Jake surveyed all the offerings while his grandfather fixed himself a coffee.
Jake’s face was blank. He had no appetite. But he was thirsty.
He plucked a can of orange soda from a punch bowl filled with iced drinks, turned, and collided with a man holding a paper plate with a sandwich and coleslaw, causing him to drop it on the floor.
“Oh,” Jake said, recognizing the man. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cobb.”
Cobb collected napkins, bent over to scoop the spillage onto the plate when he saw Jake was on the verge of tears.
“It was an accident,” Jake said. “I’m really sorry.”
“Hey.” Cobb’s voice was soft as he quickly disposed of the mess in a trash can then wiped his hands before lowering himself to look into Jake’s face. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, Jake. No big deal at all.”
Jake nodded as tears rolled down his face.
“Hey, you know, I like your suit,” Cobb said.
Jake nodded.
“I know this has to be the toughest day ever, right?” Cobb said.
Jake said nothing, looking at his feet.
“Well, you did good today, Jake. Real good.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cobb,” Jake said.
“You bet, you bet.”
* * *
At Greg’s table, the stream of people offering their sympathies was dwindling.
He thanked Juan Perez after he offered his condolences. Then Lynsey Dowd, who worked with Jenn, hugged Greg.
“She was such a good person. I’m so sorry,” Dowd said.
Al Clayton, among the last mourners, embraced Greg.
“There are no words, Greg, no words. I’m so sorry.”
Then, Brooke Bollman was standing at his table in a formfitting dress, her eyes glistening.
“I didn’t know if I should be here, Greg, but I wanted to pay my respects.”
He nodded.
“I’m so sorry for what happened. You have my condolences.”
Bollman hugged him and when she left, Greg looked across the near-empty hall to a table where Kozak and Carillo were alone, finishing their coffees.
Watching.
* * *
Later, with the reception ended, Greg and Kat thanked the volunteers and left with Jake and Vince.
In the parking lot, while walking to Kat’s Jeep, Greg saw a state police patrol car, an Erie County deputy’s car and a familiar unmarked Taurus in a far corner. The trooper and deputy were talking to Kozak and Carillo.
Leaving his family to wait at the Jeep, Greg approached them.
As he drew nearer, he overheard pieces of conversation about “recording all license plates,” then the detectives turned to Greg.
“Excuse me,” Greg said.
Kozak’s face creased with concern.
“Greg, we’re sorry for your loss.”
“I don’t know if I should thank you for coming,” Greg said, “or curse you.”
Kozak and Carillo traded a quick look.
“I have only one thing to say,” Greg said.
Carillo lifted his chin to receive it.
“You find out why my wife is dead.”
Fifty-Seven
Cleveland, Ohio
Claire Kozak’s gloved hands lifted the shattered screen of a discarded TV to find a rat’s carcass infested with maggots.
Dropping the frame, she moved on, the rhythmic thrumming of the freeway underscoring the futility as she and Carillo searched the vast, abandoned lot.
They weren’t certain what they were looking for—a piece of evidence, anything pointing to answers as to how and why Jennifer Griffin went from a quiet evening at a book club meeting in Buffalo to dying here in Cleveland, some one hundred yards away from where Kozak now stood.
They’d arrived in Cleveland last night, driving from Buffalo shortly after Jennifer’s funeral, checking into the same Hyatt they’d used in the days after she was first identified.
Because she died in metropolitan Cleveland, Cuyahoga County had taken the lead on the investigation, building on the work done so far by Kozak and Carillo. This morning they’d attended a new case-status meeting downtown at the Justice Center on West Third Street in the Detective Bureau of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department. Again, the group included people from the county, Cleveland police, Cleveland FBI agents, investigators from Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and the highway patrol.
Again, leading that morning’s meeting with updates was Marge Bayne, a detective with the county.
“We re-created what we know of Jennifer Griffin’s final steps, based upon interviews of crash survivors, witness motorists, and canvassing the area,” Bayne said, consulting her laptop.
“And video?” Carillo asked. “Where’re you with that?”
Bayne shot him an icy glance and continued.
“As mentioned previously, the freeway cameras monitor live traffic. They do not record. Following a public appeal to witnesses for any recordings, we received some dashcam footage and reviewed it. Here it is.”
Several video recordings of varying quality from varying perspectives played in a montage on a wall-mounted monitor. It showed Jennifer emerging in the night from the on-ramp and running into traffic, then the fiery explosion.
“Like she came out of nowhere,” one of the Cleveland detectives said.
“We canvassed the area several times and searched it with dog teams and drones,” Bayne said. “On one side of the freeway, there are several apartment blocks. On the other, several empty lots. Our efforts have yielded nothing to date.”
“We moved on the new warrants,” Kozak said.
“Yes, in response to our request, our New York colleagues executed warrants on any existing and new phones and devices for Greg Griffin and Brooke Bollman. We were specifically interested in tracking movement from Buffalo into the Cleveland area in the period leading up to and immediately following Jennifer Griffin’s death. Now, we know Greg came to Cleveland with his sister to meet with Dr. Narlow at the ME’s office after the fact, but aside from that, nothing else surfaced in Ohio.”
“Greg and Bollman could’ve gotten new burners,” an FBI agent said.