“Just you?”
“I stayed in the casita to do a little work,” Malcolm explained, his face starting to return to its original color.
“For how long?’ Jessie pressed.
“Up until Abby came to get me to go to the yoga class, so I think it was about nine to 10:45.”
“And that whole time, you were whale watching?” Jessie asked Abby.
“Part of it, right down there actually,” Abby said, suddenly marching towards the cliff’s edge that Jessie had thought she’d fall over earlier.
Jessie tried not to overreact and casually strolled over to the spot next to her. Hugo had been right. The drop off wasn’t as dramatic as it first appeared. Instead, after a short two-foot gap, the hillside gradually sloped downward for another fifteen feet before it got steeper and eventually did become a sharp vertical wall above the water below. Abby pointed to a large rock outcropping about a half-mile down the shore that extended out to where the waves were crashing.
“That’s the spot where the concierge said I’d have the most luck,” Abby said.
“Did you have any?”
“Nope,” she admitted disappointedly. “I was out there for about forty-five minutes and never saw one whale.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jessie said. “What did you do after that?”
“Just strolled along the beach until it was time to come back and get Malcolm,”
“Could you come back from the edge?” her husband called out from behind them. Apparently, he’d forgotten that it wasn’t as risky as it appeared.
“Did you run into anyone?” Jessie asked her, ignoring Malcolm.
“I passed a few people on the beach,” Abby said. “No one I knew.”
Jessie was having trouble pinning these two down. Abby Andrews was such a bundle of enthusiasm that discerning moments of deception amid her live-wire energy was proving difficult. The same was true of Malcolm. His dark sullenness, which could easily be misinterpreted as a sign of ill intent, seemed to be his default emotional position. So divining what was really going on in his head was a challenge.
“Please, Abby,” Malcolm called out, this time with more intensity, “come away from the side.”
“We better go back,” his wife said quietly as her fiery hair whipped crazily in the wind. “He tends to get upset if he thinks I’m in danger. It’s cute.”
They returned to the spot where the yoga lesson had taken place earlier. Jessie could tell Malcolm was losing patience and was about to ask some questions of his own. She beat him to the punch.
“What do you two do for a living?” she asked, knowing that would almost certainly get him to open up. With guys like him, it nearly always did.
“I work in tech,” he said blandly.
“That’s an understatement. Don’t be modest, sweetie,” Abby chided before turning to Jessie. “Malcolm developed elements of the security technology used by thousands of retail apps.”
“Oh wow,” Jessie said, pretending to be impressed. “Would I have heard of it?”
“No,” Malcolm said quickly. “It’s back-end stuff.”
“I’ll bet you do pretty well,” Jessie suggested.
“Well enough that I get to teach sixth grade math out of pleasure rather than necessity,” Abby confirmed before adding in a faux whisper, “He’s worth about half a billion.”
“Abby,” Malcolm groaned, again, turning a light shade of red. “Don’t go revealing that. Someone’s going to kidnap you and I’ll have to pay a ransom.”
“Not her—she’s a cop,” Abby said, before pretending to be offended, “And what are you saying—that you wouldn’t pay it?”
Jessie almost chuckled. If Abby was a gold-digger, she was the most disarming one of all time. Still, the interview was starting to go off the rails and, since Abby had given her an opening to get it back on track, Jessie took it.
“I’m actually not a cop,” she said seriously. “I’m a criminal profiler who consults for the department and like I mentioned earlier, I’m working a case.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to get to that part,” Malcolm said, happy to switch subjects as well. “Why do you need to know our jobs or our schedules for the day? Are we being investigated for something?”
“Not you personally,” Jessie lied. “But your whereabouts may help us as we try to resolve our probe.”
“What probe exactly?” Malcolm pressed. He was as relentless as his wife was chipper.
Now that she’d gotten their alibis, which both had gaps big enough to fit in a quick murder, there was no reason not to be forthright.
“I have some sad news to share with you,” she told them. “My partner, who is currently talking to Matthew and Eleanor Darcy, and I are looking into the death of your friend Scott Newhouse. He passed away earlier this morning.”
Both Andrews stood silently for a second before Malcolm said, almost too quietly to be heard.
“He was murdered, wasn’t he?”
“Why do you say that?” Jessie asked.
For a second, he looked reluctant to reply. But then he seemed to decide he needed to.
“You wouldn’t have started our conversation by getting our alibis if it was a heart attack or suicide or something like that,” he replied.
Next to him, Abby, who had yet to speak, started to cry. He saw it and wrapped her in his arms.
“We’re just covering all our bases,” Jessie explained truthfully. “What makes you suggest suicide, Malcolm?”
“I’m not suggesting it,” he said defiantly. “I just know he had some issues with depression. But I don’t think they were bad enough that he would do that.”
“You never know,” Abby said quietly, fighting through hiccupping sobs, “I see it with kids all the time. Lots of them keep everything bottled up so tight that people, even their loved ones, don’t realize how much pain they’re in. By the time they do, it’s too late.”
“Abby,” Jessie asked. “Do you think Scott might have taken his own life?”
The woman, so effervescent only moments earlier, buried her head in her husband’s chest. When she answered, her voice was muffled.
“I’d just be guessing,” she said. “He did get down sometimes but who doesn’t? I don’t want to make any assumptions. How did you find him?”
It wasn’t an unreasonable question to ask under the circumstances but nonetheless, it made Jessie’s antennae go up slightly. Was Abby just trying to help find answers? Was this morbid curiosity? Or was there some other reason she was asking?
“I can’t really get into that at this point,” she replied. “What I can do is make the most of what you two have to offer, which is information. Did either of you see Scott or Bridget this morning?”
Both Andrews shook their heads. There was no way to ask the next question without arousing suspicion, but she didn’t have a choice.
“Would you describe them as having a happy marriage?”
“Of course,” Abby said quickly, coming as close to angry as Jessie had seen her. “How can you ask that?”