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‘That would … be … lovely …’ the old woman answers.
Olivia makes her way into the kitchen and fumbles around looking for the tea things. It doesn’t take long. The kettle is on the stove, the tea bags are on the counter, and she finds the mugs in the first cupboard she opens. There’s a carton of milk in the refrigerator. She sniffs it, and it seems okay. In fact, the fridge seems relatively well stocked.
When it’s ready, she takes the tea out to the front room. ‘Tell me who you have coming in to help you,’ Olivia says. She listens patiently while Margaret tells her about her arrangements, and how she hopes she gets into assisted living soon.
‘I imagine you like to have visitors,’ Olivia says.
‘I have a few,’ Margaret says. She names some friends who come regularly, if they can.
‘And Paul comes to see you, sometimes,’ Olivia says, feeling a twinge of guilt about what she’s doing.
‘Not very often,’ Margaret says darkly, the first hint of her petulant side. ‘I call him but he never comes.’
‘I’m sure he comes as often as he can,’ Olivia soothes.
‘The police came.’
‘Did they?’ Olivia asks, alert. ‘What did they want?’
‘I don’t remember.’ She slurps her tea. ‘You should come more,’ Margaret says. ‘You’re good company.’
‘You probably don’t remember the last time Paul was here,’ Olivia says.
‘No,’ she says. ‘My memory isn’t very good, you know.’
Olivia’s heart sinks.
Margaret says slowly, ‘That’s why I keep a diary. I write in it a little every day, to keep my mind sharp. The doctor said it would be good for me.’ She points at a leather journal, peeking out from underneath the newspaper on the coffee table. ‘I write in it a little bit every day, the weather, who came to visit.’
Olivia feels her heart begin to beat painfully. ‘What a good idea. When did you start to do that?’
‘A while ago.’
‘Can I have a look?’ Olivia asks. She must see what she wrote for September 29. Margaret nods, and Olivia leafs through the pages, hoping to find the relevant date. But the diary is a mess. It’s mostly blank, words scrawled in a shaky hand in the middle of the page, some random dates, but nothing makes any sense. Barely a coherent sentence anywhere.
‘Could you get us some more tea, Ruby, dear?’ the old woman asks.
Chapter Twenty-six
WEBB DECIDES THAT Larry Harris doesn’t look as confident in casual clothes. When Webb saw him last, he was still in a suit, his jacket off, his tie loosened – an executive back from a business trip. Today he’s wearing jeans and an old sweater, and he doesn’t seem to have the same presence or authority. Or maybe it’s that he’s just not comfortable being brought in for questioning to the police station. That usually flusters people. Especially if they have something to hide.
Larry is staring at the table in the interview room. He has been read his rights. For now he has declined to exercise his right to an attorney.
‘Larry, we know you were seeing Amanda Pierce.’
He closes his eyes.
‘Did your wife tell you? What we have?’
He nods. Webb waits for him to open his eyes. Finally he does. He looks at Webb and says, ‘I saw her for a few weeks. We met sometimes at that hotel. I don’t know what she told her husband.’ He flushes. ‘It was wrong, I know. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not proud of it.’
‘We have the dates on the surveillance video,’ Webb says. ‘You saw her at the Paradise Hotel starting in July. You were with her there on the Tuesday before she disappeared, September twenty-sixth. No one saw her after the following Friday. So … what happened in that hotel room that night, Larry? Did she tell you it was over?’
He shakes his head firmly. ‘No, it was the same as usual. We were getting along fine.’ He sits back in his chair, seems to deliberately assume a more open position. ‘Look, it’s not like we were in love. I wasn’t planning on leaving my wife for her or anything. She wasn’t putting pressure on me. It was just – physical. For both of us.’
‘But now she’s dead,’ Webb says.
‘I didn’t have anything to do with that,’ Larry says sharply. ‘Just because I slept with her doesn’t mean I killed her.’
‘When was the last time you saw Amanda?’ Webb asks.
‘That night, at the hotel. She wasn’t temping at our offices that week. She was at some accounting firm, she told me.’
‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’ Webb asks. Larry hesitates briefly, as if considering a lie. ‘That was the last time I spoke to her,’ he says.
Webb doesn’t believe him. He decides to let it go, for now. ‘How did you communicate with Amanda? Did you call her at home?’ Webb asks. He knows he’s needling him.
‘No, of course not,’ Larry says, shifting uneasily in the hard chair.
‘So how did you communicate?’
‘Phone,’ Larry answers sullenly.
‘What phone would that be?’ Webb asks.
‘I had a separate phone, for her.’
‘I see,’ says Webb. ‘This would be an unregistered, pay-as-you-go, burner phone?’ Larry nods reluctantly. ‘And did Amanda have a second, unregistered phone as well?’
He nods again. ‘Yes.’
Webb glances quickly at Moen. They haven’t found her burner phone. They found her regular cell phone in her purse, in the car. But no burner phone has turned up. They need to find that phone. He focuses in on Larry again. ‘Do you have any idea where it might be?’
‘No.’
‘And where is your burner phone now?’
‘I don’t have it any more.’
‘Why not?’
‘After Amanda … disappeared, I didn’t need it anymore. And I didn’t want my wife to find it.’
‘How did you get rid of it?’ Larry takes so long to answer, that Webb repeats the question. ‘How did you get rid of it?’
‘I didn’t kill her,’ Larry insists suddenly.
‘What did you do with the burner phone?’
‘I threw it into the Hudson,’ he says nervously. ‘I went for a walk along the river one night and tossed it in.’
‘And when was that?’
‘It was about a week after she’d left. I mean – everybody thought she’d taken off on her husband.’
Webb stifles his frustration. He’ll never find that phone, or Amanda’s phone either. His bet is that she had it with her when she was murdered, and her killer got rid of it. Same as the murder weapon. He shifts gears. ‘Why can’t we find anybody who saw you at the resort on Friday afternoon? After you checked in, nobody saw you until around nine o’clock.’
Larry exhales heavily, looks from Webb to Moen and back again. ‘I worked in my room all afternoon, and then fell asleep. I missed most of the reception.’
‘And we’re supposed to believe that?’ Webb asks.
‘It’s true!’ Larry says, almost violently. ‘Why don’t you check with the resort? I never left my room, I swear. They must have cameras on the parking lot. They can tell you that my car never left.’
