Seeing what had happened to the Woodward sisters had changed him. He had taken in their pain through his skin. He was from a close family. He loved his parents and brother. The idea of having his mother die beside him, unable to help her, filled him with despair and rage, things he could imagine the Woodward girls feeling. Especially Kate. Her silence that day, the way her hand had felt like ice, had sliced his heart.
After the art was recovered, Francesca had been interviewed by the state’s attorney, and she had willingly provided evidence against Garth. Although she had not known his plan, her testimony about their town house and his trips to the casinos had made his motive clear.
The Andersons had taken plea deals and testified in court, each sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Garth Woodward had gone to prison for life without the possibility of parole. Beth eventually had gotten married and had Sam, and Kate had taken to the sky.
Reid’s coping mechanism was wood carving. He had a workbench set up at the far end of his office. Narrow drawers held his knives, chisels, and adzes. Blocks of butternut, basswood, and aspen were stacked high. A few of his favorite pieces were displayed on shelves above the bench. They included a pair of mallards, a loon, a kingfisher, a striped bass, and, carved from cottonwood—the palest wood he had been able to find—an albino whale.
Just like Moby Dick.
He sat at his desk now, drinking coffee. What if he was wrong about Pete, if he went down the wrong track and didn’t get Beth’s killer? Maybe Tom was right, and Reid’s feelings were blinding him. He took out a yellow legal pad and made two columns. The first was for names of suspects, the second for possible motives.
In the first column he wrotePete. Under it he wroteNicola. Under that he wroteStranger.
Then he crossed outNicolaandStranger.
He exhaled and took out his cell phone. He had programmed Pete’s number in after the call to the Lathrops’ landline, and he dialed it now. He didn’t really expect an answer, just wanted to leave a message, and was taken aback when Pete picked up.
“Hello?” Pete said.
“Pete. This is Detective Reid.”
“Oh,” Pete said. “I was just going to call you.”
“Really, what about?”
“Well, I was pretty upset earlier. I’m sure you can understand. I wanted to tell you I’m ready to talk whenever you are. We’ve got to find who did this.”
Reid hid his surprise. He had expected to chase Pete. On the other hand, it was smart of Pete to seem to cooperate. “Great, that’s what I was calling about,” he said. “To schedule a time.”
“I’ll come tomorrow,” Pete said. “Can we make it afternoon? We have to make funeral plans in the morning.”
“Afternoon is fine,” Reid said. “Will you be bringing your lawyer?”
“Why would I need one? I’m innocent.”
I didn’t ask if you were innocent,Reid thought. “Okay, tomorrow. Three o’clock?” he asked, thinking of the alibi witnesses he planned to interview first.
“Fine,” Pete said.
“By the way,” Reid said, “how is your daughter?”
Pete let out a long exhale. “Not good. As you can imagine.”
Reid gave him the address to the Eastern District Major Crime Squad office. When they hung up, he sat down at his desk and started making notes about the day. After a few minutes, he paused and stared up at the yellowing twenty-three-year-old article on the wall.
Pete hadn’t exactly lied and said he had seen his daughter. But he hadn’t said he hadn’t, either.
9
The call came in the middle of the night. At 2:11 a.m. Kate fumbled for the phone next to her bed, saw the caller ID.
“Hello?” she said. “Lu?”
But the connection was bad, crackling on the line, as if Lulu was somewhere without cell reception. Kate said, “Hello, hello? Can you hear me? I can’t hear you. Are you there?” Then she disconnected. She waited a few moments, staring at the screen, waiting for it to ring again. But instead she got a notification that a voice mail message had dropped in. She listened to it.
“It can’t be true,” Lulu’s recorded voice said, thick with tears. “Tell me it isn’t, Kate. I’ve had my phone off all day. I’m in Tokyo on a ridiculous long haul, and I just got your texts, and then Scotty called. She told me. Not Beth, Katy; not our Beth,” Lulu said, and then her voice broke. “I love you so much. I am with you, Kate.” Her best friend’s sobs brought on Kate’s, and she lay in bed clutching her phone, tears running down her cheeks, swallowing the sounds of weeping so Sam—fast asleep, she hoped—wouldn’t hear. She dialed Lulu back, but again—voice mail. It frustrated her, but she listened to the message again, and eventually she dropped the phone on her pillow and drifted into troubled sleep.
Hours later, Kate didn’t want to get up. She couldn’t bear to face a sunny day that Beth would not see. Her heart skipped, skipped, skipped again, couldn’t find its rhythm. Her sister wasn’t in the world. How could she go on if she couldn’t feel her sister’s living, breathing presence? She replayed the detective’s words, how he’d said Pete had killed Beth. In the light of day, that seemed impossible. Didn’t it?
