“Butbeforehe killed her, not afterward. It’s why he’s been insisting on taking the test!” Reid said, excitement building. “Because he knew that if heactuallyhugged and kissed her dead body, told her he loved her after he’d smashed her head in and strangled her, the machine wouldn’t detect a lie when he told the story.”
“Because he’d be telling the truth,” Miano said. “But when he was directly asked if he killed Beth ...”
“His research would have taught him how to control his breathing. He might not have been able to keep it up through the whole slate of questions, but for one, he nailed it.”
Reid’s heart was pumping with elation at the breakthrough.
“We’ve got to get his computers,” Miano said. “House and gallery.”
“And Nicola’s,” Reid said. “But I still think we won’t find anything on any of those. We’ve got to look at libraries, public places he could have gone to look it up.”
“Books too,” Miano said. “Check his credit cards for book orders.”
Reid was beaming when he said goodbye and he and Miano went to their separate work stations to start working on the warrants. Two hours later, Miano told him he could leave early, that she’d finish the applications. She had a leave of absence coming up—she needed knee surgery for an old college soccer injury—and she knew he’d be carrying the caseload while she was gone. He thanked her and took off.
On the way home, he took a detour through the center of Black Hall.
He parked in the driveway of the Lathrop Gallery, stared at the historic building. The blinds on the tall windows were closed. The flowers in the stone planters on the front porch hadn’t been watered, and the geraniums had turned brown. Without Beth to take care of the gallery, it looked abandoned. He wondered if Kate would take over.
He circled around back, tracing the steps he had taken twenty-three years ago. The rhododendrons were as thick around the hatchway door as they had been back then. He remembered what it had been like to hear Kate thumping her feet, the sound that had made him break down the door. He leaned his shoulder against the door now, remembering the force it had taken to break the lock.
If he counted the days and minutes since that day, he knew there would be very few when the Woodward sisters had not been on his mind. He stared at the windows, wondering what secrets the computers inside held. He doubted very much that Pete had left any trail on a hard drive that could be traced to him, but he had hope that they were on the right track.
A message from Kate popped up on his phone.
Can we meet? I have something to show you.
He texted back:
Where?
Kate replied:
My place.
When he got to Bank Street, he saw her sitting on the top step in front of her building. Her tan legs were streaked with salt or silt, silvery in the light, as if she’d been wading in the river. Popcorn lay on the sidewalk behind her and jumped up when Reid got out of his car.
“Let’s talk out here,” she said. “Sam’s upstairs.”
“Okay,” he said, sitting beside her.
“Conor,” she said. “I hate to say this, but you might be wrong about Pete.”
“Why?”
“Have you talked to Jed Hilliard yet?”
“Yes,” Reid said.
“Well, so have I,” Kate said. “I think you’d better look at him more closely.”
“We did, of course,” Reid said. “But he has an alibi.”
“So does Pete. He was on a sailboat, two hundred miles away.”
“Jed was giving private art lessons to some kids on Fishers Island,” Reid said.
“The Stewarts?” Kate asked. “I know them. I fly the family. David’s the one who first mentioned Jed to me. But they’re so sweet—he could fool them; he could have snuck off ...”
