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11
KYLE’S COMMENT IS LIKE A NICK FROM A KNIFE. SHE NEEDSto end the call before things get any uglier.
“Goodbye, Kyle,” she says. “Don’t contact my mother again. And don’t contact me again, either.”
Emma disconnects before he has a chance to respond and then inhales deeply.My brother was barely in the ground, he’d said, an accusation crouching crocodile-like beneath the surface of those words.
She probably should have seen this coming. From the moment Kyle showed at the house with that box of papers, she sensed he was stewing over her marriage, that to him she might as well have been sipping Veuve Clicquot on Derrick’s grave.
All by itself, his anger doesn’t scare her. She faced it before and she can face it again. But what he intends to do with that anger is a different matter. Is he going to use it to try to make trouble for her?
Emma thinks suddenly of what he dropped about thepolice receiving a tip. Tom had wondered whether Kyle was simply trying to get a rise out of her, but what if therehadbeen a tip, one called in by Kyle himself?
Did you know my brother’s widow got married again in a hot minute?she imagines him saying to one of the detectives.You should take another look at her.
Up until Friday, Emma had managed to go for days at a time without letting her thoughts drift to the period surrounding Derrick’s death. Now, in the space of a few days, with Webster’s visit, Addison’s comments, and Kyle’s fresh insinuations, everything is geysering all around her again.
She feels even more desperate to speak to Peter Dunne, to have him remind her that the cops didn’t conclude she was a viable suspect during the first investigation and that nothing could have happened to make them change their minds. Unfortunately, she’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow since Dunne might not respond to emails on weekends.
But no sooner has she driven home and let herself back into the house when her phone rings with Dunne’s name on the screen. The urgent second email clearly did the trick.
“Emma, dear, how are you?” he starts. His voice is deep with what she’s always considered a calm, soothing quality, but hearing it now—after she’d convinced herself that chapter of her life was closed—is like pressing on an old bruise and finding it still hurts.
“Oh, thanks so much for calling on the weekend,” she tells him. Since she has no idea where Brittany might be lurking, she quickly slips out onto the patio. “I’ve been good in general, but as I said in the email, they’re reopening the case.”
“Tell me everything you’ve heard so far.”
Though it’s been two years since they were face-to-face, she pictures him easily: short brown hair, thinning a little on top, a strong nose, a full mouth with a tiny cleft in his lower lip. Nothing out of the ordinary, but his features come together in an attractive way, probably in part because of his extreme self-possession.
She runs through the highlights of Webster’s unannounced visit as well as Kyle’s claim about a tip. When she’s done, a long sigh escapes her lips. “I know, I know,” she adds. “It was a mistake to speak to the police without you present, but this detective caught me completely off guard.”
Dunne chuckles dryly. “The reason the police show up out of the blue rather than making an appointment is that theywantto catch you off guard.”
“Do you think I created a problem for myself?”
“I can’t say, Emma, since I wasn’t in the room with you. I do know the police investigated you thoroughly in the past and apparently found nothing suspicious, but any time you talk to the police, you are in a danger zone—and that goes at least double when you talk without an attorney present. The police don’t like it when a lawyer comes into the picture because it limits them in how hard they can push you. But that’s the point. You need a lawyer there to keep things in line and to make a record of what you are being asked and what you are saying.”
“She really just went over the same ground those other detectives covered two years ago, asking almost identical questions.”
“The police will always ask many of the same questions that they asked previously, pushing you to confirm what theyhave from you in the prior police report and to provide more detail. Out of nervousness or an unwillingness to sign on to whatever they might think or claim that you said last time around, you could end up saying something that they view as inconsistent—and the police don’t like inconsistencies. They start focusing on them.”
Her stomach drops. Had she been inconsistent with Webster in some way she can’t remember? “I feel like such an idiot,” she says.
“Don’t,” Dunne assures her. “What I’d like is for you to reconstruct as much of the conversation with Detective Webster as you can, get it all down in a Word document, and email it to me today.”
“I’ll do that as soon as we’re off the phone.”
“Also shoot me Webster’s contact info when you can. I’ll call her and explain that you’re happy the case has been reopened, but she should deal directly with me going forward.”
Emma exhales, feeling a swell of relief. It will cost her a pretty penny, but Dunne is on top of it. “Thank you, Peter.”
“I’ll also see if she says anything about this so-called tip. It’s more than possible the policedohave a lead, but she doesn’t want to show her hand to you.”
Why not?Emma wonders, her anxiety spiking again. Is it because the tip was abouther?
“One last question before we hang up,” Dunne adds. “What did Webster seem to know about Tom?”
“Uh, not very much. She did ask how the two of us met.”
