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“No. He obviously had plans to drive somewhere, but the conference wasn’t over yet. Did the police ever contact Chris, do you know?”
Lilly sighs dispiritedly. “They did. They said they saw from phone records that Chris had called Derrick midweek, which must have been when they set up the meeting—and then again on Friday, when Chris canceled.”
“Huh. So that means the cops knew why he’d parked down here, but never mentioned it to me for some reason.”
Lilly shakes her head. “Theydidn’tknow—because Chris lied and said he’d been chatting with Derrick about the stock market or something. He told me that since he’d canceled the meeting, there was no point in complicating things by bringing it up. I see now that I should have pressured him to volunteer more, but at the time I didn’t think there could be any connection between Derrick being shot and an aborted meeting the morning before.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure thereisn’ta connection. For some reason I’m probably never going to know, Derrick returned to the garage that night and just got really unlucky.”
But... what if these things could be linked?Emma thinks even as she says there isn’t a connection. Does the murder have something to do with Chris Shelbourne—who’s now also died tragically and far too young?
“Lilly,” Emma continues, her voice almost a whisper. “Where was Chris that Saturday night? Do you remember?”
Please, she thinks,as crazy as it sounds, let Chris be thekiller. Let him have murdered Derrick for some reason she can’t possibly imagine. Anything that meansTomdidn’t do it.
“He was at home with me,” Lilly says, meeting her gaze. “You have my word. He’d twisted his ankle running and he wanted to hole up in the apartment to recuperate. We didn’t hear the news until the next night when we were having dinner.”
“Okay, thanks for being straight with me. And thanks for telling me about the meeting. It at least ties up one of the things that’s been plaguing me.”
Emma ends up staying for a little while longer, nibbling on a couple of the smoked salmon and egg salad sandwiches and feeling a new connection to Lilly, but at around two o’clock she finally rises, saying she’d better make her way back uptown.
“Are you okay?” Lilly asks as they traverse the length of the great room. “This all must be such a shock.”
“It’s a shock for sure, but it’s good to have something finally answered. I’ll have to tell the police, Lilly, and I’m sure they’ll call you.”
“Understood.”
They’re halfway to the door now when Emma stops in her tracks.
“Did Chris ever volunteer the reason they were supposed to get together that morning?” she asks. “I’m finding it hard to understand why Derrick made time for coffee with him on the opening day of a big conference.”
Lilly’s gaze shoots to a row of paintings, all riveting abstract pieces.
“From what I remember, they were going to talk aboutart. I assumed he was coming here so Chris could show him our collection.”
“Hmm. Do you think Chris wanted to buy one of the paintings Derrick inherited?” Which would be a surprise since her husband had sworn he never wanted to sell the two pieces unless he was destitute.
Lilly shrugs apologetically. “Maybe. But Chris usually worked with a specific dealer for any pieces he bought.”
“Another mystery,” Emma says, smiling wanly. They hug goodbye and promise to talk again soon.
After taking the 6 train back uptown, Emma wanders the Upper East Side for a while, checks in with both Eric and Dario by phone, and still hungry after two tiny sandwiches at Lilly’s, orders a smoothie at a small café. She’s still processing what she’s now learned about Derrick’s movements that fateful weekend, trying to determine if there’s a clue hidden in there somewhere, but eventually she pushes those thoughts aside and forces herself to confront what she heard from Taylor earlier. She can’t ignore it any longer.
Tom wasn’t at the dinner in Stowe on Saturday night, which is extremely odd. Besides the fact that it means he might not have an alibi, it’s unlike him, and also inappropriate for the head of a company not to show at one of the main events of a client weekend.
So where was he, if not at the dinner? Certainly, Webster will want the answer to that question, as well. According to what Google revealed, the driving time between Stowe, Vermont, and New York City is about five and a half hours. IfTom left there in the late afternoon, he could have made it to the city in time to park near the garage, lie in wait, and shoot Derrick. Then he could have hightailed it back to Stowe and reached the ski resort by early morning. It would have meant missing the dinner Saturday night, but he would have been around to ski with clients on Sunday, even if exhausted.
No, it can’t be, Emma tells herself. There has to be some other explanation. Besides, how would Tom have known where Derrick was that evening?
Of course, it’s possible he was stalking him, too, keeping tabs on his comings and goings. It would have been relatively easy to learn about the conference, but that doesn’t explain how he’d know that Derrick would hop into an Uber and barrel down to SoHo Saturday night. Unless... unless he had lured him down there somehow. Tom had lived downtown back in his twenties, when he worked in advertising in the city, and would be familiar with the general area.
A horrible image muscles its way into Emma’s mind: her first husband and her second husband crossing paths in an unlit downtown alleyway, one of them holding a gun.
If the police close in on Tom, they might assume he did it all at her urging.
And as she’s sitting there in the café, Tom actually texts her. His plane has landed, he says, and he’s going to skip the office and work from home for the rest of the afternoon. She can’t bring herself to respond.
By the time Emma reaches Bekah’s building in the East Seventies, her brain seems ready to explode, but the feel ofBekah’s arms around her in a warm hug has a momentary calming effect. It’s also great to see her friend looking deliriously happy.
