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“What about the other students who were at the reception?” asked Elif. “Have you spoken to them?”
“No.”
Elif looked back and forth at Jane and Frost. “Why do you focus only on my husband? What is it you think he did?”
“Elif, please,” said Anthony. “I’m sure this is just routine.”
“I don’t think so.” Elif looked at Jane. “There’s something you haven’t told us yet.”
“The reason we’re talking to your husband,” said Jane, “is because he’s the only one from that reception who now lives in the Boston area.”
“Why does that matter? Professor Creighton was killed in Maine.”
“Two weeks ago, a woman was murdered in Boston. Her death may be linked to Professor Creighton’s case.”
For a moment, the only sound was the chirp of sparrows and the distant growl of a motorcycle as both husband and wife registered the significance of what Jane had said.
“Anothermurder,” said Elif. “And just because my husband’s the only student who lives in Boston, you assume—”
“We don’t assume anything. We’re just trying to find out if thereisa connection.”
“Who was this other woman?” asked Anthony.
“Her name was Sofia Suarez. She worked as a critical care nurse at Pilgrim Hospital.”
“Suarez?” He shook his head. “I don’t know anyone by that name. And I don’t believe I’veeverset foot in Pilgrim Hospital.”
“Neither of us has,” said Elif. “Both our daughters were born at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.”
“The victim’s name isn’t familiar to either one of you?”
Both Elif and Anthony shook their heads.
“Why do you think these murders are connected?” Anthony asked. “Was this nurse killed in a break-in, like Professor Creighton?”
“It happened in the victim’s home, yes.” Now for the question that would surely rattle them both: “Where were you on the night of May twentieth, Mr. Yilmaz?”
His wife opened her mouth to speak, but he quickly held up his hand to stop her. Calmly he reached into a pocket for his cell phone and looked at the calendar. “May twentieth. That was a Friday night,” he noted.
“Yes.”
“Friday?” said Elif, and she looked at Jane with a confident glint of satisfaction in her eyes. “That’s the night Rabia came home.”
“Rabia is our daughter,” said Anthony. “She flew home from London, where she attends boarding school. Elif and I picked her up at Logan Airport and we took her out to dinner. Then we all came home for the night.”
“And you stayed home all night, sir?”
He looked straight at her. “That night, my precious daughter was home for the first time in months. Why would I suddenly leave my house to go kill a woman I didn’t even know?”
—
“Well that was a deadend,” said Frost as they climbed into the car.
Jane buckled her seatbelt but did not immediately start the engine. Instead she sat for a moment looking out at the quiet street where the Yilmazes lived. It was a leafy neighborhood where people had room to grow roses in their backyards, wherethe sound of traffic was little more than a distant hiss. A place where an immigrant from Turkey could mingle comfortably with other professionals and raise his family and feel he belonged.
Anthony Yilmaz was not their man. Yes, they would check with British Airways to see if his daughter, Rabia, really had arrived that night at Logan Airport, but Jane already knew it would only confirm what the Yilmazes had told them. This man did not kill Sofia Suarez. But he had revealed a piece of information that might be relevant, something she hadn’t heard before.
She took out her cell phone and called Det. Thibodeau in Maine. “I have a question,” she said.
