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“Trent was looking for a library book in their room, and he found Brian’s savings account statement. He’s withdrawn a total of fifteen hundred dollars since he’s been home. I think we should talk to him about it.”
This was a lot to come at me out of the daze of a short nap. I tried not to sigh as I considered potential outcomes. “I’d like to let it wait,” I said. “It’s important Brian knows we trust him. He’s not going to like the idea that his brother was snooping on him either.”
Mary Catherine didn’t particularly agree with my decision. That was another aspect of her Irishness. She could not hide her emotions. Ever. From virtually anyone, and especially me.
I decided to fill her in on a little bit of my day. I jumped right in by saying, “I saw Emily Parker today. She’s trying to help me with the homicide case.” As I waited for a response, I felt myself tense a little bit. The beauty of the Irish soul can never be underestimated. Unfortunately, it also encompasses an Irish temper. The problem was never knowing what would set it off.
But Mary Catherine looked calm. She took a moment, brushed some hair out of her face, and said, “Emily seems like a good FBI agent. I like to see you getting help. I know you two have history, but what’s the point of marrying you if I can’t trust you?”
This beautiful Irish girl never failed to surprise me.
Chapter 22
At about seven thirty the next morning, I stumbled into the kitchen, foggy from not nearly enough sleep. I mumbled “Good morning” to some of my family, grabbed my notebook, and slipped out the door.
And there was Brett Hollis sitting in the Crown Vic, right where he’d said he would be. I was impressed.
The second surprise was that he had stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts, and had a cup of coffee and a donut stick for me.
Even so, I’ll admit feeling a flash of annoyance that the young detective, who had been keeping the same schedule as me, looked so fresh and ready to go. Even the bandage on his nose looked neater and more secure than before.
I slipped into the passenger seat and nodded a greeting. “On time, ready to go, and not complaining? This already feels like it’s going to be a good day.”
Hollis said, “Woodstock is about a hundred miles north of the city. I have a route mapped out, and I talked to one of my buddies with the state police. I know where they’re patrolling today. We’ll make it in record time.”
I said to Hollis, “I’d like to get there and back alive. I appreciate your interest in efficiency, but I’ll make good use of the time in the car.” To his credit, Hollis didn’t try to make chitchat. He focused on the road and, even though it made me a little nervous, turned I-87 into some kind of speed trial.
By the time we turned west off the interstate near Hurley and I looked up from my notebook, I was rewarded with a wide-angle view of upstate New York greenery. Pastures and woods were not what I grew up seeing every day, and they were lovely to look at. I gazed out the window and said, “Not much has happened in Woodstock since the music festival.”
“What music festival?”
I flinched. Surely my young partner couldn’t be so cut off from the cultural past as to have never heard of Woodstock. I gave him a sideways glance, then said, “Are you messing with me?”
He smiled. “A little.”
“So you have heard of Woodstock, right? Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin?”
Hollis shrugged and said, “My grandma told me all about it.”
I had to laugh at that and mumbled, “You little shit.”
The home belonging to Elaine Anastas’s parents sat on the edge of a wide field about fifteen miles south of Woodstock. We passed the mailbox, which leaned to the southeast like the Tower of Pisa, and bumped over the dirt road toward the house. I stopped counting abandoned refrigerators after the first seven.
The patch of grass in the front yard was covered with broken plastic toys, old tires, and a stake with a chain attached to it that I hoped was used for a dog.
Hollis mumbled, “Elaine did well to get out of here.”
A woman of about forty-five answered the door. She had the blotchy complexion and red eyes of a grieving mom.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said to Mrs. Anastas as she let us inside.
Her husband, wearing the same lost expression, answered for both of them as he wandered into the main room from the kitchen. “It was too soon.”
Talking to the parents of murder victims is probably my least favorite part of my job. Having to talk to strangers about a child recently lost to a violent crime seems unusually cruel.
I sat with Elaine’s parents on the couch in the front room and gave them an update on the case. The couch looked like it might have been salvaged from the woods when they dropped off a refrigerator. Two dogs barked and howled from another room, but that didn’t seem to bother the Anastases.
During the conversation, Elaine’s mother said, “We weren’t crazy about Laney moving to the city, but all she talked about was how great living there was and how she couldn’t wait to get out of school and get a job in communications.”
