The Book of Cold Cases, page 9
“It isn’t a setup exactly. It’s just dinner. You can’t be single forever.”
“I can. I literally can. That’s a thing.” No one understood single people. If you didn’t have a partner and babies, how were you spending your time? I’d tried the marriage thing, and I’d still been me. Except an unhappy version of me.
“Okay,” Esther said, “but being a spinster isn’t healthy. This guy is a junior lawyer. He’s really nice.”
“Did you know that Ted Bundy was executed in 1989, but they didn’t type his DNA until 2011?” I said.
Esther paused. I’d surprised her. “What?”
“No one actually knows how many women he murdered,” I said. “With DNA, they can try and close old cold cases. But it’s taking them years. We could find out about Bundy victims we didn’t even know about.”
“Shea,” my sister said.
“Did you know that Gary Ridgway’s coworkers called him Green River Gary?” I said. “They teased him about secretly being the Green River Killer. None of them knew that he actually was. He killed almost fifty women. That must have been pretty weird for those guys, reading in the paper that he was arrested, don’t you think?”
“Shea.”
“Esther, if you bring a date to this dinner, I swear I will say those exact things as dinner conversation. Is that what you want?”
“Okay, okay, I surrender. You win. It will be just us and the tetrazzini, okay? Come tomorrow.”
I opened my mouth to agree, but there was a thump in the hallway outside my door, the sound of something shifting. Then the sound of the stairwell door opening and closing. I wasn’t imagining it this time.
“I have to go,” I said to Esther. “Someone’s at the door.”
“Oh, good. Maybe it’s a neighbor coming to say hi. Maybe he’s single and good-looking.”
“Maybe it’s someone here to murder me. If it is, I leave you my worldly possessions.”
“Shea.”
“Talk soon, sis,” I said, and hung up. I let the joke fall away as I sat in silence, listening. Nothing for a long minute, and then a faint shifting sound, as if someone really was outside the door. I thought I could hear breathing.
I stood up, keeping the phone awake in my hand, ready to dial 911. I walked softly to the door, moving quietly so whoever it was wouldn’t hear me approach. I looked out my peephole but saw only the wall across the hallway.
Packages were left in the mail room, so it wasn’t UPS or FedEx. Who had a code to the front door of my building? I heard another soft sound. Someone was definitely there.
“I’m calling the police,” I said loudly. “You need to go away now.”
Silence.
“I’m not opening this door,” I said. “You can’t get in here. The police will be on their way in thirty seconds. Leave.”
Still silence, but I knew there was a presence in the hallway. I dialed nine, waited a beat, then dialed one.
Finally, there was a sound. Whiny and growly, rather pissed-off. A cat’s meow.
I blinked. Canceled the call. Then I opened the door.
In front of my door was a plastic pet carrier and two large shopping bags. As I watched, the cat carrier shifted, as if the cat inside was turning in circles, tired of being trapped.
Taped to the top of one of the bags was a note:
You were right. I decided not to come to my senses. I’m going to live with my mother for a while.
I agree he shouldn’t get the cat. Mom is allergic, so the cat is yours now. Sorry to do this to you, but he’s fixed and he doesn’t bite. I guess you can drop him at a shelter if you have to, but I couldn’t do it. If you keep him, let him sleep on the bed, because he loves it. He’ll do anything you want for tuna treats.
Sorry again,
Alison
P.S. His name is Winston Purrchill.
* * *
—
He was a gray tabby. Big and sleek, his markings dark, with a white expanse on his throat and chest. His face wasn’t pretty, and one of his ears was slightly bent near the top. When I opened his carrier in my condo, he walked out slowly, looking at me disdainfully from his muddy green eyes.
The shopping bags contained food, a litter box, a container of litter, and three packets of the promised tuna treats. I’d never owned a cat before, never had a pet of any kind. I’d never asked for this. What the hell was I supposed to do?
For the first time, I called Michael about something that wasn’t murder-related. I’d already had a lecture from Esther, and I didn’t know who else to call. “What do you know about cats?” I asked when he answered.
“I like them, even though most of them are assholes,” he replied. “Why? Does this have to do with something you’re working on?”
“No. It has to do with a cat.” I explained what had happened. As I talked, Winston Purrchill sauntered around the perimeter of my condo like he was inspecting it, his gait unconcerned. Then he hopped up to my kitchen table and sat, placing himself directly on top of the file I’d made of the Lady Killer case, where it rested in its permanent place on the table. From there, he regarded me silently, his tail wrapped just so around his feet.
“Hold on. I’m getting a beer from the fridge,” Michael said. I heard the sound of a fridge door opening, and the hiss of a beer cap being removed. The sound made me think he was wearing flannel. Plaid flannel. And the thought came into my head, as clear as if someone had spoken it: I really need to meet this guy in person, because I think I like him.
Michael came back on the line while I was still thinking that over. “Are you going to take this cat to a shelter?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I looked into Winston’s unblinking eyes, lined precisely with black. He seemed to be waiting for an answer, like Michael was. “No,” I said. “It’s too cruel. I’ll keep him for a while.”
“Maybe it’ll be good for you,” Michael said. “I’d like a pet, but I’m away from the house too much.”
“It’s just for a while,” I told Winston, so we were both clear. “If I had a pet, I’d rather have a dog. A dog can ward off intruders.”
Winston blinked at me in disbelief.
“It’s easy, Shea,” Michael said. “Just feed him and give him somewhere to sleep. A window to look out of. Cats don’t ask for much.”
“Okay.” I reached a hand out. Winston sniffed it, running his nose along my skin. I relaxed my fingers and tried stroking his cheek, then the top of his head. He didn’t object, so I kept going, curling my fingers into a scratching position. Winston tilted his head so my fingers were behind his ear, so I obediently moved them. He closed his eyes. “You’re sitting on my file,” I told him.
“Me, or the cat?” Michael said.
“The cat. He’s parked himself on my Greer file, and now I don’t want to shoo him off.”
“Welcome to pet ownership. And I don’t think you need to go through it again anyway. You know it by heart.”
I did. Since my interview with Detective Black, I’d gone over my Greer papers again and again. The last time through, I’d read over the newspaper clippings that were the only public record of Beth Greer’s young life: her parents’ wedding announcement, her own birth announcement, and the brief and respectful notices of her parents’ deaths. Based on the wedding photo, Julian Greer had been tall and handsome, while Mariana was petite and blond, her face much like Beth’s except for a devastating sweetness in her features.
They both looked so formal in their wedding photo, and neither of them looked happy. It was unsettling to look at their faces and think of the fact that their marriage would be unhappy and then their lives would end, the groom killed in a home invasion, the bride dead in a car accident two years later.
“Have you talked to Beth again?” Michael asked me.
“No.” The interview with Detective Black had left my head spinning, and I wasn’t in a hurry to go back to the Greer mansion after what I’d seen—or what I thought I’d seen there. Aside from that, I wasn’t ready to be in Beth’s orbit again. When I saw her next, I wanted to be ready. “I think I want to find Sylvia Bledsoe first.”
“You mean Sylvia O’Hare, or Sylvia Simpson.”
“Right.” Sylvia Bledsoe, the weeping secretary Detective Black had interviewed about Beth’s father, had been married three times. Mr. Bledsoe, her husband when Julian died, was only husband number one. It had taken Michael and me a bit of digging to track her last names through husbands number two and number three. We’d found several Sylvia Simpsons, and I’d either phoned them—when I could find a number—or messaged them through Facebook, hoping to get an interview with the right one.
“I don’t even know why I’m spending so much time on this,” I said, scratching Winston behind his other ear as his eyes drifted closed in bliss. “It’s probably a dead end. What do I think I’m going to learn from her?”
“You won’t know until you talk to her,” Michael said. “I’m here to help, Shea. Just say the word and I’ll come to the meeting with you.”
Meet Michael in person, face-to-face? Panic twisted through my stomach. The stupid reaction I always had. Now, on top of my usual day-to-day paranoia, I had the fear that Michael in person wouldn’t live up to my imagination of him—and that I would disappoint him, too. Yet part of me wanted to see him at last, and part of me really did want his help. “I’ll think about it.” I looked Winston in the eyes as I said it, getting confidence from the calm way he watched me. Of course you can do it, his expression said to me. What’s the big deal?
“You think about it, Shea,” Michael said. “In the meantime, I’ll get back to work.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
September 2017
BETH
Sometimes, even now, Beth got the idea that she could leave. Why not? She had money, a car. There was nothing stopping her. She could simply go.
So she would get in her car and drive. She’d put her foot on the gas and form a plan in her mind, and yet somehow, no matter where she thought she was going, she always ended up at the lake. She’d find herself standing next to her parked car, looking out over the still water.
Not many people went to the lake. There were only a few spots where cars could park and people could come to enjoy the water. A sparse group of residents lived at the west end of the lake, but the east end, farther inland, was still thick and wild, the land cut only by small back roads. Beth would find herself in a stand of brush, her skin scratched and mosquitoes attacking her as she stared at the water, with no clear memory of exactly how she’d gotten here. She only knew that she’d simply showed up.
The fact that she couldn’t remember always made her queasy, so she’d get back in her car and go home.
And it was comforting, in a way. She had been honest when she’d told Shea about some places holding you like a fist. What she hadn’t said was that sometimes, when that fist was the only thing you knew, you didn’t really want it to let you go.
This time, it was raining. She hadn’t slept again, and she wanted a drink badly, and she was tired, so tired. She’d taken a garbage bag and thrown her parents’ belongings into it—her mother’s cold cream, the ashtray she hated so much, her father’s ties, the stack of magazines on the living room credenza. She’d put the trash at the curb and driven off in the rain.
She’d ended up at the lake, as always.
But something was changing. The last time she’d come here, she’d felt it, and now she felt it again. It wasn’t something she could grasp, but it was like a scent in the air or a breeze on the back of her neck. She wasn’t imagining it. Not this time. Change was coming, and she couldn’t stop it.
You’re not leaving.
You’re not talking.
She needed to talk to Shea again.
She got back into her car and drove home. At first, when she turned off the ignition in the driveway and stared at the curb where the garbage bag had vanished, she sagged in defeat. Then she got angry—that old ice-cold anger she’d had all her life, that had gotten her in so much trouble and still made her feel alive.
She got out of the car and started toward the house in the rain. She stared at the house as she walked, letting it see her gaze roaming over all of its ugly lines, hating it. She nearly snarled as she and the house stared each other down. Then she walked through the front door, which was open, and into the hushed darkness inside.
The first thing she saw was the magazines stacked on the credenza again. She knew that when she went upstairs, she’d see her mother’s cold cream and her father’s ties exactly where they’d been, as if she’d never put them in the trash. And the ashtray . . . that damned ashtray would be on the bedside table. How many times over the years had she tried to throw that fucking cold cream out? Too many to remember.
So Beth and the house would go another round, then. She’d expected it. But this wasn’t going to go on forever. She knew that now.
She’d almost let her anger drain—almost—when she saw the wine bottle on the coffee table.
Red wine, her favorite. Though, of course, any wine would do. Beth would drink anything at all, given the chance. And the house knew it.
She stared at that bottle, gleaming in the half-light of the drawn curtains, and for a minute she wanted that wine so badly she would have done anything for it. She could practically taste it on her tongue, could feel the slide of it down her throat. She would have sold her soul for that bottle.
She closed her eyes. Things are changing, she told herself.
She walked to the table and grabbed the bottle, willing her hand not to shake. In the kitchen, she ignored the blood on the floor, tracking through it in her nice shoes. She ignored the breeze from the broken door and the huddled shape that she knew was her father’s body against the lower cupboards. She flinched away from it and stood at the sink, yanking the cork from the bottle and upending it over the drain.
The wine gurgled down the sink. It looked like blood. From the corner of her eye, Beth saw that her father’s body was gone.
“Fuck you,” she said to the house, to her memories, to all of it.
She stood there until all of the wine had been drained from the bottle. Until the blood was gone from the floor, her tracks vanished like they’d never been. Until the door shut and the breeze stopped. Until it was over.
Then she put the bottle down and put her head in her hands, because she was alone all over again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
October 1977
BETH
The cops didn’t like that she had a lawyer with her this time. Ransom seemed to fill the tiny interview room, his big frame taking up all the space. Detective Black looked uncomfortable, and Detective Washington looked furious. Beth sat silent, letting the men go at each other’s throats.
“We want a handwriting sample,” Washington said.
“No,” Ransom replied.
“We’ll get a warrant.”
“When you have one, please present it. Until then, we decline.”
Washington looked at her. This was the tactic, Ransom had warned her: address her directly, bypassing her lawyer, and get her to react. “We can get your handwriting, you know,” he said. “Your checks at the bank, any letter you’ve written to a boyfriend. Your lawyer is just delaying.”
“I defer to him,” Beth said. “He’s so very wise.”
Washington looked like she’d cussed at him, and even Ransom glanced at her, his eyes narrowed.
“We’ve already searched the house,” Washington said. “We’re processing everything we found. We’re going over the car inch by inch, too. Whatever we find there will indict you. Do you understand?”
“Don’t answer that,” Ransom said. “Don’t answer anything.”
Beth stayed still. She couldn’t think of anything they would find in the house, aside from her mother’s family china and her father’s old papers, which she had never had the guts to read or throw out. Still, it had been a violation, the cops emptying drawers and flipping mattresses. They’d bagged and cleared her empty wine bottles as if they were evidence of something. Evidence that she drank too much. Was that going to be used against her, too? Probably.
Detective Black cleared his throat. He was wearing navy blue today, a suit that wasn’t new but looked well taken care of. Beth wondered if he pressed his own suits, since he didn’t wear a wedding ring. Or maybe he had a girlfriend who did it for him. If she was pressing his suits, he should definitely marry her.
There was something wrong with her, thinking these thoughts while she was being questioned for murder. Then again, the fact that there was something wrong with her wasn’t news.
“I think we should back up,” Detective Black said reasonably. “We’re all here for a discussion. To clear some things up. Arguing won’t get us anywhere.”
“This entire discussion is egregious,” Ransom said, bringing out his big lawyer words. “There’s nothing connecting my client to this crime, or to the previous murder, or to either of these victims. You’re wasting everyone’s time when you should be finding a killer.”
“We have the notes,” Washington said, his gaze hostile on Ransom. If it were possible, or legal, for Washington to throw Beth’s lawyer out the window, it was clear he would gladly do it. “We could easily eliminate your client as a suspect if she gave a voluntary handwriting sample. And we’d like a psychological analysis.”
They went back and forth, playing their masculine game of one-upmanship as Beth tuned out. She looked at Black, and his eyes caught hers. He sighed a little, letting her see it, waiting for his partner to run low on steam. In return, she shrugged: There’s nothing we can do about either of them. She liked that he didn’t fidget, didn’t smoke or pace; he had no theater about him. His gaze didn’t travel down her body, but it stayed on her long enough that she felt the urge to twitch. Was it lascivious? She couldn’t tell. Maybe, faced with the option of looking at either her or Washington and Ransom, he’d decided that she was the one in the room he’d rather look at.
