Linwood Barclay - Never Saw It Coming

“About what?”

“About Melissa, and your brother, and Ellie.”

The woman, baffled, awaited the first question.

“When did you last talk to your brother?” Wedmore asked.

She looked at the detective, puzzled. “Why?”

“Mrs. Beaudry, please. When’s the last time you spoke?”

“Last night. I called him before I went to bed to see whether he’d heard anything.”

“You didn’t speak to him at all today?”

“No.”

“What about Melissa? Have you had any conversations with her in the last twenty-four hours?”

“I saw both of them at the press conference. For moral support. But I haven’t talked to her since then.”

“What can you tell me about her state of mind?” Wedmore asked.

“She’s distraught, of course! Who wouldn’t be?”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“No, not really. I just told her, and Wendell, we’d do anything we could to help. Like them, we just want Ellie to come home safe and sound.”

Wedmore nodded. “I see. And about Wendell…”

“Yes?”

“Do you know whether your brother was involved in any business deals, any personal relationships, where he might have made enemies?”

“No, no, of course not.”

“You’re unaware of anyone who might be angry with your brother for any reason?” Even as she asked the question, Wedmore thought about Laci Harmon’s husband. She’d said he didn’t know about the affair. But what if he did? What if he went to Garfield’s house to confront him?

But wait. Laci Harmon had told Wedmore that morning that her husband was driving back from Schenectady. With the kids. Wedmore would want to double-check that, but it made her think the husband probably wasn’t a suspect.

“What on earth are you getting at? Why are you asking these questions? Shouldn’t you people be looking for Ellie? Shouldn’t you be finding out what’s happened to her?”

Wedmore took a long breath. “Mrs. Beaudry, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your brother’s dead.”

Gail Beaudry cocked her head, like a dog who’d heard a whistle. “Wendell’s-what?”

“Your brother is dead. He died this morning. In the last few hours.” She reached out and touched the woman’s arm. “I’m very sorry.”

The woman needed a moment for this to sink in. “How do you know? Is he here? Where did it happen? At home? Did he have a heart attack? Oh God, he probably had a heart attack. Is that what happened? Was it a stroke? That’s probably what happened. The stress of all this, of not knowing what’s happened to Ellie, oh no oh no…”

“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Wedmore said gently. “And it wasn’t a stroke. Your brother is a homicide victim.”

“He’s-he’s a what?”

“Someone killed him, Mrs. Beaudry.”

The woman put her hand to her chest and gasped. “Dear God. First Ellie disappears, and now Wendell is dead?” A flash seemed to go off in her head. “Does this mean-oh no-does this mean Ellie’s been murdered too?”

Wedmore hesitated. “In fact, we believe so, yes.”

Gail struggled to comprehend the news. That two members of her family were dead. She took several seconds to catch her breath. “So there’s someone roaming around out there, someone who’s killed Ellie and Wendell?’

Wedmore steeled herself. She was going to have to get to it sooner or later. “Whoever killed your brother, yes, that person is still out there.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“The facts we have so far suggest your brother and sister-in-law were killed by different people. In totally separate circumstances.”

“Different people?” Gail Beaudry was starting to put something together. “You said whoever killed Wendell is still out there, but you didn’t say that about Ellie. You have the man who killed Ellie?”

It struck Wedmore as natural that Gail Beaudry would assume a man had killed her sister-in-law. Most killers were men.

“Mrs. Beaudry,” Wedmore said, “we’re going to be charging Melissa with your sister-in-law’s death. The reason you can’t see her is because she’s in custody.”

The woman took no time at all to react to this. “That’s ridiculous. That’s not true. That’s absolutely preposterous.”

“I’m afraid not,” Rona Wedmore said.

“She’d never do such a thing. Never! Melissa and her mother were very close. I’ve never heard anything so outrageous. For heaven’s sake, whatever evidence you think you have, I’m sure there’s an explanation. Talk to the girl! She’ll set you straight.”

“Melissa has confessed,” Detective Wedmore said. “She came in here of her own accord.” Gail was speechless, so Wedmore added, “But she was here, in this building, when her father was killed. We don’t know what the connection is.”

“This is crazy, insane. I have to… I have to call someone.” Gail Beaudry fumbled in her purse for her phone. “And my husband, I’m going to have to call my husband.”

Wedmore excused herself. She had to go back and see Melissa again.

The girl howled like a wounded animal.

She threw her arms around Detective Wedmore, put her face on her chest and sobbed. “No, no, no.”

It wasn’t, strictly speaking, procedure to take murder suspects into one’s arms and comfort them, but Wedmore found herself doing just that. She placed her hands on the girl’s back and patted her ever so gently, thinking to herself what a pathetic gesture it was. Might as well be saying, “There, there.”

“Daddy,” she whimpered. “Daddy.”

“I have to ask you some questions, Melissa,” Wedmore said.

But the girl continued to weep, and it was ten minutes before Wedmore could get her back into the chair in the interrogation room. Instead of facing her from across the table, she brought her own chair around next to Melissa’s and allowed the girl to hold onto her hands.

“Someone killed him?” Melissa asked disbelievingly. “Are you sure?”

Wedmore thought back to what she’d seen. “Yes,” she said with certainty. “What haven’t you told me, Melissa? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’ve told you everything, I swear.”

“Who would want to hurt your father?”

“No one. Nobody.”

“Did someone else help you, Melissa? Was there a third person involved in getting your mother, and the car, up to the lake?”

“No, I’m telling you, it was just me and Dad. And he didn’t even hurt Mom. That was me, that was all me.”

“What about the man who’s the father of your child?”

“Lester?”

“That’s right. Did he and your father get along? Is it possible they could have had some kind of argument?”

“My parents liked Lester,” Melissa said. “They were mad at me because I didn’t want to marry him.” She put her face in her hands again and wept.

Wedmore sighed, and got up.

This was the damnedest thing she’d dealt with in a while.

She was just leaving the interrogation room when her phone buzzed. It was a text, from Joy.

It read: “Got something. Call me.”

Keisha tried to think how she would explain it.

Because she would have to explain it. There was no doubt in her mind. The police would eventually find Wendell Garfield, if they hadn’t already, and sooner or later they’d discover her business card, tucked into his shirt pocket.

If the card had been anywhere else-in a drawer, in his wallet, even-it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Over time, everyone collects lots of business cards. You find them in your car, your coat pocket, pinned to bulletin boards.

But a card that’s been tucked into a shirt, well, that’s a card that has to have been acquired, or at the very least referred to, very recently. Assuming that Wendell Garfield did not wear the same, unlaundered shirt for days or weeks on end, it would be reasonable for the police to assume he’d acquired, or been looking at, that card in the last couple of days. Since his wife had gone missing.