Carla Neggers - The Widow

“Did you destroy all your negatives?”

He hesitated. “I don’t remember.”

“You remember, Mattie. You’re a photographer. Those negatives are your life’s work.”

“I don’t know why I let you in here.”

“You didn’t burn the negatives of the pictures you took the day Dorothy Garrison died,” Abigail said.

He shot to his feet, bolting for the front door, but she intercepted him, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back.

He squealed. “Hey!”

“Just calm down.” She eased off. “Running isn’t going to solve anything.”

“You have no right-”

She released him and stepped back. “I want to know about the pictures, Mattie.”

“What’re you talking about?”

Abigail didn’t answer him. She walked into the adjoining dining room, where a dusty faux-crystal chandelier hung above a scratched and nicked dark-stained pine table. “You have a decent setup here.” She ran her fingers over the table. “Keep your day job and work on your photography on your off-hours. That’s your plan, isn’t it?”

He rubbed his arm where she’d tackled him. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“Why sneak off to the old Garrison foundation to drink in the dark with the mosquitoes?”

He shrugged. “Why drink?”

“Good point.”

“You used to be nicer. When you and Chris were together.”

“Maybe so.”

She started toward the kitchen, off the dining room, but noticed a fat envelope tucked under a clear glass vase on the sideboard, which matched the table. She walked over to it and lifted the vase with one hand and picked up the envelope with the other hand.

“Hey-that’s mine. You need a warrant to search my place-”

“I’m not here as a police officer. I’m here as a friend.” She could see the stack of green bills inside the envelope and fanned them with her thumb. Most were fifty-and hundred-dollar bills. “How much is in here? A thousand?”

“It’s not against the law to have cash in my own house.”

“I thought you said there was nothing here worth stealing. Do the Coopers pay you in cash?”

He snapped his mouth shut. “Get out.” He pointed toward the front door. “Now go, before I call Doyle.”

Abigail made a show of checking her watch. “By my calculations, he should be here soon.”

“What?”

“Doyle and Lieutenant Beeler. I wouldn’t be surprised if they come together.” She replaced the envelope under the vase. “Feel free to tell them we’ve talked.”

Mattie swore at her. He got himself onto a roll and kept swearing, calling her a long, not particularly inventive string of names, but Abigail ignored him as she walked past him to the front door. She held it open with one hand and looked back at him. Something about her expression worked, because he shut up.

She said, “Tell ChiefAlden and Lieutenant Beeler everything you know, Mattie. Whatever you’re hiding, whatever angle you’re playing, isn’t worth the risks you’re taking.”

He held up both his hands, splaying his fingers. “Look at these. Look at the dirt and the dried blood. The calluses. You think I’m playing an angle? You’re fucking crazy. I get up in the morning and I ride my bike to rich people’s houses, and I work my ass off. I’m doing the best I can to pull my life together.”

“Lie to yourself all you want. And to me, if you have to. Just don’t lie to the police.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

On that lofty note, Abigail left, getting to her car and back onto the main road without running into any of her colleagues in law enforcement.

But they were waiting for her at her little house on the Maine coast. Lou Beeler, Doyle Alden and Special Agents Capozza and Steele.

“Lucky me,” she said aloud.

She pulled over into the grass and parked.

No way did she want to block the driveway and prevent any of the cop cars from leaving.

There were three color photographs in Abigail’s clear plastic sleeve.

The top one-the one she saw through the plastic-was of a thirteen-year-old Linc Cooper standing by the iron gate in his uncle’s garden with his shirt half untucked and a martini glass in his hand.

Abigail knew it was taken at Ellis’s party seven years ago because of Linc’s age, the little umbrella in his drink and the decorative lights on the fence. She’d seen many other pictures of the party.

The second photograph was of Grace Cooper in the shade at the top of the steep zigzag of steps that led up to Ellis’s house from the private drive.

On the step just below her, almost out of view, was Chris, his hands balled into fists, a tight look of anger on his face.

There was no fear, Abigail had decided after studying his expression.

No premonition that he was about to be murdered.

He’d gone up to Ellis’s after finding her unconscious, obviously intent on finding whoever had attacked his wife. Just the Coopers and the caterers and a few stragglers were still at the party. Grace had told the police that she had seen Chris at her uncle’s house, but never indicated they had spoken.

But how could they not have, with him coming up the steps and her right there?

The third photograph was of Owen, on Ellis’s stone terrace, clearly later-after Linc had snuck his martini, after Grace and Chris had said whatever they’d said to each other.

Hours before Owen had gone down to the rocks and found Chris’s body.

Abigail had jotted down detailed descriptions of each photograph before Lou Beeler could send them off to the lab. The prints were fresh, probably run off an inkjet printer. She’d suggested to Lou that he check to see if Mattie had put his negatives onto a computer disk before burning them, or put the ones he hadn’t burned-if he’d burned any-onto a disk, but the Maine CID detective had already covered all the bases.

Her fellow law enforcement officers were gone now, off to find Mattie, having taken her and Owen, separately, through their paces, all of them trying to make sense of the pictures and why they’d been left, what they meant.

Abigail was restless. There wasn’t much she could do for the moment, other than take out her frustration on her walls.

She tied a purple bandanna over her hair and lifted her sledgehammer, the wind gusting off the water, blowing through her porch door and stirring up more plaster dust. There seemed to be no end to it, no matter how much she swept.

One more to go, and she’d have the room gutted. Then she could put up new wallboard and tape, slap on primer, pick out a paint color-something bright, but that didn’t clash with the lupine-blue in the entry.

Thinking about wallboard and paint colors gave everything else a chance to simmer. The calls, the pictures, Mattie’s parties in the old Garrison foundation, the stash of money under his vase.

The Maine cops, the frightened Alden boys.

Owen.

Abigail jumped.

The man who’d just been in her thoughts stood in the doorway to her front room, watching her angle her sledgehammer at the final section of wall. It was dusk, but night was coming fast. “You should wear goggles and a mask,” Owen said.

“I’ve got some in my trunk.”

He didn’t offer to go fetch them. “You rent this place to cops most of the time. I bet you could get a half dozen of them together to help you tear down walls and put up new ones. Throw a few lobsters in a pot, buy a couple of six-packs-they’d be thrilled.”

She grinned at him. “Are you implying we cops come cheap?” But she didn’t wait for an answer. “Stand back. I don’t want to nail you in the head with this thing.”

“Abigail-”

Her first whack penetrated the wallboard. “Hey, I’m getting good at this.” Before she lost her steam, she heaved the sledgehammer twice more, then gave up and set it against an exposed support beam. “That’s enough. Best to pace myself before I tear my rotator cuff or something.”