Laura Lippman - The Last Place

Tess decided to play devil’s advocate. “Investigators are usually pretty determined to solve homicides.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But it was kind of like they thought they did solve it, just because they had a theory. They were sure some guys came up I-270 from Washington and decided to break into the town houses because they were new then, and not all were occupied. A brand-new refrigerator and stove had been stolen from one of the empty units two weeks earlier. The lock was jimmied in the same way. But nothing big was stolen from Tiffani’s place. Because Tiffani was-Tiffani was-”

Wally Jr.“s face reddened as he tried to suppress the tears that brimmed in his dull brown eyes. His mother and his wife didn’t bother to fight them, they just sat with tears coursing down their flat, pale faces. Only the father remained impassive. Six years, Tess thought. Does this kind of pain ever end? Would it be different if their daughter’s killer had been caught and convicted?

“I know what happened.” Shot to death in the kitchen, as her child slept upstairs. “Guy used a pry on the lock, and it gave way pretty easy.”

“The bottom lock, yeah. I don’t know why Tiffani didn’t have the dead bolt on, Eric being on the road and all. She wasn’t as timid as she once was, but she still wouldn’t have gone downstairs if she thought a burglar was in the house.”

“What would she have done?”

“She’d have grabbed the portable phone and locked herself in the baby’s room. She was a smart girl. She would have done the smart thing. I’m telling you, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Is there any possibility it wasn’t an intruder? Do you think the investigation should have focused on a different scenario, or someone else in Tiffani’s life, such as her daughter’s father?”

Wally looked puzzled. “No, I think they’re probably right about what happened, but I don’t understand why they can’t find the guy. When they really want to solve a crime, they always do. Ever notice that? If you kill a rich person, they get you. Cops come to your house and take footprints and tire tracks and use that weird stuff that makes even tiny traces of blood shine. I know. I watch the Discovery Channel. But some lowlife shoots a twenty-two-year-old woman who never hurt anyone, whose life was just getting good after being bad for so long…” Wally Jr.“s voice thinned out, taking on a telltale nasal quality. He was trying so hard not to break down.

“Why had Tiffani’s life been bad?”

“Oh.” Wally Jr. exchanged looks with the two women. “The usual. Ran with a bad crowd in high school, got pregnant, had to drop out. Bum boyfriend.”

“Eric Shivers?”

“Oh, not Eric.” Wally’s wife, a Katherine who went by Kat, spoke for the first time. “Eric was great. Eric was the best thing that ever happened to her. No, the boyfriend before, Troy Plunkett. Older guy. He was mean, just rotten. Got Tiffani pregnant, said it wasn’t his, fought the support for two years. Then the DNA come back, and it said Darby was his. He still didn’t pay. Said he didn’t have any money.”

Tiffani Gunts. Darby Plunkett. It occurred to Tess that the more people fought their hard, unglamorous surnames, the more they called attention to them.

“Did the sheriff’s department consider Darby’s father a possible suspect?”

Wally Jr. took back the role of spokesman. “They asked us questions, same as you. Troy is an SOB. But he had actually calmed down some when he heard Tiffani was going to get married. He thought it meant he wouldn’t have to pay support.”

Tess knew something about child support laws. Tracking deadbeat dads and searching their assets was one of her sidelines. “Did he find out he was wrong?”

“Yeah, Tiffani told him a week or two before-” He stopped, not wanting to define the date. “It wouldn’t have mattered. He didn’t pay it when she was on her own, he didn’t pay it when she moved in with Eric, he doesn’t pay to this day, and he’s all that little girl has in the world. He gets a job, we get a garnishment order, he quits and finds some cash job that doesn’t show up on the books.”

“Who’s raising Darby?”

“We are.” It was the first time Tess had heard the voice of Betty Gunts, who had merely nodded when they were introduced. “I take care of Kat’s two while she works, so it makes sense for Darby to stay here with me. She’s a good girl.”

“Which one is she?” Tess asked, looking out the sliding glass doors.

“You can’t talk to her,” Wally Jr. said, swift as a cat. “She was only three, she never saw or heard anything. She was still sleeping the next morning, when a guy from the town house two doors up from Eric and Tiffani’s saw the back door standing open.”

“She slept through a gunshot?”

“They think the guy used a silencer.”

“A man who was stealing appliances from town houses he assumed were empty used a silencer?”

Wally Jr. shrugged. Discovery Channel or no, the detail didn’t seem odd to him.

“And Eric Shivers? What happened to him?”

The brother looked at his parents, as if he now needed permission to speak.

“Oh, that was sad,” Kat murmured. “Just so sad.”

“Eric was really good to Tiffani,” Wally said. “We all liked him a lot. He convinced her to go back to school part-time, study to be something. They were going to get married after she graduated. He paid all the bills, he was nice as he could be. And he was like a father to Darby.

But he wasn’t blood. When Tiffani died, Darby had to be with family. If my parents hadn’t taken her, Troy Plunkett might have petitioned to get her, and we couldn’t have that. Eric understood. But it was hard on him. He lost Tiffani and Darby.“

“He got awful thin,” Mrs. Gunts said. “And he tried to keep seeing the girl, to stay connected to her, but I think that made it worse. She looks just like her mother.”

There was a photograph of Tiffani Gunts, one of those blue-background school portraits, on the far wall of the family room. Tiffani had masses of dark hair, dark eyes, and tiny features. It all added up to a baby-deer delicacy that was almost as good as pretty. Her smile was shy and tentative, but she didn’t look defeated, beaten down by life. Then again, she was young in the photograph, a mere teenager.

And she had the advantage of not having to live with the pain of her own murder.

Tess glanced at the three children in the backyard. All three had dark hair and dark eyes. She guessed Darby was the middle one, but only because the other girl looked too young, more like five, and the tallest was a boy. The resemblance didn’t seem as striking to her, but then Tiffani had not been her daughter, her sister.

“What happened to Eric?”

The subject of Eric Shivers was one the sister-in-law seemed to relish. “He moved south. Georgia?”

“North Carolina,” Mrs. Gunts said. “He sent us Christmas cards. For a while.”

“He was good-looking,” Kat said, glancing at her husband. “Better-looking than Troy, I mean. I was happy for Tiffani.”

“And where was Eric the night that Tiffani was killed?”

Wally Jr. answered. “On the road, in Spartina, Virginia. He traveled all the time. He was a salesman, sold supplies to those mall camera shops. Police called him and asked him to come back and identify-to identify-”

Tess tried to distract him from his own memories. “Was it generally known that Tiffani was home alone a lot?”

Wally’s eyes seemed to brighten. “Do you think-?”

“I’m not thinking anything,” Tess said carefully. Back in Baltimore, this assignment had seemed theoretical and bloodless, more public policy than detective work. She had not anticipated how difficult it would be for the families to relive these memories. “But I am curious about Troy Plunkett.”