Harlan Coben: Don’t Let Go

“Nap?”

She wants to play it this way, so I say, “All the DUIs were for men, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And all were going through either a divorce or child custody hearing?”

“Custody hearings,” Reynolds says. “All three.”

“I doubt it was just those three,” I say. “He probably used other spots.”

“I’m going through all of Rex’s DUIs. It may take some time.”

I get in my car and start it up.

“How did you know?” Reynolds asks. “And don’t tell me hunch or intuition.”

“I didn’t know for sure, but Rex stopped that car very quickly after it left that bar.”

“He could have just been scouting the place.”

“But we saw the tape. Even with the crappy quality, you could tell the driver didn’t sway or drive erratically. So why would Rex pick on him? And by coincidence the woman in the car went to high school with Rex — it was all too much. It had to be a setup.”

“I still don’t get it,” Reynolds says. “Did this guy fly in to execute Rex?”

“Probably.”

“Did your ex help him?”

“I don’t think so,” I say.

“Is that love talking?”

“No, logic.”

“Explain.”

“You heard the bartender,” I say. “She came in, had drinks with him, got him liquored up, got him in the car. She wouldn’t have had to go through all those stages if she and the hit man were working together.”

“Could have just been part of the act.”

“Could have been,” I say.

“But your way makes sense. So you think Maura was working with Rex?”

“I do.”

“Doesn’t mean she didn’t set Rex up too.”

“Right.”

“But if she wasn’t involved in the murder, where is she now?”

“I don’t know.”

“The hit man could have turned the gun on her. Could have forced her into the driver’s seat. Could have made her drive him to an airport or something.”

“Possible.”

“And then what?”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” I tell her. “We need to do some more legwork. I doubt the wives in these custody cases just walked up to Rex and said, ‘Hey, I need to damage my husband’s rep.’”

“Right, so how did they hire him?”

“My guess would be through a divorce attorney. That’s our first move, Reynolds. The three women probably had the same lawyer. Find out who it is and we can ask him about Rex and Maura.”

“He — or she, let’s not get sexist — will claim it’s work product.”

“One step at a time.”

“Okay,” Reynolds says. “So maybe the killer was one of the targeted husbands who wanted revenge?”

That makes the most sense, but I remind her that we don’t know enough yet. I don’t get into the Conspiracy Club because her findings seem to cut against all that. I’m still hanging on to my silly little hope that somehow Rex’s murder will circle back to you, Leo. No reason not to, I guess. Reynolds will take the lead on this DUI angle. I can still work on the Conspiracy Club angle. That means locating Hank Stroud and Beth Lashley.

But more than that, it means bringing in Augie.

I could still wait on it. There is no reason to tear open this wound again, especially if Augie is in the midst of making some strides in his personal life. But keeping something from Augie isn’t my style. I wouldn’t want him deciding what I could and could not take. I need to show him the same respect.

Still, Augie is Diana’s father. This won’t be easy.

As I hit Route 80, I press the button on my steering wheel and tell my phone to call Augie. He answers on the third ring.

“Hey, Nap.” Augie is a big guy with a barrel chest. His voice is comfortingly gruff.

“You back from Hilton Head?”

“We got in late last night.”

“So you’re home?”

“Yeah, I’m home. What’s up?”

“Can I stop by after my shift?”

He hesitates. “Yeah, sure.”

“Right. So how was the trip?”

“See you later,” Augie says.

He hangs up. I wonder whether he was alone as we spoke or if his new lady friend is still with him. That would be nice, I think, at the same moment I also think that it’s none of my business.

Augie lives in a brick garden apartment on Oak Street in a development that might aptly be called Divorced Dads Mews. He moved in “temporarily” eight years ago, leaving Audrey, Diana’s mother, the house where they had raised their only child. A few months later, Audrey sold the house without first informing Augie.

Audrey did that, she once told me, for Augie’s sake more than hers.

When Augie answers the door, I can see his golf clubs in the foyer behind him.

“So how was Hilton Head?” I ask.

“Nice.”

I point behind him. “You brought your clubs?”

“Wow, you’re quite the detective.”

“I don’t like to brag.”

“I brought them,” Augie says. “But I didn’t play.”

That makes me smile. “So it went well with...?”

“Yvonne.”

“Yvonne,” I repeat, arching an eyebrow. “Great name.”

He moves away so as to let me in and says, “I don’t think it’s going to work out between us.”

My heart sinks. I’ve never met Yvonne, but for some reason I picture her as this confident woman with a big, throaty laugh, an easy way, fun, grateful, who liked to thread her arm through Augie’s as they walked the beach near their hotel. I feel a loss for someone I never met.

I look at him. He shrugs.

“There’ll be another,” he says.

“Plenty more fish in the sea,” I agree.

You’d expect the apartment interior to be on the generic-read-dumpy side, but it’s not. Augie loves going to local art fairs and buying paintings. He rotates them, never keeping them in the same spot for more than a month or two. The oak bookshelves with glass fronts are jammed with books. Augie is the most voracious reader I know. He’s divided the books into two simple categories — fiction and nonfiction — but he hasn’t alphabetized them by author or anything like that.

I take a seat.

“You off duty?” Augie asks.

“I am. You?”

“Same.”

Augie is still captain of the Westbridge Police Department. He retires in a year. I became a cop because of what happened to you, Leo, but I’m not sure it would have happened without Augie’s guidance. I sit in the same plush chair I always take when I’m here. He uses the trophy from the high school state championship football team — the one I played on, the one he coached — as a bookend. Other than that there is nothing personal in this room — no photographs, no certificates, no awards, nothing like that.

He hands me a bottle of wine. It’s Chateau Haut-Bailly 2009. Retails for about two hundred dollars.

“Nice,” I say.

“Open it.”

“You should save it for a special occasion.”

Augie takes the bottle from my hand and jams the corkscrew into the top. “Is that what your father would tell us?”

I smile. “No.”

My great-grandfather, Dad often told us, saved his best wines for special occasions. He was killed when the Nazis invaded Paris. The Nazis ended up drinking his wine. Lesson: You never wait. When I was growing up, we used only the good plates. We used the best linens. We drank out of Waterford crystal. When my father died, his wine cellar was nearly empty.

“Your dad used fancier words,” Augie tells me. “I prefer a line from Groucho Marx.”

“That being?”

“‘I shall drink no wine before its time. Okay, it’s time.’”

Augie pours the wine into one glass, then the other. He hands one to me. We clink glasses. I twirl the wine a bit and smell. Nothing too showy.

I get a gorgeous nose of blackberry, plum, crème de cassis, and — go with me on this — lead pencil shavings. I take a sip — succulent, ripe fruit, fresh, lively, you get the deal. The finish lasts a solid minute. Spectacular.