“Joc?” Camille said, drawing her out of her reverie.
Jocelyn looked at her sister. “I’ll take care of it.”
Camille grabbed Jocelyn and hugged her tightly, whispering a thank you into Jocelyn’s hair.
Jocelyn took Olivia to school, grateful for the normalcy of the act. Olivia kept her grounded, tethered to sanity. It was on the way home that Jocelyn started to crack. Tears streaked her cheeks. Her whole body hiccupped with sobs. She had to blink away the tears blurring her vision repeatedly. Of course she hit every red light on the way home. She willed the pedestrians on Ridge Avenue not to look at her.
At home, Camille was gone, but Caleb was there. He had come for her after working all night. She walked straight into his arms and cried until she had no tears left. They fell asleep on her bed in a tangle of limbs, fully clothed. Camille woke them in time for Jocelyn to pick up Olivia from school. She left Caleb passed out in her bed and took a shower, hoping to clear the fog from her head. She checked her phone before she left the house. She had a return call from Zachary Whitman. He had an open appointment Thursday morning.
They ordered pizza for dinner, and Camille and Jocelyn watched Olivia and Caleb play Just Dance on her Wii, laughing till their sides hurt. Caleb had a lot of things going for him, but dancing wasn’t one of them. Trent called her around six that evening. “Guess who the P90 is registered to?” he asked without preamble.
“The eleventh grade biology teacher.”
Trent sounded disappointed. “How did you know?”
“It was a guess.”
“Hmph. Well, a damn good one. Guy’s name is Craig Hubbard. His Ruger P90 was stolen from his truck two months before Sydney’s murder.”
“Interesting,” Jocelyn said.
“Guess what other kind of gun he has registered in his name?”
Jocelyn sat up straight, excitement stirring butterflies in her stomach. “Tell me.”
“A Smith and Wesson Model 48. Takes .22 cal.”
Chapter 44
November 19, 2014
Craig Hubbard was every bit the weak, sniveling loser that Francine had described. Watching him weep in fear behind his desk at Franklin West, Jocelyn couldn’t believe Francine had ever let Hubbard touch her. He was thin and slight, mostly bald with a bad comb-over and what Inez would have called a perv mustache. But it was his uncontrollable sobbing the moment he saw Trent’s badge that really made him unattractive.
“Oh God,” he cried. “Please don’t tell my wife.”
Jocelyn and Trent stood side by side in front of the large metal desk. They exchanged a raised brow look, and Jocelyn knew they were both thinking the same thing.
What the hell did this guy do?
“That depends on you,” Trent said. “If you cooperate with us, we don’t need to tell your wife.”
Hubbard’s sobs lessened, the quaking in his shoulders subsiding. “I couldn’t help it,” he cried. “Men have needs. I have needs, and Francine—well, she could be very pushy, you know? She had ways of . . . convincing people. I know I’m weak. After the last time, I swore I’d never be with her again. Please don’t tell my wife.”
Jocelyn and Trent exchanged another look.
Trent leaned over the desk and looked into Hubbard’s eyes. “Mr. Hubbard, the police don’t show up when you’re having an affair. That’s your personal business. It’s not cool, but it’s not a crime. You need to stop lying to me right now, or I’ll drag your sorry ass downtown, and we’ll have to call your wife.”
Hubbard threw up his hands. “Okay, okay,” he said. He looked behind them, toward the doorway, as if he expected someone to appear there at any second. He lowered his voice. “Is she really . . . gone?”
They had notified the school staff of Francine’s death and Cash’s arrest but had asked them to keep it quiet. Trent was trying to keep it out of the press until he sorted the mess out. He looked from Hubbard to Jocelyn and back. Jocelyn leaned in and put both hands on the desk. “I shot her myself. She’s dead. Now let’s hear what you’ve got to say.”
Hubbard stared at her for a long moment. Jocelyn heard the clock above the man’s head tick. He slumped in his chair and brought a hand to his forehead. He breathed in and out in short, rapid breaths. When he looked back up at them, the tension in his face and body loosened. He looked almost droopy. It was relief, Jocelyn realized. Craig Hubbard was relieved to be free of Francine Rigo. How many years had she held him in her sway? How many other people had she manipulated into situations they wished they could get out of? How many people would be relieved to hear of her death?
Jocelyn shivered.
“I didn’t know what she was going to do with it,” Hubbard said. “I swear to God. She asked me for it—”
“For what?” Trent asked.
“The listeria.”
Trent frowned. Jocelyn realized that he thought Hubbard was talking about the gun. He was likely thinking that Hubbard had given it to Francine and then reported it stolen.
“She asked you for something that people get food poisoning from, and you just gave it to her?” Jocelyn asked. Her anger simmered as she thought about the night she’d spent wrapped around the toilet.
Hubbard wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You don’t understand,” he whined. “She threatened to—”
Trent tapped his fingers on the desk to silence the man. “How many times did she ask you for it?”
“Not many. Four or five times.”
“How long were you two having an affair?”
Hubbard’s cheeks burned red. He continued to look at his lap. “On and off for sixteen years. It wasn’t really an affair though. I mean at first it was, but then I wanted to stop and she didn’t. That was the first time she asked me for it. That was the agreement. I would grow it and give it to her, and she would leave me alone.”
Trent said, “She asked you for listeria?”
“No, no. It wasn’t like that. The students were experimenting with Gram stains, and one day she started asking me about different organisms—what you could grow. She was interested in antibiotics actually. I was just talking about different bacteria and brought up the example of food poisoning organisms. She asked me to grow some—to show her—so I did. But it was a weakened strain. Then she wanted the samples. She said there was a neighbor who kept coming over whenever they had a party and making unwanted advances.”
“Of course she did,” Jocelyn said.