“Changed? How so?”
“She was not the girl that I raised,” replied Ellen.
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. I just want to know if you could have been the father.”
“Okay, do they know how far along Sara was?” asked Devine.
“Eight weeks. At least that’s what we were told.”
“And when did she have the procedure done?”
“In December,” Ellen replied.
“Then I was not the father. I hadn’t even met her at that point.”
“But you had sex with her? Outside of marriage?”
“Is that the reason for the estrangement? Sara was having sex outside of marriage?”
“That is not how we raised her.” She glanced at her husband. “Fred?”
He didn’t look at her or Devine. He merely said, “Young people sometimes make... poor decisions.”
Ellen rolled her eyes at this mild rebuke and shook her head. “Yes, very poor. She took the life of our grandchild, which is a mortal sin.”
“I’m sure it must have been an incredibly difficult decision for her,” said Devine.
“It shouldn’t have been her decision at all,” Ellen said heatedly.
He put up a hand. “I’m not going to get into all that with you right now. But she must have had a good reason. The woman I knew was kind and gentle.”
Ellen exclaimed, “Then you obviously didn’t know her. But, no, you did know her. You slept with her like the slut she was.”
“How can you say that? She was your child,” Devine snapped back. “She was a good person. And she didn’t deserve to be murdered!”
“Neither did that poor, innocent baby.”
Silence lingered for a few moments until Devine broke it. “Did anyone check Sara’s social media accounts? I know she was on Instagram.”
Fred said, “The police looked at all that and found nothing helpful. No pictures or references to current or past boyfriends.”
“But that could mean nothing, since you weren’t on any of it, Travis,” noted Ellen sharply.
“Did the police tell you that specifically?”
She looked down and didn’t answer.
“Did they ever find her diary?” asked Devine.
“They found nothing like that, as I told you before.”
“How about on her electronics? Or in her personal cloud?”
“So were you two dating?” she asked.
“Relationships like that aren’t allowed at Cowl and Comely,” said Devine. “That gets you fired.”
“You kept it secret, then?” persisted Ellen.
He ignored this. “Do you know the name of the doctor who performed the procedure on Sara?”
“Yes, why?”
“Can I have it?”
“You say you’re not the father, so what does it matter to you?”
“It matters to me because a friend of mine, someone I cared about, was killed. I’d like to find out why and by whom.”
Ellen looked at her husband. He pulled something from his jeans pocket and handed it across. It was a slip of paper. On it was a name and address of a clinic in Westchester.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll see you out,” said Ellen.
They stood on the stoop for a moment. Ellen said, “I can see you do not approve of my beliefs.”
“They’re your beliefs, so I have to respect them.”
“But not agree with them?”
“Like I said before, Ellen, this is really not the time or place to have that discussion. You have the absolute right to believe what you want, and so do I.”
Her mouth suddenly twisted in disgust, but she wasn’t looking at him, Devine observed. He looked over his shoulder to see two women on the pavement holding hands and kissing.
Devine turned back to her. The disgusted look was gone, but she said, “I can’t wait to get the hell out of this town.”
Chapter 40
“Well, twice in one day. What a lucky girl I am.”
Michelle Montgomery had answered Devine’s knock on the front door of her walk-up. She had taken off her business suit and wore faded, holey jean short-shorts, a white short-sleeved T-shirt, and no shoes. Her toenails were painted scarlet.
“Depends on how things turn out,” he replied.
She ushered him inside, and he took in the space. Clean, uncluttered, minimal furniture, some decent artwork, colorful rugs on the hardwood floors, a couple pieces of what looked to be African sculpture, and the scent of reefer.
“Well, a couple more breaths and I’ll be feeling quite mellow after my long day of toil at Cowl and Comely.”
“I’ve got some good weed if you’re interested.”
“If you have some cold beer, I’d be very interested.”
She got the beers and said, “Come on, I know where there’s a breeze. The AC here isn’t the best.”
She led him up to the flat roof, where a couple of deck chairs were set up. He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. They sat and she pointed out a sliver between two buildings and said, “Water view. That apparently costs extra.”
“And worth every penny. And so is that breeze.” He turned his face and let tendrils of air slide over his skin as he drank his beer.
“How’d it go with Brad?”
“Surprisingly well. We reached a mutual understanding.”
“I guess that’s good for you, then.”
“Good for us both. Hey, were you with Brad last Thursday night?”
“Thursday night?” She thought for a minute. “No. I was at his house, but he wasn’t there. He probably was in the city.”
Maybe at the place where Sara died.
“Do you know a Jennifer Stamos?”
“No.”
“Okay. Chilton said you were family friends. Since I know his family dates to the Mayflower and his blue-blood family comes from money, I guessed you did, too. But then you mentioned staying in a student hostel in Italy.”
“We’re not blue bloods and my family’s not rich. My father worked on the Chiltons’ Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, and my mother cleaned their house and took care of their kids. I was the wild and fun daughter of the hired help who lived on the premises.”
“Interesting. You have any siblings?”
“Two sisters. One younger and in college and thriving, and one older and married. To a doctor. And very happily.”
“Good for them. Do they look like you?”
“I think my younger sister is better-looking than I am.”
“Not what I meant, but that’s hard to believe.”
“Believe it. My older sister, Beth, is the one with the brains.”
He thought back to the disparaging remarks Cowl had made about her. “I don’t think you’re too shabby in that department, Michelle.”
“I couldn’t even make it through college.”
“You probably didn’t want to be bored with all the cookie-cutter courses in return for a boatload of student debt. And you wanted to see the world, like you said. And look where it landed you.”
She fingered her beer. “Yeah, I get paid to hang on the arm of a wealthy man and look wonderful. I like to think of it as living by my wits, but it’s not really that.” She looked down at herself. “I need this. Brad is not interested in my brain, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Use what you have. Guys do it, why not girls?”
She glanced at him. “Guys do it in a very different way. And I like you more when you’re less agreeable.” She stared off. “My mother wanted me to be a model. Pushed me from an early age. All the auditions, shooting local commercials when I was six, this pageant, that pageant, teeth fixed, lessons on how to walk a certain way and talk a certain way. I never got to have a normal childhood. She got mad when I tried to do my schoolwork. She told me my strength, unlike my older sister’s, was not my mind, but somewhat lower on my body. She was pissed off when I finally walked away from it all. Said I had betrayed her. Yeah, like it wasn’t my life, but her little vicarious fantasy.”