“My grandfather,” Jake said.
“Knew him well,” Walsh said. “So, Detective, how can I help you? Surprised you didn’t call first. Must be important.”
“Can we go inside?” Jake scouted the neighborhood as they walked, houses two driveways apart from each other, most homes with exterior lights. Out here was no place to confront Walsh about his past.
Walsh seemed to consider. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“Do you want a lawyer?” Jake kept his voice even.
“Come in,” Walsh said. “We’ll talk.”
“So Thorley’s not the Lilac Sunday killer?” Jane sat in the front seat of Peter’s Jeep, Jake’s suggestion apparently. So that chapter must be over. She’d thanked Peter for the flowers, finally, and he’d explained he’d brought them to thank her for being so “brave” with Thorley. What, did he think she would have freaked out? Cried? But it was a sweet gesture. He was a good guy. And would make someone very happy, someday. Someone. Not her.
She told Peter, again, the story of Sandoval, what she knew of it at least. Then Peter told her-off the record, naturally-about how he and Jake had joined forces to interrogate Thorley. Absurdly, Jane’s first reaction was relief. What if she’d broken her word to Jake, and pitched the “Thorley as Lilac Sunday” story to Marcotte?
Now there was a better story, if she ever got to tell it. For a reporter, she sure was finding out a lot of stuff that wasn’t getting in the paper. In the past five days all she’d written was a feature on bank customer service. But there was still time.
“And Gary Lee Smith wasn’t Lilac Sunday, either,” Peter said. “He was in jail at the time, too.”
“So Walsh? The Parole Board chairman? Thorley told you that? For his mortgage money?” Jane paused, thinking it through. “Huh. I’d actually wondered if his mortgage was paid because-”
She stopped, the rest of her sentence hanging between them. She’d promised Jake she wouldn’t reveal the bombshell he’d just dropped about Liz McDivitt, though he’d said it would be public soon. It stunk that her newspaper had been used to disseminate lies, though this wasn’t the moment to discuss journalism ethics. Or the undertakings of the very alive Liz McDivitt. Liz. Alive. Amazing.
“Look.” Jane pointed, changing the subject. “The door.”
The carved wooden door had closed behind the two men, Walsh first unlocking it, Jake following him inside. Exterior lights clicked on, the trees making flutters of leafy shadows on the driveway and grass.
“They’re in. I’d kill to be there to hear what they say.” Jane thought back over Chrystal’s articles. “From what I read, this Walsh was never linked to Lilac Sunday.”
Peter shook his head. “He was a county sheriff, though, and according to Thorley, knew Carley Marie. Maybe they-maybe Brogan can find out. But whoever’s guilty, it’s not Gordon Thorley. He was only trying to save his family’s home.”
“Maybe Elliot Sandoval was, too. In some irrational way. That’s how the whole thing started, for me at least.” Jane looked out the window at the house, wondering who was saying what inside. “TJ and I went to that foreclosure on Waverly Road. We thought it’d be an empty house. Turned out to be a can of worms.”
68
“I know everything.” Jake had refused the chair Walsh offered, a buckskin leather throne dotted with brass grommets. They’d seen no one else in the house, Walsh hadn’t called out to anyone, or announced his return. Jake hadn’t planned on this, and didn’t love being here alone, but he couldn’t allow Peter inside. Now he was in a potential battle, and without a strategy. On the way to Walsh’s overstuffed study Jake had considered and rejected several approaches-the truth, a lie, indirect-and decided on the big bluff.
“You know everything? There’s an intriguing opening statement.” Walsh swiveled in his desk chair, arms on the rests, one leg crossed over his knee. A black ribbed sock showed above his shiny loafer. The desk, glass-topped and glossy, held a stationery-store display of matching leather gizmos-holders, files, pads, and containers of pens. “Can I interest you in a drink? I seem to remember your grandfather liked his whiskey.”
“No, sir,” Jake said. Walsh was trying to defuse the attack. Jake’s tactics were exactly the opposite. “You and Gordon Thorley. The mortgage.”
“Who?” Walsh swiveled, once, twice, wrinkled that forehead, three lines creasing even deeper.
“The man you lost your job over, sir,” Jake said.
“Ah,” Walsh said.
“We know you were paying his mortgage.” Jake kept talking and watching Walsh, looking for the soft spot. The flinch, the tell. Nothing.
“Cashier’s checks,” Jake went on. “Back in your day, they weren’t traceable. Now? They are. Not to mention the security video from the post office. It may take a while to put it together, sir, but there’s no doubt.”
Still not a word from Walsh.
“You knew Carley Marie Schaefer, you knew her parents. What, did she have a crush on you? Or you on her? You drive her all the way to Boston? To the Arboretum? And then-”
“I think I’ll have that drink.” Walsh rose, his chair swiveling in a circle as he shoved away. Opened an elaborate wood sideboard, inside lined with crystal decanters. “You sure I can’t offer-”
“Sir?” Jake said. He’d go for the whole nine yards now, some yards of which Jake wasn’t quite sure of. Whatever wasn’t true they could sort out later. “We know about Thorley. He’s confessed. We can trace the checks, follow the money. We know about Gary Lee Smith. We know Treesa Caramona was another of your parolees. She trusted you, that how you got to her? That why she let you in to kill her? It’s done. You’re done. We know everything.”
He watched Walsh choose a glass, rummage in a drawer. Jake took a step back, wary.
“Not quite, Jake. What you don’t know, Jake,” Walsh said. He turned, smiling, perfect host, napkin in one hand, glass in the other. “If I killed Carley Marie Schaefer, why isn’t there one bit of evidence that leads to me? Not a shred? Have you examined the police files? I’m sure your grandfather made copies. And yet, no matter how hard he tried…”
Walsh paused, poured something brown from a decanter into his glass, wrapped it with the napkin, slugged the whole thing. Shook his head, as if in sorrow.
“And yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not catch that bad guy. Used to talk about it all the time. Like I said, Jake. I knew him. In fact, when the case was new? Yours truly Sheriff Walsh was one of the first to get a look at all the evidence. Thanks to my friendship with your dear grandfather. He thought we could solve that heinous”-he stumbled over the word-“crime together.”
Walsh poured another glass. Drank it. “That, however, was not my true objective.” Put the glass down, but missed. The glass fell onto the thick pile carpeting, rolled under the desk. He watched it, seemingly fascinated. “Not after dear Carley Marie told me she wanted to stop-‘seeing’ me. I knew what her medical records would show. I’d planned her visit to the-doctor. But sadly, she wasn’t happy with that plan. Sadly, your grandfather’s cops neglected to notice the medical files weren’t exactly the same after I examined them.”
“You took-you changed-?” Jake began. He felt the back of his neck tighten, thought of his grandfather, his sorrow and defeat; his grandmother, who’d watched failure eat away at her husband. Walsh-a law enforcement officer-had access to the evidence, knew exactly what to alter, and how to do it. Back then he’d tried to erase the history of his guilt.
Now it was Jake’s turn to play with the truth.
“Times change, Walsh. These days tests are better. And they’re already underway. Even if Thorley had convinced us, we’d still have found you.” Jake was semi-bluffing, since they probably had no samples of Walsh’s DNA on file. He had to rely on Walsh’s fear. “We have the rope, remember? You ever heard of ‘handler DNA’?”