Lost Lake Page 12

  Shrugging, I went ahead and poured myself another glass. The buzz from the first glass had long since worn off, and I wanted to feel hazy again, hanging out somewhere between caring and not caring. “I’m curious what you think of her, being here, with our daughter. In our lives. Is having a nanny what you expected? Do you think she’s working out? Grace seems to love her.”

  Brody tilted his head and his hazel eyes brightened. “She sure does. I like Clementine, I really do. She’s funny as hell and young, you know, energetic. What I wouldn’t give to be ten years younger.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I’m envious of her vitality. Her youth. Clem’s got her whole life in front of her. She’s a clean slate. Don’t you ever think about what you’d do differently, if you could go back? Start over?” Brody asked. He took a sip of his wine and set the glass down slowly. “There are a lot of things I’d like a do-over on.”

  “Like what?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  Brody sighed. “Well, obviously the … my indiscretions. Look at me, I can’t even say the word. My affair. There’re other things, too. I wish I’d spent more time with my dad before he passed away. I thought he was indestructible. It never occurred to me that there’d come a day when he wouldn’t be here.”

  I nodded and started to twist the ring on my left hand back and forth. Brody noticed and paled slightly. “Cold feet?”

  “No. No, I don’t think so. Maybe an early midlife crisis,” I said. “I’ve felt on edge the last few months. Maybe it’s postnatal hormones.”

  “Do you need to see a therapist again? Dr. Pabst was helpful,” Brody said carefully. A pensive look settled over his face. “If we’re rushing this…”

  “No. Brody, you’ve been incredibly patient with me. I want to marry you, I do. I’ll be fine. It’s this case. I’m distracted.”

  He looked down and pushed a last bite of cold lasagna around on his plate, drawing a circle with the pasta. “Just don’t shut me out, Gemma.”

  We cleaned the kitchen and later, in bed, our bodies reached for each other. After, I waited for Brody to say something, anything, but he was silent. I lay in bed, awake, staring at shadows on the ceiling long after he’d fallen asleep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Rough night?”

  “I’ve had better,” I said coolly, and dropped my things at my desk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Finn watching me. He looked how Finn always looks, polished and put together even when he’s had very little sleep.

  Today, though, he also looked so hangdog that I sighed. We’d never accomplish anything if we spent all our time fighting with each other. “It’s Tuesday, that’s always nicer than a Monday.”

  Finn perked up and joined me at my desk with a mug in his hand. “Truer words were never spoken. Look, about yesterday—”

  “We were both out of line. Let’s move on.”

  He nodded. “Absolutely.” He picked up a framed photograph of Brody and Grace on my desk, then set it down. “The family’s good?”

  “Yes, they’re fine. How’s Cassie? And Roland? I haven’t seen them around much.”

  Cassie was Finn’s girlfriend; Roland, her teenage son. The boy had played an integral role in my last case, and though I hadn’t seen him in a few months, I kept meaning to look in on him. He used a wheelchair, the result of a tragic accident. Roland was a smart-aleck, too clever for his own good, with an artistic talent that bent toward sketching fantastical and frankly frightening creatures. I liked him a lot.

  Finn took a long swallow from the mug and made a face. “How do people drink this stuff? Green tea … more like pee tea. It tastes like a wet paper towel. Cassandra is fine. She and Roland and her ex-husband and her ex’s boyfriend are in New York. They’re looking at colleges for the kid. Talk about modern families.”

  “Have you met him? The ex-husband?”

  “Once. He picked Roland up for the weekend while I was at Cass’s place. The guy seems nice enough. He’s a short little man. His boyfriend’s an accountant with a pencil mustache and box seats for the Denver Broncos,” Finn said. He set down the green tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Roland barely talks to me.”

  “What do you expect? He’s sixteen years old. You’re sleeping with his mom.”

  Finn looked surprised. “He doesn’t know that.”

  “You’re delusional. Of course he knows,” I said. “He’s not a little kid, Finn. If you treat him like one, he’ll never warm to you.”

  “Like you know so much, Mama,” he responded. “How’s that nanny of yours? What’s her name, Marmalade? Jelly?”

  “Clementine,” I said, and turned back to my computer.

  Finn’s phone rang, and he stepped away to answer it. When he returned a few minutes later, he was excited. “That was a man named Tom Lowenstein. He swears that someone who looked like ‘that gas station guy but with a big mustache’ was loitering outside the museum the night Betty Starbuck was killed.”

  “Kent Starbuck?”

  “I think so,” Finn said. “Lowenstein’s on his way here to give a statement. He should look at some mug shots … think you can dig up a photograph of Kent Starbuck?”

  “Yes.” I turned to my computer and pulled up the appropriate records. I remembered seeing a picture of Starbuck—albeit a ten-years-younger version—somewhere in his file.

  Lowenstein arrived shortly thereafter. He was a nervous middle-aged man with a fringe of red hair around a freckled dome and tiny eyes set into a florid, fleshy face. Heavyset, he smelled of cigarette smoke and blew his nose repeatedly.

  “As I told Detective Nowlin, I feel terrible about this. I was out of town on an overnight business trip Sunday through yesterday. I heard about the murder, of course, but it wasn’t until this morning when I was catching up on the daily newspapers that I saw the date and made the connection.”

  “And what do you do for business?” I asked. His answer wasn’t necessarily important, but I wanted him relaxed. The way to do that was to talk about things familiar to him.

  “Sales. I sell nutcrackers.”

  Finn started laughing, then stopped short when Lowenstein shot him a cutting glance. “I wouldn’t laugh, Detective. It’s quite a lucrative business. I collect them from around the world and then sell them online. I made six figures last year. One of them sold for thirty thousand dollars.”

  “Jesus Christ, I’m in the wrong business,” Finn gasped. “Thirty thou? For a tiny doll?”

  Lowenstein brushed a speck of lint off his suit sleeve and drew himself up. “This was no tiny doll. It was an original Popov. Three feet tall, carved by hand from a single piece of wood. Only a hundred were ever made. I probably could have gotten forty thousand, but the buyer is a regular client of mine. I wasn’t comfortable fleecing him.”

  I cleared my throat, sorry I’d asked about his profession. “Tell us what you saw that night, please.”

  “Certainly. I suffer from insomnia and find a midnight constitutional helps quite a bit. I leashed up Buttons and we did our usual route. I live half a mile from the museum, and we typically turn around in the parking lot and return home. An even mile, and at our pace, it’s about twenty-five minutes. This was the night of the gala, and by midnight, I’d expected things to be quiet with most if not all of the guests departed for the evening,” Lowenstein said. He paused and asked, “Can I smoke?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s illegal inside the station.”

  Lowenstein waved a hand. “No matter. Where was I? Oh yes. We reached the parking lot and I saw a car with security decals pull away. The museum itself was dark, as it usually is. A single light shone at the front entrance, and of course the streetlights were still on. Buttons and I turned to head home, and I noticed a thin, balding man approach the museum from the opposite side of the street. He reached the front steps, looked up at the building, checked his watch, then began pacing. He was dressed in dark clothes, and for a moment, he was clearly illuminated by a streetlight.
I thought to myself that he looked just like the man that owns the Gas ’n’ Go, but with a thick mustache and an air about him that was utterly suspicious.”

  “Did you talk to the man or otherwise interact with him?” I asked.

  “No. It was late, and aside from my twenty-pound terrier, I was unarmed. As I said, he seemed unsavory.”

  “But you didn’t report him.”

  “Heavens no, why would I? Here I was, out for a stroll in the middle of the night. For all I knew, he was doing the same. Perhaps I scared him just as much as he scared me.”

  Finn nodded, conceding the point. “We have some photographs that we’d like you to look at. Gemma?”

  I’d printed five other photos from our book of mug shots of men that resembled Kent Starbuck. I slid them and the photo of Starbuck across the table. Lowenstein slipped on a pair of eyeglasses that he’d withdrawn from his pocket and then picked up the photographs one by one. He peered at Starbuck’s face the longest. He hemmed and hawed, and Finn and I shot sidelong glances at one another.

  Finally, Lowenstein slapped Starbuck’s photograph down. “Add a mustache and about twenty pounds, and that was the man I saw outside the museum the night Betty Starbuck was murdered.”

  * * *

  We picked Kent Starbuck up at his motel. He was reluctant to accompany us to the police station but ultimately understood he had little choice in the matter.

  We were going to talk with him, one way or another.

  We sat in the interview room, Finn and me on one side of the table, Starbuck on the opposite.

  Finn got right to it. “We have an eyewitness who places you at the history museum near the time your mother was killed, Mr. Starbuck. This witness saw you lurking about the front entrance after all the guests had departed.”

  Starbuck sat back and dropped his rough, callused hands into his lap. “Since when is it a crime to be out on the street at night?”

  “So you were there.”

  “Yes, Detective Monroe, I was there. But as I said—since when is that a crime?”

  “It’s not. But obstruction of justice is illegal. You lied to me. You told me you were home the entire evening. So here’s your chance to make that lie right. Just tell us why you were there and we can all get out of here. The museum is four miles from your motel. You don’t own a car, Mr. Starbuck. I have trouble believing you were out for an eight-mile round-trip stroll in the middle of the night,” I said.

  Starbuck shot me another of his awful smiles. “What can I say, I’m training for a marathon.”

  Finn started laughing. “Man, this is going to be fun. I’ve got no plans for the rest of the day. I don’t think Detective Monroe does, either. We’re happy to spend the next six hours in here.”

  “I’m free to leave whenever I damn well choose,” Starbuck growled.

  “Not if we arrest you for obstruction. We’re trying to play nice here, Kent. Work with us,” Finn said.

  Starbuck drew a hand over his face, considering his options. He must have realized they were few, because he finally said, “Okay. My mother asked me to meet her there, at the museum, after all the guests had gone. She didn’t give me a time, but I figured everyone would be gone by midnight.”

  “Why there, why so late?”

  Starbuck lifted a shoulder. His faded denim shirt was threadbare, the stitching coming loose at the seams. He wiped his nose on the edge of his hand. “I don’t know. She insisted on it, though. Look, I thought it was strange, too. I took a cab and got there just before midnight, but her car was gone and the whole place looked closed up. I hung around for a few minutes, then left. Next thing I know, she’s dead.”

  “Can you think of any reason she might have insisted on such a strange meeting place and time?” Finn asked. “Why not meet at her house? Or your motel?”

  “The only thing I can think of is that it had something to do with Patrick. They were real close, the two of them. If there was something she didn’t want him to know about … or if she was frightened of him, say, well, then I can see the need for secrecy,” Starbuck said.

  “There’s a big difference between keeping a secret from someone and being frightened of him. Had your mother indicated she was scared of your brother?”

  Starbuck thought a moment. “No. I got the sense that she was uneasy about something or someone, but as I told you before, I didn’t know her very well. Look, I wish I could tell you more, honestly. Though there wasn’t a lot of love between us anymore, I do want to see my mother’s killer brought to justice. She didn’t deserve to die, not the way she did.”

  I asked a final question. “Did you see anyone else, or anything at all, while you were at the museum?”

  “Just some fat old fart walking his dog.”

  We let Starbuck go, and then Finn and I sat at our desks, talking things over.

  “I think he’s lying. Betty Starbuck never called him. There was never any meeting. Lowenstein’s account puts Kent Starbuck at the museum within the timeframe of his mother’s murder. And all Kent can say is ‘We had a meeting scheduled’? Baloney.”

  Finn rubbed at the back of his neck. “I don’t know … he sounded pretty sure of himself. What if Betty did call Kent to the museum to discuss Patrick? What if he was the man in her backyard, a man she had grown scared of?”

  He checked his watch and swore. “I’m late for an appointment.”

  “I’ll pay Patrick a visit at work.”

  “Good. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  I watched Finn leave the squad room, his broad shoulders tense, his face drawn. I wondered where he was going, who he was meeting.

  Bryce Ventura?

  I shook my head, turning back to my computer.

  It’s none of my business.

  Working with him these past few months, day in and day out … Finn had earned my trust. No matter how much he frustrated me, no matter how much he angered me, he had earned my trust.

  Hadn’t he?

  The possibility that Finn was meeting Bryce Ventura reminded me that I’d come up with a plan to catch the leaker. I left my desk and grabbed a cup of coffee in the break room, thinking through my next steps. The problem was how to make sure that everyone working a particular shift—and only those people—saw the false information. That seemed to be the best way to limit my pool of suspects.

  We had three shifts in the department. Three groups of my colleagues … three groups of suspects.

  I sipped my coffee, scanning the break room, considering and then eliminating ideas. A patrol officer walked in, on his phone. By way of greeting, he gave me a lift of his chin. I nodded back at him. He poured himself a cup of coffee and then left the room. I followed him out, without a destination in mind, and watched as he paused a moment to peruse the Red Board.

  The Red Board.

  It was perfect.

  The Red Board was a small bulletin board on the wall just outside the locker rooms. We called it the Red Board because it was where any critical information would be posted. Sure, most things went out electronically. But if something was deemed a high visual priority—say, a pencil sketch of a suspect, or a photograph of a missing child—it would be printed out and hung on the Red Board. In fact, I’d meant to pin the photograph of Sari Chesney there. Both cops and nonsworn personnel used the locker rooms, and everyone was in the habit of scanning the Red Board on their way in or out.

  I could post information and be practically guaranteed that the leaker would see it.

  It was perfect.

  I frowned. Maybe not totally perfect. Because in all honesty, there was no way to know when the leaker was taking information to Ventura. He or she could work an eight-to-five shift, learn something, then wait a few hours before speaking to Ventura.

  As I thought about it more, I realized the answer was to post three different kinds of information, one at a time. That way, no matter when the leaker actually went to Ventura, I’d still know which shift the leaker worked. It did mean coming to
the station, though, at the beginning or end of each shift and changing out the false information. Checking my watch, I decided to post the first set at the very end of my shift, right before going home.

  I sighed and cursed both the leaker and Chief Chavez.

  I didn’t need to be running around playing spymaster while Betty Starbuck’s killer walked the streets.

  I had a plan, though. And it would work, I knew it would.

  It had to, because I was out of ideas, and if the look on the chief’s face meant anything, I was running out of time as well.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I drove to Patrick Crabbe’s gas station under dark skies that threatened to open at any moment. Flowers, orange tulips mostly but some other varieties as well, bloomed in the medians that divided the streets. The city had devoted a lot of money to beautifying the roads, and it showed in the colorful flowers and the shiny new trash and recycling containers that lined the avenues.

  Two cars, an older model Camry and a silver hatchback, were parked in the lot adjacent to the station. I’d seen the Camry at Crabbe’s house and assumed it belonged to him. As I parked and left my car, a gust of wind moved an empty soda can across the asphalt. The can came to rest against a gas pump, joining torn candy wrappers and crumpled receipts.

  The pumps were empty, and for the first time I realized how truly secluded the gas station was. It was set back from the road, close to the woods, in the shadow of the trees that loomed above it. At night, the single streetlight likely did little to illuminate the lot. It was clear to see why the station was the target of so much vandalism; it would be easy to tag the walls and smash the windows without any witnesses.

  Another gust of wind set the soda can clanking against the pump, and I hurried inside. Behind the desk, a clerk perused a celebrity gossip magazine. I identified myself and asked for Crabbe. She pointed down an aisle to the back office. “Get yourself a cup of coffee and a doughnut. It’s on the house.”