To Love and to Perish - By Lisa Bork Page 0,50
maybe he had just been under stress or maybe he was just getting older.”
“Was he still at the bed and breakfast when you left?”
“I don’t know. It all happened so fast. I don’t know if his car was still there or not. But I already talked to him. He called and left a message while I was at the jail, wanting to know where I went. I called him back and told him I had an emergency at work. He seemed to buy my story. He offered to pick up Cassidy and make dinner.” She buried her face in her hands. “God, I am such an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot.”
“And that officer. The way he talked to me. He was so patronizing. I felt like a two-year-old.”
“He’s just glad you’re not a real peeper. It would blow their profiling to have women in flowered skirts and pink pumps take up peeping.”
Isabelle’s smile was weak, but a smile nonetheless. “Don’t ever tell anyone, okay?”
“I swear.”
“What am I going to tell Jack when he sees me like this?”
I thought for a second. “Let’s get your car, then we’ll stop by the mall. I’ll go in and buy you a new outfit while you pick the leaves out of your hair. Jack won’t notice a new outfit, will he?”
“God, no.” She glanced at her scratched wrists. “Just make sure it’s long-sleeved.”
_____
I arrived home around seven thirty. Ray’s patrol car was parked in the driveway. He was in the living room, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, watching the sports channel on the flat screen over the fireplace while eating leftover stir fry.
He didn’t acknowledge my arrival, a sure sign he was angry. I eased onto the couch beside him, picking up the pillow Erica made to hold to my chest. I fingered the words on it, thinking Isabelle was like another sister to me.
I contemplated the best way to approach Ray and settled on a neutral course. “Are you in for the night?”
His gaze never left the television. “I’m on patrol tomorrow. Max and Gumby are going to Albany. They have appointments with the Potters, the Gleasons, and even Brennan’s father, who is apparently half dead in a hospice.”
“Really? What’s wrong with him?”
“Pancreatic cancer.”
“Does Brennan know that?”
“I don’t know what Brennan knows, and Catherine won’t let him tell me.” Ray scraped the bottom of his bowl with a piece of cornbread, soaking up the remaining stir fry sauce.
He was mad, all right. I tried to make amends. “I saw Catherine today. She wanted me to tell her everything I planned to tell the sheriff.”
“Did you?”
“No, I wanted to tell him first. Is it okay if Cory and I talk to her?”
“Now you’re checking with me?” Ray gathered his dishes. “Now that I’m not the one to ask?”
“Because you’re not assigned to the case?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re disappointed?” I wanted to say “angry,” but why fuel the fire?
Ray rose off the couch and disappeared into the kitchen. “I’m the errand boy. I got the warrant to search Brennan’s house. We collected the yearbook and check registers.”
I followed Ray. “Does Brennan know you took all that?”
“Yes. The sheriff and Max asked him about the payments.”
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know. I’m not assigned to the case.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was highly unusual that the department wasn’t talking among themselves, sharing information and theories. Ray must be devastated to be left out—and it was all my doing.
I focused on the facts he did know. “So Max and Gumby are going to talk to everyone tomorrow? Cory and I never got to meet Suzanne Gleason.”
“She’s on the appointment list. They’ll probe into the divorce and try to map out exactly where she was when her husband ended up in the street. Ask about insurance money, that kind of thing.”
“And her son?”
“Again, probe into their relationship. Ask if he benefits from insurance policies.”
“That’s a lot for one day.”
Ray rinsed his empty beer bottle and set it in the bin under the sink. “It’s a start. The guy who shot the YouTube video is in Europe for the next month working. His wife can’t find the original. She’s waiting for him to call her.”
“Will Brennan have to sit in jail all that time?”
“I don’t know if a judge will let him out on bail now that two deaths are linked to him. I’m guessing his fingerprints will be all over the oar used to knock Engle into the water. It’s his dock. The message makes it look