hands at the outset, then fewer and fewer as friends, colleagues, neighbors had started to distance themselves from a man suspected of killing his wife. Of smashing in her skull because she’d cheated on him, or because a divorce would cost him a great deal of money.
Or a combination thereof.
He didn’t intend to reach out for those hands again.
In his stocking feet, still a bit chilled from the long walk, he detoured to the bedroom for shoes.
He stopped, the apple halfway to his mouth, and frowned at the bed. Moving closer, he peered down and choked out his second laugh of the day—a definite record.
She’d folded, twisted, curved a hand towel into what looked like some strange bird squatting on the duvet. It wore sunglasses with a little flower tucked between the cloth and the earpiece.
Silly, he thought—and sweet.
He sat on the edge of the bed, nodded at the bird. “I guess I’m getting a massage.”
He left the bird where it was, went into the office.
He’d do some research, maybe fiddle around with the next scene, just get that springboard.
But out of habit he checked his e-mail first. Among the spam, a post from his father, another from his grandmother in response to the photos he’d sent her, he found one from his lawyer.
Rather not, he thought. Rather not click on it. But then it would just be there, waiting, waiting.
With the muscles in his shoulders twisting into fists, he opened the e-mail.
He cut through the legalese, set aside the assurances, even the questions of approach, and focused on the ugly center.
Lindsay’s parents were, once again, making noises about filing a wrongful death suit against him.
It was never going to end, he thought. Never going to be over. Unless and until the police caught whoever was responsible for Lindsay’s death, he was the default.
Lindsay’s parents despised him, absolutely and without a sliver of doubt believed he murdered their only child. If they went forward with this—and the longer he remained the default, the more likely they’d do just that—everything would be dredged up again, swirled into the media hot box to cook and bloat. And spill over not only him but his family.
Again.
Assurances the case was unlikely to go forward now, or to gain much traction if and when, didn’t help. They would beat that drum, for sure, righteous in their certainty that they sought the only justice available to them.
He thought of the publicity, all those talking heads discussing, analyzing, speculating. The private investigators the Piedmonts would hire—likely already had—who would come here to Whiskey Beach and bring that speculation, that doubt, those questions with them to the only place he had left.
He wondered if Boston PD’s Detective Wolfe had any part in their decision. On bad days, Eli considered Wolfe his personal Javert—doggedly, obsessively pursuing him for a crime he didn’t commit. On better ones, he thought of Wolfe as stubborn and wrongheaded, a cop who refused to consider that the lack of evidence might equal innocence.
Wolfe hadn’t been able to put a case together that convinced the prosecutor to file. But that hadn’t stopped the man from trying, from edging over the line of harassment until his superiors had warned him off.
At least officially.
No, he wouldn’t put it past Wolfe to encourage and abet the Piedmonts in their quest.
Braced on his elbows, Eli rubbed his hands over his face. He’d known this was coming, he’d known this other shoe would drop. So maybe, in a horrible way, it was better to get it done.
Agreeing with the last line of Neal’s e-mail, We need to talk, Eli picked up the phone.
The headache was a tantrum inside his skull, kicking, punching, screaming. Reassurances from his lawyer did little to alleviate it. The Piedmonts made noises about a suit to increase pressure, to keep the media interested, to float the idea of a settlement.
None of those opinions, even though he agreed with them, reassured.
The suggestions to keep a low profile, not to discuss the investigation, to reengage his own private investigator hardly helped. He already intended to keep a low profile. Any lower, he’d be interred. Who the hell would he discuss anything with? And the idea of pumping money and hope into private investigation, which hadn’t turned up anything genuinely helpful the first time around, just added a layer of depression.
He knew, as his lawyer knew, as the police knew, that the more time that passed, the less likely they’d find solid evidence.