“So. We’ve gotta go to the hospital,” DeLuca continued, as Jake risked the coffee-colored muck from the squad room pot. “Find out what happened.”
Jake added more sugar. Maybe that would help. “Negative. No way we’re doing that.”
He sipped, winced. D sucked at making coffee, but it was better than nothing. The phones were silent, as they usually were this time of morning. But it meant no one else was dead. For now.
“Listen. Two cops? Even one of us?” Jake envisioned the disaster. “Even in plain clothes? Walking into Boston City Hospital to see Grady Houlihan? That’s a death warrant for him right there.”
“How’d you learn it was him in the Melnea Cass accident, anyway? Where he was?”
“I called him last night.” Jake stirred in some fake creamer. “To give him grief about not telling us about Violet Sholto. He didn’t answer.”
He dismissed the plate of yesterday’s doughnuts and bagels, an unappetizing display of leftover carbs. “A good thing, turns out. Otherwise, who knows how long it would have taken them to get his ID. The nurse who returned my call this morning said they’d checked for contacts on his phone, but there weren’t any.”
“Smart boy,” D said.
“That’s what we pay him for. To be smart.”
“Not enough, apparently, Harvard. Else he would’ve given us a bell about Violet Sholto.”
“Possibly.” Jake abandoned his coffee and tossed the cup, eager to get on with the day. Should they head to Boston City Hospital, wait for Grady’s sedation to wear off? Or canvass the Sholto neighborhood? Or Avery Morgan’s? Or visit Edward Tarrant? Somehow it was Willow Galt who most intrigued Jake. That woman was not telling everything she knew.
Definitely—a visit to the Galts. Grady would recover, according to the nurse. So maybe, no rush. But what if he was in danger?
Damn. Were he and D the only fricking cops in Boston? The mayor, hoping for reelection this fall, had promised more troops. But the election was three months away. That left Jake and D with two cases to solve. And an informant at risk.
Jake’s plane for L.A. departed at three. Question was: Would he be on it?
D approached, a telltale powdered-sugar trail on his black T-shirt.
“You’re gonna kill yourself, eating like that,” Jake said.
D took another bite. “What’s your take on this? One way or the other, we should send a guy to keep watch on the kid. He might be Violet Sholto’s killer, right? Or that killer’s next victim.”
“Exactly.” Jake pointed a forefinger. “Plus, like I told you last night, Grady’s the link between Violet Sholto and Avery Morgan. Tarrant’s video proves he was at Morgan’s house. Maybe he can give us something about that night. Names.”
“Drugs, even,” D said. “Maybe that’s why he was really there?”
“And Grady’s obviously connected with the Sholtos,” Jake went on, almost thinking out loud. “So whatever Grady knows, or did, that’s gotta be why someone smashed his Gormay truck on Melnea Cass last night. They followed him, tailed him, and wham. Talk about sending a message. Couldn’t have been clearer if they’d spray-painted ‘Shut up’ on the side of his van.”
“You think Grady might’ve killed them both? Avery Morgan and Violet Sholto?”
Jake nodded. Then shook his head.
“I take that as a maybe,” D said.
“Seems too … out there.” Jake thought about it, the millionth time. “I mean, does Grady seem like a murderer? Why would he kill them?”
“Short answer? Money.” DeLuca raised his coffee cup, toasting. His phone buzzed in his pocket. “Or an assignment. What if Sholto was making him prove his allegiance? Whatever. Or maybe he killed for love. Or, I don’t know. By mistake.”
Jake shook his head, dismissing. “I don’t see it. Dozens of murders a year in Boston, so maybe there’s no connection. Or someone else might have been connected with them both. Or maybe Avery Morgan wasn’t murder.”
“Huh.” DeLuca was reading his phone screen. “Lookit this, bro. Someone sure murdered Violet Sholto. Here’s a text from—well, the Medical Examiner’s Office, shall we say. Confirming it.”
Jake toasted D this time. Kat McMahan often released her findings to them in advance, so often that they now took it for granted. “Always nice to have an ‘in’ with the ME,” he said.
“‘In’ the ME is right,” D said. “Often as I can.”
“Grow up, D,” Jake said.
“Why now?” D was texting as he talked, somehow able to leer and type at the same time.
“You were saying?” Jake had to change the subject from the TMI on D’s love life. “Violet Sholto’s cause of death, Kat says … what?”
“Suffocated,” D said. “The wrist slashes were inflicted postmortem. Kat says whoever killed her did a good job trying to hide it. You saw the prelim e-mail from crime scene—bathroom’s clean, no unknown prints, no anything.”
“Someone knew what they were doing. Cleaning-wise, too,” Jake said. “Not the housekeeper, though, certainly.”
“Husband?”
“Out of town,” Jake said.
“Says the housekeeper.”
The movie of the crime spooled out in Jake’s imagination, as it often did when he was investigating. Part of a detective’s job was imagining the setup, the motivation, the actual performance of the crime. Could it work? Was it feasible? Who would have to be where, and why? The movie of the crime allowed him to envision reality. Whether it would have been too dark to see, if a victim might have tried to defend himself, how the murderer got in, whether a neighbor would have heard a commotion. Where there’d be fingerprints or DNA or trace evidence. Whether a cover-up could be successful.
He envisioned the Sholto home. Envisioned Grady, trusted underling, arriving at the front door. The housekeeper—he checked his notes. Rissa Murphy—lets him in. He tells her—
“Hellooo?” D said. “Earth to Jake. Where did you just go?”
“About the housekeeper. And Grady. Maybe you’re right.”
“Imagine that,” D said.
“Listen.” Jake ignored him. “Sholto orders Grady to kill his wife. He does. He scrams. The housekeeper cleans it up. Everyone shuts up. I mean, it’s the Sholtos. That’s what they do. And Sholto himself’s got the perfect alibi. He’s outta town. And ain’t no one gonna say otherwise.”
“And we’re screwed.” D put his empty coffee mug on a stack of files. Brushed cruller crumbs from his chest. “Should we go have a chat with Grady? Being an informant won’t get you out of jail free if you kill someone.”
“Gotta hand it to Sholto.” Jake shoved his notebook into a back pocket. Patted for his car keys. “I know it’s not exactly logical, but it’s sort of proof he did it. If he’s out of town, it proves he must be guilty, because he never goes out of town. He’s like … travel-phobic. So this proves he’d do anything for an alibi, anything to disconnect himself from this. Which means he’s connected.”
“You’re nuts,” D said. “Proving a double negative. Tell that to a judge.”
“Listen. What if Grady kills Violet Sholto on, say, Monday morning. For some as-yet-undetermined reason. Then kills Avery Morgan—who he also clearly knew, and also knew where she lived. On Monday day. Again, for now, reason unknown.” Jake shook his head. He hadn’t even convinced himself. “Okay, maybe, more likely I guess, what if Grady knows who did it? Because then Monday night he gets nailed in a hit-and-run. So either way, it could be—”
“Retaliation. Or a cover-up. Or silencing him.” D filled in the blanks. “A message. Either way.”
“I’ve got about five hours before my flight. If I go. Hospital?” Jake asked. “Take our chances?”
“Grady shoulda kept his mouth shut,” D said.
“Let’s hope he can talk now. When we get there, I mean.” Jake’s intercom buzzed, an insistent burr across the deserted squad room. He punched the “talk” button. “Brogan,” he said.
“Detective Brogan?” Ming-Na’s voice was carefully formal. The receptionist was using her “announcing a visitor” voice.
“Yes?” Jake turned to D. Held up his watch. Mouthed All we need.
“It’s a Mr. Tom Galt,” Ming-Na said. “He says he needs to tell you his wife is missing. He says you’ll know who she is.”