Twenty

A mannequin in a college-band uniform holding a trumpet looked about ready to destroy the hearing of another mannequin in mid-strum of an electric guitar. Evie gave them a second look, which she supposed was the whole point of a window display, then entered the music store. Two dozen guitars had been neatly hung across the south wall, a quick count came up with ten keyboards of various sophistications, and there was enough sheet music filling several racks to remind her that songs really were written down before they were played. It was a foreign world to her.

She glanced at David and caught an expression she hadn’t seen before, a touch of joyful pleasure. He no doubt would be walking out of here with a gift for Maggie.

“Jim Ulin?” David was asking. The guy ringing up two music composition books pointed through the adjoining door to the coffee shop.

She turned that direction into a long, narrow room, a low stage with a Karaoke Friday Night sign in bright blue neon, tables and chairs arranged around a counter for food and drinks, neatly forming a U in the center of the room. Muffins, brownies, soda, coffees, and . . . pizzas, which apparently could bake in a stack of toaster ovens. Eight of them, Evie counted. If she ran a coffee shop near a college, she’d be serving pizza and staying open until midnight too. The popcorn was free and self-serve, pouring out of a carnival-style stirring kettle.

It was late for the lunch crowd, and since it was Friday, the six college students at a front table were watching people walk by, drinking coffee, and debating lamest movies, from the fragments of conversation picked up by Evie. The four at a back table were playing a card game, the remnants of a pizza cardboard on an adjoining table, and two who looked like brothers were perched on stools on the stage, dueling with guitars, mostly running riffs.

A nice place that has the feel of a college hangout, Evie mused. The guy behind the counter had finished cleaning the coffeemaker and turned her direction with a smile. She didn’t need the nametag to know it was Jim from one of Jenna’s pictures. “I’ll take a black coffee and a brownie, and if you can spare it, a few minutes of your time on your next break.” She put her card down beside a ten-dollar bill.

It got a second glance, along with a puzzled nod. “Sure. Choose a table, I’ll bring your coffee and pour myself one.”

The brownie was huge and chunky with chocolate chips. The coffee came in a ceramic mug rather than styrofoam cup—they were obviously going the green route, using dishwasher energy instead of taking up landfill space. She did prefer her coffee in something solid. She pocketed the change he brought over with her order. “Thanks.”

Jim pulled out the opposite chair. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

On the tall side, lanky, probably basketball if he was an athlete. Sandy hair and some freckles. Twenty-nine, she guessed, still looking young but for the eyes that indicated he was probably the wisest young man around here. He made a good first impression.

“I’ve been asking questions around campus about Jenna Greenhill. We have,” she explained, nodding toward David, still in the music shop. “We were talking recently with Lynne Benoit and her mom.”

That got a reaction, the kind of subtle response that made a relaxed hand twitch a finger and the knee stiffen, with the eyes shifting away to look at anything other than the cop.

“I was wondering how soon it was after Jenna showed up on campus that she began causing problems for you.”

That turned his gaze back. Evie didn’t know anything more than what she had just implied, but Jim just filled in the entire rest of the story in the memories that flitted across his face. “There are two versions of Jenna around campus,” she added lightly. “One is kindness personified; the other wants to be the center of the universe and doesn’t mind poaching other girls’ boyfriends.” Evie offered a sympathetic smile for the tension showing in him. “I’m going to guess I just found my second Candy, someone who described Jenna to me as a ‘boyfriend-stealing cheater,’ and turned similarly unflattering from there. You didn’t like her, did you, Jim?”

“No. And to say that after she’s missing just puts a spotlight on those words the wrong way.”

“If it’s the truth, it’s just what was,” Evie replied matter-of-factly.

Jim glanced around the coffee shop, confirmed they weren’t being overheard. He wrapped his hands around his warm mug and said, “Jenna was college and ambition. I was this place, the music store, my old man. I’m likely never leaving this neighborhood, and I’m okay with that. It pays the bills. The same folks have been around here for thirty years and they’re good people. Dad and I are actually friends. But Jenna was looking and flirting and mostly, I think, bored. The fact Lynne was my choice startled her . . . I think it amused her.

“Maybe some of that with Lynne did start from familiarity—she’s been around my world since she was six, and she grows on you. I’ve always liked her, even if you have to wince sometimes at how she doesn’t understand people as they really are. Lynne’s not perfect, but she’s genuinely good. Jenna, well, the wrapper fools people. I’m not saying it’s not flattering to have a good-looking, ambitious, and smart woman pause and take another look at you. But a wise man knows if you take a bite of that, you’re going to get snapped by jaws that don’t let go. I wasn’t buying what she was dangling. And that annoyed her.

“She had other guys on her line. I was lower down her priority list, but she kept coming back. I started getting worried about how Jenna was going to play Lynne, cause problems from the other direction since I wasn’t falling in line. Jenna was just starting to drop hints that direction when she disappeared. Had it gone on another few months, I would have been fighting a battle against the damage she was doing on that front. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved Jenna was gone, even as horrible as that sounds.”

“Lynne’s someone I imagine you instinctively want to protect,” Evie remarked, “and you saw trouble coming. I’ve got no problem with your instincts, Jim. They were the right ones, given what I’m learning about Jenna.”

“Thanks.” He thoughtfully turned his coffee mug between his hands. “I may not be the smart college guy, but I can hold my own with your psychology-trained graduate. I’ve seen a lot of soap operas play out here, having spent my middle school years doing homework at the side table over there, and my high school after hours on the cash register. I’ve seen the college crowds come and go. Jenna was rare, unique—and not in a good way, I’m afraid. She was probably the most calculating for how to play a guy of anyone I ever saw up close.

“This is the coffee crowd,” he explained, with a gesture to the room. “Come evenings, this place will be crowded and the music loud, and we’ll be hauling in folding chairs so you’re not sitting on the floor. The ones who drink the beers get emotional; that’s the other side of campus. This is the subtle crowd, weighing tone of voice and choice of words. ‘How do I want this next conversation to go?’ Jenna had the good-girl wrapper. Didn’t drink or smoke, cry about her weight, make a scene. She was smart, came with a pretty smile—and the guys fell over like bowling pins. I don’t think many people noticed the real Jenna. Candy did. I did. And surprisingly, I think to some extent Steve did.

“He wouldn’t say much, but he had her pegged and wasn’t letting her set the agenda. Jenna wanted the proposal, the engagement ring, and Steve wasn’t going to give in to her on when that should happen. She was subtly suggesting she might move on, lining up his possible replacements. She didn’t get the fact Steve was the adult in the relationship, while she was still immaturely playing high school pecking order. My sense of it is he really loved her or he would have given her the shock of her life and let her go. He was willing to put in the time for her to grow up, but he had his work cut out for him. She was playing other guys right up until the day she vanished, and that has always left a queasy feeling in my gut.”

“Did Lynne know Jenna was pushing your buttons?”

He recoiled, shaking his head. “No. No, she didn’t realize what was going on. Lynne . . . well, she just doesn’t catch on to subtle. Innuendos go right by her. Even actual rudeness often registers only as someone being abrupt. She hadn’t known what Jenna was doing, and her true friends were sympathetic, patting my arm, doing what they could to edge Lynne’s time away from Jenna. But most of them were state college, not Brighton, and weren’t around as much as Jenna. On the surface, Jenna was Lynne’s friend, and Lynne couldn’t see deeper than that.”

“When did you last see Jenna?”

“You mind if we shift to the music store? There’s an office in back.”

He wanted a smoke, she realized, fidgeting rippling his fingers. A good guy with a vice he’d want to hide from this very green, nothing-as-crass-as-nicotine college crowd. “No problem. Lead the way.”

David had been deliberate in not making it seem like two on one. Evie caught his eye with a tiny shake of her head as she passed, and left him to fill the time spending more money on music for his girl.

The back office was a desk and two mostly comfortable chairs tucked in behind boxes neatly shelved floor to ceiling. “I saw Jenna the night she disappeared,” Jim told her.

Evie sincerely hoped her phone recording in her pocket was doing its job. She settled into one of the chairs, forced herself to relax, and simply waited for what he might be willing to say next.

Jim opened a desk drawer, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, held it up till she shook her head with a smile, then lit one for himself. “It was after the concert. It’s a huge, Mount Everest kind of Friday night for Lynne, with Triple M playing and Maggie herself in Lynne’s dressing room. Lynne cleaned that dressing room and adjoining bathroom for a good six extra hours on her own time, fussed over every towel, handpicked flowers for the bouquet on the dressing room table, polished every surface until it shone. She had to make sure everything was perfect for Maggie.

“Under normal circumstances I would have been in the audience that night because Triple M is solid music and Maggie’s got an exceptional voice I enjoy hearing. But Lynne would be distracted—‘My boyfriend’s here, I should introduce him to Maggie’—and she’d stew over how to do it without making Maggie uncomfortable, get stuck in a planning loop on what exact words to say and when . . .” Jim stopped and grinned. “I love that about Lynne, even as it causes no ends of problems, that true-north sense in her about how things are supposed to be. She’s got a good heart.

“So instead of the concert, I worked the coffee-shop counter, let Lynne have her perfect night without distraction. I knew she’d be here by the time I was closing up at midnight to tell me about every—and I do mean truly every—minute of her special night. So I pushed off eating, figuring I’d put in a pizza and get a slice into her when she came—she wouldn’t have thought of touching food once she went in to work about two that afternoon.

“The door chimes at two minutes to midnight as I’m turning chairs up, getting ready to mop.” Jim blew out a steady stream of smoke. “It’s not Lynne.”

Evie could see the soap opera setting itself up. Lynne’s most exciting night, and Jenna’s timing for when to stir the pot playing out to perfection.

“I realized later that Steve was out of town. Had I caught there was an away game, I would have been braced and prepared. Instead, here’s Jenna with her apologetic smile and her, ‘Am I too late to get the last coffee in the pot? And can you add whipped cream?’

“It’s been policy ever since the coffee shop opened that a customer even a minute before midnight gets served, and the full menu stays available. Doesn’t matter if it’s Dillon nursing a black eye after a fight with his wife and wanting a pizza, Officer Kelly looking for a refill for his thermos, or a group of eight students wanting specialty drinks. So I get Jenna her coffee and reopen the register to make change. Jenna’s chatting away, and I’m not paying much attention. I’m finishing out closing and watching the door for Lynne. I don’t notice Jenna’s getting annoyed with my lack of attention.”

Jim paused as he considered what came next, glanced over to see if Evie was still engaged, seemed relieved she looked relaxed. “Jenna never mentioned she’d been at the concert, never mentioned she’d been at her apartment only long enough to drop off her things and head back out. No, her spin for this is she’s got an important paper to write, but she can’t stand to be inside another minute, even if it’s coming up on midnight; she just had to get in a walk. She’d just walk over here, stop for coffee, and if I was through for the night, I could be a gentleman and walk her back home.

“It wasn’t the first time she’d done the late-night-stroll, I-walk-her-home pitch—it had become just something else to avoid with her. I’d started leaving Greg on the clock—the guy who covers nights on the music side—paying him the extra half hour so I could send him to walk Jenna home, given he lived two buildings down from her. It wasn’t worth the grief I’d get from the women in my world when it got around—and Jenna would make sure it did—that I had told her to walk herself home.”

Jim gave a pained smile. “Jenna was setting Lynne up to see us in a clinch. Only thing I can figure she was thinking. ‘Steve’s out of town, I’m bored, not ready to call it an evening, so let’s make some mischief.’” He stubbed out the cigarette. “Lynne was going to walk in on a kiss or a slap to the face—I’m not sure which way Jenna had it planned. But Lynne doesn’t show. Jenna’s checking her watch, nursing that coffee to make it last, and I finally realize what the witch has in mind. Burns me good. The best night of Lynne’s life, and Jenna’s looking to cause her grief.

“So I move to the door, watching the street, ready to intercept Lynne, while Jenna takes her sweet time on the last sips. It would have worked. I’m sure Jenna had her cover story planned. She was waiting at the coffee shop because ‘I just had to hear about how great your night with Maggie went. I had no idea Jim was going to get flirty,’ and Lynne would have bought that in a heartbeat, even as she looked at me with crushed hurt for kissing someone else. Jenna was out to ruin Lynne’s happy evening, use me to do the hurting.

“It’s getting later than normal for Lynne, and I’m getting worried about her. Her agreement with her mom to ‘settle somewhere by midnight’ has always been pretty much gospel with Lynne. So I kill the lights at twelve-thirty, walk Jenna home mostly to get rid of her, who’s stewing now and not talking. I figured I would meet up with Lynne, because if she’s coming from either her home or the Music Hall, that’s the street she’ll take. I know she’s going to be brimming to overflow about her night, wouldn’t just decide she’s tired and turn in for the night. But there’s no sign of Lynne.

“It’s twelve-fifty when Jenna enters her apartment building. This I know for certain because I’m standing on the sidewalk looking at the time, trying to decide if Lynne, running late, would have gone to my dad’s place expecting to find me there, or if Lynne’s more likely at her parents’, thinking it’s too late to go out on her own, waiting for me to show up so she can tell me all about her big night. As her boyfriend, this is a serious problem, a real dilemma. If I text her, ask where she is, I’m saying I can’t even figure out her mind on such a matter.

“So I walk over to Lynne’s. But she’s not home—she turns on the desk lamp in her room to let me know she’s there. I reverse course and head home. Pop’s asleep. Lynne isn’t there either. She knows where the spare key is so she makes herself comfortable in the living room if I’m running late. Now I’m just plain worried. At one-fifteen I finally send a text and get one back saying I’m busy. In Lynne’s shorthand that means her hands are full, she’s doing something physical, and literally can’t type right now.”

Jim smiled at a memory. “Lynne’s never done passive-aggressive in her life. When she’s mad and doesn’t want to talk with you, the text says I don’t want to talk to you. I’m mad about . . . and you get the ‘why’ full barrel. So I plop down on my dad’s couch and wait for Lynne to tell me where she is. Two hours and ten minutes later, she sends a text that says It works! Maggie’s a Genius! But she still doesn’t tell me where she is. It’s becoming that kind of night. I text her back an all-caps WHERE ARE YOU? so I can get an actual call.

“Turns out she’s writing songs, trying out Maggie’s advice. She’s at the twenty-four-hour FitClub, using one of their stair climbers. She’d done the treadmill, but running and thinking music was too involved. Free weights did better, but she thought steps might be the best. I won’t tell you all the details she laid out in that call, but Lynne had turned Maggie’s advice for how to write songs into her own method, and she’s jazzed.” He stopped for a moment, gave Evie a quizzical look. “I can do an edited version if this is too boring.”

Evie chuckled. “No, no, Jim—having met Lynne, if you weren’t giving me these details, it wouldn’t be her and I’d wonder what you were fabricating. I appreciate the playback.”

“Okay, so we finally end up over at a friend’s house at four a.m. Lynne gives me the entire blow-by-blow of her night, shows me the lyrics she’s already written while we help stuff circulars into the Saturday newspaper and slip on the rubber bands. Laura Pip’s a teacher we’ve both known since grade school, she delivers Saturday and Sunday papers for extra money, and we help her prep when we can. Lynne talked nonstop from the time we met up until I walked her home for a seven a.m. breakfast with her folks.”

Jim shifted in the chair, and his voice took on a more matter-of-fact tone. “The crisis of the night averted, Lynne safely home and happy, I walked myself back, absolutely wiped, and hit the bed face-first. I worked two to midnight that Saturday, noon to midnight Sunday, and then I hear the news Jenna is missing Monday afternoon about three. It was my day off and I was painting a friend’s garage to pick up some extra money. I packed up my stuff, got over to the apartment building shortly after four, found Jenna’s friend Robin organizing a flyer distribution. Lynne’s already out with a stack in her hands, papering every business window on her way toward the Music Hall. I mostly just walked with her, since Lynne was panicked and sounding desperate—like her dad. Letting her do it herself was probably better for her, I figured. We were out until one a.m. and on it again the next morning at six. I hung around Lynne nearly twenty-four seven those first few days, so her mom didn’t have to worry about her.”

He went to light another cigarette, needing something in his hands, Evie decided, as he mostly ignored it once lit.

“Lynne told me she’d heard the last thing Jenna did was send a text to her mom saying she was back at the apartment. I assumed that text was sent after I saw her walk into the building. It was weeks before I heard the time on that text, realized it was sent before midnight, before Jenna came to the coffee shop. By then it had also become clear this wasn’t a casual mix-up or accident; someone had likely done her harm.” He gave a long sigh. “And with a swarm of cops looking in every corner, I took the coward’s way out, didn’t raise my hand.”

Jim stopped talking, but Evie knew the value of silence and simply waited.

“I was never interviewed, so I never lied.” He blew out smoke. “And I know how that statement itself sounds, how it makes me look.

“Those first few days I was still angry at what Jenna had been preparing to do, and when conversations would come up about Jenna, most of the time I was standing right beside Lynne. Lynne didn’t need to know her friendship with Jenna had been more a mirage than authentic, and she certainly didn’t need cops grilling her, ‘Tell me about your boyfriend and his relationship with your friend Jenna.’

“I always assumed the cops would eventually be at the coffee shop or the house to ask me about that night. I would have been seen walking Jenna home, what time was that, what had we been talking about, they’d want to see the texts with Lynne, put on extra pressure because I would have been one of last, if not the last, to see Jenna. But no cops came.

“At first I was relieved. Evidence had them looking at something that happened to Jenna Saturday morning, and they hadn’t been around because they don’t need my statement. Then I’m wondering maybe no one saw us that night or thought to mention it to the cops?

“So it’s a couple of weeks later when I hear the time on Jenna’s text to her mom is before midnight, before she came to the coffee shop. Cops had been working on the assumption Jenna was home at eleven-fifty p.m., and I knew Jenna got home exactly an hour later than that. If I’d thought that time difference was significant, I would have come forward. But by then everybody was hunting for blood, and I hadn’t been involved. I’d re-created that walk in my mind numerous times. Had I seen anything out of place—a van, a car, a person who didn’t belong? Except for the bright, near-full moon, I couldn’t come up with one fact that distinguished that night from others.

“I got as far as the police station twice, but self-preservation turned me around. I wasn’t sure who was going to believe me other than my dad, Lynne’s parents, a few others who really knew me. It’s a pricey college, and an arrest would have made people more comfortable—guilt or innocence wasn’t going to play into it. The lawyer fees alone would have cost my dad the coffee shop, probably the music store, likely both.”

Evie raised a palm to stop him there. “Is there anyone you can think of who might have seen you walk Jenna home that night, someone you know from the neighborhood who maybe kept quiet for the same reason? If so, I’d like the name.”

Jim thought about it and shook his head. “I didn’t notice anyone in particular that night. The close-at-midnight crowd—we pass each other, say a friendly good-night, but no one lingers to talk. And it was twelve-thirty before Jenna and I left the coffee shop that night. The streets were quiet by then.

“Those who live on that route, who would know me at a glance if they saw me, who might have been up at that time of night—there are a few. Paul Sanders waits up for his wife, Lisa, to get home. They sometimes sit on the porch and talk if it’s a nice night. There’s Jerry Verma—he owns the bakery and deli, sometimes goes in around midnight if he’s catering a breakfast meeting. And the corner house is where Wilma Parks lives. She likes to read, and her living room light is often on until two or three a.m. The only other one I can think of would be Neva Timber. She works for the local paper, comes home after it’s gone to the printer. Sometimes they hold off for a late-breaking story in which case she gets home after midnight. Those four might know a few more I haven’t thought of.”

“No dog owner taking a late-night walk, the dog wagging his entire body wanting to say hello to you?”

Jim faintly smiled as he shook his head. “No. Not on the night it would have helped me out.”

Evie studied him. She’d formed a lot of impressions, opinions, thoughts while listening to him. Some of what she most wanted to know was likely lost to history and the passing years, but some of it remained. “Why tell me, Jim?”

“I’ve regretted the silence. It might have been the safe thing to do, even the wise thing given I was innocent, but it wasn’t the right thing. I told myself if a cop ever showed up, I’d tell it like it was.”

“You’re the last one to see Jenna alive, other than who did this.”

“I guess I am.” He looked directly at her. “And I honestly don’t have a clue what happened to her. I’m not hiding anything, Lieutenant. I’ll answer any question, I’ll take a lie-detector test if you like—not that it’s going to be that useful after nine years, but it might. Put me through the ringer, I’ve earned it. But if you can spare Lynne, please do so. She doesn’t deserve to have reporters hounding her for what she remembers. She’s mostly been able to let go of what happened, move on with her life.

“I’d like you to believe me, but I know it’s not your job to believe or not—it’s your job to find out what happened to Jenna. Maybe what she was doing with me points to another guy she was playing. I wish I had even a glimmer of an idea to suggest. I don’t. And it’s not for lack of hours spent trying to figure it out, or lack of a few thousand innocent-sounding questions asked of those who drink my coffee.”

Evie thought for a moment and went a different direction. “Why did you break up with Lynne? Her mom said that after you, Lynne went out with a Brad Nevery for a while.”

Jim shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“Come on. If you can’t tell a cop, who can you tell?” Evie teased gently.

“I just confessed to being the last person to see Jenna alive, and the cop wants to know how come I broke up with my girlfriend.” He gave a half laugh as he stubbed out the cigarette. “For the record, it was easier to tell you about Jenna than to tell you this, but yeah, you’ve got a good reason for asking.

“Lynne and I are both neighborhood kids. It’s got its own code to it, when the college is right there and this place gets overrun nine months a year with people from everywhere but here. Part of that code is you can’t ever dump a neighborhood friend. You can have disagreements and disputes and even some bruises, but you can’t break up and schism things, can’t split your circle into factions.

“I had it out with a guy I went to high school with. He said some things, I said some things back, he shoves, I throw a punch. We don’t shake hands at the end of it and settle the peace. Instead, we’re walking opposite sides of the street, our friends are having to choose. It gets back to Lynne. She’s tied up tight with the guy’s sister since second grade. And I’m like making her choose. So Lynne dumps me—she’s hanging in with Kelly and by the unspoken rules, with Kelly’s brother—because that’s the code. I’m twenty-five and back in grade school with my girl in a huff over the fact I had a fight. Embarrassing is what it is, the mortifying kind. Lynne’s not shy about making her decision known either. I pull out a chair at the table with her and Kelly to try to make peace, and Lynne picks up her coffee and finds herself another table.

“So you bite your tongue and go do what the code requires. Rick and I have a make-up meeting that degenerates into both of us throwing some more fists. Followed by another that is about as scorching. The third attempt we lay down enough peace we shake hands on the matter. Now Rick and I are fine. But Lynne’s still got me stuck in some Siberian doghouse for disrespecting how things were, are, and ever shall be. And she puts a cherry on it by deciding she’s going to see Brad Nevery for a while.

“I’m working on the problem. Lynne’s type of anger is more a deep hurt and it’s slow to cool off. She’s at least not seeing Brad anymore. And she’s back wrapping newspapers at Laura’s come Saturday mornings—even when I’m there. The rest is pretty slow-going. I broke faith with what we are, which is a neighborhood that sticks together. That Lynne’s perception isn’t precisely reality, it’s more a wishful hope, doesn’t particularly weigh in on the matter. I shattered the confidence she had that I understood what matters. For Lynne, loyalty to friends is everything.”

Evie considered that and found it fascinating. “What happens when a true friend breaks faith with Lynne?”

“Lynne gets bewildered. She applies the fault to herself, something she did, and it’s painful to watch.”

Evie could see that. “Anything more you want to tell me?”

Self-deprecating humor filled Jim’s face as he shook his head. “No.”

“You can’t tell Lynne you told the truth to a cop today, maybe get back in her good graces by this brave act, because then you’d have to tell her what the truth was. So you actually did a selfless thing.”

“Noble—that’s me.” Jim sighed and dumped the pack of cigarettes back into the drawer. “I started smoking after Lynne called it quits. Yet another reason she looks at me with pity in her eyes. For her there are only three vices in this neighborhood—drinking, smoking, and not loving music. Make that four and add disloyalty.”

Evie couldn’t help but laugh. She rose to her feet.

Jim asked, “How much is that truth going to cost me?”

It was a fair question, Evie thought. “It’s going to be uncomfortable having cops looking at you, but if you’re innocent, the truth is out there, and it’s something a lot better than simply we couldn’t prove you did it. Go talk to Lynne’s mom, tell her what you told me. David or I will be in touch. There are going to be more questions. Just answer them truthfully, and to some extent, trust that we are good at our jobs. We will figure out what happened to Jenna Greenhill. I know for a fact the case is breaking and rolling toward an answer. And to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never arrested someone who wasn’t guilty.”

She set a second card on the table. “If there’s a name from the past that strikes you as someone you did wonder about, call me.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant.” He stood, reached over to shake her hand, and tucked the card in his pocket.

David was sitting at a table in the coffee shop, a mug by his elbow, engrossed in a newspaper. Evie rapped knuckles lightly on the table as she passed to get a Diet Coke and then walked outside to David’s SUV, waited for him to come with the key. Nine years, she thought as she idly watched Jim through the window. He’s cared about Lynne and held his secret for her sake all this time.

Jim was speaking with the music store clerk, smiled at something he was told, bumped fists with the guy, then walked into the coffee shop. The girl who’d sold Evie the soda nodded at something Jim told her, took off her apron, slipped underneath the counter. Jim took her place, reached into the cooler and came up with a cold root beer for himself, drank half of it before picking up a towel and wiping down the counter. Going back to work . . . after one of the more difficult conversations of his life.

David clicked open the doors, and Evie settled into the passenger seat, twisted the cap off her soda. “So how much did you spend on Maggie, if I may be so bold?” she asked with a smile as she fastened her seat belt.

David smiled. “Not counting multiple coffees and the newspaper, eight thousand.”

She choked and sputtered on her drink. “Next time lead a comment like that with ‘A lot,’” she said through gasps.

“Sorry.”

“Sure you are.” She put the cap back on the soda bottle. If she drank the rest of it now, she would start hiccupping.

And she’d just recorded that whole sloppy episode. She slipped out her phone, closed the recording, sent the audio to her state account for safekeeping and a copy to David. She wasn’t surprised to see her phone battery about dead. She plugged it into the car charger and returned to what David had told her. “Eight with triple zeros after it?”

“And two more for the change.” He pulled carefully into traffic. “That particular keyboard would have set me back seventeen in New York, even with Maggie’s professional discount. Some guy buys it on a lease plan, can’t make payments after four months, it’s back barely out of the box but they can’t sell it as new, so the leasing company has to eat the difference. The store probably clears a thousand on each of the two sales, and I get more than a bargain. So it’s close to a steal. That model’s got a fifteen-year life-span, even under concert conditions. Put it in Maggie’s music room, our grandkids are going to be learning to play on it.”

“You’re thinking long term. Nice.”

He shrugged. “Short term too. She doesn’t need it, I could flip it next week to one of her friends for ten. Get Maggie to play a concert or two with it, it’s worth fourteen. If nothing else, it’s going to pay for landscaping at my new place—something better than geraniums in a pot.”

She did like his practical side. “So spending eight thousand is a way to make money.”

David laughed. “I’m good at it, you ever need some pointers.”

“In spite of his wealth—or maybe it’s the reason for it—Rob is good for those too. I handed Rob ten bucks one day, sort of a dare, and he gave me twenty-seven dollars and fifty-two cents back a week later. The two pennies he found on the street, but since he was doing business on my dare at the time, he considered it only fair to add them to my take. Rob had turned my ten into a box of very fine chocolates, asked the coffee-shop manager if he could try an experiment, put the open box on the counter next to the napkins with a Post-it note—25 cents, your choice—and an empty jar beside it. When the candy was gone, he collected the quarters, bought more chocolates. Repeated it again. He returned only a third of the profits to me. He’d earned another third for himself and gave the manager a third, though the sales tax he did pay out of the shop’s take. Rob likes to say making money is mostly about spotting opportunities.”

“He’s right about that.”

Evie could feel the tension draining out of her with the small talk, was grateful for it, even though a look at the time was ratcheting up the tension. She would likely be late for the charity event this evening. Her dress was at the hotel, and she was meeting Rob so she could ride with him. Lynne was probably already on her way into the city to get a good spot on the rope line. David would make it in time if she didn’t hold him up any further.

David glanced over and said, “That must have been some conversation with Jim.”

“He may be the last person to have seen Jenna alive. Jim walked her home from the coffee shop, watched her walk into her apartment building at twelve-fifty a.m.”

“The original lie of omission. That is indeed a very interesting wrinkle.”

“Jenna was trying to make mischief between Lynne and Jim, cause some turmoil on the day of Lynne’s joyful meeting with Maggie, only it didn’t go as planned. The audio is now in your account, so you can listen to the flow of it.”

“Does what Jim said help us any?”

“When it comes down to it, only on the margins. Jenna’s late-night walk is confirmed, but it was already on the theory list. She made a habit of stealing other girls’ boyfriends—again, already known. The girl in this instance who would have motive to get even—Lynne—is cleared by her own conduct, her mother’s comments, Jim’s report on the timeline. Lynne simply hadn’t realized what was going on. We now have Jim’s word Jenna was alive at her apartment building an hour later than previously thought. That’s about the substance.”

“Did Jim kill Jenna? Take a crack at her to put a stop to this?”

“He easily could have. Lose his temper, strike out, Jenna’s no more a problem. He’s a local who could hide her body around here without it being discovered. He says she walked into the coffee shop at just minutes before midnight, and he walked her home, saw her enter her apartment at twelve-fifty in the morning. The first part of the statement could be true, the second part a lie if he’s killed her and hid the body. Assume the confrontation takes place in the coffee shop, he’s got hours to clean up the crime scene, make the evidence disappear. Everything he would need for a good cleaning job is in the janitor’s closet. He’s with Lynne and someone named Laura Pip at four a.m.”

“Four hours is a decent enough murder window.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen it done well in forty minutes, but that was with premeditation. Four hours when you didn’t plan to kill someone, panic, ‘What do I do now?’ come up with a plan, then execute it—he would have been hustling. And from what I heard about her, I very much doubt Lynne would have noticed if Jim showed up at four a.m. unusually distracted. She was talking a mile a minute about the concert and Maggie’s method of writing songs.”

“Bottom-line it for me. Where are you, Evie?”

“I want him to be innocent. Jim and Lynne are like a hopeful love story that still might work out. But he’s not innocent. He withheld information from the authorities when Jenna disappeared. It doesn’t mean he caused Jenna’s death, but we’re going to have to find a way to clear him in order to take his name off the top of the list.”

“Does he travel?”

“The conversation didn’t get that far. He’s not a Triple M fan beyond living in the shadow of someone who is. I doubt he recognized you in the brief glance he cast in your direction. He seems to be a homebody from what I picked up. If he snapped with Jenna, it was for a personal reason. So, no, I’m all but certain he didn’t head out to smother those other three girls.” She lifted a hand to put an asterisk on that. “Jim’s smart enough to do other crimes in an attempt to mask Jenna’s murder. But since he didn’t get on the investigation’s radar in the months after Jenna, he wouldn’t have risked another crime when he was getting away with this one. So, again, no. Jim would be lying low—not doing something else that might catch a cop’s attention.”

“I agree with that logic,” David said. “If Jenna is tied by the missing driver’s license to those other three women, it’s likely Jim is in the clear. Did he say anything that might be helpful about someone else? The last person to see Jenna will also be the best witness for the scene that night.”

“Jim didn’t notice anything out of place. We’ll have to push there again. Someone had to have been around if we’ve got the correct window for the crime.”

“Murder is easier at night, but nothing says Jenna wasn’t killed at, say, eight in the morning,” David said.

“Exactly. That possibility is also on the theory list. It’s something to come back to and reconsider. This could have been a Saturday crime.”

David glanced over. “Let me ask you the hard question. Replay this for me. You sit down with Jim. You tell him we’ve just spoken with Lynne, with her mom.”

“Yes?”

“Is Jim telling a fabricated story now to protect Lynne?”

Evie smiled. “I like working with you, David. That was my first reaction when Jim dropped the news he saw Jenna that night and he didn’t tell the cops before. He’s had nine years to work out a cover story that will protect Lynne. And that I could easily see him trying to do. Given how he told this story, it tells me five things are possibly true if Lynne was involved.

“It suggests Jenna died between midnight and one a.m., the time Jim is covering by saying Jenna was with him at the coffee shop. It suggests Lynne went to Jenna’s apartment building after the concert to tell her about the night, and then trouble happened—Jenna hinting of something going on with Jim or speaking badly about Maggie?

“If Lynne did kill Jenna, Jim could be the one who took care of the body. Lynne could clean up a crime scene, erase any trace of it. There was more than forty-eight hours for the apartment air to clear of cleaning products. And she’s good at putting things in their right place, could have easily restored order so it looked normal. Jim could have used the coffee shop’s trash collection to get rid of any physical evidence. Things with blood on them, anything damaged, the murder weapon. They could have hidden the fact Jenna died that night if they worked at it together.”

“If Lynne did it, talk to me more about the motive and why.”

“The most likely trigger, Jenna tears down Lynne’s illusions. ‘The concert was okay, but I’ve heard better. Maggie didn’t really like you; you’re just the dressing room help. You’re never going to be a singer, Lynne. Grow up and see reality, quit living in a fantasy world. Jim isn’t even a faithful boyfriend, because he’s flirting with me.’ Jenna could slice into Lynne’s soul with words in a bunch of ways. And if this happened after Jim had walked Jenna home, ignored her advances, and is choosing Lynne over her, Jenna is primed to be vicious. All it takes is Lynne pushing her back with a cry of ‘No, that’s not true!’—shoving her hard enough to send her into the corner of a table, and Jenna dies of a broken neck. Boyfriend covers it up, and now tries to protect Lynne years later. It’s incredibly plausible given what I know about Jenna. I’m not sure it’s in Lynne, but it’s in Jenna.”

David drummed fingers on the wheel. “If we didn’t have other related remains, we’d have a hard time not bringing both of them in for formal questioning right now.”

“Take your favorite theory. Jim did it. Or Lynne did it, and Jim is trying to help her. Or it’s not a local crime, our concert traveler picked out Jenna and made her disappear, just like he’s done others—and we’re left with two locals who could look guilty—just like every other disappearance he’s pulled off has been leaving someone local looking guilty.”

“You liked Lynne.”

“I did. And I like Jim. It’s much easier to lay this crime on an unnamed traveling stranger. But odds say it’s Lynne, if it really comes down to it, with Jenna provoking the scene that led to her death. Jim protecting Lynne by helping to cover it up is likely. And I do think that Jim is protective enough, cares deeply enough that he could have killed Jenna before she had a chance to rip into Lynne’s illusions. Maybe it’s not at the coffee shop, maybe Jenna is digging into Jim on that walk home and saying how she’s going to tell Lynne how it really is. Jim is thinking about that, follows Jenna inside and pops her one, ends this at her apartment. Hiding the body is an easier problem than letting Jenna destroy Lynne.”

She didn’t want it to be Lynne, didn’t want it to be Jim, but the truth was going to end up where it needed to be.

David held out a fist. Evie lightly tapped hers against it.

“We’re days away from this being solved,” Evie said.

“It’s gonna be the traveler,” David said. “Sometimes there are bad men who do show up and make someone disappear.”

“I won’t be disappointed if it is.” Evie thought about tomorrow. “We’re going to have a very full day taking apart Jim’s life. He’s not going to be sleeping much, wondering which way the case is going to roll. We might as well cut the uncertainty and pull him right into the misery of more questions, see if we can shake the story.”

“Think he’ll lawyer up?”

“Probably. Eventually. We’re going to ask the questions that would have been asked nine years ago, and it’s going to get very uncomfortable for him. I would like to keep this out of the news until we’ve sorted it out. The headline—Man lied to police about missing student—would just drown us in the politics of a wealthy college. We need the neighborhood on our side, or at least neutral, if we’re going to get the facts. There’s definitely a neighborhood versus college crowd line around here.”

“We ask questions, we stay below the radar for as long as we can,” David said. “Sharon and the others should be able to join us next week. We’ll cover more ground then.”

“Charity event tonight, rope line analysis tomorrow, focus on Jim. It’s plenty for the weekend. You’ve got plans with Maggie?”

“She wants to see a couple of houses I’m considering for myself. And we’ll spend time opening boxes as more of her belongings arrive in the morning. Mostly it will be Maggie on the relaxed side of a performance. She’s wire tight right now. She has a love-hate relationship with performance days.”

David pulled into the business park next to Evie’s car. She disconnected her phone from the charger. “We’ll keep an eye on Lynne, make sure she’s where we expect. Anything else you want me to remember?”

David smiled. “Yes. Have a good time.”

Evie laughed and stepped out. “I’ll remember. See you tonight, David.”