Moore’s place was on the other side of town, and it took an hour to get there once they’d picked up Astrid’s rucksack from the fleabag hotel. He’d given Campbell the job of checking to see if anyone had booked into the cabin recently, and she’d left sharpish before Astrid could talk to her. She couldn’t remove the image from her head that Campbell was married, racking her brain to remember if she’d seen any signs at the apartment. There were no photos of a husband and no evidence of anybody else living there. It was a curious thing, but she dismissed it as soon as they got into the drive, thinking it more prudent to learn something about the man she’d be staying with.
‘Are you a local to Bakerstown, Detective?’
‘I relocated here five years ago from Washington, but I’m from New York.’ He scrutinised Astrid through the mirror. ‘I hear you were there recently.’
She glanced at the town as they moved through it. The buildings were a mix and match of different styles: shops which appeared to have been built not long after the Civil War, large and small houses, schools surrounded by giant metal fences, with a hydrant on every street corner. They drove through a market with the potent smells of fresh vegetables and a world of spices drifting through the car window.
‘Have you been checking up on me, Detective?’
He stopped at a red light. ‘You can call me Jim, and I’ll address you as Astrid, is that okay?’
‘That’s fine by me, Jim. So, did you dredge through my past when I was a suspect in the Cruz murders?’
The slight rise in the corner of his mouth transformed into a smirk. ‘What makes you think you’re still not a suspect?’
The pain returned to her ribs as she laughed. ‘Is that why you’re not letting me out of your sight?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Didn’t my former employers convince yours of my innocence?’
‘I don’t know what was said between them, but I saw some of your Agency service record.’
‘I must apologise then.’
‘What for?’
‘For your future nightmares.’
He tapped his finger on the steering wheel and gazed at the traffic light holding them up.
‘Far from it; it was an impressive résumé.’
She focused on his face and wondered why he didn’t look at her while the car was stationary.
‘So, are you going to tell me what you know?’
The light changed to green, and Moore set off.
‘About you? We had enough to hold you for the Cruz murders, with the witnesses, fingerprints at the scene and your passport found on Caitlin with your blood on it. Yet, we were told to let you go. That instruction came from the highest office in the country. So I did a little digging on you.’
‘I hope you had a big spade.’
She watched him fight against it, yet he couldn’t help but laugh.
‘I called in a lot of favours to find out you’re some British spy, and our government is keen to keep your employers happy.’
‘Do you believe I killed the Cruz family?’
His grin disappeared as quickly as it had come. ‘If I did, you wouldn’t be with me now. Even I can spot a frame-up when I see it.’
‘So, why am I with you?’
‘Because I think you know things about that night that you haven’t told me.’
‘You believe I’ve lied to you?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. It could be you’ve forgotten some of what happened, possibly through drinking too much and the beating you took.’ He gave her a long, hard look. ‘And I’m hoping those memories will return to you sooner rather than later.’
She thought about that as he switched on the radio, finding a country music station he turned up to full blast. There weren’t many musical genres Astrid didn’t like, but that was one of them. She gritted her teeth through torturous tales about cheating husbands and tearful wives until they arrived at his place.
They stepped out of the car into a wide street bordered on each side by apartments and small houses. Trees and bushes lined the road; the silence surprised her. She expected dogs or kids to be running everywhere, but there was no one around except them. He led her between stone benches to a smart-looking residence.
Once they got inside, he gave her a tour: a compact kitchen, even smaller shower, single bedroom and a living room. The TV was so small she thought it was a leftover from the 1980s, while plastic flying ducks and a single picture of Elvis in his Vegas tassels costume decorated the walls. It was the last thing she would have expected from him.
She settled into the sofa. ‘You left Washington for this?’
He spoke as he went into the kitchen. ‘I needed a change of pace. And, contrary to what’s happened to you in the last twenty-four hours, Bakerstown is a good place.’
‘What attracted you to this town?’
He returned with two empty glasses. ‘My mother’s maiden name was Baker, so I thought I might as well see what it’s like.’
‘And what’s your conclusion?’
‘It’s as good a place as any, I suppose.’ He picked up a photo frame from the sideboard, a picture of him and a woman smiling at the Grand Canyon. There was a glimpse of the vastness of nature behind them, but the thing which struck her most was how happy they looked. ‘As good a place as any to start a new life.’
‘I guess there are plenty like this all over the country, small towns where the majority try to get on with everyone else.’
‘True, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made to keep others safe.’
‘Of course; that’s what made you an Officer of the Law, that ability to put yourself on the line, to put your body in harm’s way, to protect those around you.’
‘Protect and serve,’ he said as he placed the photo down. ‘Is that what you did in Britain?’
‘Most of the time. There are things I’ve done which I’m not proud of, but I suppose most people could say the same thing.’
‘You were good at what you did?’
‘I like to think so.’
She watched him scrutinise her. ‘Are you allowed to talk about any of it?’
‘Sure, but I’d have to kill you after.’
He laughed out loud. ‘I’ll risk it. Tell me something interesting about what you did as a British spy.’
‘First off, I wasn’t a spy. I was a problem solver.’
‘A human-computer?’
It was her turn to laugh. ‘Not quite. In these days of mass media information overload, some people crave simple solutions to the world’s problems; unfortunately, there aren’t many. This creates a perfect opportunity for opportunists to jump in and point the finger of blame at others and mislead with a few slogans. It’s easy to do when the mainstream news has been dumbing down for decades, reducing complex situations to sensational headlines with little depth or nuance behind them. And the multitude of disinformation and outright lies on the internet, often from elected officials, only makes things worse.’
‘I wouldn’t disagree with that, but you said you were a problem solver.’
Astrid took a long look at Moore and told him something she’d told no one outside of the Agency.
‘I worked an assignment once in a country holding an election in which a corrupt president was standing for re-election. He was a crooked businessman who had raided the central bank, installed his family to senior positions in his government, paid no tax and allowed his cronies to avoid it, and wouldn’t tolerate anything but uncritical praise from the media. His primary tactic to get re-elected was to have members of his party ride around towns and villages, offering bribes from the money he’d stolen from the bank to anyone who voted for him. The ploy worked, and he won by a landslide.
‘Do you think his supporters deserved to win, and people were right to back him because they had more than they did before voting for him? Or were they idiots being bribed with their own money to vote for a gangster?’
He let out a long sigh. ‘You don’t ask simple questions, do you?’
‘You wanted to know.’
‘So why did you leave?’
‘Sometimes you get sick of all the lies and deceit and have to find something else in life before you lose everything which makes you real.’
‘And you’ve found that on the back roads of America?’
America was a distraction, but she wouldn’t tell him that.
‘I’m on holiday. What’s important to me is in England, and I’ll return there soon enough.’
But return to what? If Courtney won’t speak to me, how will I ever get to see Olivia again?
‘I think you need a drink before any of that.’ He moved towards a sideboard and opened it. ‘What do you fancy?’
‘A bourbon and Coke if you have it.’
He went into the kitchen, and she heard the fridge open and close. He returned with two cans featuring a cartoon bear on them.
‘You don’t want to try a local brew?’
She curled her lips and grimaced. ‘Not if that’s the same stuff I had in the bar. I think that’s what made me ill. I know Americans are no good at brewing beer, but that was gut rot of the first order.’
He screwed up his face at her. ‘America has a long heritage of quality brewing, and the Bakerstown Brewery has a nationwide reputation for excellence.’
‘Is the brewery the main building in town?’
He nodded. ‘The largest and the most important. It shut down for a month earlier in the year because of an accident, and most of the workers had to take unpaid leave. That wasn’t good for the community.’
‘It’s the town’s biggest employer?’
‘By a large margin. If we lost that, the town would be in dire straits.’
‘What was the accident?’
Darkness clouded his face. ‘There was an equipment failure, and two people died. That’s the most who have passed away in a single incident since I moved here.’
‘Until I arrived.’ He didn’t reply to that. ‘Were the police involved?’
‘We were, but not me. Some machinery overheated and exploded. They were lucky more didn’t die.’ He held the can of beer towards her. ‘Are you sure you don’t want one?’
‘No, thanks. The bourbon will do.’
He put the cans on the side, and she watched him pour the drinks as she scanned his DVD collection, which was full of true crime documentaries and nothing else. She shook her head and turned to the books on the shelves, which were all crime fiction and thrillers. The microwave tinged in the kitchen, and he went for the food.
Did I eat in the bar last night? No, that’s why I got drunk so quickly.
Jim returned and placed a plate of spaghetti and meatballs on the table next to her. Then he poured them a glass of wine each.
Is this his seduction technique, to ply me with booze?
She was going to warn him about boundaries when he spoke. ‘Wine for the meal, bourbon as an apéritif.’ He downed his in one go.
She laughed. ‘Apéritif? You’re posher than you seem, Detective Moore.’
He shook his head while she finished her bourbon. ‘My neighbourhood was poor, a lot of welfare recipients, single parents, and crime. Big drug trade. My father was in the military, but he died when I was five. My mom brought me up on her own. We lived on food stamps. I did okay at school, not great, but not terrible, and decided I’d only have a future if I became a cop. So I did. I worked. My mom died, and then I met Lisa. We had a daughter. I thought all was good, and perhaps it was for a while, but somewhere along the line, it all went to shit, and here I am now.’
Astrid guessed Lisa was the woman in the photo. She didn’t ask what had happened between them; if he wanted to talk about it, he would. Plus, she’d had enough damaging relationships in her past to understand why he wouldn’t want to expand upon what he’d told her.
‘And here you are in Bakerstown when you could have gone anywhere.’
‘Things are good here, especially when you consider some other towns around here.’
‘Such as?’
He didn’t hesitate with a reply. ‘Like Morton to the north and Sugar Hill east of that.’ She thought he might show her where they were on a map, but he didn’t. ‘The prescription opioid epidemic blights both places so much, they’re known for miles around as the Twin Pills. There are more dodgy televangelists than you could shake a cross at in those towns, each of them dotted with personal injury lawyers, touting for business with slogans such as, “Been in a wreck and need a check?” In Morton, the owners converted one of the town’s only two hotels into a drug rehab centre.’
‘Crime is one of the few human constants, Jim. It’s what keeps you in a job and stops me from getting bored.’
‘Speaking of which, what do you think got these five people killed?’
She twisted the pasta around the fork, and then slipped it into her mouth. It warmed the roof of her palate, but was a taste sensation, bursting with the flavours of garlic and herbs. She ignored the heat and scooped a second between her lips. She gulped it down before replying.
‘You said the police found the paper in the mouths of Caitlin and her children; was each piece on their tongues, or right at the backs of their throats?’
He munched on spaghetti and spoke at the same time. ‘It was as if they were about to swallow the paper when someone killed them. Do you think that’s important?’
‘My guess is the killer or killers murdered Cruz and her kids because of something she knew. And it’s connected to the numbers and what they led to. Her helping me after the fight outside the bar gave them the perfect opportunity to cover up the murders. That was their second mistake.’
Moore sipped at his wine. ‘What was their first one?’
‘Not checking the mouths of their victims. If they’d found those papers, you wouldn’t have a lead. If they hadn’t put my passport at the crime scene, they wouldn’t be in trouble now.’
‘In trouble?’
Astrid downed half her glass. ‘They’re in trouble because they picked the wrong person to mess with.’
‘You’re not leaving Bakerstown in a hurry, then?’
She’d considered it and was close to leaving before deciding someone would pay for what they’d done. Not for framing her, but for killing Caitlin Cruz and her kids.
‘I’ll stay if you want me to.’
Moore grabbed his drink and toasted her. ‘So you believe it’s connected to this human trafficking website?’
‘That’s the way it looks. It would help if we can identify those bodies in the cabin, but I doubt we will.’
‘Why not?’
She finished her wine, then poured herself another. ‘Because if they were locals, someone would notice them missing. The killer or killers destroyed their faces, fingers, and teeth to prevent identification that way. Unless…’
She dropped her fork into the spaghetti as a sudden revelation hit her.
‘Unless what?’ Moore said.
‘Unless somebody silenced the two in the cabin because they killed Cruz and her children.’
Moore sat back and pondered her words. ‘But why would Caitlin have those website numbers? And didn’t you say there were three killers at the murder scene, two of them to hold on to the kids?’
‘A big enough adult could’ve restrained them, so perhaps there were only two at the house.’
‘Let me get this straight: you’re claiming the two people in the cabin killed Caitlin Cruz and her kids because they were looking for those bits of paper.’ He didn’t seem convinced. ‘Three pieces containing numbers which lead to a human trafficking website.’
‘I’m not claiming anything; it’s only an educated guess.’
He laughed. ‘Which school did you go to?’
‘Not one I’d recommend to any parents wanting the best for their offspring.’
Moore pushed his plate to the side, having only eaten half the food.
‘Why didn’t Cruz gave her assailants the paper? She could have saved their lives if she had.’
Astrid shrugged. ‘We have too many unknowns at the moment to guess why, but perhaps she knew her attackers, knew they were all going to die regardless of what she did.’
And maybe she tried to tell Astrid she was in danger, tried to warn her as she patched her up in the kitchen. Not for the first time since that night, she wondered if she’d let Caitlin Cruz and her children down.
Even if she hadn’t killed them, wasn’t she to blame for what happened?