It was midnight by the time Natalie popped her head inside Luke’s office.
“Yeah. Okay.” He waved her in. He was seated at his desk, talking on the phone. His shoulders sagged under the weight of the unit’s caseload. “Have a seat,” he told her, still on the phone, and she closed the door behind her.
Tonight, Natalie had to sit on her hands to keep from fidgeting. She was dead tired but wide awake, a strange mental state to be in.
Luke hung up. “That was the chief. The media’s way up his ass right now. News outlets have picked up on the story. It’s going national. Did you know there were satellite vans camped out on the village green? Each time I leave the station, some reporter will shove a microphone in my face and try not to look too excited about it. Phones have been ringing off the hook. Now the mayor’s concerned we don’t look like such a warm-and-fuzzy vacation destination anymore.…”
“What does he expect us to do about it?” Natalie asked.
“Nothing. I told him, nobody’s pressuring my people. We don’t take shortcuts. We don’t have the manpower to work the case any faster.”
“So … just continue with the investigation?”
“Right. I told the chief we’re working as hard as we can.” He sipped his bottled water. “What do you have for me?”
She handed him the evidence bag with the love sonnets tucked inside.
“What’s this?”
“I found it hidden away in Daisy’s briefcase. Those are love sonnets, as far as I can tell … one looks like it was copied from Shakespeare, I don’t know, I’m not an expert. A couple of originals. All signed ‘Tristan.’ A reference to Tristan and Isolde.”
Luke gave her a blank look.
“It’s a medieval love triangle. Tristan and Isolde fell in love while traveling from Ireland to England, where she was supposed to marry the king.”
He put down the evidence bag. “So Daisy was having an affair. Is that what this means?”
“Either that, or she had a secret admirer. But then, why keep it hidden from her husband?”
“Who the hell is Tristan?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.” She handed him two other evidence bags. “The handwriting doesn’t match these two samples I found at the Buckner residence. I’m no expert, but see for yourself … there’s no comparison between Tristan’s handwriting and Brandon’s or Riley’s.”
Luke lined the three evidence bags side by side on his desk. “Nope,” he said. “Not a match. But we’ll need a handwriting expert to do the comparisons for us.” He handed everything back. “What happened to Tristan and Isolde?”
“It doesn’t end well. They died of broken hearts.”
Luke nodded. “Don’t most love stories end that way?”
“Which way—crying yourself to sleep at night with a pint of cookie dough ice cream?” she said with a smirk.
“Or you could take the low road and drink yourself into oblivion.”
“You tried that, huh?”
“Oblivion is overrated,” he said with a smirk. “After the divorce, I got so drunk once, I shaved off an eyebrow. True story.”
Natalie smiled. “I’m numb to your confessions by now.”
He held her eye a beat too long, and she felt the delicate tension between them. He’d kissed her once, on the day of her high school graduation—kissed her on the cheek, and it felt like a bee sting. She hadn’t wanted to wash her face for weeks.
“Anyway,” Luke said. “What does your gut tell you about this Tristan guy?”
“First of all, Daisy’s the last person I’d ever suspect of having an affair. And Grace reinforced that—she said Daisy loved Brandon and couldn’t wait to be a mom.”
He watched her carefully. “But?”
“But it’s confusing. I mean, she was in the middle of cooking when this happened. Looking up baby things online. Very domestic. But she also bought The Breakup Bible, and she owns some pretty sexy lingerie from Victoria’s Secret. And for approximately the past year, she’s been following a strict beauty and grooming routine … manicures, pedicures, leg waxes, a Brazilian. You live with someone for twelve years, my sense is you’d feel comfortable enough letting your legs go unshaved for a few days.”
“Until Tristan and Isolde,” Luke said.
“Right.”
“But wouldn’t Brandon notice the sudden uptick in grooming?”
“You said so yourself … if they were on a sex schedule while she was ovulating, sex can become pretty routine. Maybe she told him she got a Brazilian to keep things interesting? Anyway, let’s assume she was having an affair,” Natalie went on. “Let’s assume it started nine months ago, and this affair was so unexpected … so out of character for her … she couldn’t even tell her best friend about it. She was deeply conflicted. She was struggling with it. But then, once she discovered she was pregnant, let’s say a month or two ago, she had to break off the affair to save her marriage.”
“Which would explain The Breakup Bible.”
“To help her cope with her choice.”
“She loved him?”
“Maybe she loved them both,” Natalie speculated.
“A love triangle? You think?”
“Hiding it from her best friend. Hiding it from Brandon.” She shrugged. “Still waters run deep.”
“Because this strengthens two new possibilities,” Luke said, folding his hands on his desk. “Either Daisy’s lover killed her, or else Brandon found out about the affair and lashed out in a fit of rage.”
She tugged on her lower lip. She hadn’t wanted to go there. But you had to be objective. “I’m not so sure about that,” she said hesitantly. “Brandon seemed so knocked off his axis when we found her lying in the kitchen. I doubt he’s that good an actor.”
“I don’t want to believe it, either,” Luke said. “But you never know. Plenty of people lie. Some are lousy liars. Others are very good liars.”
She couldn’t dispute that. It was a chilling thought. What if Brandon had killed Daisy? But there was no proof. It was just wild speculation at this point.
“Shit,” she said quietly. “We have to talk about this, Luke.”
“Talk about what?”
“This is our friend. A few days ago, we were all kidding around, and now his life is ruined. And the possibility that he might’ve done something…” She shuddered.
“Look. We all like Brandon. Love the guy. But we have to go where the facts lead us. Period.”
They sat there dully, watching the potential train wreck unfold before them.
“This is your first homicide,” Luke reminded her. “You’re still feeling your way through. But it’ll come. Trust me. The answers will come eventually.”
Natalie cringed. “Eventually?”
“Be patient. Put your blinders on and trust the process.”
“Use the fork, Luke,” she quipped, an old childhood joke.
He smiled. “Enough of your clever words.”
Then a worn-out lethargy filled them both. The mood tonight was grim.
“So, again,” he said, “who’s Tristan?”
“Getting the baby’s DNA results should help us narrow it down.”
“Right. Barry says it’s going to take a few weeks, though. Okay.” Luke sat forward. “Let’s continue interviewing Daisy’s friends and colleagues tomorrow, see if they know anything about this guy, Tristan. Let’s track down the sonuvabitch.”
“Okay.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” she said. “About the markings on Teresa’s grave? It’s called hypergraphia. I looked it up. Some people have an obsessive need to write things down. It’s like being a hoarder, only instead of hoarding belongings, they hoard words.”
“Hypergraphia?” Luke repeated.
“It’s been tenuously linked to epilepsy, bipolar disorder, head injuries, or other mental illnesses. Also certain medical conditions. Basically anything that spurs activity in the frontal lobe, which controls speech. It’s a rare condition. They don’t know much about it yet, but antidepressants have been known to help.”
“Which means whoever did this could’ve been treated for a psychiatric disorder or a medical condition in the past,” he said. “We should make a list of all the psychiatrists in the area who specialize in hypergraphia.”
“It’s so rare, I doubt we’ll find any in the immediate vicinity. But there are a couple of experts … one in Massachusetts, one at Johns Hopkins. I’ll contact them and see if they can provide us with any information,” Natalie said. “In the meantime, I’ve asked Lenny to digitize the photographs I took of Teresa’s headstone and see if he can decipher any other words or messages. If somebody’s leaving us messages, then we need to know what he’s trying to say.”
“Our priority’s the Buckner case.”
“Of course.” She noticed her fingers were trembling. She’d had too much coffee today. No way was she going to sleep tonight.
“Did you eat yet?” he asked.
“Eat?” She cracked a smile. “What does that mean? You mean food? Because I haven’t seen any of that in a while.”
He laughed. “Right.” He opened a paper bag on his desk, and she accepted half a Reuben sandwich from him.
“Thanks.” She took a bite and said, “Mmm. Tastes good.”
“Feel better?”
There was an awkward moment when they looked at each other with feelings of warmth that came from shared loyalties and confidences. His confessions had taken place over the years in hushed whispers, as if they were inside a confessional booth instead of a bar or a party at work.
“First homicide I ever caught,” Luke said. “The victim was six years old. Curly brown hair. Big brown eyes. I think about it every year on the date she went missing. We searched the town and surrounding area. We dragged the lake. We zeroed in on the mother’s boyfriend and found the girl’s body in an abandoned building. Purple bruises around her neck in the shape of a man’s hands. We tracked him down, but he saved us a lot of trouble by shooting himself point-blank. Easier that way. Less paperwork.”
She watched him simmer over the memory of it.
“That case put me in touch with myself. It changed my life. I became attuned to the ugliness that surrounds us,” Luke said. “I finally realized it’s part of human nature to want to destroy, and that I’m never going to defeat all the bad guys in the world. But I can try to beat them in my little corner of the world.”
She studied his face. She knew that look. It was a look that said he was about to reveal something even more personal. Whenever he got these urges, Luke’s professional demeanor would slip away and his vulnerable side would reveal itself.
“My relationship with Audrey died a slow, agonizing death. During our last year together, we were both on autopilot, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. We kept trying to reignite the old flame, but by then it was snuffed out for good. In the end, we decided to put our marriage out of its misery. Just kill it quick. Before it grew back.”
Natalie smiled sympathetically.
“One day, when Skye was a toddler, she crawled up on my chest while I was lying down and sat there gazing down at me, her sweet face hovering above mine like an angelic moon … and I knew she was onto me. Onto my falseness. Onto my hypocrisy. She could read through all the bullshit. She knew that I’d totally fallen out of love with her mom. She had that toddler’s piercing gaze, like a hawk staring down its prey. And the big lie came tumbling down, and I couldn’t hide it anymore. Because my own kid had ferreted out the truth. And so I moved out the following week, and then a few months later … Audrey took Skye to Los Angeles with her.” He sat rubbing the nape of his neck. “The hardest part was picking up the pieces. Booze helped for a while. You get used to that smoky flavor. The burn going down the throat—that’s addictive. After my wife took my daughter away, I became disgusted with myself. I was divorced and alone. I couldn’t be a significant part of Skye’s life anymore, so I used to hang out at the Barkin’ Dawg, where I wouldn’t feel so isolated. But it’s a paradox, because booze tastes like loneliness.”
“But you pulled your shit together eventually, didn’t you?” she reminded him. “After the eyebrow incident?”
He smiled ironically at her. “I had to prove to myself that I was a better man than my father. I was five when he lost his job. Lost his mind. Lost us. One day, he stopped coming home from work. My mother watched his dinners going cold, night after night. When she finally got up the courage to ask him where he’d been, he became abusive. He never hit her, but he yelled and kicked things. A month before he walked out on us, I asked him, ‘Do you love me?’ You know what he said?”
She shook her head. “What?”
“’Get your out-of-touch ass the fuck out of here.’” He laughed. “It was funny, but not in a ha-ha way. Anyway, it took me a long time to realize … if you’re alive, then it’s going to hurt. If you don’t feel pain, then you must be drunk. The saddest part about being a cop? You find out death isn’t sacred. It’s commonplace. Pain and grief are all around us. There’s no way to avoid it. You have to embrace it.”
“Embrace the suck.”
He grinned crookedly at her. “Yeah, like Joey used to say, embrace the suck. I tested my resolve and learned I’m a better man than my father was. Stronger. If I can stand up to an ice-cold beer, then I can stand up to anything.”
She remembered riding with her father to the funeral parlor late at night, and gazing at the starry darkness outside her car window. They drove past neighbors’ lit-up houses, yellow squares of warmth where families huddled together, intact. Natalie was jealous of those cozy homes where girls her age hadn’t lost their big sisters. Where families hadn’t fallen apart and scattered, each to his or her own linty corner of agony and grief. As Joey drove his wife and daughters over to the funeral parlor, he gripped the wheel, grim-faced. Grace was silent in back. The potholes were plentiful, and Natalie could feel her entire lumbar region reacting to the bumps, as if God wanted to punish them some more. As if losing Willow hadn’t been enough. The car vents sending soft currents of air across her face, like Willow’s last sigh of farewell.
Now she lowered her head and asked, “Why did you promote me over Ronnie Petrowski? Since we’re being completely honest here.”
He frowned. “You have to ask?” He ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “A degree in criminal justice, graduated summa cum laude. A yearlong stint at the police academy, followed by three years on patrol. Volunteering for overtime constantly. Taking every shit detail nobody wanted. Up for promotion—competitive exam. Top marks for your work, and then your commanding officer puts in a request for you to join homicide. Sounds obvious to me.”
“I’m serious,” she told him stubbornly. “Ronnie has more years on me.”
“This wasn’t about seniority.”
“What, then? I really want to know.”
“Kimberly Gleesing.”
She remembered—a teenage runaway who fell in with the wrong crowd. She fell for a boy who didn’t reciprocate, got into drugs, and it was downhill from there.
“I know how important that case was to you,” Luke said. “Things like that can give you an ulcer. Such a nice girl. Nothing in her background to indicate why. Her parents doted on her. All those childhood toys in her bedroom, the pink walls and a canopy bed. You worked that case hard, Natalie, door-to-dooring morning, noon, and night. Volunteering after hours. That first day we searched for her, after the sun set … when midnight rolled around, I had a gut feeling something terrible had happened. But you refused to give up. You persisted. You kept looking. You tracked down every lead. Answered phones. Talked to maybe a hundred witnesses. And when we found her, forty-two hours later, hiding inside a hay shed, she was fine, a little dehydrated, a little bruised, but okay … only then did you let your guard down.”
She remembered bursting into tears when Kimberly stood up and walked out of the shadows into the light of day.
“You passed the test,” Luke said. “My stubborn-as-shit test.”
“You have a stubborn-as-shit test?”
“Hell, yeah. For all my hires.” He smiled warmly at her. “You’ve got a wicked stubborn streak, and guess what? You’ve had it all your life. Remember when my dog disappeared? Charlie? Just a raggedy old mutt, but I loved him like crazy. One day, I couldn’t find him anywhere. Mom figured the coyotes must’ve got him. But you wouldn’t let it go. You refused to give up so easily. You dragged me around the neighborhood, calling out his name. ‘Charlie? Charlie?’ You figured he was kidnapped by the Meekers, remember them? Way up in the woods. That creepy old trailer on cement blocks. Those folks nobody ever saw. Just a rusty bent mailbox that said ‘Meekers.’ You dragged me up that hill every day for two weeks, and we hollered Charlie’s name, and once we even heard him barking in the distance, remember? You never gave up. Maybe he’s down by the stream, you said, or in one of the caves out by Devil’s Point. Or trapped in the junkyard, remember? We even went to the gravel pits. I had my driver’s license, and you’d hop in the car and always have a new suggestion. I’d pretty much given up by the end of week two, but then, miraculously, Charlie came dragging his sorry ass home, looking beat-to-shit. That’s when I realized … by us going out there every damn day, by never giving up, we gave Charlie hope, and he found his own way home.” He rested his hands on the desktop and said, “You’re stubborn as shit, Lockhart.”
She cracked a bashful smile. “I’ll put that on my résumé.”
Her feelings for Luke always surprised her, because she was forever tucking them away. She remembered their old ritual. Thumb squeeze. Offered instead of a hug. Six-year-old Natalie would hold out her thumb and adolescent Luke would squeeze it. A sign of loyalty and forever-friendship between two mismatched kids.
He blinked, and the moment was gone. He picked up an old file from his desk and handed it to her. “Anyway,” he said, getting back to business. “You wanted to take a look at this.”
She read the label. HANNAH DAUGHERTY: RAPE.