I pressed the package of frozen vegetables to my face. The chill went down to the bone. She’d gotten me good. Too bad I couldn’t ice my wounded ego.
We were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, a wide gulf between us. My almond milk sat untouched on the table next to me.
“Perhaps it would be best if Mr. Biden and I talked in private,” Abbey said.
“I’m not leaving you two alone,” Grace said. “Not until somebody tells me what that”—and here she pointed to the door—“was all about.”
“Mistaken identity,” I said.
“Who were you going to hit with your shoe?” Grace asked.
“It’s complicated.”
Abbey glanced over at me. “It’s not very complicated, is it, Mr. Biden? Would you like me to leave so you can explain to Ms. Donnelly what you were doing at her father’s motel room the night of the funeral?”
“What’s she talking about, Joe?”
I sighed. “I didn’t want to get into this—not today—but we might as well. I don’t believe what happened to your father was an accident. I don’t believe that he in any way voluntarily stepped onto those tracks, high or otherwise. I believe he may have been—What I mean to say is, I believe something…untoward may have happened to him.”
Grace threw her hands over her mouth.
Well, that certainly sucked the air out of the room.
“Do the police know about your theory?” Abbey asked. “The transportation board has already wrapped their investigation. They’ve cleared Amtrak of any wrongdoing. The engineer didn’t hit him intentionally. Calculating the speed of the train and the amount of time he would have had to brake—there’s just no way anyone could have done a better job of braking. That doesn’t sound like murder to me.”
“Finn didn’t kill himself.”
“I never said he did.”
“I know how your type operate,” I said.
“Frankly, Mr. Biden, I don’t believe you know my type.”
There wasn’t anything I could say to that.
“I’m still investigating,” she said.
“You’re a liar. You’re hiding something. I know when I’m being lied to.”
“It’s funny you should bring that up.”
“Guys,” Grace said. “Please.”
Abbey toyed with the end of her ponytail. “If you want to know what I was doing at the motel the other night, I’ll tell you. It’s no big secret. I’m a private investigator. Most of my clients are insurance companies, and they hire me to investigate suspected fraud. And before you ask—every time a claim has to be paid, the insurance company suspects fraud. That’s just the way the industry works.”
I switched the frozen vegetables from my left hand to my right. It was a California vegetable medley. Carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.
Three of my least favorites.
Abbey continued: “In the case of an accident like this, I’m interviewing witnesses. Family. Friends. Anyone who can clue me in to the victim’s state of mind. I also look for physical evidence.”
“Like a note,” I said. A suicide note.
She nodded. “In the event of a victim taking their own life, a third of the time there will be a note. Lately, people have been leaving them online, so that makes things easier for us. Paper notes have a way of getting lost. Families want to hush things up, especially if there’s insurance money on the line.”
“I can’t believe you think we would do something like that,” Grace said.
“I don’t believe anything until I have evidence that I’m confident will hold up in civil court. I’m not some amateur sleuthing around on a whim.” She smiled icily, but made a point of not looking at me. “I was at the motel as part of my routine investigative process. Many deaths occur at motels—if I told you the number, you’d never stay in one again—and there’s always a pad of paper on the desk or nightstand. Sometimes in the drawer. Rub a pencil over it, and you can see the impression of the last thing someone wrote before tearing the top sheet off.”
“That really works?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“You think Raymond Chandler just plucked it out of thin air?” she said. “In this case, there was no notepad. There weren’t notepads in any of the rooms. It was a dead end.”
“If you’d just handed me your card at the motel, instead of pulling a fast one…”
“I wanted to play things close to the chest,” she said. “So to speak.”
I looked away. We didn’t need to get into the state of undress Barack and I had found her in.
Grace picked up my still-full mug and took it into the kitchen. Abbey and I sat in silence again. I felt rotten, like I’d been caught by a truancy officer skipping class to watch a double feature at the Comerford on Wyoming Avenue.
When Grace returned, I stood up. “Where do you want the vegetables?”
“Keep them,” she said flatly. I’d broken her trust. There was nothing I could say to patch things up.