The Girl From Home: A Thriller (30 page)

Jackie doesn't know who Mr. Graham is, although she assumes he's connected with the cemetery, and he apparently has an office. Office or no, Jackie knows that Detective Martin's tracking her down is not a good sign.

“I need to get back to the house,” Jackie says. “People are going there after the service.”

“This will only take a few minutes, Mrs. Williams, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't very important that we get some information right now.”

Jackie understands Detective Martin's subtext. He's not really asking. If she declines, he'll make that clear, perhaps by placing her under arrest. With her children beside her, that's the last thing Jackie wants.

“I'll only be a minute,” Jackie says to her children. Then, turning to her mother, she adds, “Will you take the kids and wait in the car?”

Robert looks at his mother, his face full of concern. Emma, who hadn't cried once during the service, has been brought to the verge of tears by the thought her mother will be detained.

Jackie turns to Detective Martin, willing him to confirm her estimate of the delay, and hopefully bring some comfort to her children.

“It'll just be a few minutes,” he says.

*  *  *

Mr. Graham's office is tastefully decorated—leather-bound books on the shelves, a grand mahogany desk with a green shaded lamp, and a chesterfield sofa in brown leather. Detective Martin turns around one of the guest chairs facing the desk, so that it's now in the direction of the sofa. He gestures with his arm that Jackie should have a seat on the sofa. After a moment's hesitation, she complies.

“Thank you for giving me a few minutes, Mrs. Williams. Something has come up, and we wanted to address it as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Jackie says. She does the eye-rub thing again. Even she assumes this act is getting old by now.

“We know there was a domestic disturbance call that brought the police to your house a few days before your husband's death. I got to be honest with you, I'm very concerned that you didn't mention that when we met. I would have thought you would have found that rather important.”

Jackie can feel panic set in, but she quells it.
Stay in character
, she tells herself.

“I . . . I don't really understand what difference it would make if there was a crank call or whatever sending the police to our house right before a hit-and-run driver killed Rick.”

“The significance, Mrs. Williams, is that you didn't tell us about this crank call.”

Detective Martin says this like a disappointed parent. There was something in the way he said the word—
crank
—that told her loud and clear that he didn't believe it was a crank. He has
her
in his sights. She just knows he does.

“I'm sorry, Detective. I honestly didn't think the call had anything to do with Rick's accident. Probably I was in more than a little bit of shock when we spoke, and I wasn't thinking clearly. But now that you connect them, of course. Maybe someone was out to get Rick, and so they called the police to have him arrested, and when that didn't work, they killed him. So, again, I'm very sorry for not sharing that with you. There's nothing else that comes to mind right now that I think you should know, but I will go over the last few weeks and rack my brains to see if there's any other information I can provide. Unfortunately, at this moment I really need to take care of my children. They're waiting for me, having just laid their father to rest, and so I really have to get back to them. I'm sure you understand.”

Without waiting for Detective Martin to confirm that he understands Jackie's maternal obligations, Jackie rises and walks toward the door. With each step, her entire body trembles. She wants to look over her shoulder to see Detective Martin's reaction, but she knows that she shouldn't. She feels like a tightrope walker, her eyes on the goal—the door. If she makes it there, she can shut him out.

Even so, she knows he's onto her. Now he's going to start digging, and when he does, he's going to find out about Jonathan.

*  *  *

That evening, after everyone had finally left her house, Jackie's mother asks about the man Jackie was speaking to after the funeral. The “nice-looking black man,” her mother calls him.

“Just a friend of Rick's,” Jackie lies. Before her mother can cross-examine her further, Jackie says, “Mom, I'm going to go for a little walk. Just to clear my head.”

Her mother's face reveals that she finds this as believable as the nice black man being Rick's friend. Among his other fine qualities, Jackie's mother knew Rick to be a racist.

“Are you sure? It's freezing outside.”

“I need some fresh air,” Jackie says. “I won't be more than ten minutes. One lap around the block.”

*  *  *

Jackie bundles herself up, but more important than her scarf and gloves is her burner phone. As soon as she's two houses over, she calls Jonathan.

The sound of his voice is a balm, soothing her frazzled nerves. None of her problems seem insurmountable when she's with Jonathan, even if only on the phone.

“I only have a few minutes,” she says, “but I wanted to tell you right away that after the service, a police detective cornered me.” She pauses, allowing Jonathan to prepare for what she's about to disclose. “He knows about the domestic disturbance call at my house.”

“What about it?”

“That it happened.”

“Does he know that I'm the one who called?”

She wishes his first response had been concern for her well-being, rather than for his own self-preservation. “I don't think so,” she says. “He didn't mention your name.”

“Okay, okay. That's good. So long as they don't know about us, you don't really have a motive. They don't know about the abuse, right? You never reported it or told anyone. So that's a dead end. But if they find out about us, everything changes. Our affair gives you a motive.”

Jackie knows that's right, but it's also incomplete. If the police discover the affair, it gives Jonathan a motive, too. He may be trying to sound calm, but she can hear the fear in his voice.

And that leaves her with a question for which she doesn't know the answer: What will that fear make Jonathan do?

T
he doorbell wakes Jonathan. According to his cell phone it's nine o'clock, and he hasn't slept that late in months. Then again, he hadn't drifted off until well after four.

Jonathan knows the chimes foretell bad news. No one ever visits him other than Jackie, and she's made it clear that they shouldn't be seen together for a while. If she's paying him a visit now, that can only mean trouble.

He peers out the upstairs window. It's not Jackie, but that doesn't change his initial impression that trouble has come calling. His guests are two men in suits who have arrived in a dark, four-door sedan. He flashes on the FBI agents who visited him on New Year's Day.

It's not them, but these guys also reek of law enforcement.

When he opens the door, Jonathan can see that the men are wearing their badges front and center, affixed to the lapels of their overcoats. Jonathan takes that as yet another bad sign. Uniform cops, at least, would mean that someone had determined that this visit required a lower degree of attention.

“Jonathan Caine?” the older of the two men asks.

He's got a full head of salt-and-pepper hair and a bushy mustache of the same color combination. He's wearing a camel-colored overcoat that goes well past the knee, which means it's at least five years old, and might even be ten.

“Yes,” Jonathan says.

“Good morning, sir,” the salt-and-pepper man says. “My name is Detective Gerald McGeorge. This is Lucas Swensen.”

Swensen looks to be under thirty. He has a vacant expression that suggests he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but at least his overcoat stops at the knee.

“Do you mind if we come in?” Detective McGeorge asks. “We'll only take up a few minutes of your time.”

Jonathan knows the answer to this question should be a resounding no. And yet he says, “What's this about?”

Detective McGeorge scrunches up his face. He might as well have just said that people with nothing to hide don't ask questions, they invite the police in.

“It's about Rick Williams. You went to high school with him, didn't you?”

Jonathan smiles. “Yeah. A million years ago.”

“It's cold out here, Mr. Caine. Do you mind if we come in?”

The moment of truth. It doesn't take a mind reader to figure out that they're sniffing around for whether he and Jackie were having an affair. If he shuts them out, they'll know the answer for sure. Jonathan decides it's worth the risk to take a shot at disabusing them of that notion.

“Sure, come on in,” he says.

His parents' house is what's referred to as a split-level, which meant a four-stair climb to the living room, but the den was adjacent to the foyer. Ever since Jonathan can remember, guests were always brought to the living room. Jonathan, however, shows the police into the den. The furniture in that room is less comfortable, so Jonathan's hoping that means their stay will be shorter.

An early indication that the police intend to stay longer than Jonathan would prefer is that the younger cop, Swensen, takes off his overcoat, placing it on his lap as he sits down. Detective McGeorge, at least, leaves his on and takes the spot next to his partner.

Jonathan stands above them, not wanting to settle in. Detective McGeorge says, “Please, sit down, too, Mr. Caine,” as if he's the host in this situation. With little choice, Jonathan takes a seat in the armchair that had the best view of the television.

“So, what can I help you with?” Jonathan asks with as much of an
I have no idea why you're here
smile as he can muster.

“You can tell us about your relationship with Jacqueline Williams,” Detective McGeorge says flatly.

Jonathan continues to wear the same stupid expression that suggests he's completely in the dark. “Uh, not too much to tell. We went to high school together, but barely talked back then. Not in the same social circle. We got reacquainted at my class's twenty-fifth reunion, which was about a month ago. I had just moved back to East Carlisle to tend to my father, who was a patient at Lakeview at the time, but he recently passed. Anyway, we had lunch once or twice, talked on the phone a few times. That's about it.”

“You know her husband was killed a few days ago?”

“Yes. I heard. As you said, Rick Williams was also in my high school class at East Carlisle.”

“Who told you about Mr. Williams's death?”

Jonathan hadn't anticipated the question. “I don't remember,” he says. “I think I read it online somewhere.”

Jonathan has a momentary fit of panic. Maybe it wasn't online anywhere.

No one says anything for a good thirty seconds. Then Detective McGeorge breaks the silence.

“You sure you want to stick with that story?”

Jonathan tries not to look thrown. “I'm sorry . . . ?” he says.

“I think maybe you should be sorry, Mr. Caine. You see, we think that there's more to your relationship with Mrs. Williams than you're telling us. I'm not saying you were involved in Rick Williams's murder, but that's the conclusion I'm going to reach if you insist on lying to my face.”

Damn. The police know that Rick Williams was murdered, and they know Jonathan was having an affair with Jackie. And now they know he's lying to cover it up.

“I don't understand,” Jonathan says, hoping it sounds like he really doesn't.

“It's not rocket science, Mr. Caine. Rick Williams was murdered. You were screwing the man's wife. Put two and two together, okay?”

Jonathan's mind is racing. Part of him is screaming in his brain to shut this whole thing down and call Alex Miller. The other part is telling him that he needs more information about what the police know. That side wins. For now, at least.

“You think Rick Williams was murdered?” he says.

This pushes the younger cop to speak. “Why don't you just cut the crap. You do yourself a whole lotta good if you tell us the truth. Starting. Now.”

Jonathan has little choice but to continue to play dumb. “I want to help in any way I can,” he says, “but I really don't know how I can. Jackie and I were . . . friends. Nothing more.”

“Mr. Caine, if that's the case, we'd like to examine your phone. That way, we can look into the frequency of your contact with Mrs. Williams, see any text messages, and the like. If it all checks out as the two of you just being pals, so be it.”

Jonathan has been careful to delete Jackie's voicemail and text messages, but he can't be certain he never missed one. Besides, he has no idea how easy it is to retrieve deleted messages off an iPhone 6. What he is certain about is that anyone who listened to even one of Jackie's messages would know that they were much more than friends.

“Like I said, I want to help, but one of our classmates over at ECHS is a lawyer that I'm friendly with. Alex Miller.” Jonathan stops to ascertain if the name means anything to them. It doesn't seem to. “Anyway, let me call him and see what he thinks. Just leave me your business cards, and I'll call you back.”

“We're more than willing to wait while you call your lawyer friend,” Detective McGeorge says.

“Thank you, but I usually don't get him on the first try, and I actually have something else to do right now, so I'm not sure if I can call him for another hour anyway. So if you'll excuse me, I'll do what I need to do and I'll call you back very soon. I'm sure you understand.”

As they get up to leave, Detective McGeorge says, “You know, Mr. Caine, we do understand. All too well. Yours is the reaction we get a lot from guilty people. Folks with nothing to hide, they don't lawyer up.”