Authors: S.W. Hubbard
I’m still mulling over what Dylan told me about his grandparents when I catch sight of the clock on Mr. Reicker’s stove. 11:57! Shit, I’m going to be late for my appointment with Coughlin. I shout to Jill to hold down the fort, and peel down the driveway, telling Ty I’ll be back with lunch soon.
I charge into Sol’s ten minutes later and spot Coughlin instantly. He’s sitting with his back to the wall, eyes scanning the room as if he expects Mafia hit men to knock over the bagel bins and shoot up the deli case at any minute. His impassive face shows only a flicker of interest when I drop into the other chair at his table. There’s a file folder in front on him on the table.
“Sorry I’m late. I got a little held up at the sale I’m running.”
He nods. “I hear your man Griggs was tackling the customers. Whatever happened to service with a smile?”
My stomach clenches. “How do you know about that?”
“There’s a car keeping an eye on the place. The officer was about to break it up, but he said you had the situation under control. Said the perp was a kid. A kid you seemed to know.”
Coughlin looks at me expectantly but I’m not going there. “Just a kid from the neighborhood. He took a flowerpot on a dare. A prank—nothing to worry about.” I squint at him. “Detective Farrand said he’d have someone swing by the sale, but I didn’t notice a patrol car on the street.”
“You ready to order?” The waitress arrives and I know if we send her away she won’t return for a good fifteen minutes. A guy digging into a hot pastrami sandwich at the next table inspires me to get the same, and I put in an order for two take-out sandwiches for Jill and Ty. Coughlin asks for the Veggie Volcano.
When the waitress dashes off, I arch my eyebrows and smirk. “Veggie Volcano?”
Coughlin runs a giant paw over his cropped red hair. “Hey, growing up, the only vegetable my mother ever served was boiled potatoes. And that was only to stretch the pot roast and the corn beef to feed seven. I’m trying to make up for thirty vitamin-free years, know what I’m saying?” He rolls his massive shoulders. “You ever read that book,
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
? All those antibiotics in factory-farmed meat’ll kill ya.”
There’s more to Coughlin than I give him credit for, although I can’t help but smile at the vision of him reading that organic eating manifesto while on a break with the other cops at Dunkin’ Donuts. “There were five kids in your family?” I ask.
“Yeah. My mom had five babies in seven years. Then she put her foot down and said unless the Pope was coming over to help her with the laundry and dishes, she was going on the Pill. Good thing she wised up when she did, or one of us woulda gotten killed. Every day it was fight for the bathroom, fight for the last bowl of Cheerios, fight for the TV. Our house was a freakin’ zoo.”
I laugh, but inside I feel the old familiar longing. The Coughlin’s house sounds nice to me. “I can’t relate. I was an only child.”
Coughlin looks at me. Right through me. “Yeah, I know.”
I drop my gaze to the file folder. “What do you have for me there?”
He folds his hands on top of the folder. “Let’s talk a little. My guys tell me Griggs comes and goes from your office…often works on his own.”
“What guys? You have my office under
surveillance
?” I feel like I’m in some cheesy made-for-TV movie.
“Not your office. Griggs.”
“You’re off my case. Detective Farrand is investigating my assault. What does it take to get you to leave Tyshaun alone?”
“I’m not working your case. I’m on something else. And interestingly enough, it’s leading me right back to Griggs.”
I feel a flicker of uneasiness. “What are you talking about?”
“Griggs occasionally takes your van on little road trips—south to New Brunswick, east to Paterson. You got any business there?”
I know I don’t have to speak for Coughlin to understand there’s no legit reason for Ty to be driving the van to those towns. “What does he do there?”
“Talks to some guys and leaves.”
“ That’s not a crime. All right—he shouldn’t be driving there without my permission, but he can’t afford a car of his own yet. So he takes a little joyride on company time—no big deal.”
Coughlin leans forward, his voice low and intense. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with here, Audrey. This kid grew up on the streets. His father is serving a life term in Trenton for murder. His mother was a crack addict. His grandmother’s not a bad woman, but she can’t handle what life’s handed her. At any given moment she’s got five or six grandkids and great-grandkids living with her. She can’t keep tabs on them all.”
I’m stunned. Ty’s father is a murderer? I knew that his grandmother had raised him, but I didn’t know why. “You know Ty’s family?”
Coughlins snorts. “Every cop in Palmyrton knows the Griggs clan. We’ve all arrested one or the other of them. Most more than once. They’re bad news.”
Our food arrives with a crash, giving me a moment to regroup. Uneasiness has turned to dread. Why is Coughlin watching Ty? Is it really another case, or is he still trying to pin my assault on Ty? Why is Ty driving all over New Jersey in my van? Why did Coughlin jump so eagerly to help me get my mother’s case file?
I look at the file folder sitting tantalizingly on the table between us and wish I could grab it and run. I’ve never felt less like eating a pastrami sandwich.
Coughlin picks up the folder. “The detective who handled your mother’s disappearance was one of the best: Stan Arteglier. He covered every angle.”
I’d like to believe Coughlin has said all he intends to about Ty, but I know I’m deluding myself. “Is he retired now? Can I talk to him?”
“He died three, four years ago.”
Coughlin must have noticed my face fall. His fierce gaze softens a little. “Stan’s notes are very thorough. We can go over them.”
I lean forward, but he doesn’t open the folder. He’s giving me that look again. I swear this guy could crack an egg with his stare.
“What are you looking for, Audrey? Why are you suddenly interested in this now?”
Here it comes, as I knew it would. I roll out the story I’ve prepared: the publicity around my attack put me back in touch with Mrs. Olsen, an old family friend. I tell him Mrs. O. led me to believe my mother had been acting excited in the weeks before her disappearance. I tell him about my father’s tears.
“So you think there was another man.” Coughlin says it flatly—no shock, no curiosity. It sounds worse spoken aloud. I can barely bring myself to nod.
He flips open the folder. “Well, Audrey, as you can probably imagine, when a woman goes missing, that’s the first thing we look at: the husband, the boyfriend. In your mother’s case, Stan Arteglier questioned your father several times. The notes say he was upset but never changed his story. Your grandparents backed him up. Stan talked to neighbors, friends, colleagues—no one mentioned any strain in the marriage, no hint of another man.”
I lean across the table squinting at that folder, trying to read upside down. “Did he talk to Lisa Olsen or Reid Van Houten?”
Coughlin’s thick, blunt index finger runs down the page and stops near the bottom. “Yep, talked to both. They didn’t report anything unusual.”
“Then why did they both tell me she was acting different…keyed-up?”
“Not unusual. People are maybe a little uneasy, but they don’t want to cause trouble. They figured if she wanted to run away, that was her business. Or maybe the doubts nagged at them over the years. Either way, they were more likely to be truthful talking to her daughter than talking to the police. They could see you have a real stake in knowing the truth.”
“What about the car at the lake?” I ask. “What does your detective’s report say about that? Did he believe she could’ve fallen into that lake and never been found?”
“It’s possible, Audrey.” Coughlin pulls a diagram out of the folder and slides it between us. “If she left the mall at closing time, she would’ve been passing by the lake between 9:30 and 10:00. Her car went off the road here and slid down the embankment, turning ninety degrees and coming to a stop against a tree about three feet from the shore. According to the weather reports, the snow was falling at a rate of three inches per hour at that point—complete white-out conditions. She wouldn’t have been able to see the road from where she was. She was scared and disoriented—didn’t realize she was walking away from the road and toward the water. The spot where she went in has a steep drop off. Her heavy coat would’ve weighed her down.”
I shiver. I’ve never contemplated the moment of my mother’s death. Did she struggle? Did she cry for help?
“So you’re telling me it
is
plausible that she drowned?”
“Oh, it’s plausible—she may well have drowned. But if she used this set-up to cover her disappearance, she chose very well.”
“She couldn’t have planned it,” I object. “No one could have been certain that it would snow that hard on Christmas Eve. The weatherman always predicts big blizzards for New Jersey and half the time they fizzle out.”
Coughlin cocks his strawberry blond eyebrows. “Sometimes circumstances come together in just the right way. Everything falls into place. The perfect storm, so to speak. You jump to take advantage of what fate has handed you.”
The vision of my poor mother flailing in the water dissolves. A cold stone of suspicion displaces my compassion. “So you think she and her lover might have been talking about running away together, and the perfect opportunity presented itself on Christmas Eve?”
Coughlin looks me in the eye and nods.
“Why are you so sure that’s what happened?” I demand. “Was there activity on her credit cards after Christmas?”
“Nah, they checked for that.” Coughlin takes another bite of Veggie Volcano, chews thoroughly and swallows. “Let’s talk about Griggs.”
What a prick! Coughlin has played me like a fish on a line. Given me enough slack to think I was free, then reeled me up tight. I look at the folder longingly. I don’t have to play Coughlin’s game. I could get what’s in there—if there even is something worthwhile in there—by going through the channels Farrand outlined. But I want it now. Coughlin knows that. What terrible thing do I have to do to get it?
I cover my sandwich with my napkin and push my plate away. “What?”
“Keep an eye on Griggs. Tell me how he’s acting, who he talks to on his cell.”
“How would I know who he’s talking to? Why do you need me to spy—can’t you just tap his phone?”
“Not enough evidence for that. I’m building my case.”
“Evidence of what?”
“Drugs. He’s dealing, low-level. I want the big guys. So be aware, and listen. Call me if you hear anything, all right?”
Coughlin’s eyes bore into me. I want to howl in protest. Why has he zeroed in on Ty? Why is he so determined to send the poor kid back to jail? But something holds me back. I feel like Coughlin’s drilled a hole and drained me of all my free will.
“Yeah, fine.” I look over Coughlin’s head to focus on the deli counter. “If I hear anything strange, I’ll call. Now tell me why you’re so sure my mother staged her disappearance.”
“The gifts.”
I shift my gaze back to Coughlin’s face. “What about them? They found them in the car, right? That proved she really had been to the mall.”
“In the trunk of the car was a bag from Snapdragons and Fireflies, the upscale toy store at the mall. It contained three items, but no receipt.”
“She might have stuck it in her pocket.” Suddenly I realize I’m picking holes in Coughlin’s arguments, looking for a way to defend my mother. “Sorry. Go on.”
“This was thirty years ago, so not everyone had computerized cash registers and bar code scanning. This little store had the kind of register that you just ring up the amounts. Arteglier found this particular sequence of prices appeared three times on the cash register tape from Christmas Eve.”
“So there’s no conclusive proof that the gifts in the car were bought on Christmas Eve,” I say. “But they could’ve been.”
“Right.”
“But didn’t they show my mother’s picture to the store clerks?”
“Not until the day after Christmas. By that time, her picture had appeared on the news as an accident victim. All the clerks picked her picture out of the array, even the ones who worked the morning shift, at a time when we know for a fact she wasn’t at the mall.” Coughlin smiles ruefully. “Eyewitnesses. Ya gotta love ‘em.”
“Okay, so the gifts are a wash. They don’t prove or disprove anything.”
“That’s what Arteglier thought. I think that’s why he closed out the case as an accidental death. But smart as Arteglier was, I think he missed something. Not that I blame him—he was a bachelor. He didn’t know about toys.”
I look at Coughlin’s naked left hand. “I thought you were too.”
“I’m a bachelor with twelve nieces and nephews. These are the toys they found in the car, Audrey: a doll, a puzzle and a bead kit.”
I look at him blankly. I guess I’m not any more knowledgeable about toys than Arteglier.