Truth & Tenderness (21 page)

G
RIFFIN
OPENED
the door to find Bennett on his doorstep, a spray of pink roses in one hand and a teddy bear in the other. Everything about Griffin’s sharp-dressed former friend seemed subdued: black clothes, subtle expression. All the flash gone, or at least tucked away.

Griffin contemplated slamming the door in the man’s face. “Can I help you?” he asked instead, cold as he could manage.

Bennett shifted nervously. “I’d like to speak to Daisy.”

Griffin gave him the stink-eye. “She said I should let you in if you showed up,” he spat. “If you upset her, I’m going to punch you in the fucking face.”

“Understood,” Bennett muttered.

Griffin stepped to the side and let Bennett in.

When he turned around, Griffin found Daisy standing at the bottom of the stairs, wringing her hands in front of her. “Let’s go outside to talk. Sadie’s sleeping,” Daisy said primly. “Griffin, would you mind….”

“I’ll take care of her.”

S
ADIE
WOKE
up while Griffin was reading a book at her bedside.

“Miff,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

“How about you, me, and the monkey take a walk?”

Walking with Sadie was slow going. She liked to pick up rocks and leaves and sticks, not to mention the occasional piece of garbage. It was similar to having a golden retriever. Griffin pulled a little red wagon behind them in case she got tired or found treasure under a pile of lawn clippings.

Right now, only the purple monkey enjoyed the ride.

They traveled up ten houses, then across the road to the opposite ten.

“Hey, nice flowers,” Griffin said, directing her to a cluster of tiny purple blooms. They weren’t on anyone’s property as far as he could tell, which meant fair game.

“Ooooo, pwitty,” Sadie cooed, getting down on her hands and knees to look a little closer.

Griffin took the moment to stretch, look up and down his street. Neighborly nosiness abounded: The Grennigers were trying a new lawn company. The Costas were repaving their driveway.

Did Mr. Blatt get a new car?

That’s when the dark sedan caught his eye.

This wasn’t a sedan type of neighborhood. Everyone drove an SUV or a minivan, with the occasional Volvo or MINI Cooper thrown in.

Black sedan, tinted windows.

Across the street and two houses down from his and Jim’s place.

A little chill disrupted Griffin’s thoughts.

Someone was sitting in a dark sedan across from his and Jim’s house.

“Hey, Sadie, let’s go back and have cookies, okay?” he said, reaching down to pick the little girl up.

“Kay.” She had handfuls of purple flowers but clearly no objection to heading home for a snack.

Griffin held her close as he hurried across the road, pulling the wagon with his free hand.

At the mailbox, Griffin bounced the wagon onto the walkway. He stopped for a moment, looking over at the sedan one more time.

The motor gunned suddenly. Then it peeled out and sped off in a haze of exhaust.

Spooked, Griffin ran into the house, leaving the wagon behind. Sadie protested the bumpy trip inside, then started to yell for her monkey.

“One sec, Sadie. One sec.”

Griffin slammed the door behind him and finally took a deep breath.

“Y
EAH
, I
didn’t see who it was, but it spooked me,” Griffin said, giving Jim every detail he could think of. He paced around the living room with the phone pressed to his ear as Daisy and Bennett sat on the couch, just far enough apart to avoid any contact. They looked as worried as Griffin felt. “It was clearly watching our house. And when I noticed it, it took off.”

“You couldn’t see who was driving?”

“No. I mean—windows tinted that dark. It freaked me out.”

Jim didn’t say anything for a long time. “I want you to arm the security system.”

“Done.”

“I’m calling Matt—”

“No, don’t do that. We can handle it. Uh—Bennett’s here.”

Jim swore.

“So yeah, two big strong guys, and Daisy has Mace, and Sadie’s pretty lethal when she whips Legos at your head,” Griffin joked weakly. “You’re gonna be back tomorrow, right?”

“Let me see if I can change my flight.”

The adult in Griffin wanted to say
don’t worry, it’s fine
, but something in his soul reacted strongly to Jim being here sooner rather than later.

“Okay.” Griffin stopped pacing. “Who do you think it could be? Like, I expected you to tell me I’m crazy, but instead you’re totally feeding my hysteria. Which is very unlike you.”

The sigh over the line didn’t do anything to steady Griffin’s nerves. “Maybe just press ’cause Daisy is staying there,” he said, all neutral in a way that was not Jim-like at all. “I’ll scare them away.”

“I did that already. What do you really think it is?”

“We’ll figure this out when I get home.”

G
RIFFIN
AND
Daisy stayed in the master bedroom with Sadie curled up between them. Bennett was on the couch with Mace and a baseball bat.

No one slept except the baby.

A
SHLAND
, O
REGON
,
sat right over the California border, surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountains Jim had ever seen. The small town bustled around him thanks to the nearby college as Jim followed the GPS directions to the police station.

A detective named Howard Beech met him in the parking lot as Jim stretched in the warm sunlight.

“Detective Shea?” the man asked. He was a burly middle-aged guy in a gray sports jacket and Ray-Bans.

“Retired, but yeah,” Jim said, extending his hand.

“Let’s go talk,” Detective Beech said, leading Jim into the brick building of the Ashland PD.

A small tan conference room housed a table, four chairs, and the box of evidence Jim had sent ahead, spread out and marked with tiny yellow sticky notes. A box of pens sat on a stack of legal pads.

“You need some coffee?” Beech asked as Jim sat down.

“No, thanks.” Jim gestured to the painstakingly put together files. “So, what do you think?”

Detective Beech let out a snort of laughter as he settled across from Jim. “No small talk, eh?”

“Sorry.” Jim put his hands up and tried to relax. It didn’t work. “I’m just anxious.”

“How long you been retired?”

“Three years.” Jim settled back, resting his hands on the table.

“This guy won’t let you sleep, huh?” Beech began pulling folders out of the pile, finally flipping one open in front of him with a
thwap
against the table.

“I can’t get him for the Seattle murder, but maybe I can help you close some cases instead.”

“I’m sure this is for my benefit.” Detective Beech shot him a wink. “All right, Jim, let’s break this down.”

C
OFFEE
BECAME
necessary at about the forty-five-minute point. A uniformed cop brought them sandwiches and water two hours after that, but Jim couldn’t sit down as he drew the time lines for Tracey’s lacrosse team schedule and the murders. Every single one lined up. It was so clear, in clean strokes of black and red and blue, that Jim almost couldn’t breathe.

How had no one seen this?

“No one saw it ’cause even if they did, he would have had an alibi,” Detective Beech said. “You think the girlfriend wasn’t covering for him?”

“We couldn’t break her alibi for him,” Jim said with a sigh. He turned to face Beech, who sat at the table. “She never even wavered.”

“So his master plan is to only kill when Tracey can back him up. That’s some kind of sick asshole right there, pardon my language.”

Jim sank into a chair, weary to his bones. “Sick and organized. Thinking about his cover story before he does it.”

They ate in silence, each man caught up in his thoughts. Jim’s gaze kept darting to the pile of folders, as if he could see the pages and read each line all over again.

“How’d he get them to go with him?” Jim asked as he dropped his napkin into the waxed white paper.

“Good-looking kid, nice car. Manners.” Detective Beech spat out each word. “None of these girls saw him as a threat.”

Jim rocked in the chair, feet braced so he didn’t roll away. “At night? In the parking lot of a store or a bar?”

“Hitchhiking maybe.”

“I didn’t see that in any of the interviews with friends and family.”

More quiet, but Jim could feel them both processing the information.

“You remember that case up in Canada—the serial killer with the pretty wife,” Detective Beech said suddenly.

Jim felt his jaw tense. “Good-looking guy, nice manners, nice car—his girlfriend in the passenger side,” Jim murmured. “Holy shit.”

I
T
WAS
dark when Jim walked out to his car. Behind him, Detective Beech barked into the phone, talking to the detective from the town where victim number three went to school. The past hour had seen the office staff of Ashland Police Department copying and scanning all the materials, e-mailing them out, then packing everything up and labeling them for each of the departments that had an unsolved case with Tripp’s fingerprints all over it.

If he had to skywrite the evidence to get their attention, he would.

Jim tried to put a label on what he was feeling: relieved, euphoric, satisfied. Mostly he felt exhausted.

Running low of energy.

He just wanted to go home.

Detective Beech hung up, and Jim stopped to turn around. They stood under the weak light overseeing the parking lot.

“You gonna stay at the hotel?”

Jim shook his head, putting one hand on the back of his neck to stop the spike of pain. “Jackson County Airport. I need to get home.”

“All right, but you drive carefully. Those bags under your eyes are dangerously close to needing a building permit.”

Extending his hand, Jim smiled. “Thank you for your help, Howard.”

“We’re gonna get this son of a bitch, don’t you worry.”

At the airport, Jim settled into a chair and waited for the boarding call for his flight to Salt Lake City. From there, he’d catch another plane to LaGuardia before the car service brought him home. Every cell of his body was struggling to stay functional; he wanted to shower and eat Georgia’s food and make love to his fiancé and forget Tripp’s existence.

Finally. He just wanted to be free of the weight of it.

His part was over. Detective Howard Beech, who smelled like peppermint and Old Spice, would take twenty years of experience and his easy-going manner and escalate the matter from Jim’s brain to active law enforcement.

The other detectives would soon have everything they had found. The FBI would be contacted. Jim would sit back and let it go.

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on home, and not Tripp behind bars.

H
IS
PHONE
rang as they sped away from the airport, Jim dozing in the backseat of the car service’s black sedan. He didn’t look at the caller ID, just answered as an automatic reaction.

“Mr. James Shea?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice asked.

“Uh, yeah. Who is this?”

“My name is Lucy Fraser. I’m from the
Oregonian
.”

Jim’s brain tried to catch up. He sat straighter, pressing the heel of his hand into his eye. “Right—um, what can I do for you?”

“I’ve gotten some information about a murder investigation regarding the deaths of several Oregon college coeds about seven years ago….”

Jim was wide-awake. “Excuse me?”

“Are the police looking at Tripp Ingersoll for these murders?”

His throat closed as he took a gasp of air. “I’m retired,” Jim said as calmly as possible. “I have nothing to do with active police investigations.”

“You’re the one who brought the information to the attention of the Ashland Police,” the reporter said quickly, as if sensing Jim was about to end the call. “Is this because you couldn’t secure a conviction in the Seattle case?”

Jim clenched his jaw tightly. “Lose this number or I’ll report you for harassment.”

“Or does this have to do with publicity for the upcoming movie—”

Jim disconnected before she finished her sentence.

T
WENTY
MINUTES
later, he got three texts from Ben.

Tripp’s lawyers rescinded deal.

What’s going on?

Jim, call me.

F
INALLY
J
IM
arrived home, bleary-eyed from a trip with three separate legs and the weight of Tripp Ingersoll’s case on his shoulders. He threw his bag on the bottom of the stairs and opened his arms for Griffin.