Last Night, page 3
“You dug around?” Joe said, and Conor heard apprehension. Joe wouldn’t want anyone tromping on evidence.
“Only to make sure her daughter wasn’t there, too. CeCe, age six.”
“No sign of her?”
“None.”
“Where’s the father?”
“No idea. We didn’t get that far. Kate took Hadley back to the hotel.”
Joe wore glasses. He took them off to wipe snow from the outside of the lenses and steam from the inside. “You know these people?”
“No,” Conor said. “We just met Hadley—the victim’s sister—right here, half an hour ago.”
“What made you decide to take a walk down the beach path in the middle of a blizzard?” Joe asked.
“Kate and I were on the Ocean House porch when Hadley—though we didn’t know her name then—went running out. She looked frantic, as if something was wrong, and she slipped. Kate said we should follow her, to make sure she was okay. We came upon her here.”
“She had just found her sister’s body?”
“Yes.”
“How did she seem?”
“Hysterical. Worried about CeCe.”
“Okay, thanks. We’ll question her at the hotel. And I’ll come find you there, too,” Joe said.
“You mean I’m dismissed?” Conor asked. He sounded sarcastic, but he understood. This was Joe’s turf.
“Tricky, isn’t it?” Joe asked.
“Yes,” Conor said. “But I’m here if you need me. Unofficially.”
“Thanks,” Joe said. “Unofficially.”
Conor stood there, watching Joe approach the body. He had offered his help if Joe wanted it, but he knew he was already personally involved. Another detective arrived, along with an investigator from the Rhode Island State Crime Lab.
Conor and Kate had been second on the scene. They had seen the body of a young woman who’d been alive just hours ago. They had witnessed Hadley’s shock and grief—just the beginning of a lifetime of missing her sister. Conor wasn’t going to be able to let go easily. Or at all.
The uniformed officers had closed Bluff Avenue—the short stretch of road that ran from the Ocean House to the lane that led to the lighthouse—and they had set up a perimeter from Maddie’s body to the sidewalk. Conor assumed they would be placing crime-scene tape as far down as the beach, but he didn’t wait to watch. He hiked up his collar and kept his head down as he hurried through the roaring storm toward the hotel.
He liked working parallel cases, across state lines, especially with Joe. Harrigan was smart, thorough, and not above bending the rules when he needed to. Conor had the feeling Joe wanted him to stay, but he understood why Joe had sent him away; Conor would have done the same, if their roles were reversed. Conor was a witness in this situation, not a police detective.
A mother murdered, her child missing. This was going to be a big case, and optics were going to matter. Joe would want to keep the press away for as long as possible. In that regard, the blizzard would work in his favor.
Conor walked into the hotel’s circular drive. There was a black Chevrolet Suburban parked in the turnaround. Considering that a child was missing, he knew that the FBI would be called in, and he wondered if this vehicle belonged to an agent. The bellmen watched Conor pass, and one of them held the door for him.
The same front desk attendant who had helped him and Kate make dinner reservations greeted him, her solemn tone letting him know that she was aware of at least some of what was going on.
He started through the lobby, on his way to the room. He spent two seconds reflecting on how he had brought Kate to the Ocean House for what he’d expected to be one of the most important weekends of their lives. He wouldn’t say his plan had gone out the window, exactly, but right now his focus had shifted to murder.
“Mr. Reid!”
At the sound of his name, he turned to see the receptionist hurrying toward him. He hadn’t paid attention to her name before, so he glanced at her name tag.
“Yes, Isabel?” he asked.
“They’ve gone to Ms. Morrison’s suite. Would you like me to take you there?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” Conor said.
He followed Isabel past the bar and restaurant to the ornamented oak-paneled elevator and up two stories. She had concern in her eyes, but she discreetly didn’t ask any questions and left him at a door marked SEA GARDEN. He thanked her and knocked.
Kate answered, letting him in. He stopped just inside, holding her. He whispered, in case Hadley was within earshot.
“How are you?” he asked. It wasn’t a casual question.
“I’m fine.”
“This is part of the crime scene,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “I thought of it too late, after we’d already come inside.”
Conor knew that Kate knew. He would have done anything to shield her from this—the killing of a sister. He had met her five years earlier while investigating her sister Beth’s murder. She’d been traumatized—beyond healing, it seemed at times. She had been withdrawn, even from him, even after they’d started living together. But things had changed recently, and it was why he had chosen this time to take her here.
“We’d better move her to a different room, until the police can process this suite,” Conor said.
“It’s called Sea Garden,” Kate said. She stared down the short hallway at the wall of windows facing east. “It looks out at the ocean, like our room does. When the sky is clear, the view must be spectacular. Maddie must have seen the sunrise this morning, before the storm.”
“Yes,” Conor said, his arms around her, never taking his eyes off her face.
“I can’t stand to think of her that way,” Kate said, tears spilling out. “To have watched the sunrise from this room, to have found this beautiful place and thought it was safe—and then to have been murdered. I wish I hadn’t seen her—Maddie, under all that snow. And to think of Hadley, having to find her. Seeing her, wanting her to be okay, now out of her mind over CeCe . . .”
Conor knew it was all coming back to Kate: how she had discovered Beth’s body, strangled and posed, on her own bed in the house she had shared with her husband, Pete, and their daughter, Samantha. Of course Kate would be thinking of Hadley and her niece. She had gone through the aftermath of violence with Sam.
“Where is Hadley now?” Conor asked.
“In one of the bedrooms,” Kate said. “There are three in here.”
“Can you go downstairs and see if the hotel has a place for her while the police work in here? We’ve got to clear out, and she’s going to need somewhere to stay.”
“I will,” Kate said. “And thanks.”
“For what?”
“Giving me something to do. So I can stop picturing Maddie lying there. It takes me back to Beth . . .” She kissed Conor and closed the door behind her.
Conor stood in the foyer, looking around. This might not have been his case, but being a detective remained his true nature, and he couldn’t just leave it at the door. He walked slowly down the corridor, a half bath on the right. The pale-yellow walls were covered with framed black-and-white photographs of Watch Hill in the 1800s. He noticed that one was askew, and considering the attention to detail throughout the hotel, he wondered about it, and whether it might indicate that a struggle had taken place here. He stood close to the frame, looking it over, but he didn’t touch it.
The living room was vast, extending to the tall windows Kate had referenced. A set of french doors led to a wide terrace that ran the length of the suite. There was a stone fireplace with shells and glass lanterns arranged on the mantel. It was flanked by bookcases. Every shelf was full of novels and books of nonfiction about the sea and the history of the Ocean House and Watch Hill.
He saw that one book had been taken down, placed on the writing desk. It was a novel—Reef Road by Deborah Goodrich Royce. He read the cover copy and saw it was a thriller based on a true crime. That piqued his interest.
A sheet of stationery had been folded and placed inside to mark a page. Conor removed a pen from his pocket and used it to open the book. The paper was blank, so he figured Maddie had been in the midst of reading and had used it to save her place. He was intrigued and decided he’d get a copy of the book and read it.
There were two distinct seating areas, one in front of the fireplace, the other by the windows. They were gracious, flanked by lamps that gave off soft light, with a sofa, armchairs, and a coffee table in each. Toys and children’s books were strewn around the sofa by the fire. Crayons, colored pencils, and drawing paper covered the low table.
Some of that artwork was obviously done by a child, but there was one sketch clearly made by an adult. It depicted a carousel, with a woman buckling her little girl onto one of the horses, and there was a phrase written in pencil: Together Forever.
A key had been drawn, and it looked too real to be sketched. Conor leaned down and saw an impression, as if an actual key had been pressed into the paper and traced with charcoal. There was a faint imprint of numbers. He took photos of the drawings, including the ones most likely done by CeCe, and he wrote down the numbers from the key in a pad he always carried.
The kitchen had new, high-end stainless-steel appliances. Conor had worked many cases in affluent Connecticut towns, and he recognized the brands. The stove was embossed with classical marine motifs: dolphins and a sailing ship. There was a sleek stainless-steel Italian coffee maker that could make cappuccino and espresso, with a design that looked like it belonged in the Museum of Modern Art.
He saw three glasses and two bone-china coffee cups in the sink. There were also three plates at the dining table. At first, he figured Maddie must have put out three place settings in anticipation of Hadley’s arrival, but he reminded himself not to make assumptions. Who was the third person? He took photos of the table and the rest of the room, as well as of the kitchen.
A hallway led to the bedrooms. He found Hadley in the master bedroom, sitting on the edge of the king-size bed. She was going through a large black leather purse.
“Is that yours?” Conor asked.
“No, it’s Maddie’s.”
“You need to put it down, Hadley. It’s evidence.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m looking—I want to know who she met! I thought maybe she’d written it down.”
“Wouldn’t she have just put it in her phone? If she wrote it down at all?”
“No, she used a day planner. A red leather Hermès agenda.” Hadley looked up. “She got it in Paris. She took me there last June to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
“My birthday and her separation.”
That filled Conor’s mind with questions, but his phone buzzed, and when he looked, there was a message from Kate: Isabel has arranged for Hadley to wait in room 200 until Sea Garden is ready again. I’ll meet you there.
“Come on now, Hadley,” Conor said. “We’ve got to leave here so the detectives can do their work.”
He knew she didn’t want to put down her sister’s purse. She didn’t want to leave her sister’s suite. This was the last place Maddie had stayed. Leaving now would be walking away from another part of her sister’s life. Conor knew that there would be much more leaving to come. It wouldn’t get easier.
Finally, Hadley set the bag down on a chaise longue beside a second set of french doors leading to the same terrace that curved around the living room.
“This is where I found it,” she said.
“Good,” Conor said. “It will be helpful to leave everything just the way it was.”
“The way she left it.”
“Yes,” he said.
She walked out ahead of him, and he took a moment to photograph the room and walk-in closet. There was a small safe tucked between two shelves. Maddie’s suitcase was open on a folding luggage caddy, and he snapped a photo of that, too.
Photographing the victim’s room was habit, whether it was his investigation or not. But this was about sisters, Maddie and Hadley. He thought about Kate and Beth and felt the electricity he always did when a case grabbed hold of him.
Conor and Hadley arrived at room 200 where Kate was waiting. She led Hadley to a small sofa by the window. A few minutes later, Conor answered a knock at the door and greeted Joe Harrigan and the detective Conor had seen at the crime scene.
“This is my partner, Garrett Milne,” Joe said to Conor. “Garrett, this is Conor Reid. Conor heads up Major Crimes, closest district to us, over in Connecticut.”
“Hey, Conor,” Garrett said. As they shook hands, Conor was pretty sure he had encountered him at New England police seminars, but they had never actually met. The small world of regional law enforcement.
Conor and the two Rhode Island detectives walked over to Kate and Hadley. Joe said hello to Kate and introduced himself and Garrett to Hadley.
“Ms. Cooke, we’ve asked the FBI to join the investigation,” Joe said. “Special Agent Patrick O’Rourke is on his way upstairs now.”
Conor knew that Joe’s statement was not, strictly speaking, correct. The FBI automatically worked child abduction cases and would not have to be invited in by state or local police. It was a misconception to believe that the agency entered a case only when it involved a victim being taken across state lines. Under the Violent Crimes Against Children program, the FBI investigated all disappearances of children of “tender years”—under twelve years old.
“We’d like to talk to you now, Ms. Cooke, and Special Agent O’Rourke will have his own questions,” Joe said.
“Okay,” Hadley said. “You need to find CeCe. Please tell me she’s alive. She must be so scared—she needs us.” Then, as if hearing that last word made her realize Maddie was gone, Hadley corrected herself. “She needs me.”
“Do you have a recent photo of her?” Joe asked.
Hadley nodded and pulled out her phone. She held it up; the wallpaper on her lock screen was a close-up of CeCe’s face. Conor saw a beautiful, happy-looking little girl with bright-blue eyes and a big smile.
“Can you send it to me?” Joe asked, giving her a number.
“Hadley,” Conor said, “you can believe that every officer in New England is looking for her right now.”
“The FBI will be posting billboards all up and down 95 and other highways, with that photo and the offer of a reward,” Garrett said.
Conor knew that Pat O’Rourke was out of the FBI’s New Haven field office. He had worked with him in the past, on kidnapping and other cases in Connecticut. He was very good, an agent who worked well with local cops.
Joe said that they would like to interview Hadley in private and question Conor and Kate next. Conor completely understood. He and Joe respected each other, and he was pretty sure Joe would blur the lines when it came to Conor’s input, but at the moment, procedure took precedence. It didn’t matter how invested Conor felt; the investigation belonged to Rhode Island. He was just a shadow for now.
4
CeCe sat next to the boy. He looked angry. She had screamed when he had pulled her away from her mother, picked her up, and carried her to the car, but now she was silent. Her fingers and toes were frozen, and the heat from the radiator was making them hurt so much she thought they might fall off; what would she do if they did? Why wasn’t her mother here with her? Her heart beat with the question, not the answer, because the answer was too terrible. She wanted her mother.
“This sucks,” the boy said.
Don’t say “suck,” CeCe wanted to tell him. Her mother had told her not to use bad words, and she didn’t like them; they scared her. Another thing that scared her was wondering if the boy was the one who had made the red ribbons in the snow, streaming from her mother’s head.
“Did you see those fucking cop cars?” the boy asked. “I should have let you stay there. I shouldn’t have gone back for you. You know how much trouble I’ll be in if they catch me with you?”
“Then let me go,” CeCe said. “I won’t get you in trouble.”
“Yeah, sure. You’ll tell.”
“Tell what?” CeCe asked. Her mother sometimes said “he meant well” or “she meant well” when someone did something in a way that wasn’t very nice. Maybe the boy thought he was helping her, rescuing her, by carrying her to his car. It was dry, warmer than the snowbank. She thought of her mother on the beach path.
“Tell—what do you think?” he asked. “I’m basically a kidnapper now. And worse.” He reached down between the seats and pulled out a gun. “See this? Now you understand? You weren’t supposed to be with her!”
CeCe hunched her shoulders.
“Can we go back and get her?” she asked.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “Don’t you get it?”
CeCe was shaking, trying to erase her mind. She only wanted to sit and hold Star, rub the cloth on her cheek and smell its familiar scent. She didn’t want to “get it.”
“Didn’t your parents teach you to be afraid of strangers?” he asked. “I’m a stranger.”
“Star,” she whispered. “Star, Star, Star.”
“Fuck it,” he said. “Never mind.” He rubbed his sleeve on the window next to him to clear the fog. He looked out into the storm. CeCe knew where they were. They were parked just down the hill from the hotel and the beach path. She and her mother had walked around the pretty little town almost every day since they had moved into the suite.
The carousel was close by. The flying-horse merry-go-round. She had taken so many rides on it during the summer. Her favorite horse was brown with a red-fringed saddle blanket. Older kids grabbed for the brass ring, and her mother had told her she could do that when she was bigger, maybe even next summer.
The water on this side was the harbor, and it was calmer than the ocean. During the summer and fall, it had been full of boats. She and her mother had walked out on the big, curving beach called Napatree Point, and her mother had told her that this part of the harbor was called “the Kitchen” because almost a hundred years ago there had been a hurricane and many houses were wrecked, their things dashed into the water, and people still sometimes found forks and knives and plates from those long-ago families.
