I checked the bulkhead and it was locked, as well. I looked around for a place where the mail might be delivered but didn’t see anything. That didn’t mean no one lived here. If someone was living here, despite its appearance, then that inhabitant could get their mail from a post office box. I returned down the driveway and to my car, sitting for a moment, trying to decide what to do next. It seemed likely that I’d found Richard Seddon, but I needed to confirm it.
I drove back the way I’d come, passing through the town center again. I pulled into the driveway of the library, parking toward the rear, then took out my cell phone and called my old partner Roberta James, who was still working for the Boston Police Department.
“Henry,” she said.
“Hey, James. How are you?”
There was a slight pause, and I could hear her muffled voice saying something to someone else. “I’m good.”
“Is this an okay time?” I said.
“It is, definitely. I’ve been meaning to call you, because your name came up in that murder-suicide in Bingham.”
“Oh, you saw that?”
“Uh-huh. I also saw that you found the bodies.”
“I did.”
“Jesus, what a mess. They’ve closed the case, haven’t they?”
“That’s what I heard, but I haven’t confirmed it. It was pretty obvious what had happened.” I had decided not to tell James about my suspicions, not that I wouldn’t at some point, but it just didn’t make sense to get her involved unless I had to.
“So you’re not calling me with some wild story about what really happened,” she said, reading me, and I could picture the half smile on her face. It turned out I missed Roberta James a lot more than I missed being a Boston police detective.
“I’m saving that for later,” I said. “But I do have a favor to ask.”
“Okay.”
“I have a license number and I have an address, and I’m hoping you can confirm the name attached to both of them.”
“These are public records, Kimball. Don’t you have—”
“I’m in my car and I’m being lazy. Sorry. Should I not have called?”
“No. Just give them to me, and I’ll call you right back.”
While I waited for Roberta to call back, I stepped outside of my car and took a short walk back through the small town. The houses were prettier here than along the river. A landscape company van was parked in front of a gabled Victorian, and one of the employees was taking a break, leaning up against the truck, smoking a cigarette. I could smell the tobacco on the air even from across the street, and I had one of my periodic pangs when I missed cigarettes. I think it was the crisp fall weather, the clean-tasting air, that made me want to blow some smoke into it.
On the way back to my car my phone buzzed.
“Car is registered to a Richard Boyars Seddon, and the house is listed as belonging to a Donald Kizer Seddon. Is that helpful?”
“It is,” I said.
“And just because I wanted to save time I ran both names to see if they had records.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“Donald Kizer Seddon was charged with assault and battery of a coworker back in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1972. And there is nothing on a Richard Boyars Seddon.”
“Thank you, thank you. I owe you.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“Still, a bottle of scotch,” I said.
“Anytime,” Roberta said.
I drove back to Cambridge thinking about Richard Seddon. His cousin had drowned while both of them were on vacation together, back in 2000 at the Windward Resort. And there was a possibility that Joan Grieve had been there too, although that needed to be confirmed. And then Richard Seddon’s friend James Pursall had shot and killed Madison Brown and then himself. Joan Grieve had been in the same room, and Joan, if I remembered correctly, was in a fight with Madison Brown. It wasn’t much, I realized, but it was something.
I was thinking about the case, and not thinking about where I was driving, and realized suddenly that I was working my way toward West Concord in order to get back onto Route 2. I would pass the Taste of Hong Kong, and just the thought of that restaurant brought up two contradictory feelings. The horror of what had happened to Pam O’Neil and the taste of Pete Liu’s mai tai cocktails. When I reached the restaurant, I drove straight past, trying not to think about either of those things.
Chapter 25
Richard
All during his shift at the hardware store, Richard kept thinking about the car that had been parked out on the street in front of his apartment, that man looking under the hood. Had that man, in his dark jeans and tweed jacket, looked vaguely familiar? Was Richard being watched, and, if so, by whom? Then he told himself he was being paranoid, and that paranoia was a sign of weakness. He also told himself that if he saw the man one more time then something was probably up. It wasn’t the worst feeling because that would mean he would have to contact Joan, find her and let her know that they should meet in the library. Then they’d deal with the problem together.
It was a slow day in the store, and Richard kept waiting for George to tell him he could leave early if he wanted. He always said it the same way, ambling up to Richard with his hands tucked into the overalls he wore because he was too fat in the stomach for regular jeans. “Oh, hey there, Rich,” he’d say. “It’s a tad slow today, so if you want to punch out and go do something more fun, then it would be fine with me. We’ll manage without you, I think.” Then he’d laugh like a donkey and show his mossy-looking teeth. It was just his way to try to save some money, of course, because being a cheap bastard was his prime directive. It was one of Richard’s theories that everyone had a prime directive that ruled their life. George’s son’s prime directive was to lust after every woman who came into the store, staring at them and making them uncomfortable. Richard’s prime directive was to one day reveal himself to the world.
After lunch Richard returned to his station at the register and allowed his mind to wander a little. It wasn’t something he did too often at work because sometimes he’d be so caught up in his own thoughts he wouldn’t realize someone was talking to him. But today was slow and he let himself imagine the book that would be written about him in the future. He wondered how much of the book would be devoted to the killings he’d done with Joan Grieve. Would they even know about them? They’d know about the big events, of course, the ones that were still to come. Collapsing the roof of the Winslow Oaks Convention Center on top of an entire class of seniors celebrating their prom. That was going to be his masterpiece. But he often wondered if he should do something else first, maybe a trial run. He’d successfully rigged a homemade bomb that he could blow up using a wireless trigger from about one hundred yards away. It was the same technology used in car locks, and it had been so easy to devise that he wondered why people weren’t doing it all the time. His dream was to test it out at that Chevrolet dealership in Athol on one of the days that Danny Eaton was working. It had been such a shock two years earlier when he’d gone there to look for a car and seen Danny, one of the biggest pricks from Dartford-Middleham Hellschool, lording his way around the showroom. Danny had come right up to Richard, asking him if he needed help, and it was clear that he didn’t remember who he was, despite the fact that they’d had at least three classes together. Richard had told him he was just looking and watched as Danny ran his eyes up from Richard’s shoes, as though he was analyzing what kind of person Richard was from the way he was dressed. “Take your time, buddy,” Danny said. “Then come find me when you’re ready to make a deal.”