“He’s in Houston.”
Filmore scratched his neck. “Well, we can’t delay. We’ll have to send Rodriquez and Abbey.”
Laurie lowered her eyes. She trusted both detectives, but worried about how Frank would respond, which only served to support Filmore’s theory that she was too close. “Yes, Lieutenant,” she said.
As first on scene, Laurie would usually be required to remain, but Filmore’s presence eased her departure. She took one last, involuntary glance at Grace before leaving, again noting the “running” positioning of the body, as the CSIs carefully photographed and videoed the scene, taking samples from the surrounding areas before they would even start to examine the body. At some point, Sandra and Glen would be asked to identify their daughter, and though it was of the smallest mercies, Laurie was glad that scavengers hadn’t had time to destroy Grace’s features.
She called Rodriquez as she pulled away from the scene and instructed him to go easy on Frank. “Wait for me before you conduct the interview,” she told him.
As she drove back to the Harringtons’， she called Remi and told him everything that had happened. She was grateful when he didn’t question her motives for going to the scene in the first place.
“You want me to come back?” he said.
“Have you finished what needs to be done there?”
“I have a few more people to speak to.”
“Do we have a sighting for Glen Harrington on the night of Grace’s disappearance?”
“He left work on the Tuesday at 3 p.m. Not that unusual, apparently. He often worked from his apartment.”
“Do we have a sighting of him at the apartment building?”
“He was keyed in at 3.30 p.m. Left at 6 p.m., and back again at 10 p.m.”
“Just long enough to get to Galveston and back.”
“It would be a push, unless he gave someone else the key code. You really think he might have something to do with it?”
Laurie hadn’t made her mind up about Glen Harrington just yet. His sullenness could be put down to stress over his daughter’s disappearance, but Remi knew very well that parents and close family had to be considered as suspects in such cases as this. Glen wouldn’t be the first father to kill his daughter, and there was still much for her to learn about the Harringtons. “Search for a sighting of him on the night of Grace’s disappearance,” she told him. “I’ll question him again about his movements.”
“He won’t take kindly to that.”
“I’m sure he won’t,” said Laurie, pulling up outside the house. There was nothing much she was going to say that either parent was going to like to hear, she thought as she made her way up the stairs and knocked on the front door.
Chapter Fifteen
This time, Sandra Harrington answered the door. Laurie had given many death notifications over the years. They never became any easier, and they often went this way. Laurie paused before speaking and Sandra saw it in her eyes.
“No,” said Grace’s mother, shaking her head, staring blankly at her as if she could see straight through her. “No,” she continued, as Glen joined her side.
“What is it?” he said, glancing at Sandra, who was now in tears, and then back at Laurie.
“Please, can I come in?” said Laurie.
“What is it, what’s happened?” said Glen, his voice rising in tone and urgency.
Laurie did her best to stay detached but it was impossible not to be empathetic to the situation. “I’m afraid Grace’s body has been found,” she said softly, not wishing to prolong the parents’ misery any further.
Glen Harrington turned away, took a couple of steps and fell to his knees as Sandra continued staring at Laurie, dumbstruck.
“Let’s go inside,” said Laurie. Placing her arm around Sandra, she drew her inside and shut the door, silencing the menacing whistle of the wind.
It took a few seconds for Sandra to go to her husband. Glen was by now prostrate on the wooden floor as if he’d been knocked out, and Sandra fell into hysterics as she bent down to him. Laurie wanted to look away, but needed to see the interaction. As heartless as it felt, the pair couldn’t be ruled out as suspects and she had to gauge the genuineness of their grief, and if it was tinged with guilt.
As she watched Sandra console her husband, easing him up onto his knees so she could embrace him, Laurie was reminded of one of her first cases as a detective working alongside Jim Burnell. That had been a missing person case too, a ten-year-old boy whose body was eventually found near Jamaica Beach. Laurie had been present with Burnell for the death notification. He’d told her to study the parents’ reactions—this time a mother and a stepfather. Both had broken down in grief, in an almost identical way to the Harringtons, but Burnell had seen something in the reaction of the mother when being comforted by the stepfather—a simple shrug as he’d tried to embrace her—that had led him to suspect foul play. The stepfather was eventually successfully prosecuted for homicide, the mother for aiding and abetting.
That incident had taught Laurie many lessons, the most important being that nothing could be trusted at face value. That was a tough and sad lesson to learn, but one that had been necessary for her to succeed on the force.
As Laurie looked away from the grieving couple, she noticed Tilly for the first time, her short figure resting against the door frame of the kitchen area. As Laurie moved toward her, arms outstretched, the girl began repeating Sandra’s gesture of shaking her head in denial.
“It’s my fault,” said Tilly, tears streaming down her face.
Tilly may have become part of the family recently, but the last thing Sandra and Glen needed at the moment was the girl breaking down in front of them. Laurie led her into the kitchen. Putting her arm around her, noticing how broad the girl’s shoulders were, she asked why she thought she was to blame.
“You don’t understand,” said Tilly, through increasing hysteria.
Like the parents, Tilly had to be considered a suspect, and Laurie waited for her explanation, though she wasn’t expecting an admission of guilt. She poured her some water as she waited for her to calm down.
“If I hadn’t gone crazy about Mia, then she would never have gone out for a run in that direction,” said Tilly through rushed gulps of water. “This would never have happened.”
Mia will have to be brought in for questioning too, thought Laurie as she took the glass from Tilly’s shaking hands. Despite the girl’s protestations, Laurie didn’t think their argument had any bearing on the killing. The similarities to the Annie Randall death suggested to her that Grace had been targeted and that the abduction had been planned, and she didn’t want Tilly blaming herself.
She sat with the makeshift family until one of the junior detectives, Gemma Clayton, arrived. Gemma would spend the next few days with the family, and would report back directly to Laurie. Her role would be to offer support, at the same time studying the Harringtons for any clues, a similar role to the one Laurie had taken during the Annie Randall investigation.
Once Laurie had settled Gemma in with the family, she made her goodbyes. So many formalities still had to be concluded, but for now she didn’t want to burden the three of them with anything more.