It wasn’t enough to make a cop say this is important, this means something. But a mother doesn’t need evidence to know when something is wrong.
“If you see this man again, Amy, call me. Anytime, day or night.” Jane took out a business card with her cell phone number. Amy stared at the card as if it were coated in poison, as if accepting it meant accepting the danger was real.
Her mother took the card instead. “We will,” she said.
It was Julianne who walked with them out of the study and ushered them out the front door. On the porch, Julianne closed the door behind them, so her daughter wouldn’t hear what she said to them next.
“I know you don’t want to scare Amy, but you scared me.”
“There may be nothing at all to worry about,” said Jane. “We just want you and Dr. Antrim to keep your eyes open. And if you get any more calls from that phone number, get a name.”
“I will.”
Jane and Frost started down the porch steps and suddenly Jane stopped and looked back at Julianne. “Dr. Antrim isn’t Amy’s biological father, is he?”
Julianne paused, clearly taken aback by the question. “No. I married Mike when Amy was ten years old.”
“May I ask who her father is?”
“Why on earth do you want to know?”
“She said the man at the cemetery seemed familiar, and I wondered if—”
“I left him when Amy was eight years old. Trust me, that man in the video wasn’t him.”
“Just out of curiosity, where is her father now?”
“I don’t know.” Julianne’s mouth tightened in disgust and she looked away. “And I don’t care.”
Jane sipped a glass of beer as she sat at her kitchen table, reading the Boston PD report of Amy Antrim’s hit-and-run accident. The accident report was a far shorter document than the pages and pages of documents that a homicide case usually generated, and Jane quickly absorbed the essentials. Two months ago, at approximately 8:38 p.m. on a Friday, a male witness saw Amy Antrim step into a crosswalk on Huntington Avenue, right in front of Northeastern University. She had taken only a step or two when she was struck by a black sedan moving west. The witness said the vehicle was moving at high speed, perhaps fifty miles per hour. After hitting Amy, the driver did not even slow down but sped away in the direction of the Massachusetts Turnpike on-ramp.
A day later a black Mazda, matching the witness’s description and caught on video by four separate CCTVs in the area, was found abandoned just outside the city of Worcester, forty-five miles away. Damage to the front bumper, along with blood that matched the victim’s, confirmed it was the vehicle that hit Amy. The registered owner of the Mazda had reported the vehicle stolen two days before the accident. The thief was never identified.
And probably never would be, thought Jane. She took another sip of beer and leaned back in her chair, stretching the stiffness from her shoulders. Tonight it was Gabriel’s turn to give Regina her bath, and judging by the happy squeals from the bathroom, they were having such a splashy good time that Jane was tempted to close the laptop and join them. Or at least bring a few extra towels to sop up the water before it seeped into the floorboards. Was she wasting her time, reviewing an accident that was probably not relevant to the Sofia Suarez murder? Maybe it was just bad luck that had placed Amy in that crosswalk at that particular moment. Maybe the man in the gray raincoat who’d struck up a conversation with Amy at the cemetery was just another unconnected incident that had nothing to do with Sofia Suarez’s murder.
So many distracting details. So many ways to lose sight of the killer.
Bath time was over; she could hear the tub draining and suddenly four-year-old Regina scampered into the kitchen stark naked, her skin slick and rosy from the bath. Gabriel was right behind her, and judging by his soaked shirt, he’d caught the brunt of Regina’s splashing.
“Whoa, baby.” He laughed, trying to corral their daughter with a towel. “Let’s get ready for bed. Mommy’s working.”
“Mommy’s always working.”
“Because she has an important job.”
“But not as important as you are!” said Jane, and scooped her wet daughter onto her lap, where Regina sat wriggling, as slippery as a seal. Gabriel handed her a towel and Jane wrapped her daughter into a snug little Regina enchilada.
“Any breakthroughs?” asked Gabriel as he uncapped a beer for himself.
“More like alleys. Lots and lots of blind alleys.”