I open my hands. “Okay . . . ?”
She fixes a stare on me. “Lauren stayed that week and through Memorial Day in Chicago. Memorial Day was May 31, Simon. May 31, 2010. You know what that means.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re gonna make me say it?”
“I’m afraid so, Jane. I’m not following.”
“Oh, you’re following just fine. Your father was murdered on May 27, 2010. Lauren was in Chicago at the time of his murder.”
“Wow,” I say.
“Yeah, wow. Try to sound a little more surprised.”
“Hey, Jane, y’know what you should do?”
She cocks her head in mock curiosity. “What should I do, Simon?”
“You should check Lauren’s fingerprints—I mean, I assume you took exclusion prints of her when you found her dead.”
“We sure did, Simon. We sure did.”
“You should run those prints and see if they’re a match on that champagne bottle used to incapacitate my father at his murder scene.”
Jane gets off the couch. “Should I do that, Simon? Should I?”
“Yeah, you should,” I say. “I mean, if I’m capable of driving down to St. Louis and killing Ted, I don’t see why Lauren wouldn’t be just as capable. And she didn’t have final exams to worry about. Right?”
“Right, Simon. Exactly right. And, in fact, we did run her prints. And surprise, surprise, that champagne bottle has Lauren’s prints on it.”
“That’s—that’s great. Case closed! The St. Louis murder has been solved!”
She likes that, a bitter smile, shaking her head. “Everyone asked, why wait so long to kill his father? Why wait until his final exam week to drive down to St. Louis and kill his father? Turns out, you didn’t pick it because it was final exams week. You picked it because Lauren Lemoyne had come back to the States.”
I shrug. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, how would I know that Lauren was coming back to town?”
“Facebook, that’s how.” She pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket. A printout from a Facebook page—Lauren’s, I assume—well, actually, I know, because I remember reading it back then—from May 12, 2010:
So excited to return to Chicago next week to celebrate my parents’ 35th! I’ll be in through Memorial Day at the Drake!
I hand the sheet back to her, keep a blank face. Jane Burke is a very good detective. But if she’s here, it means she’s lost the battle.
She walks up to me. “Just so you know—I know. I know you did all of this. Your father, Lauren, and Nick Caracci. And you’re gonna walk from the whole damn thing.”
She brushes past me and heads for the door.
“Hey, Jane?”
She turns at the door.
“Grace Village has one damn smart detective on the force,” I say.
She gives me a deadpan expression. “Coming from anyone else on the face of the earth,” she says, “I’d consider that a compliment.”
102
Vicky
I can only make dinner last so long. The girls and I order some food for Adam and drive back to the house. I’ve tried to stay engaged with the kids during dinner, Macy being so excited about her pierced ears, but all I can do is rehearse my lines.
Not that there’s much to rehearse. Deny everything, and if they back you into a corner, refuse to answer.
Where was I on Halloween, Officer? Why, I was at my apartment I’m renting in Delavan, Wisconsin, answering the door to trick-or-treaters. I left my cell phone there, per the plan. I didn’t stream a continuous series of episodes off Netflix like Simon did, but my phone was there, regardless. It would ping the nearest cell tower at least a few times, even if not doing much of anything besides refreshing.
Christian Newsome? Never heard of him. Nick Caracci? Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.
My car? I drive a beater 2007 Chevy Lumina. You want to check the plates to see if they were ever recorded by tollway cameras or local POD cameras in Chicago? Go ahead and check. They never were. That car hasn’t been over the Wisconsin border since I moved to Delavan almost a year ago.
Oh, I may have used a Jeep to travel back and forth to Chicago, but that vehicle’s long gone now, and the registration won’t come back to me or Simon, anyway.
Simon Dobias? Never met him, Officer. You mean the guy who let me talk to him for hours and hours after my first SOS meeting, who scraped me off the floor a week later, when I was about to follow my sister, Monica, into the world of overdosing—me on cocaine, not oxy?