“You got a name?”
“You won’t believe it. You know Ethan Richards? That finance guy who—”
“I know who he is,” Brady interrupted.
“Well, it’s his wife,” Bird said, and was rewarded with the sound of Brady whistling under his breath.
“That’s interesting,” he said.
“It is,” Bird said. “And apparently, she was in Copper Falls last night.”
“She was?”
“Well, her vehicle. Their vehicle, I should say. It’s registered to the husband. Mercedes GLE. Not something you see a lot around here, so people remember it.”
Brady exhaled. “Well, that’s something. And where’s the vehicle now?”
“I don’t know about the Mercedes, but the mistress is at home in Boston.” Bird glanced at the dashboard. “I’ve gotta stop to fuel up, but I should be there in under four hours.”
“Hmm,” Brady said, and fell silent. Bird waited. He was used to these pauses; they meant Brady was thinking. On the other end of the line, Brady cleared his throat and asked, “You think she was an accomplice?”
“Maybe,” Bird said, then quickly added, “I don’t know. Really. I’m back and forth on it. If she wasn’t in on it, it’s a weird damn coincidence. Maybe she just drove the car?”
“What about a hostage situation? He tells her to pick him up, maybe he doesn’t mention he killed his wife—”
“I don’t think so,” Bird said slowly. “She’s at home now, she picked up the phone, and she sure didn’t sound like she was doing it at gunpoint. But I don’t know that she’d run away with him, either. Slumming it with the guy is one thing, but committing to him? Or helping him kill his wife? That’s a whole other level.”
“People do crazy shit for love,” Brady said.
“Or for money,” Bird replied, and found himself nodding along to his own words. “Yeah. If Cleaves is trying to run, he’ll need cash, and he doesn’t know many people who can get it to him. If he’s with her now, or headed there—”
“Right, I’ll call Boston PD,” Brady said, picking up the thread. “Have them do a drive-by. If Cleaves is there, they’ll grab him. If not, they can watch the place till you get there.”
“And the autopsy—”
Brady jumped in. “Don’t worry about it. Chase your lead. The local guy, what’s his name? Ryan? He can send someone, or we will. I’ll call him, too.”
“Thanks, Brady,” Bird said.
“That it?”
Bird thought for a moment. “One more thing. When you talk to Ryan, do me a favor: ask him about a guy named Jake Cutter.”
“That’s your source on the mistress?”
“Yeah,” said Bird. “Twitchy little bastard. I’d like to know who he is, you know, locally speaking. And I’d like to know if there’s a reason why Ed down at Strangler’s wants him arrested.”
Brady chuckled.
“I’ll be in touch.”
Bird hung up, tossed the phone aside, and let his foot come down heavy on the accelerator. Outside, the headlights flashed on two bright copper points by the side of the road, the eyes of a deer lifting its head to watch him pass. Bird flicked on the cruiser’s rooftop strobe lights, even though there was no traffic ahead. Better for him and Bambi both if the wildlife saw him coming.
The exit for Augusta loomed ahead an hour later, white letters stark and reflective against the dark green of the interstate sign. Bird passed it at eighty miles per hour, sparing a thought for Lizzie’s corpse and the impatient medical examiner, who would have to wait just a little while longer to put the scalpel to work. A few miles ahead was a service plaza, where he pulled up to the fueling area and set the nozzle to fill the cruiser’s tank while he pulled out his phone. Before he showed up on her doorstep, he should get to know the woman he was on his way to see. Adrienne was probably best known for being the wife of one of the most despised men in America, but she was sort of interesting in her own right. She’d met Ethan Richards while doing an internship on Wall Street, then married him right out of college, a whirlwind affair—and a nasty surprise to Richards’s first wife, who was left in the lurch. It was quite a strategic series of moves for a girl barely into her twenties; it made it that much harder to believe Adrienne had been unaware of what her husband was doing. Bird scrolled her Wikipedia page—apparently she’d been in the running for one of those Real Housewives reality series before the accounting scandal broke—and then clicked over to her Instagram account. There was one new photo at the top, posted earlier that day: Adrienne with wide eyes and pinkish hair posed alongside a pumpkin spice latte. Bird looked at the hashtags and scowled.