“Do you know whose body it is?”
“The father. Henry McAndrews.”
“Are you still in the house?”
“No.”
“Any chance the police could figure out that you were in the house?”
“No.”
“You say that with a lot of confidence,” Hester said.
Wilde didn’t reply.
“How long would you say he’s been dead?”
“I’m not a pathologist.”
“But?”
“I’d guess at least a week.”
“Interesting,” Hester said. “You’d think his wife or kids would have called it in or something. I assume you called me for legal advice.”
Wilde didn’t reply.
“Two choices,” she continued. “Choice One: Coming clean and calling it in.”
“I broke into the house.”
“We could work with that. You walked by. You smelled something funny.”
“So dressed all in black with a black mask and gloves, I slid open the back door in a remote house on several acres of private property, nowhere near where anyone would be taking a casual stroll—”
“Could all be explained,” Hester said.
“For real?”
“Might take some time. But they’d know you didn’t kill him because the autopsy would show he was killed at least a week ago. I’ll eventually get you off.”
“Choice Two?” he said.
“Are you worried the police won’t believe you?”
“If I come forward, they’ll dig into me, my past, all of it. They might even relook at the Maynard case.”
Hester hadn’t thought of that. The Maynard case had seemed an “ordinary” kidnapping to the outside world; it was anything but. That had been kept quiet for a lot of good reasons. “I see,” she said.
“And best scenario if I did come clean—who would be their main suspect?”
“I’m not following…oh, wait. Your cousin?”
“Who else?”
“Yeah, but come on, Wilde. Would you want to protect him if he murdered this guy?”
“No.”
“Being trolled isn’t a justification for murder,” Hester said.
“Unless he’s a Nazi.”
“Are you making a joke?”
“Not a good one, but yes. I don’t know if Peter Bennett was involved or not. We don’t have a clue what’s going on.”
“You can’t just leave a body to rot,” Hester said. “My legal advice would be to call it in.”
“What’s Choice Two?”
“That is Choice Two. Choice One was to come clean. Choice Two is to call it in anonymously. I would advise Choice One, but I have a stubborn client.”
“And you see his point,” Wilde added.
“I do.” Hester switched hands. “Tell you what. I’ll call it in. They can’t compel me to say a name. Attorney-client privilege, but this way they might keep me in the loop. I assume there is no way to trace our current call?”
“None.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know what I find out.”
She hung up. When she got back to the bedroom, Oren was getting dressed. She didn’t stop him. She had no trouble with him staying all night, but it was something neither encouraged.
“You okay?” Oren asked, pulling his T-shirt over those shoulders.
“Do you know any cops in Litchfield County?”
“I can find one, why?”
“I need to report a dead body.”
Chapter
Fifteen
Wilde got rid of the car back at Ernie’s. Ernie would do whatever he needed to make sure the car could never be traced. When something like this went down, that usually entailed stripping down the vehicle for parts. Ernie wouldn’t ask Wilde for details, and Wilde wouldn’t ask Ernie. Safer for all parties.
Rola picked him up. He handed her the flash drive. Then he filled her in as she drove him away in a Honda minivan loaded up with child safety seats. Her face grew grim as he spoke.
“This flash drive,” she said. “I better do the full analysis myself.”
“You can do that?”
“If it’s not too complicated, yeah. Don’t get me wrong. I trust my experts. They understand discretion.”
“But you don’t want to put them in that position.”
“Not when there’s a dead body.”
Wilde nodded. “Fair.”
“Still, we can’t be the bad guys here. If we find something that can help the police locate the killer, we turn it over to them, right?”