I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.
Hannah
TEN
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019
They drove a little way from the Prosper house before pul ing in again so that Sean could cal Robert Parekh and fil him in on the interview with Neil Prosper. Hannah tried to sort out her own thoughts while she listened to Sean’s side of the phone cal . On the positive side Prosper was clearly useless as an alibi witness. He wasn’t wil ing to talk. On the other hand everything had gone sideways there, just at the very end. What was that al about?
Sean finished his phone cal .
“Wel ?”
“Rob’s not happy. He thinks your point is a good one. If we try to put Prosper on the stand as an alibi for Dandridge, the prosecution wil use the fact that he left town and changed his name to make both of them look guilty.”
“What did you mean, when you asked Prosper if he was afraid of Pierce?”
“Rob’s heard a few rumors. Like maybe Pierce’s squeaky-clean disciplinary record is more to do with the fact that he’s skil ed at intimidation—people are afraid to go up against him. And look, if he was wil ing to beat Dandridge up to get a confession, he’s not going to stop there, is he? I could see Pierce going after Prosper, running him out of town. Maybe threatening Prosper’s sister to keep him in line.”
Hannah thought about it. It was within the realm of possibility. If it was true, Pierce wouldn’t be the first police officer to cross a line in pursuit of a conviction. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Sean gave her a teasing look. “I only get a maybe?”
She smiled at him. “Maybe. I’m just saying, we have to wait for the facts, that’s al .”
“Hannah-of-the-facts, that’s what we’re going to cal you from now on.”
She turned her face away from him as her smile widened. He was too easy to like.
“Okay, we have two options,” Sean said. “It’s too late to visit Dandridge today. We can go straight back to Charlottesvil e now, but we won’t get in until after eleven, and tomorrow we’l have to drive out again to Greensvil e and we’l lose a lot of the day. Or . . .”
“Or what?”
“Or we can drive to Greensvil e now, stay overnight, see Dandridge first thing, and then head back to Charlottesvil e. We should stil get back to the Project’s office by midmorning and have most of Friday to work. What do you think?”
“I don’t mind.” Hannah took out her phone to look up hotels. “It makes sense to stay near Greensvil e overnight. Is there a place you usual y stay?”
“Wel .” He gave her a sidelong look. “Zero pressure. We can stay in a hotel, or whatever, but my mom lives about half an hour outside Greensvil e. She loves visitors. If I message her now there’s a solid chance she’l even make dinner . . . But not if you don’t want to, of course.”
Hannah didn’t want to. She needed to cal Laura and the last thing she wanted to do was spend the evening making smal talk with a stranger. But there was no polite way to say no to the invitation. “Of course,” she said. “That sounds real y good.”
They pul ed up outside Sean’s mother’s house just before ten o’clock. By then Hannah was tired and hungry and al she wanted was an empty hotel room, a shower, and a room service menu. The house was pretty, a renovated 1940s redbrick with a smal but very pretty yard. Everything was beautiful y lit, so even in the dark Hannah couldn’t miss the mature trees, the manicured lawn, the flowering shrubs.
“So your mom is a gardener.”
Sean was getting the bags out of the trunk. “That’s al my uncle,”
he said. “He loves to garden and his place is tiny, so when he gets tired of working over there he comes here and goes nuts. My mom loves the yard but they bicker al the time when he wakes her with the mower or whatever. I think they just like to argue. It reminds them of their childhood, or something.” He led the way to the front door and opened it with his own key. The smel of something cooking met them as soon as he opened the door. The hal way was brightly lit.
Sean dropped their bags at the bottom of the stairs, then turned and ushered her inside.
“Mom?” he cal ed.
“Kitchen.”
They found Abigail Warner sitting at the table in a comfortable, if slightly messy kitchen. She had a glass of red wine in front of her, and an iPad. She was watching an episode of Queer Eye and there was a dog, an older-looking golden retriever, asleep at her feet.