He grew concerned. “What is this?”
“You’ll find a sample of Peter Stanhope’s DNA in a bloodstain on the dress,” Tish said.
Stride closed the bag and stared at the sky. “What the hell did you do?”
“What I had to.”
“Son of a bitch, Tish, are you out of your mind?”
“Look, Peter is guilty, and you told me flat out that there’s no way the courts can force him to give us a sample. So I took it. I hope I left a scar, too.”
“You just confessed to battery.”
“He started it when he tried to kiss me, the bastard. I know what you think, but I got us something we never had before. A way to confirm whether Peter was stalking Laura.”
Stride shook his head. “It’s not that simple. There’s a reason why a court wouldn’t compel a DNA sample. We don’t have any probable cause. Even if we run the test and find out that Stanhope was sending Laura those notes, that doesn’t change anything. It’s not like Pat Burns is going to put him in front of a jury. It’s not going to happen.”
“Are you saying you won’t run the sample?”
“Do you think I just snap my fingers and get these things done? There’s a backlog. There are other priorities. It’s one thing to compare DNA in a stalker note against a database to try to break a cold case open. It’s another to test one specific individual just because you’ve got it in your head that he’s guilty.”
“Don’t make it worthless, Jon. Tell me I didn’t do this for nothing.”
“I’ll talk to Pat Burns. That’s all I can do.”
“I can’t believe you’d ignore this,” Tish insisted. “I can’t believe you’d walk away from the one chance we have to find out what really happened. You heard Finn’s story. Peter assaulted Laura that night. He was in the field with the bat after Dada rescued her.”
“Finn has no credibility. If there’s one person whose DNA I’d like to run, it’s Finn.”
“What are you talking about? You think Finn killed Laura?”
“I think it’s a damn strong possibility. Finn is deranged, Tish. It’s not a big leap to think he was capable of murder.”
“You’re giving Peter Stanhope a free pass. Is it because of his money? Did you learn your lessons from Ray Wallace?” She stopped. Her eyes widened as she realized what she had said. “God, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
“No one gets a free pass from me,” Stride said.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You’re the one who can’t see past Peter Stanhope,” Stride said. “There are plenty of other people who are hiding things about Laura. Including you.”
“Me?”
“Rikke said you were jealous of Laura’s relationship with Peter.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It looks to me like you’re obsessed with him,” Stride said.
“This isn’t about Peter. No one else was standing up for Laura, so I decided it was up to me.”
“Why?”
“She was my best friend.”
“So why were the two of you fighting that spring?”
“We weren’t. We were past it.”
“What was the fight about?”
“I told you that I don’t remember. It was thirty years ago.”
“You’re lying, Tish. Don’t lie to a cop and think I won’t know. Were you fighting about Peter Stanhope? Is that why you’re so focused on Peter? It makes me wonder whether you had a motive to kill Laura.”
“That’s crazy. You don’t honestly think I would go through all this trouble if I had anything to do with her murder, do you?”
“Where were you that night?” Stride asked.
“I already told you. I was living in St. Paul.”
“No, what specifically were you doing that night? Where were you? Who were you with?”
Tish shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“That’s strange. I’d think you’d remember what you were doing the night your best friend was brutally murdered.”
“You’re making too much of this,” Tish said. She stood up, and the chair toppled backward into the sand behind her. “Laura was killed by a stalker. You’ve got Peter’s DNA. It’s up to you now.”
“I have one more question,” Stride told her. “And you’d better answer this one.”
Tish folded her arms in annoyance. “What?”
“When did Cindy show you a photo of our house?”
Tish’s mouth fell open. Stride thought she had slipped, that she had said something she never intended to share. “I don’t know. It was probably something she included with a Christmas card.”
“Stop lying to me. You said Cindy showed you a photograph. She didn’t send it to you. She was with you. When was this?”
“A few months before she died,” Tish admitted.
“Where?”
“She visited me in Atlanta.”
Stride searched his memory. In those last terrible months, Cindy had begun to wrap her mind around the fact that she was dying, that the treatment options had finally run out. The only time he could remember her being gone was a weekend where she went off by herself, vanishing from his side for three long days. To make peace with the past, she said. She never told him where she went or anything about her trip. Back then, he had been afraid that she might commit suicide to spare him and herself the agony of a slow death. He now knew that she had gone to see Tish.
Someone she had never mentioned to him in her entire life.
Why?
“You owe me the truth,” Stride said.
Tish picked up the fallen chair and steadied it in the sand. She sat down again but didn’t look at Stride.
“Cindy first wrote to me about fifteen years ago,” Tish said. “It was shortly after her father died.”
“Did you know William Starr?”
“Enough to despise him.”
Stride nodded. He remembered the long weeks in which Cindy had sat at her father’s bedside while he waged a losing battle with cancer. William Starr had always been a hard man to like. Judgmental. Rigid. Obsessed with righteousness and punishment and all the while terrified of going to hell for his own sins. Death has a way of softening even the toughest of men. Stride remembered Cindy holding her father’s hand, listening to him weep, giving him absolution in a way that no priest ever could.