Joe nodded. “Thanks. On my end, I had the crime lab compare a bunch of John Doe prints they collected at Gregory’s house to Linda’s. They found several matches. It was their opinion that, given the number of prints and where they were found, she must have spent a fair amount of time there.”
“How’d you get her prints to compare to?” Willy asked.
“I collected a bunch of her personal items from home-birth control dispenser, sanitary napkin box, stuff like that-and sent them to the lab.”
“She wasn’t there?”
“I made sure neither she nor Marie would be,” Joe replied, and then addressed them all. “I also had a brief chat with her husband, Jeff, and asked him about the time the whole family discussed Gregory’s offer to list the farm. Marie had told me it was no big deal-that Linda had made a pitch to sell and run with the money, but that she’d folded once everyone else went against her. Jeff’s story was a little different. He says she really pushed for it, crying, yelling. Told me it was the first time he realized she might not really like the farming life.”
“Well, duh,” Willy snorted. “You have to talk to this clown with a two-by-four in your hand?”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Sam muttered to herself.
“Pretty understandable self-denial,” Joe explained. “The farm means everything to him. That’s partly what made me think for a while that Marie did it.”
“And crispy-crittered her own kid?” Willy asked with an incredulous laugh. “I love it. You are hard, boss man.”
“Bad enough that the sister did it,” Sam said quietly. “So what’s the connection between Bobby dying and Linda killing Gregory?”
“I think we better ask her that face-to-face,” Joe concluded.
Chapter 26
She sat on the ground, using his gravestone as a backrest, her eyes squinting against the setting sun as she took in the view all the way across St. Albans, the bay, the lake with its islands, and to the ragged gray horizon cut like a rough tear by the Adirondack Mountains.
It had been a beautiful day, clear and dry and warm with the scent of spring. She’d longed to sit on the grass like this, using Bobby to rest against as they used to, back-to-back, long ago. But until now it had been too cold or too wet, so typical of this godforsaken land. She’d been missing his company-his easygoing ways, his willingness to listen, the fact that he never once mocked her dreams, no matter how fanciful.
He was the only one she’d told about John, and he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, as she knew he wouldn’t, no matter how uncomfortable he felt. That part made her feel a little guilty at first, before her own enthusiasm overwhelmed her. But she hadn’t been able to keep it to herself, and who else was there?
Bobby was great, of course. Understanding and supportive, even if a little confused. He first assumed that she was breaking up with Jeff, naturally enough. It was hard to explain that becoming John’s lover had less to do with sex than with the launching of something new and bright and hopeful for all of them. That in this man’s arms, surrounded by his things, intoxicated by his presumption of privilege and money, she caught hold of a vision that she could make real for her family-including Jeff.
She pursed her lips slightly. It wasn’t Bobby’s fault, of course. As good and as sympathetic as he’d been, she knew it hadn’t fully made sense to him. He’d been too brainwashed by the whole farming family mystique, and God knows, that was no surprise, given the company he kept. Jeff treated the farm like the Holy Grail, Dad saw it as a sacred trust, even Mom got it twisted up in the Bible, if only from the Book of Job. None of them could be expected to see the wisdom of her insight-the sheer, unromantic practicality of it.
She rubbed her flat stomach with her hand, touching the underside of one breast in the process, and smiled. Okay, truthfully, it hadn’t started that way, so altruistically. She’d been attracted by the man’s style-his clothes, his car, the self-confidence in his eyes. He was clean, for one thing, with slim, well-cared-for hands, and smelled great. That first day, the only time he’d been by the farm, to ask if they wanted to list it with his company, she reacted to the whole package like an animal in heat, bumping up against him once at the door, placing her hand against the small of his back, catching a whiff of his aftershave.
It was a small step to finding out where he lived, to dropping by his house after hours one night, to literally stepping into his arms as soon as he opened the door. Not saying a word, she kissed him hard, feeling his hands immediately slipping under her clothes, expertly undressing her all the way to his bed, in total silence, like a tangible, corporeal dream.
That had been all about relief and freedom and unbridled sex. The visionary stuff came later, when she understood that at least some part of this pleasure could be transplanted to her home and husband, who she knew could supply the love that John was incapable of. In the sex was born a greater hunger, and in that hunger, a need that slipped imperceptibly into obsession.
She told Bobby of her affair with John Gregory, of her attraction to his belongings, his freedom, his money, and his lifestyle. But she didn’t tell him of her plans to make a gift of their ilk to her family-how she would end their mother’s anger and shame, alleviate their father’s crushing responsibility, and allow Bobby and Jeff and her children to taste and flourish in a life beyond cow manure, poverty, and the grinding dictatorship of daily chores.
She didn’t tell him how pure serendipity let her appear at John’s house one night, when he was distracted by a phone call and hadn’t noticed her enter, and overhear him discussing a barn-burning job with a professional arsonist.
So quiet she thought she’d stopped breathing, she listened, transfixed, all horror displaced by the notion that this was like a sign from above-the answer to everyone’s problems. The herd and the barn could be destroyed in one fell swoop, the insurance money collected, and the entire farm sold for several times its value.
All because of her sleeping with John.
Her guilt replaced by mission, she made achieving her goal her only purpose. She went at her affair with renewed vigor, satisfying John every way he wished, until she found an opportunity to go through his files and extract the name she’d heard mentioned-Dante Lagasso.
The rest followed naturally. Contacting Lagasso, starting the process, gathering the money. She didn’t know when it would happen or who would do it-Lagasso had said that was a rule-and stayed awake for nights on end, waiting for her liberation.
She leaned her head back against the smooth granite of the headstone, closing her eyes to hold off the tears.
Bobby, what the hell were you doing in there? Of all nights? I was giving you a whole new life.
She tried emptying her mind, getting things lined up again. There was a path to follow here-fault to find… Right. John. In the end, this was all his fault. If he hadn’t come by that day; hadn’t flirted with her the way he had, in her own kitchen; hadn’t exposed her to… everything.
He was the one who killed Bobby in the end, because that’s how you had to look at things these days-you had to find the source. The source of evil. And once you traced it, you had to get rid of it. Find the evildoer. John had threatened them all, finally-burning barns of hardworking farmers; seducing married women; driving around in that useless car; killing innocent boys…
She’d done well, killing him. She’d set things right.
Joe met Gail and her bodyguard at the door of the overflow hearing room. He’d waited in the hallway until the crowd had dwindled to a handful before crossing the threshold, knowing the cop would hold her back, not wanting her surrounded by a crush of people. And a crush there had been. Joe wondered what the fire marshal’s opinion might have been had he been there.