Campbell stiffened and eyed her cautiously. “No, I didn’t.”
“Now she did clear out at the first sign of his declining health. I was already engaged to Vernon by then. I suppose you didn’t know that, either. Or didn’t want to know it.”
Campbell cleared his throat and said, “Well, you have put me in my place by simply asserting the facts, Clare. I’m... I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Thank you,” she said, her cheeks flushing with emotion. It seemed that Campbell’s last words had finally mollified her. “Now, how can I help you?”
“Agent Devine reported that you told him that Jenny had informed you about her trip to Maine. And that it was for some unfinished business.”
“Yes, that’s right. I... I told him that she called me. But... she actually came in person to visit me here. We sat in this room together.” Her gaze swept across the library and the pain associated with the loss of her eldest child became starkly etched in the woman’s features. “I had no idea it would be the last time I would see... Jenny.”
“I apologize if my questions are causing you pain.”
“They can cause me any level of pain so long as whoever killed Jenny is arrested and punished,” Robards cried out.
Campbell waited a few moments before continuing. “I knew that you and Jenny were estranged. So it was curious that she—”
Robards put up a hand. “That she would bother to come here and tell me of her plans?”
“Yes.”
Robards dropped her hand to her lap and studied the fire. “I suppose Jenny wanted me to know that she had never stopped trying to find out who had attacked Alex.”
“Why would that be important to her? Making sure you knew?”
The anguish in the woman’s features became starker. “Because she was of the opinion that Curt and I never did enough to pursue the matter. She even accused me of being derelict in my duties. She said the same of Curt. Only she couldn’t say it to his face, not now anyway.”
“Why would she think that?” asked Campbell.
“Because in some ways it’s true. Don’t be mistaken, what happened to Alex tore us apart. Curt would have killed the man if he could be found. But... Alex survived and recovered, and the police had no leads and... it was probably not good optics for Curt’s political career.”
“No one could blame him or you for what happened,” Campbell pointed out.
“Politics is an ugly business, Emerson. It was back then and it’s even dirtier today. People would blame Curt for not protecting his daughter. For allowing a teenage girl to wander around by herself at night. Looking for trouble? Count on it.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“That’s because you’re a soldier and an honorable one.” She fidgeted in her seat, playing with the hem of her dress. “And then I suppose for those reasons we... we moved on from what happened to Alex, even though no one was ever held accountable. For Jenny that was an outright betrayal, I suppose. But, we did just move on with our lives and never really talked about it.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks as she spoke these last words. Then she composed herself. “God, it sounds so callous, so heartless, when I say it like that. Particularly since Alex didn’t recover. Not fully. She’s still trapped up in that damn town, in that goddamn house because she’s still afraid to... to move on with her life. She keeps looking over her shoulder, terrified because he’s still out there.”
“You’d think she’d want to get as far away from there as possible.”
“There is nothing logical about fear, Emerson. The mind can play incredibly cruel tricks on you. It can make you do or not do what you couldn’t have imagined yourself ever doing, or not doing.”
“You sound like you speak from experience.”
“Do you really think being married to Curt for all those years was a walk in the park?”
“No one who knew the man would say that. But what more could you have done? That’s the police’s job,” noted Campbell.
“Oh, dear Emerson, there is always more that could have been done. To Jenny, her father walked on water. If Curtis Silkwell wanted it done, it would be done.” She paused. “All I can tell you is that after it happened, he was never the same man again. He had failed his sweet, innocent child. For him, there was no greater crime.”
“So Jenny basically came here to throw all that in your face and state that she was going up there to finally see the truth come out?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Did you tell anyone what Jenny was going to do? Anyone at all?”
“No, Emerson, I swear. Not a soul.” She added, “But if we had done our duty back then she never would have had to deal with it. She would still be alive. This is our fault, Emerson, Curt’s and mine.” She put a shaky hand to her face to wipe the tears away.
He reached across and gripped her arm. “What happened to Jenny is the responsibility of one person and one person only. And I promise you that we will find him.”
She calmed and nodded. “You must have great confidence in your Mr. Devine.”
“I do. More than perhaps even he knows.”
Chapter 49
Devine was in his cottage the next day studying the satellite images that he’d received on his laptop from Campbell. He’d enlarged the pictures as much as possible on his computer.
Frustratingly, there was no detail of the other vehicle that stood out, and there was no image of the person driving it because the Palmers’ car was blocking it. Campbell had confirmed that this was the only picture of the two vehicles passing each other that the sat had captured. It had spun on to other sectors and left a mystery down on Earth.
But wait a minute.
As he looked more closely he could just make out what looked like a small dark pyramid on the door panel of the other car.
A pyramid? What could that be?
The Palmers’ vehicle was a Jeep, the shot of the license plate as it passed by was head-on, but there was nothing on the other car once it had cleared the Jeep because the satellite then spun and pointed in the direction the Palmers were heading, and its tracking path was narrow. If only the satellite had swiveled its electronic eyes a bit the plate of the other car might have been visible. Detection, like football, was indeed a game of the most minimal of distances, and the most slender margins of error.
The images of the man and woman in the Jeep were also relatively clear before it passed by. Facial recognition had been performed and had confirmed they were Steve and Valerie Palmer.
Devine peered as close as he could at their faces. They seemed to be looking at the car as they passed. Were their expressions surprised? Yes, they seemed to be. But they had found Alex after this interaction with the car. Only then would their suspicions have been aroused. But had something in the other driver’s expression given away what he had just done?
Devine was also convinced that the Palmers had known who the man was. If it had been a stranger, someone from outside of Putnam who had attacked Alex, they would surely have reported seeing the man in the vehicle fleeing the scene of a crime they were just about to discover. But they hadn’t. Had they tried to blackmail the man, as he had theorized? And gotten their house burned down with them in it as their reward?
He was heading to his SUV when he ran into Pat Kingman in the front of the inn. She looked upset.
“You okay?” he said.