“Did you open the car door? Recognize who was inside?”
Jake had peered through the ice-covered passenger-side car window when he and DeLuca arrived at Margolin Street, happy to see no smudges or swipes from curious fingers, knowing he had to keep the crime scene pristine until the techs arrived. Jake could see the man’s face was turned toward the passenger side, his plaid muffler obscuring his features. Gray hair, navy overcoat, no gloves. Not breathing, motionless, skin on his hands blanched. The dead man’s hands were in his lap, not on the steering wheel. The windows were not fogged. No one was breathing inside.
No bullet holes in the car, no blood that Jake could see, no signs of a struggle or violence. But it was still early, and he was still collecting puzzle pieces. Guessing was a waste of time.
Crime Scene would be here momentarily, and DeLuca was running the license plate. This poor guy clearly wasn’t going anywhere.
“Touch anything? Of course not, Detective.” Mrs. Richards shook one finger at him, exactly like his Grandmother Brogan used to do. “I see all the shows. I know what to do. I called nine-one-one. I saw the car out my front window when I went for the morning paper, on the porch. Then I started thinking, had I seen the car last night? There was another car parked out there, a grayish van, but it went away. With all that’s been going on around here, I knew I should, well, call the ‘cops,’ as they say. But I couldn’t really remember about the car, so I thought, well, I-”
Jake hid a smile. Dolly Richards was clearly relishing her moment as potential witness to real-life human drama. Her gray curls peeked out from under a crocheted white hat that sported a crocheted flower over one ear. She’d gone a little overboard with the rouge. If he didn’t interrupt, she’d just keep talking.
“Ma’am?” Jake narrowed his eyes at the obviously lifeless man behind the wheel of the Lexus, searching for something he might have missed.
“I get up early these days. Don’t want to waste any of the time I have left! The paper boy hadn’t arrived when I first looked, but I did notice this car. Not so much the car, but a person inside. Now, makes sense there’d be a person if they were driving, and I didn’t think a thing of it, maybe he was leaving. But when I went back for the paper, it seemed to me that he hadn’t moved. That’s when I started to smell trouble. So I wrote down the license number, like I always do, I write them all down. I called nine-one-one, and said, I’d like to report-”
“Ma’am?” Jake tried again. “So this green car had been parked here all night?”
“Well, that’s what I told the girl on the phone, the nine-one-one girl. Like I said, I’m not sure.” Three frown lines appeared across her forehead. “Of course, the police were here the other day, so I figured they’d be-well, I think I’d recognize all the usual cars, and there are always cabs, of course, there was one earlier that night. I don’t want to make a mistake, you know? But I think…”
Jake let her talk as he pieced the story together. He pulled out his cell phone, opened a new file for Margolin Street. Does that sound familiar? If the green Lexus had been here all night, the already-iced morning dew would be a problem enough for the print guys. Another homicide. Christ. That was going to push their unit to the max. Still, any luck, this was a heart attack. They wouldn’t know until the ME got hold of the case. DeLuca had magnanimously volunteered to watch for Kat McMahan’s van.
Wait. What had Mrs. Richards said? “Police were here the other day? For what?”
Mrs. Richards looked up at him, both hands landed on her hips. “Well, for heaven’s sake, Detective, that’s Lillian Finch’s house. Right there. Across the street. See the yellow tape across the front door?”
Holy shit. Margolin Street. He clicked open his notes from the meeting at the Brannigan. Did he even have Lillian Finch’s address? He scrolled through his typed-in bullet points. No. It was certainly in the master case files, but not in his cell phone notes. He wasn’t the initial primary on Finch. Damn.
Mrs. Richards leaned toward him, conspiratorial. One white-gloved hand clutched his jacket sleeve. “Detective, do you think you have two murders to solve? Now I’m really going to keep my doors locked. We all think someone killed poor Lillian, of course-do you think whoever that was also killed this poor man?”
Tuck turned in her seat again, looking out the back window at the Mass Pike behind them. “Idiot,” she said. “Move over, Jane. Let the frat boy pass you.”
Jane flipped her blinker, checked for traffic, eased her Audi into the middle lane. She could hear the hiss of salt and slush under her wheels, the lane markings barely visible through the road’s thin veneer of almost-snow. She clicked on her windshield wipers, clearing a half-moon slash of glass framed with spackled gray.
“Pass me, you jerk,” she said. Instead, the black truck swerved in behind her, seeming like inches from her rear bumper.
“‘Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear,’” Jane read on her side mirror. Not good.
“Come on,” Jane said. Call nine-one-one if there’s anything strange, Alex had told her. He’d also told her to get out of town. Was someone following her? Seemed unlikely. What would be the point?
All the cars on the Mass Pike were following someone, if you looked at it that way. Plus, Massachusetts drivers were notoriously aggressive. Maybe this one was giving two women a hard time for the absurd “fun” of it. Probably had a case of beer in the front seat.
“Can you see him now? What’s he doing?”
“Driving.” Tuck snaked around, her arm braced over the black leather seat back, looking out the rear window. “Has a hat, so I can’t see his face. Maybe you should-”
Jane put on her blinker again, moved into the slow lane. If they want to pass, now’s the time. The truck stayed on her tail. Matching her slower speed.
Should she turn off? Take the next exit?
The exit was half a mile ahead, according to the green sign on the metal stanchion above them. What if the truck was actually following her, not randomly tormenting them? The exit might lead to civilization, fast food places and shopping centers, the protection of other people and other cars. If they weren’t so lucky it would lead to twisty back roads and deserted stretches of nowhere. The truck could pull right up to her and if he had a gun-oh, ridiculous. Ridiculous. She was getting herself spooked.
She’d get mad instead. This jerk was a menace to everyone on the highway. And Jane could make it right.
“Can you get the license plate? Can you describe the guy?” Jane’s leather gloves clenched around the little steering wheel, and she trained her focus on the road stretching ahead. “We’ll call the cops and report it.”
“There’s no license plate on the front,” Tuck said. “Weird. It’s a Dodge RAM, some kind of decal on the windshield, but I can’t read it. Wait, now I see the guy has on a-Well, never mind, that’s not gonna help us.”
“What?” Jane said. “Has on a what?”
“A green Celtics cap. Like that narrows it d-”
“Hang on,” Jane said. She twisted the wheel, banged the accelerator, then swerved across two lanes, all the way to the left, into the fast lane, leaning on the horn. A couple of cars in front of her sped away, probably wondering what the hell she was doing.