I glanced through the locked door that led back to the sheriff’s office. “Mrs. Westergaard-”
“Jill,” she said.
“I really can’t talk with you. This is a murder investigation, and I’m a material witness.”
Her large eyes got even larger, but her forehead remained placid. “Please.”
“I’m sorry.”
I tried to step around her, but she reached out and grabbed my sleeve, not with any force, but just pinching the fabric of my uniform. The timidity of the gesture made me pause.
“We can talk outside,” she whispered.
“It’s not that,” I said. “I’m bound by my oath not to interfere in an open investigation.”
“Hans didn’t do this terrible thing.”
“Mrs. Westergaard-”
“He couldn’t have done it,” she said in a tremulous voice.
The desperation in her eyes provoked a strange emotion in me. I’m not sure how to describe the feeling except to say that it wasn’t sadness or pity; it was more like empathy. From my own experience, I knew how love can blind a person to certain vicious truths.
“Please,” she said again. “I need your help.”
In Jill Westergaard’s mind, she was the only person who could convince the police of her fugitive husband’s innocence. What would this poor woman do when they finally caught him and he confessed to every last bloody detail?
“I’ll meet you outside,” I said.
After she had left, I tied and retied the laces of my boots, thinking that what I was about to do was stupid and reckless. And yet I felt impressed by the nobility of my intentions. I might not be able to persuade Jill Westergaard of anything, but she would remember our conversation with gratitude.
She was waiting for me in the parking lot, wearing her sunglasses now and leaning against the hood of a sand-colored Range Rover, as if she might topple over without its support. The tone of the vehicle perfectly complemented her hair. This woman considers all her decisions very carefully, I realized.
She beeped open the SUV’s doors. With a quick backward glance at the jail, I climbed into the passenger seat. The interior of the vehicle still smelled of the automobile showroom. But there was a musky hint of perfume, too.
Jill Westergaard swiveled around to face me. “I need to know what you saw.”
The demand took me by surprise. I had expected her to continue her defense of her husband’s innocence, with me in the role of truth-hardened counselor. With her sunglasses down, I felt that she had me at a disadvantage. Given the immobility of her brow, I could read her expression only in the movement of her mouth.
“Mrs. Westergaard, I can’t tell you that.”
“No one will.”
So at least Charley had been mum on that point. “It’s a crime scene,” I said, trying to explain.
“But it’s my house. ”
I leaned back against the cold window. “I know this must be extremely difficult.”
She shook her head, so that her long hair swayed. “You don’t understand. I designed that house. I’m an architect. I put my entire soul into its creation.”
MaryBeth Fickett hadn’t told me that detail. I’d been left with the impression that Jill Westergaard was just another rich bitch from Boston who kept changing her mind about the specifications of her dream home.
“You really need to speak with the detectives,” I said. “It would be inappropriate for me to tell you what we discovered.”
“But you broke inside my home.”
“We had to.”
“Why? I don’t understand what you expected to find.”
This was a question for which I actually had no good answer. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”
She let out a wounded-sounding sigh.
We sat quietly for the better part of a minute. I realized that I could hear her labored breathing.
“Hans didn’t do this terrible thing,” she said, using the same words she’d uttered inside the jail.
“If you know where your husband is, you owe it to him to tell the detectives.”
“But he didn’t do it. I know Hans.”
“Then you knew he was coming up here.”
“He often came to Maine to work if he needed to focus.”
“So why did you tell Charley he was missing?”
She wrapped her left arm around the leather steering wheel. “I’d expected Hans to call me earlier from the conference. I wasn’t suggesting anything sinister. He’s brilliant, and he can be a bit spacey at times. He was a chess prodigy in Copenhagen. He beat a Russian grand master when he was twelve! I’m sure he just forgot to call me. I was a little worried, but if I’d known that using that word would lead to people suspecting him of murder…”
She left the sentence unfinished. I could see her mind already building a house of cards.
“Did you know he was arranging a liaison with Ashley Kim?”
I didn’t mean the question to come out so pointedly, but she winced and shrank back against the steering wheel.
When she spoke again, it was with iron certainty. “Hans wasn’t having an affair with Ashley.”
“Then what was she doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
Her naivete made me feel compassionate toward her again. She seemed once again like a wife under an impossible delusion and less like a woman used to getting her way regardless of the circumstances.
“Your husband’s research assistant was murdered in his home, and now he’s disappeared,” I said in as gentle a tone as I could manage. “You have to see how that’s going to make him a suspect.”
“Never in a million years would Hans have an affair with Ashley.”
I exhaled. “Mrs. Westergaard-”
“Let me tell you about Ashley,” she said, showing her teeth. “She was a funny girl. Hans said she drew political cartoons for the Yale Daily News when she was an undergraduate. We had her up here last summer, and I enjoyed her company. When she had anything to drink, her speech got surprisingly profane. You would never have guessed it, given what a little mouse she was normally.”
“She was attractive,” I ventured.
She flicked her fingers at me, and I noticed that her manicured nails were painted maroon. “She was a nerd. You know how some of those Asian kids are.” She caught herself. “She had no social life, no social skills. She was extremely intelligent, and she could be witty, yes, but there is no way that Hans would ever have desired her. There was nothing remotely sexual about the girl! He would never have chosen Ashley Kim over me, for God’s sake.”
It was no surprise that she was vain or that she was in denial about her age. The Botox, the breast implants (those things couldn’t possibly have been real), the care she took managing every aspect of her appearance-somewhere beneath that elaborate facade lived a secret fear. Was it any wonder that she was deluding herself about her husband’s extracurricular activities and maybe about his capacity for violence?
“Mrs. Westergaard,” I said. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but I think you should consider the possibility that you’re letting your love for your husband cloud your judgment.”
“You think that’s what I’m doing?” She was incredulous.
I’d never intended this discussion to become an argument. “I’m just cautioning you against leaping to conclusions.”
“That’s quite ironic.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You don’t know the first thing about my husband. Yet you’re already convinced he’s a cold-blooded sex killer.”
I’m sure my face had grown red. “Well, I hope I’m wrong about him, but it would be better if he turned himself in to the authorities and made his own case.”
“You really don’t get it, do you? Something has happened to Hans. Has it even occurred to the police that my husband might have been abducted? I’m terrified out of my mind right now.”
She believed he was another victim.
“Do you have any idea who might have killed Ashley?” I asked.