He had to go into the meeting prepared. “What, do I look like I have no memory?” Jake asked. If Louie was setting him up again…he’d… Never mind, he thought, it isn’t worth it.
“No, Marisa said to remind you. Gigi keeps asking if you’re coming.” Louie fluttered his eyelashes.
“Great. Can’t you douse this before the party?”
“No, you can do it. It’ll give you a lesson in parenting.”
Jake shot him the snake eye. “For Marisa.” Jake changed the subject. “Does Sophia want me to bring anything?”
“No, we’re all set. Sophia hired the band and the bartender last week to lock them in. Good thing I’ve got a job.”
“You’re not fooling anyone. You get into this as much as Sophia.”
“You’re right, I love it.”
Jake dropped Louie off at his house before he headed home.
* * * *
Outside of struggling with his emotions all week, Jake focused his concentration on the cases at hand. Otherwise it was a quiet week as they fell into the routine of murder—following up with witnesses, the M.E., and the lab. Like Shanna Wagner, Chelsea Adams was well-liked, minded her own business, and hadn’t caused any ripples until her divorce. Taking a husband to the cleaners could gain a person an enemy, he mused.
A long, tedious day, had gotten longer when Jake stopped by the nursing home and visited his mother. She showed a few sparks when he walked into her room, but who knows? Long ago, she’d forgotten she had another child who needed her.
At home, he decided to continue to explore through Eva’s files in small increments. Small doses were all he could handle in his melancholy mood. Each crime scene photo stabbed him in the heart. His father’s neat print in the margins jumped off the pages. Jake bogged through his detectives’ incident reports and evaluations to make sure no details were overlooked. Again, it hit him how similar Eva’s and Shanna’s cases were. The third box he opened hit hard. A sampling of Spaulding’s stained shirt and jeans still held the coppery smell of blood. Eva’s blood. His father’s fellow officers had made sure he had all the evidence he’d need in the future if new evidence surfaced. Knuckling away a tear, he rummaged through the box. A sample of George Spaulding’s brand of cigarettes, along with a smoked one, were stored in sealed envelopes. Jake decided to give one of the samples to Burke to have it tested against the recent samples of DNA collected from George. Though he thought he wanted Louie here, he found this first time through was better alone. It had been years since he’d subjected himself to the trauma. Maybe when he got to the fiftieth time through the file he’d be able to control his emotions.
* * * *
The next day, Jake woke to a typical rainy New England April day. The temps dropped to the low fifties. His concession to the weather was a heavier sports jacket. When he got into the station and sat at his desk, he put a call into Chief Beau Taylor.
Jake got him on the first try. “Chief, it’s Jake Carrington from Wilkesbury, Connecticut.”
“Please call me Beau. How did your situation turn out?”
“We got the guys. The officer who got shot is doing great. Thanks for asking.”
“Good. I checked on Jeffrey Adams and his perky new bride Lola. I do need to tell you—she had quite the mouth on her. I thought I was talking to a trucker.” Beau laughed. “She wasn’t happy to see me.”
“No?”
“No. She started off telling me she wasn’t going talk to me without an attorney before I even explained why I was there. It got my eye a-twitching. Y’all understand my meaning, Connecticut?”
“I do, Chief. Who told her about the murder?”
“She said she got a call about the ex-wife’s murder. She knew someone would come and start bothering them with questions. I pointed out Mrs. Adams wasn’t happy about being dead, either.”
Jake let out a laugh. “Sorry to interrupt, I would’ve loved to have been there.”
“Oh yeah, a refreshing break in my routine. I told her to call her lawyer and we’d settle my questions at the police station. After a staring contest, the ex-husband said they’d be happy to answer any questions I have. Imagine that.”
“I’m imagining. Did they give you anything?” Jake laughed. He could see the scene play out.
“Well, the ex-husband worked all weekend at his second job. He’s an assistant manager at a small restaurant here in Neptune. His alibi checks out. Now his shy, delicate wife claimed to have spent the weekend with her girlfriend over in Miami while her husband worked. I called her girlfriend. She hemmed and hawed when I asked her to verify Lola’s visit on the sixteenth. At first, she agreed, until I told her that if she lied, she would face charges, including prison time. Understanding the severity of the situation, she immediately corrected her previous statement. Said she hasn’t seen Lola since her wedding. Connecticut, do you want me to verify flights on my end?”
“Thanks, Beau, I’ll check them out from here. Can I get the girlfriend’s information in Miami? I appreciate your time on this. If I run into any problems with the flights, I’ll give you a call back.”
“Anytime, Connecticut, I’ll fax over my report and the info on the friend.” Beau hung up.
“What’s that all about, Jake?” Louie asked.
“Well, we might have to head down south,” Jake said, pulling out the phone book.
“Awesome, I’ll pack the sunscreen for you. What have you got?”
“What I got is a liar.”
“Florida got good information for us?”
“Yep. The new, younger wife doesn’t have an alibi for the weekend. The ex-husband does. He needs to work two jobs to support the new and improved model.”
“The poor fellow, my heart bleeds,” Louie snorted. “Where was the current wife?”
“Lola said she spent the weekend in Miami with her girlfriend. Girlfriend gets all nervous when it’s explained to her that she could go to jail if she lies—she recants. She hasn’t seen the current wife since her wedding last year.”
“‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we practice to deceive.’ I love that quote by Walter Scott in ‘Marmion,’” Louie said.
“You have a quote for everything.”
“Hey, we can’t go down south until after Marisa’s party. She’d kill us. I’m already taking enough grief from her over the party we won’t let her go to.”
“Don’t worry. If we have to go, it wouldn’t be right away. We have other leads to pursue first.”
“Good, ’cause I’d hate to miss how you’re going to handle her friend Gigi who has, and I quote Marisa,” Louie brought his hands together and fluttered his lashes. “‘She has the world’s biggest crush on Uncle Jake.’”
“I
