The Kind Worth Killing (22 page)

I'd arrived at just past five, driving over from the Kennewick Inn under a rainstorm that had blackened the dusky sky. There were three cars in Cooley's lot, but I was the first customer. I settled onto my
stool, shucked off my damp jacket, and ordered a Miller Lite. The bartender, the spitting image of Disney's Ichabod Crane, uncapped and delivered the bottle, then placed a laminated menu with frayed corners onto the bar. I scanned it—Cooley's Clam Pie was the specialty of the house.

It was a slow night. While I had been surprised by the relatively lively crowd at the Livery the night before, I was not surprised by the scarcity of souls that decided to brave Cooley's on a cold, wet Monday evening. By seven the only other customers in the place were a lone man, at least seventy, who had hoisted his considerable weight onto a stool and ordered a bourbon sour, two past-their-prime blondes securing the opposite end of the bar, plus a pair of middle-aged tourists who had hesitated in the doorway, decided they didn't have the courage to turn around and leave, and sat in one of the high-backed booths. In my two hours at Cooley's I had sipped two bottles of beer, and tried the famous clam pie, a slice of which had arrived on a chipped plate next to a little pile of parsley sprigs. It was pie dough filled with a chopped clam and bread crumb mixture the color of wet sand. It tasted like a fishy version of the terrible filling you scrape off baked stuffed shrimp. I ate two bites, then ordered a plate of fries. The bartender looked amused.

I had spent most of the day at the Kennewick Inn, reading the newspaper in the lobby by the fireplace, then having lunch at the Livery, where I'd been served by Sidney, the slender, pretty bartender who supposedly had a crush on Miranda. While I ate my salad, she moved behind the bar with a purposeful intensity, making sure every glass was clean, and all the surfaces were wiped. She wore an oxford shirt, sleeves rolled all the way up to show off her biceps. One of her arms was entirely tattooed in flowers and pinup girls. She didn't seem talkative, so I decided not to ask her about Ted and Miranda. But right before I left, a hotel employee came down to the bar to fill a to-go cup with Diet Coke, and I overheard their conversation.

“Have you talked with Miranda?” the employee, a heavily made-up brunette in a black suit, asked Sidney.

“I left a message on her phone, just saying how sorry we all are. I don't expect to hear back.”

“Jesus.”

“I know, right. I keep thinking about her . . . about it . . . Ted.”

“What do you think she'll do?” The woman in the suit, who looked like an events manager, took a long pull of her Diet Coke through a straw.

“That's what everyone's asking me. Honestly, I don't fucking know. She's a friend, I guess, but it's not like I know her
that
well. For all I know, we'll never see her again.”

I left cash on the bar and slid off my stool. I had heard what I wanted to hear. Unless people were being coy, it didn't sound as though hotel employees and regulars at the Livery were aware that Miranda was fooling around with Brad on the side. I wasn't surprised. She'd obviously worked incredibly hard to conceal it, and if it hadn't been for Ted's watching them share a cigarette and growing suspicious, then no one but Brad and Miranda would know that they meant anything to each other besides employer/employee. It made me realize that Miranda probably planned on using Brad to kill Ted from the very beginning. She'd never gone to Cooley's. Brad had never come to the Livery. My guess is that the only place they had ever been physical was in the house that was being built, and only when no other employees were on the premises.

After lunch I returned to my room to get my hiking shoes and a windbreaker in order to walk the cliff walk. I was looking forward to it. The weather was brisk and gusty, the ocean that I'd seen from my hotel room window gray and wind-chopped. I'd checked the weather on my phone, and it looked like there would be a major rainstorm, but not till later in the day. I exited the hotel and crossed Micmac, the wind buffeting my clothes against me. I worked my way down the rudimentary steps that led to the brief snippet of beach where the cliff
walk began. The only other beachgoers were a stationary man and a chocolate Lab that raced in great loping strides after a tennis ball that the man threw from a plastic grabber. I proceeded immediately to the path; it was high tide, and the first hundred yards were slick with seawater that had crested over the flat rocks, but after that, the path went higher and cut inland so that a strip of stunted trees and bushes—mostly bittersweet, its yellow berries splitting open to reveal the red underneath, and winterberry—protected me from the wind. I walked slowly, not so much to be careful, but because I was savoring the beauty of the walk. I have never been a fan of the seashore—all those sedentary oiled bodies spread out along the beach like pieces of meat under a broiler. Maybe I'm biased, since my pale, freckled skin turns to a blistering red instead of a tan. I do like to swim but prefer the water of lakes and ponds to the salty brine of the ocean, and I have never been able to abide the feel of sand clinging to my feet and legs. But this particular stretch of Maine shoreline felt different to me. Maybe it was just the dramatic weather and the scudding clouds, but along this path I felt enveloped by beauty, by the primal force of nature. The large slabs of gray rocks were so much more appealing than the impermanent stretches of beach most people crave. I took deep breaths of the air as though I were thirsty for it.

There was no one else on the path that day. I wasn't surprised. By the time I reached the end, with its view of the back of Ted and Miranda's house, the wind had picked up, and pockets of rain had begun moving sideways, drumming at my raincoat.

I looked around for the spot where Ted might have propped himself with his binoculars. There were several, but a grassy hummock behind a low twisted tree seemed to provide the most cover. Ted's binoculars must have been good ones, since the house seemed an impenetrable distance away, across a stretch of ugly bulldozed land. I considered crossing the grounds and taking a closer look at the house, but I worried that Brad, or other workmen, might be there. Instead, I turned back. Waves were breaking on the rocks and sending up frenzied
explosions of seawater and foam. I turned my face into the slanting rain, no longer worried about getting soaked, and walked carefully and purposefully back along the path.

At the inn I went to the small fireside bar on the lobby level and ordered a hot whiskey—my father's go-to winter drink—and took the drink back up to my room, where I sipped at it while soaking in the extra-deep tub. I felt good and had to remind myself that I was in Kennewick for a purpose, that I had a friend to avenge. After my bath I took a short nap, then got back into the tight jeans I'd worn the night before, overapplied my makeup, and drove myself to Cooley's.

I'd been there three hours, had nursed four light beers, when I decided that Brad was probably not going to show. The tourists had left, and so had the two ladies at the bar. Three lone men had entered since then, and each time they had come swinging through the outside door, shrugging rain off their coats, I had expected Brad. But one was in his early twenties, one was a pear-shaped man with a full beard, and the third came in wearing a blue blazer over a collared white shirt and a pair of pressed jeans. He was the right age, I thought, about forty, but clean-shaven. Still, I watched him carefully. It was possible Brad had shaved the goatee that Ted had mentioned, and it was possible that he was dressed up for a reason. Maybe meeting a new client. Maybe waiting on a date. He caught me looking at him, raised an eyebrow in my direction, and lifted his pint glass of beer. I stared at my phone to discourage him from coming over. I had decided it probably wasn't Brad. He was seated close enough for me to see the softness of his hands, and the frosted tips of his hair, and unless Brad was a criminal mastermind who had entirely changed his appearance, I doubted it was he. I paid my bill with cash and tottered out of Cooley's on the high heels I wasn't used to wearing.

“Don't leave on my account,” said blue blazer as I walked past him.

I turned and appraised him. “What's your name?” I asked.

“Chris.”

“Chris, where do you work?”

He seemed a little confused by my line of questioning, but answered me. “I'm manager at the Banana Republic over in Kittery. Do I know you?”

“No,” I said. “I was just curious. Have a nice night, Chris.” I continued on my way out of the bar.

Outside, the gusting rain from earlier had tapered to a steady drizzle. The wind direction had changed, and even though the ocean was just over the road the air smelled of pine trees and fresh dirt. Straddling two parking spots, a pickup truck idled, its driver-side window rolled down. Walking past it, I caught the smell of cigarette smoke in the damp air. I got to my car and fiddled for a while with my purse, hoping that the driver of the truck would finish his cigarette and get out so I could get a look at him. Just as I pulled the keys out of my purse, the truck's engine cut out, and I turned and watched the graceful arc of the cigarette butt as it traversed the parking lot, landing in a puddle with an audible fizz. A tall man got out of the truck. He was illuminated by an exterior mounted light on the edge of Cooley's. He had dark hair, and wide shoulders, and when he turned to shut the truck's door I could clearly see his dark goatee. It had to be Brad.

I had no intention of following him back into Cooley's. “Brad,” I said, and he raised his head to look at me. Even in the dim parking lot lighting, I could see that his eyes were puffy from lack of sleep, and that he had the jittery, ghostly look of a man who had done something very bad.

“Me?” he said.

“You're Brad, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Brad Daggett?”

“Yeah.” He took a quick covert glance around the parking lot, maybe looking for the SWAT team poised to take him down if he made a sudden movement.

“Can we talk for a moment? Out here? It's important.”

“Okay, sure. Do I know you?”

“No,” I said. “But we have friends in common. I know Ted and Miranda Severson very well. Look, it's wet and cold out here. Can we sit in my car and talk, or else we can sit in your truck, if you'd feel more comfortable.”

Again, he looked around the parking lot. I knew his mind must be working on overtime, wondering who I could possibly be and what I could possibly want. “There's nothing to worry about,” I said, making my voice sound as soothing as possible. “Why don't we sit in your truck?”

“Okay, sure,” he said, and opened his door. I took the three steps across the wet parking lot and opened the passenger-side door. Before getting in, I unzipped my purse. Resting near the top was a six-inch stun gun designed to look like a flashlight. I didn't think I would need to use it, but I wanted to be careful. I had no idea how Brad was reacting to the fact that he'd murdered a man in cold blood less than a week ago, but I had to assume he was jumpy and paranoid, and possibly dangerous.

“So you know the Seversons?” Brad said, after we were both in the truck, with what sounded like forced casualness. The truck's interior was spotlessly neat, smelling of cigarette smoke and Armor All.

“Yes,” I said. “Well, I knew Ted Severson, and I know Miranda.”

“It was horrible what . . .”

“What happened to Ted, I know it was. That's actually why I'm here. Let me talk for a moment, okay, Brad? You're not going to like what I'm going to say, but I need you to listen. Do you think you can do that?”

I looked right at him. His eyes were rimmed in red, and his skin, despite a deep, leathery tan, had the distended look of a man who was unwell. His breath smelled like wet grain, and I wondered how much he'd already had to drink. He nodded. “Sure, sure.”

“Brad, I need you to do me a favor. A big favor. And if you do me that favor, then I won't tell anyone that you drove down to Boston last Friday night and murdered Ted Severson.”

I braced myself, one hand resting on the stun gun in my open
purse. I thought he might lunge at me, or at least violently tell me that he had no idea what I was talking about. Instead, his heavy lower lip drooped a little, and his jaw tightened, and for a moment I thought he was going to burst into tears. Instead, he said, in a voice that sounded dry and desperate, “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“Right now,” I responded, “I'm your best friend in the world.”

I left Orono the way I had come, driving back through Bangor. Before getting onto I-95, I stopped for gas at a locally run station, where a teenage boy pumped it for me. I sat in the car and worried about Brad. Had the idiot actually been spotted in my neighborhood on the night of the murder? I was just praying that whatever sketch the detective had was of someone else altogether, or else didn't look remotely like Brad, because if it looked like him—even a little bit—I was going to have to say something about it. And if that happened, then Brad Daggett would be questioned by the police, and I just didn't think he was going to be able to handle that. I pictured his sweaty face, and darting eyes; the police would take one look at him and know they had their man. And he'd crack, that much was sure. One hour in an interrogation room was about what it would take. And then my only option would be to claim that Brad was delusional, that he'd clearly become obsessed with me, and killed Ted all on his own. I could even tell the police that Brad and I had had sex, a couple of times, in the house I was building, but that I never suggested he murder my husband. It
would be his word against mine, and they could never prove that I had anything to do with it. But people would know. Of course, they would. I caught myself clenching my teeth and stopped doing it.