The Kind Worth Killing (34 page)

The murders had become a big story; from what I gathered, Kennewick had been flooded with reporters, all trying to untangle the story of the glamorous young couple murdered within one week of each other. Brad Daggett had not been found, and he never would be.
If they'd located the truck, that hadn't made the news. He had killed both Ted and Miranda, and forensic evidence would prove it. And he would never be found to tell his story.

I thought about what my father had said to me the day before—how he wanted to get through the rest of his life without hurting anybody else. Maybe I could turn that into my goal, as well. It was how I had felt after killing Chet, and how I had felt after killing Eric, in London. It was how I felt now. I didn't regret what I'd done in the past. Miranda and Eric had both hurt me. Chet had wanted to, and Brad—while he hadn't hurt me directly—had murdered an innocent man. It had probably been a mistake to invite Ted Severson into my life. I'd taken enormous risks in the past few weeks, and I was lucky to have gotten away with them. But now I was done. It was over. I would live a quiet life and make sure that no one could hurt me again. I would continue to survive, knowing, as I'd known that night in the meadow, the stars pouring their light down on me, that I was special, that I was born with a different kind of morality. The morality of an animal—of a crow or a fox or an owl—and not of a normal human being.

I got off Route 2 and drove through Winslow center toward my house. There was an Oktoberfest happening on the town green, a polka band playing and a beer tent set up. I rolled down my window. The air smelled of apple cider. I considered stopping but decided I'd rather get home. I drove the two miles toward my house. As I approached my house, I could see a long white car in my driveway, easy to spot through the now-leafless trees. A jolt of fear went through me, and I almost drove past, but I turned into the driveway, telling myself that all would be fine.

Leaning up against the car was the detective who had come to ask me questions earlier in the week. Henry Kimball from the Boston Police Department. When he saw me, he dropped the cigarette he was smoking and put it out under his shoe. I parked and got out of the car. He came toward me, an unreadable smile on his face.

After lunch on Sunday I drove out to Winslow again to talk with Lily Kintner. She wasn't home but it was a crisp fall day, not too cold, and I decided to wait. I figured she was probably out to brunch and would be back soon. I leaned up against my car so that I had a view of the pond beyond her cottage, and I carefully rolled a cigarette, one of my allotted two of the day.

Brad Daggett had not been found. The only solid lead was that a garage in Kennewick had reported that one of the cars it was working on had had its license plate swapped. Mike Comeau, the mechanic, noticed only because the new plate was so much cleaner than the rest of the vehicle. It turned out to be the plate from Daggett's truck. So Brad Daggett had been smart enough to switch plates before taking off from Maine. An APB was issued for the new plate number, but there hadn't been any hits yet. I was starting to doubt that there would be.

I lit my cigarette, tilted my head back, and let the sun hit my face. Overhead, a flock of geese toiled by. Just as I was finishing my
cigarette, Lily turned her Honda Accord into the driveway. I tried to read her face through the windshield, but she seemed to be looking at me with nothing more than mild curiosity. After she parked and got out of the car I walked up to her, reintroduced myself.

“I remember you,” she said. “It was only a few days ago.”

She had an overnight bag with her, dark blue with gray polka dots, and I asked her if she'd been away.

“Down with my parents, in Connecticut. My father just came back from London.”

“Oh, to live here?”

“That's the plan right now. What can I do for you, Detective? I heard about Miranda. It's shocking.”

“I have a few more questions. I was hoping we could . . . we could sit and talk, again.”

“That's fine. Just give me a moment to get settled. We could sit on the back deck, if you like? It's not that cold.”

I followed her into her cottage, through the living room, and out through a door in her kitchen to a small back deck that was plastered with leaves. “Let me get you a rag, and you can wipe off the chairs,” she said.

I did as I was told, clearing two of the wooden deck chairs of the bright yellow fan-shaped leaves from a ginkgo tree. I took a seat and after about five minutes Lily returned. She was still wearing jeans, but she'd taken her coat off and was now wearing a white V-neck sweater that looked like cashmere. Her hair was down, and her face looked freshly washed and free of makeup. “What can I do for you?”

I'd decided earlier that I would come straight to the point, so I said, “I want to know why you lied to me.”

She didn't look surprised, but she slowly blinked her pale eyelids. “About what exactly?”

“Your relationship to Ted Severson, and the fact that you went up to Kennewick on Sunday and Monday night of this week. You didn't think you should have mentioned that to me last time I was here?”

“I can explain,” she said. “And I apologize for lying. I've been stressed-out by this situation with my father. When you showed up the first time I was terrified of getting mixed up in a murder investigation. It would've been too much for him. That's the reason I pretended not to know Ted. I hope you know I wouldn't have lied if I thought our relationship had anything to do with the murder.”

“What exactly was your relationship?”

“We met in London at the airport. I didn't even recognize him at first, but we got to talking, and we eventually figured out that we had met before, through Miranda. We were both in business class, and we wound up sitting next to each other, and he told me that he thought his wife was cheating on him with his house builder.”

“That's kind of important information,” I said. “We would have appreciated knowing that a week ago.”

“I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's not like he knew for sure. He just thought it was probably the case. I knew Miranda in college, and I thought he was probably right. Anyway, we hit it off. He opened up to me, the way it sometimes happens on airplanes.”

“So you became involved.”

“No, not really. Not romantically. We met again once, at a bar in Concord for a drink, but we didn't pursue anything. He was married.”

“But you liked him?”

She slowly blinked again. “I did. He was a nice man.”

“When did you hear that he'd been killed?”

“I read about it in the
Globe
on Sunday. The article made it sound as though he'd been killed by a burglar, but I wondered . . .”

“Wondered whether he'd been killed by Brad Daggett?”

“That's the name of the contractor, right? And you think he killed both Ted and then Miranda.”

“Just tell me why you decided to go up to Maine.”

“I don't know exactly. Lots of reasons. Ted had told me how much he loved it up there, so I decided to drive up. I guess to mourn him. We'd only met twice but both meetings were pretty intense. And I
suppose I also went up there to see if I could find anything out. I guess I was pretending I was Nancy Drew. It's stupid, I know.”

“What did you do while you were up there?”

“Took walks. Ate dinner at the bar at the hotel. Everyone was talking about the murder and I listened in, but I didn't hear anything about Miranda having an affair. I thought I would; I thought everyone would talk about it. According to Ted, Miranda practically lived at the Kennewick Inn. If she was sleeping with someone local, you'd figure that everyone would know about it. That's what I thought, anyway. But no one said a thing. I even went to Cooley's—it's the bar down the street, the more local one—and had a drink there, thinking I might hear something, or even see Brad. But I didn't.”

“What exactly were you going to do if you found out Brad and Miranda were having an affair?”

“Trap him, obviously,” she said. “Get a confession out of him. Make a citizen's arrest.” Her face hadn't changed, and it took me a moment to realize she was joking. I smirked, and she smiled back. There was a crease between her upper lip and her nose when she smiled. “Honestly,” she continued, “I don't know what I was going to do. I didn't have a plan. And just because Brad and Miranda were having an affair doesn't mean that had anything to do with his death.”

“We're pretty sure that Brad Daggett killed both of the Seversons.”

“And he's missing?”

“Yes.”

We were quiet a moment. I watched Lily touch the fingers of her left hand in succession against the armrest of the chair. It was the first outward sign of nervousness I'd seen from her. Finally, she said, “I screwed up. I should have told you everything the first time you came here. I should have told you that Ted thought his wife was having an affair with Brad. I'm sorry. Honestly, when you came, I assumed that Ted had been killed by a burglar. I was almost embarrassed that I went up to Maine to try and do my own investigation. It sounded stupid.”

“Like Nancy Drew,” I said.

“Um, are you calling my childhood hero stupid?”

“No, of course not. I loved Nancy Drew, too. Why do you think I became a detective?”

A ragged-looking cat came up onto the deck, mewling at Lily. “You have a cat,” I said.

“Not really,” she answered, standing up. “His name is Mog, but he mostly lives outside. He comes here when he's hungry. I'm going to get him some food. Can I get you anything from inside?”

“No, thanks,” I said. While she was gone I clucked at Mog, but he stayed where he was. His eyes were different colors, or else one of his eyes was damaged somehow. Lily returned with cat food in a bowl, and set it down on the edge of the deck. Mog squatted and began to eat.

I wanted to stay, but I had nothing left to ask. I still didn't believe that Lily was telling me the whole truth, but her answers were reasonable enough. “Your father,” I said. “How's he doing?”

“Oh, he's . . . he's about the same. I think getting him out of England is the best thing for him. He took a beating from the press.”

“Is he still writing?”

“He told me he thinks he might have one more book in him, but I don't know about that. We'll see. Maybe he'll get inspired now that he's back living with my mother.”

“I thought your parents were divorced.”

“They are. Thank God. This is just an arrangement. Strange, I know. But my mother needs money, and my father is going to help out now that he's staying in her house. Plus, my father can't be alone. It's a shot in the dark, but if it works, it will solve both their problems. If it doesn't, my father could come here and live with me.”

I wanted to ask her more about her father, partly because I was interested in him, but mostly because I wanted to stay out here on Lily Kintner's back deck. I wanted to keep looking at her. The sun was behind her, turning her hair into a fiery red. She had crossed her arms across her middle, tightening her sweater against her body, and I could see the high swell of her breasts, and the faint outline of a pink bra,
beneath the thin white cashmere. I thought of ways to prolong my stay. I could ask more questions about her father, about her love of Nancy Drew, about her job at Winslow, but I knew that I shouldn't. This hadn't been a social call. I stood up, and Lily also stood. Mog finished eating and came and rubbed his side against Lily's ankle, then bounded off the way he had come.

“Oh, one more thing,” I said, remembering a last question that I'd meant to ask. “You said the first time we met that Miranda and you knew each other in college.”

“Uh-huh. At Mather College in New Chester, Connecticut.”

“Miranda told me you stole her boyfriend.”

“She did, did she? Well, we dated the same guy. Miranda dated him first, then I did, then he went back to her. It was a mess at the time, but it was years ago.”

“So, when you met Ted and realized he was married to Miranda, and that he was unhappy, you didn't think it was your opportunity for revenge?”

“Sure. It crossed my mind. I liked Ted, and I didn't like Miranda, but no, that's not what was between Ted and me. We weren't romantic. I was just someone for him to talk to.”

Lily walked me back through her house and out to my car. She held out her hand and I shook it, her palm dry and warm. When we let go, Lily's fingertips gently ran along my hand, and I wondered if it was intentional, or if I was imagining something between us that wasn't there. Her face told me nothing.

Before getting into my car, I turned and asked her, “What was the name of the boyfriend?”

“Excuse me?” she said.

“The boyfriend in college that both you and Miranda went out with?”

“Oh, him,” she said, and a slight flush of color crossed her cheeks. She hesitated, then said, “It was Eric Washburn, but he's, uh, dead now.”

“Oh,” I said. “How did that happen?”

“It was right after college. He died from anaphylactic shock. He had a nut allergy.”

“Oh,” I said again, not knowing what else to say. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”

I drove away. As I headed back to Boston, a ledge of low clouds began to blank the sun. It was early afternoon but felt like dusk. I was going over the conversation with Lily. I believed a lot of what she had said to me but still felt lied to. I knew that she had left some things out, just as she had the first time we talked. But why? And why had Lily hesitated at the end when I asked her the name of her college boyfriend? It felt as though she didn't want to tell me. She'd told me that it had been a long time ago, but it wasn't really. She was only in her late twenties.
Eric Washburn
. I said the name out loud to myself to make sure I remembered it.