And She Was (14 page)

“No.”

Pomroy said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Morasco inhaled, let it out slowly. “Mr. Wentz,” he said. “Was your wife ever aware that you were questioned in the Iris Neff case?”

“What? I was never questioned.”

“You were. Maybe you don’t remember, but I questioned you myself.”

Whatever color remained in Wentz’s face escaped fast.

“Lydia Neff,” Pomroy said. “Good-looking woman. Well, back then anyway.”

Morasco shot him a look. “Do you remember, Mr. Wentz?”

“You . . . you visited me at home,” he said. “You never even came inside. We spoke for just a few minutes.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

“You promised to be discreet. You promised not to tell anyone.”

Pomroy let out a deep sigh with a little music in it, a mocking sigh. Morasco could sense the big lug nut flexing, mining his brain for the words with the most burn. Not for the first time, he wished he had the power to will Pomroy’s mouth permanently shut.

“Mr. Wentz?” Morasco asked.

“Carol never knew about our conversation.”

Pomroy said, “Did she know about anything else?”

Morasco’s jaw tightened.

Wentz was sitting up in bed now, his eyes burning. “What do you mean?”

“Did Carol know about the affair you had with Lydia Neff?”

Wentz opened his mouth and closed it again, making a clicking sound.

“Did she?”

“Please,” he said. “I don’t . . . I don’t feel well.”

“Is ‘affair’ the wrong word, Nelson? How about ‘youthful indiscretion’? Look, I know it was ten years ago, but women are funny about that stuff. They find out about it, even after all that time, and it’s like it just happened.”

“This is not helping,” Morasco said, between his teeth. But Pomroy kept it up, as if someone were slowly turning up his volume.

“We know
women
, right, Nelson? They start
investigating
, they start
talking to people
. It’s embarrassing and a
real pain in the ass
, isn’t it?
Especially since you two didn’t have the greatest marriage to begin with!
”

“I need the nurse . . .
Nurse!”

The door opened fast—a short, silver-haired woman in a smock with pastel clouds all over it, asking, “Is everything all right?”

“We were just leaving,” Morasco said.

He started out the door, but Pomroy wasn’t moving. He stood a foot away from Wentz’s bed, gaping at him. A human exclamation point. What information did he think Wentz would give him now? “I guess you’re not gonna tell us where you put the . . . What was it that killed your wife? An ice pick? Maybe a spear gun?”

Oh Jesus Christ
.

“Do you hunt, Nelson?”

Wentz’s eyes were wide and wet. He was panting like an animal in a trap, the breath rushing in and out of his slack white mouth in pained little gasps.

“You both need to leave,” the nurse said. And then, finally, Pomroy moved, Morasco following him out with his whole body tensed, frustration seeping through him and radiating out of his skin, his eyes . . .
Why all these posers in Tarry Ridge, these Dirty Harry wannabes with their suburban houses and their squeaky clean cars who wouldn’t know how to question a human being if you took away their toys and put them in the South Bronx for a week, and man would I ever love to see that happen, would I ever love to make that happen to this tool right now . . .

Nelson Wentz muttered two words under his breath.

Morasco turned around. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

Once they were out the door, though, Morasco thought about it again, what Wentz had said believing no one was listening. He debated telling Pomroy about it, then the chief. But he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. He only wanted to tell someone he thought he could trust, and there was no one on the Tarry Ridge force like that. In fact, there were few people like that anywhere. Morasco racked his brain for the name of a trustworthy person, someone he felt as if he could safely speak his mind to, but he couldn’t come up with one. Not until he got to the waiting room and saw her there.

B
renna sat in the waiting room at Tarry Ridge General, staring at a six-month-old copy of
Vogue
—the Spring Fashion Issue, Cate Blanchett on the cover. A memory trickled into her brain—standing in line at the Rite Aid on University and Twelfth on March 14 at noon with a two-pack of Yodels and a large Red Bull, flipping through this exact issue, the woman in front of her complaining she’s been charged fifty cents too much for the family-sized Garnier Nutrisse—but the memory didn’t stay long.

“We’ll be releasing him in just about fifteen minutes,” a voice said, and Brenna looked up from the magazine to see a nurse—a chubby young thing with a sweet face and pink apple cheeks that matched her smock. “He asked if you could drive him home. That okay?”

“Sure.” It was hard to say anything else to such a cherubic girl, though Brenna cringed a little as she said it, the memory of Nelson’s home scrolling through her head—overrun with police and press and jostling murder fans. She’d been there five hours ago, when they’d towed Carol’s car to the county’s crime lab garage, medical examiner’s van following close behind, the murder fans snapping pictures with their cell phones, gasping as if Carol Wentz’s car were some visiting dignitary, waxing on about fiber and tissue evidence, so eager to display every nugget of forensic knowledge obtained from their vast libraries of
CSI
box sets . . . Brenna hoped that scene had dissipated since then because it had been hard to take, even for her.

Brenna put the magazine down. When she’d come to the hospital, she hadn’t even expected Nelson would want to see her—what could she do for him now? Yet after he regained consciousness, she was the one person he’d asked for, and now he wanted her to drive him home.
He really has no one.

The waiting room door pushed open. A man stomped past—red-faced, bug-eyed, gut straining against a cheap brown suit. It was as if everything within him were trying to ram its way out the front. Brenna had never seen a more obvious cop, and she knew he’d been in there talking to Nelson.
This is what it takes for him to get their attention
, Brenna thought, and then Morasco came through the door like a response. When he saw Brenna, his pace slowed a little and his eyes locked with hers and sharpened to points. “Call me,” he said as he passed, so quiet only she could hear.

Chapter 12

“I
didn’t kill my wife,” Nelson said.

Brenna, who had just started up her car, put it back in park. “Did the police accuse you?”

“Please, Ms. Spector,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Brenna started up the car again. Morasco’s face flashed into her mind, the sharpness in the eyes, the urgency—but then she put it away. Whatever he had to tell her could wait. Otherwise he’d have pulled her aside and said it right there.

Brenna would take Nelson home, pick Maya up at choir practice, and then she would call Morasco, from the normalcy of her own home. For now, though, she needed to focus on Nelson Wentz, whose home had no normalcy, not anymore. “You’ll see your place looks a little different,” she told him. “The garage is taped off—still considered a crime scene, but the house is all yours again.”

“Again?”

“Yes.”

“They went through my house?” Nelson’s eyes were wide, his face even paler than usual.

“Looking for signs of a breakin—blood maybe,” Brenna said. “They wouldn’t talk to me much, but it seemed what they were doing was pretty cursory. What happened to Carol . . . That was most likely over a week ago, they said.”

“Did they . . . did they take anything?”

Before pulling out of the hospital parking lot, Brenna gave Nelson a long, careful look. Then she turned her eyes back to the windshield and pulled out onto the dark, peaceful street. “What don’t you want them to find?”

Nelson said nothing, but he didn’t have to. At 12:30
P.M.
, Brenna had noticed Theresa Koppelson, weaving her way through the cluster of neighbors. Theresa’s hair was shorter, with chunky highlights, there were a few more lines around the dark eyes, and she’d gained the smallest amount of weight, all over her body, as if someone had stuck Theresa with a bicycle pump and given it maybe three or four squeezes. Immediately, Brenna had flashed on Theresa ten years ago, tired and drawn, in the driveway of her colonial home. Theresa, as expected, hadn’t remembered Brenna at all.

Assuming Brenna was a reporter, Theresa had answered questions about Carol’s giving nature and her involvement in local charities, until Brenna had finally asked her if Carol had any reason to be interested in the Iris Neff case. Theresa had looked at her directly, that flash of shame long gone from her eyes.

“The Iris Neff case?”

“Yes.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Someone told me that Carol’s husband had been questioned during that case. Do you have any idea why?”

“Well . . .”

“Yes?”

“Around town, it was common knowledge, but you should probably keep this off the record.”

“Of course.”

“Honestly, I don’t know why Carol stayed with him. It’s not like they had kids to worry about.”

“Turn left on Bahhhhnaby Lane,” drawled Lee, the GPS.

“You know something funny?” Brenna asked Nelson. “I really don’t need a GPS. The way my mind works, if I’ve been someplace once, I remember how to get there, down to the last hard right. I even remember which streets are one-way.”

“Why do you have a GPS then?”

Brenna shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Company?” She smiled at him. “You understand, right?”

He stared out the window. “Yes.”

“So,” said Brenna. “I heard you and Lydia Neff had an affair.”

Nelson’s head snapped back around. “Who have you been talking to?”

“Does it matter? Apparently, it was common knowledge.”

“It’s . . . it’s not true. I swear to God.”

“Nelson,” she said. “It’s been one day since we met, and already, I can name several very important things you either lied about or neglected to tell me.”

“That’s different. Some things slip my mind.”

“That may be, but if you’re not going to tell me the truth about Carol withdrawing money from an ATM, why should I believe you when you say you and Lydia didn’t have an affair ten years ago?”

“Recalculating,” said Lee.

“I never cheated on my wife. Not with Lydia Neff, not with anybody.”

Brenna made a U-turn. Nelson’s eyes were moist, and she recalled the way he’d cried on the phone with her, begging her to find his wife. “I’m sorry for your loss, Nelson,” she said. “I really am. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now.”

“I want you to keep working for me.”

“Doing what? You hired me to find Carol.”

“I want you to find out who killed her.”

Brenna made a left on Muriel Court. “I’m a missing persons investigator, not a homicide detective,” she said. “The police are on it.”

“No they’re not,” he said tightly. “They think I killed her.”

Brenna was nearing Nelson’s house. To her relief, she saw the news vans and squad cars gone, save for one car parked in front of the walkway—one of those tight silver muscle mobiles Brenna hadn’t seen since the eighties.
A 1982 Pontiac Trans Am in the suburbs. Mid-life crisis much?
“When I was in high school, I dated a guy with a car like that one—only it was powder blue,” Brenna said. “The license plate said Blu ID Soul, and the whole interior smelled like Polo cologne.” She glanced at Nelson. “I had low self-esteem.”

“Do you?” Nelson said.

“Not anymore. I mean, I’m not exactly self-help book material, but I know overcompensation when I see it.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not talking about that.”

Brenna reached the front of Nelson’s house. She pulled to a stop in front of the Trans Am, and its lights went on.

“Do you believe I killed Carol?”

She looked at him. “Nelson. I’ve only known you for two days.”

“The police believe I did.” Nelson was staring straight ahead, into the Z. The interior lights were on, too, and so Brenna saw him clearly. Red Face from the hospital waiting room. “Drives fast,” she said. “Of course, some of those vintage Trans Ams can go from zero to sixty in 6.5 seconds.”

“Huh?”

“I saw him leaving the hospital. Detective, right?”

He nodded.

“Of course he is.”

Pomroy switched off his interior light, then started up his car and drove away, Nelson staring after him.

“You’re home now,” said Brenna. “Try and get some rest.”

“This will not look better in the morning.”

“No, but with some sleep, you may see it more clearly.”

“Miss Spector, please. I know I’ve been less than forthright about some things. But I never cheated on Carol. And I didn’t kill her. I need to find out who did kill her and why, and you’re the only one who can help.”

“Detective Morasco is very capable.”

“
Detective Morasco couldn’t even find a little girl
.”

Brenna’s hand dropped away from the car door. “What?”

Nelson exhaled. “Never mind.”

“No,” said Brenna. “What did you mean?”

“He was on the Iris Neff case. Much too young for the job if you ask me.”

“You can’t blame him,” Brenna said. “Girls . . .” Her throat clenched up. “Children disappear all the time and are never found.”

“Well, I’m not the only one who felt that way.” He turned to her. “They demoted him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Everybody did—though most probably don’t remember. I just thought of it myself.”

“Probably gossip.”

Nelson shifted in the car seat. “No. It was a lot more than gossip.”

“Really?”

“Carol’s best friend, Gayle Chandler. She was very active in our Neighborhood Watch group and had many, many dealings with the police.”