Chapter 35

THIRTY-FIVE

FEbrUARY 2023

Cincinnati

Delta 447 from SeaTac to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport touched tarmac a little ahead of schedule at five thirty in the afternoon, local time.

Lucas was carrying hand baggage only, so he made it to arrivals within ten minutes. Detective Anderson was waiting for him in the terminal. Today, she was wearing a dark-gray pant suit, and her hair was tied back. She didn't return Lucas's smile, just gave him a brief nod of recognition as he emerged from the throng of commuters spilling out into the terminal.

Longbow had quibbled about the budget, of course, which was expected, but had agreed to let Lucas travel out to Cincinnati to shadow MacDonald and Anderson as they worked the Greenwood kidnapping.

"Cheap hotel," he had ordered. "And no fancy restaurants."

Anderson's car was a dark blue Ford Taurus with a couple of thousand miles on the clock. It still had the new car smell. Lucas wondered if Mac was authorized to eat breakfast burritos in this vehicle and doubted it.

"How was the flight?" Anderson asked as she pulled out of the lot. It was only the second thing she had said to him since they had met at the terminal. Lucas couldn't work out if she disliked him because of the usual tensions of a case spanning multiple jurisdictions, or if it was just a personal thing. Maybe it didn't have to be either-or.

"Uneventful. The way I like it," Lucas said. "Where's your partner?"

"He had a status meeting with the deputy commissioner," Anderson said. "We're meeting him at headquarters."

"The deputy commissioner. For the Greenwood case, I take it?"

Anderson nodded.

"Some victims are more equal than others, right?"

Anderson said nothing.

They took the 71 north into the city. Signs for Crescent Springs and Fort Mitchell flashed by. Lucas looked out of the window as miles of flat, unremarkable landscape passed by: low-rise buildings and acres of parking lots and big box stores.

Traffic was slow this time of day, and it took them almost an hour to reach the center of Cincinnati, where the police HQ building was. Anderson parked in the basement lot beneath the building, and they took the stairs up to the foyer, where she signed a couple of forms and issued Lucas with a pass.

"Good to be official," Lucas said.

"Don't arrest anyone while you're here."

They took the elevator up to the floor where the homicide department was based. It was a big, open-plan space with windows looking out over the city. As Lucas followed Anderson through the office, he took in the hustle and bustle of the busy department. Dozens of cops were working at the desks, talking on the phone, typing reports furiously. No one glanced up at the pair of them as they passed through the hive of activity. Lucas had always wondered if he would have preferred the noise and pace of working in a big city department, and part of him felt the pull now, but he knew there were compensations to working in a smaller patch. Lucas liked control, and there were too many cooks stirring the broth here. Even the commissioner in a big department like this only had the illusion of control. It was impossible to know everything in a city this size; not the way a smaller community could be completely knowable.

Anderson led him to one of the doors lining the north side of the office and opened it onto a good-size room with a floor-to-ceiling window with a venetian blind. Detective MacDonald was waiting for them. He was on his feet, looked like he had been pacing.

"You tell him?" Mac asked Anderson.

"Tell me what?" Lucas asked. He looked around the room to confirm it was just the three of them. "I thought Greenwood was going to be here."

"We're trying to get ahold of him," Mac said. "There was a development while you were en route."

"Don't keep me in suspense, Mac," Lucas said, throwing Anderson a side-eye that bounced off her like a BB pellet off Kevlar.

"Turns out Mr. Greenwood still wasn't entirely forthcoming with us."

"He has a girlfriend," Anderson added.

Lucas looked from one to the other. "Oh?"

"We've been talking to his friends and family, people at work," Mac continued. "We talked to everyone at his office but his PA, who called in sick. Her name is Elizabeth Shaw. We went to her home to interview her earlier this afternoon."

"And she told you they were having an affair?"

"She didn't volunteer that information," Mac said.

"Not verbally," Anderson clarified. "But it was written all over her face. We threw her a few softball questions before we asked her straight out. She stared at the floor for a long time and then asked us if she was in trouble."

Mac nodded. "She admitted she had been banging him for the last two years. The wife found out about it because Greenwood's PA had left a diary entry with the girlfriend's name in it public and it flashed up on Greenwood's iPad. She wanted a divorce. Seems that was the reason she went to stay at the hotel. You get where I'm going with this. Maybe they did the math, worked out that a life insurance payout coming in would be better than a divorce settlement going out."

Lucas was facing Mac, but he saw Anderson shake her head a little out of the corner of his eye. He turned to her. "You don't think so?"

Anderson folded her arms, looking irritated that Lucas had read her reaction. "I don't know. I don't like to jump to conclusions."

"Sometimes, you just have to accept the conclusion staring you in the?—"

Mac broke off as his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, glanced at the screen and answered with his name.

"Tony? You at Greenwood's place? Tell him I?—"

He stopped again, and his eyes widened. Lucas and Anderson exchanged a glance.

"Jesus. Okay. Okay. I'll be there in a half hour."

He hung up and ran his hand over his bald head.

"What happened?" Anderson asked. "Is he still coming?"

"He ain't coming anywhere. They just found Greenwood's body in his study. He shot himself."