Chapter 45

FORTY-FIVE

FEbrUARY 2023

Whatcom County

The morning after he got back from Cincinnati, Lucas woke early and drove down to Blake's Diner on Main Street before he clocked in. He ordered black coffee and steak and eggs. He had a mandatory check-in with Dr. Wright at two, and before that he wanted to get a head start on some of his lines of inquiry. Since arriving back from his flying visit to Ohio, he had been chasing up new leads. "Mac" MacDonald might think he had worked it all out but Lucas wanted to tie up the loose ends closer to home. Something had gotten under his skin about this case. It didn't take Dr. Wright to work out that it might have something to do with his own recent history.

As he was getting into his car, his phone buzzed. It was the sheriff. He was at a conference down in California, and had set off before Lucas had returned from Ohio.

"Morning, boss, how's the Golden State?"

"Pleasantly warm," Longbow said. "You get back okay?"

"Yeah, last night."

"Worth the trip?"

Lucas considered. "I don't know yet. I think MacDonald wants to put this on the husband, close it down. His partner isn't so sure."

"And what do you think?"

"It would probably make life easier if he was right, but I don't know. I think if Greenwood did it, he had no reason to bring his wife all the way out here."

Longbow said nothing, mulling it over.

Lucas leaned his arms on the roof of his car and watched the traffic blow past the lot.

"There's no goddamn reason for her being dumped out here," Lucas said. "Mrs. Greenwood didn't have any connection with the area, and her husband didn't either. That tells me a third party's involved. I think Greenwood was telling the truth; it was a kidnap."

"Then why did he off himself?"

Lucas thought about it. "It looked bad. No evidence anyone else was involved, some circumstantial evidence he was involved, like lying to the police and concealing his girlfriend. Or perhaps he was just that broken up about his wife."

"If somebody else did snatch her, you think she was from around here?"

"I don't know. Maybe. But it's all I've got to go on."

There was a pause, and Lucas was about to wind up the call when the sheriff made an unwelcome change of subject.

"You got a session with Dr. Wright this afternoon, right?"

Lucas was caught by surprise. He hadn't added the appointment to his shared diary, so Longbow clearly had other ways of keeping an eye on his counseling schedule.

"Yeah. Two o'clock. I'll be there."

"Good. Don't even think about telling me you were too busy with the case. This comes first, got it?"

With an effort, Lucas kept the irritation out of his voice. "You don't need to tell me that, I'll be there at two." See? He had even managed not to say it from between his teeth.

Longbow's voice softened. "Good. How you doing, anyway?"

Lucas rubbed the back of his head and wondered how much longer this was going to take. "I'm doing all right, thank you for asking. The work is helping."

"Okay. But remember what I said, don't push yourself."

"Got it. Listen, if I'm gonna keep to my schedule, I need to make a move."

"All right, talk soon."

Lucas hung up and got behind the wheel, gripping it tightly. He closed his eyes and found himself back in the living room as usual. It was something he was almost getting used to: the images whenever he closed his eyes.

He opened them, turned the key in the ignition and pulled out onto the road, headed west.

His first port of call was the creek. This was his third visit in the last week, but the first on his own. He didn't expect to find anything new, but sometimes it helped to visit the key scenes.

He parked at the side of the road again and walked up to the edge of the slope. He looked down to the spot. This time, when he closed his eyes, he saw Olivia Greenwood's body, not the living room.

Instead of descending the hill, he walked up to the bridge this time. It was pretty obvious how the dump was carried out. The perpetrator could have rolled up after dark and parked on the bridge. From this vantage point there was visibility for miles along the road in both directions. Any other vehicle would be visible a couple of minutes before it got close.

February. The road wasn't dusty enough for the forensics guys to pull usable tracks from the road surface. The body could have been transported in a van…or maybe a pickup with a tarp over the flatbed. The driver would have parked, killed the lights, then hauled the body out and dumped it over the edge. It could be done by a single man. Under two minutes. And then he was gone, into the night. A pickup truck with a dropping tailgate, like the one on the Park Plaza security video, would be ideal for the job.

This was a well-chosen dump site. The perp was familiar with the area. Lucas was surer of that than ever.

Lots of black Nissan Frontiers around, like Mac had said. But how many in Whatcom County?

This afternoon, Dr. Stephanie Wright was wearing a black pant suit and a lilac shirt. Her hair was tied back. It might have been Lucas's imagination, but he thought she had warmed a little since the early sessions.

"It sounds like you're adjusting to being back at work well," Dr. Wright said. "I have to admit I was concerned when I heard about the homicide case you're working on."

"How so?"

Wright sat back in her chair and looked back at him, waiting for him to fill the silence as usual. He suspected that was just muscle memory now. They both knew he wasn't going to oblige.

"A woman dying violently. A wife and mother. Many would say that's exactly the wrong case for you to be working given what happened to your wife and your daughter."

Lucas shrugged, playing up the philosophical attitude he had made sure to foreground a little more in each session. "You know what? I would rather it wasn't a case like this too. I would rather I had come back to deal with some nice petty fraud case in a lumber yard back office, but this is the job. You don't get to pick what comes in next. I guess it's the same in your line of work."

There was the faintest hint of a smile at that.

"I believe you went out to Ohio to speak to the detectives out there. How did that go?"

Lucas took his time answering, considered his response. "It was worth the trip. I think I got some valuable information and it feels like I'm on the right track."

"And how was Cincinnati?"

"It was nice enough. Not much time for sight-seeing. I was glad to get back home."

Wright nodded and scratched a note on her pad, and Lucas realized he had made a misstep.

"Speaking of home, you're still living at the house?"

Lucas nodded. He had carried out the cleanup himself after the crime scene guys had signed off on the scene. He had ripped the carpet up and stripped the wallpaper where it had been spattered with blood. The blood had seeped through the carpet and stained the floorboards beneath. The stains were still there, underneath the new flooring. He thought about that sometimes, those permanent stains beneath the nice new carpet. It was precisely the kind of thought he made sure not to share with Dr. Stephanie Wright.

"I won't lie, sometimes it's a little difficult. The memories and so on. But it's getting easier. Maybe some time you can come over for a coffee, I can show you the place."

"Mmm," Wright said, noncommittally.

The sound of a car pulling into the lot outside drew Wright's attention, and then she looked up at the clock, seeing that their session was almost out of time. One minute to go. Lucas always greeted the looming end of the session with relief. Like he was the point guard on a basketball team with a decent but not-insurmountable lead running out the clock.

"Well, I'm pleased to see you settling in again," Wright said. "I want you to call me if you think it's getting on top of you, if you start to find you're not coping as well as you thought you were."

"I'll be sure to do that," Lucas said. "I don't know if you noticed, but I may have been a little resistant to this whole…counseling thing when we started."

"I may have noticed," Wright said, deadpan.

"Anyway, I was wrong. It's really helped to talk things through, just as much as it's helped to get back to work. It's been a big comfort to know you're here, to know I can tell you anything."

If Wright was skeptical about that, she barely showed it.