Thirty-Nine

I'd been struggling to compose some notes for what I would say that evening to the parents concerned about what I was having the kids read, but was having a difficult time pulling my thoughts together.

I'd opened up the laptop on my desk intending to see what others in the trenches fighting book banning and censorship had said, but instead of entering that subject into the search field, I typed in "Billy Finster" and then refined that to "William Finster" and right away my screen was filled with stories from the last twelve hours.

There was a short news item in the New Haven paper.

Milford Police homicide detectives are investigating the suspicious death of a man whose body was found late last night.

Police said the deceased, William Finster, 25, of Wooster St., was discovered after officers in a passing patrol car investigated a garage door that had been left open. The garage, a separate building behind the Finster residence, was where Mr. Finster had been restoring an old Camaro.

Sources say Finster, an airport baggage handler, was shot at close range. Police are currently looking for his wife, Lucy Finster, 27, who is, police stressed, not a suspect, but someone they wish to speak to in a bid to gather more information. She hasn't been seen since Monday afternoon.

I would like to say that the story came as a total shock to me, but it did not.

There was also a video clip from one of the local TV news stations. The item was shot earlier today out front of the Finster residence, which was still roped off with police tape. The woman standing with the microphone in her hand didn't have much information beyond what was in the newspaper, but she did have an interview with a woman I recognized as the one who'd asked me to move my car off her lawn. At the bottom of the screen was her name: Dorothy Envers.

Christ, I had more to worry about than Billy's texts to me. Would she tell police she'd seen someone watching the Finster house earlier in the day? And did she, or anyone else, see me when I returned several hours later?

I was hopeful I'd left no trace of my presence there. Recently, I'd read something about "touch DNA," where a sample can be obtained if someone does nothing more than touch a surface. The good news there was, I hadn't touched a thing except for the handle of the door into the garage, and I'd wiped that down with the sleeve of my jacket when I'd left. And that would mean I was in the clear with fingerprints, too. I'd seen no surveillance cameras, and if there had been any, chances were the police would have been at my door by now.

But there was the issue of footprints.

When I'd run across the yard to the garage, I'd passed through grass damp with evening dew, and I supposed it was possible my shoes could have left an imprint on the garage floor. So this morning I'd taken those shoes—an old pair of Asics I'd been wearing for about four years—and dropped them into a trash bin out back of a fast-food joint out on Boston Post Road.

I knew how that looked.

But I didn't want anyone knowing I'd been there last night. How would I persuade anyone I wasn't a suspect if they knew the game he'd been trying to run on me?

Well, he wasn't going to be running it anymore.

I'd heard nothing from Bonnie all day. No call, no text. But then again, I hadn't been in touch with her, either. Maybe tonight we could sit down. Clear the air.

I might even find the strength to tell her what I'd done.

As I was heading to my car at the end of the school day, I nearly bumped into Herb Willow as he was coming out of his classroom.

"Excuse me," I said.

We hadn't spoken since I'd let him have it the other day. If he was still holding a grudge, it wasn't evident by the smile on his face when he saw me.

"Richard," he said amiably. "How are you today?"

"Fine, Herb," I said, and would have continued on my way but he wasn't done.

"I hear the townsfolk are gathering their pitchforks and torches for a meeting with you tonight."

So that hadn't been an amiable smile. More like a devilish one.

"Once these book-banners are convinced something's unacceptable, it's hard to win them over," Herb said. "They just zero in on the objectionable part and won't consider it in a larger context."

"There some kind of point you're trying to make here?"

"I should think it would be obvious. You don't see the parallels?"

"Enlighten me."

"You got parents judging what you give their kids to read based on one small excerpt, and you've got the whole goddamn school judging me based on one small thing said by a crazy person who wanted to kill us all."

I couldn't see what was to be gained, debating a worm.

"I wonder why I see your hand in this meeting," I said.

Herb feigned offense. "How could you say that? How unprofessional would it be to cause problems for a colleague?"

I turned and walked away.

When I got home, I walked over to Mrs. Tibaldi's to pick up Rachel. I figured the trip back to the house would give us a chance to get caught up. I'd been so consumed with my own problems that it was easy to forget that it wasn't all about me.

"How's Mrs. Tibaldi?" I asked.

"Are you going to make me go there again tonight?" Rachel asked.

"Don't have any plans to, sweetheart. Last night, it was something unexpected." She had nothing to say to that. "How's the bug collection coming?"

Rachel shrugged.

"It's nice you have a new interest."

Another shrug. Then, "Amanda said she might give me all her bugs because her dad hates them, but I don't think I want them."

"Why's that?"

"It's like zoos. It's mean to keep things locked up, even if they're dead. They should all be set free."

"When I was a kid, I collected stamps for a while."

"Stamps? What are stamps?"

That stopped me cold. I shouldn't have been surprised. Why would a kid who'd been raised in an age of emails and texts, whose parents paid all their bills online, know anything about sticking a little square of paper onto an envelope and dropping it into a box down the street?

I laughed. "Never mind. It was pretty boring, anyway."

"Did you sell the boat?" Rachel asked.

"You heard about that?"

That shouldn't have surprised me, either. She could have overhead Bonnie and me talking about it, or Bonnie might have mentioned to her that I'd been thinking of it.

The truth was, there was no need to sell it now.

She nodded and I said, "No, I didn't sell the boat."

"Okay," she said. "For sure?"

"For sure."

"And you won't change your mind?"

I shook my head. "You seem pretty worried about it," I said, patting the back of her head. "How come?"

"The boat's a family thing, and if we didn't have the boat maybe we weren't going to be a family anymore."

I stopped, knelt down, took her two hands in mine, and looked her in the eye. "That would never happen." I took her into my arms for a quick squeeze, and we continued on our way home.

In the freezer, I found some meatballs we'd made up a month ago and sealed in a plastic container, let them simmer in a tomato sauce, put on a pot of water to boil for spaghetti, and then scrolled through my phone looking for more stories about Billy Finster's death.

Then I thought, if someone checked my phone's search history, they'd have to wonder why I was so interested in Finster's murder. And then I realized my laptop at school would be equally incriminating. Someone might get around to talking to Belinda, who'd be able to report I'd asked her if we had a current address for him. Just how many clues had I left behind?

Stupid stupid stupid.

Bonnie arrived home shortly before six. When she found me in the kitchen I put the phone aside and smiled weakly at her. I didn't know where things stood between us at that moment. I decided to make the first move, walked over, and put my arms around her.

"Hey," I said.

She started to cry. Then she started to shake.

"It's okay," I said, holding on to her more tightly. "It's okay."

She wiped a tear from her eye and pulled back far enough to ask, "Where's Rach?"

"Watching her movie."

Bonnie nodded, like that was a good thing. "I have something I have to tell you," she said.

"Okay," I said, leading her to the table so she could take a seat.

"I need a drink of water."

I ran the tap and filled two glasses. Bonnie drank half of hers and stared down at the table.

"I did a very dumb thing," she whispered.

"Just tell me," I said. "Whatever it is, we'll sort it out."

She opened her mouth, then closed it, like she wanted the words to come out but something was holding her back.

"You were right," she said.

I knew it. She'd told Marta.

"I didn't go see my sister," she said. "She went back to work."

That threw me. "Okay. So where did you go, then?"

"I went—"

The doorbell rang.

We both sighed. "Shit," I said.

Rachel, in the family room nearby, shouted, "Someone's at the door!"

"I'll get it," Bonnie said, and got up.

I heard her open the front door and say with surprise, "Oh, hi!" Some murmuring followed by Bonnie saying, "Yeah, sure, come on in."

Seconds later she returned to the kitchen with her sister, Marta, in tow. I stood.

"Hi, Marta," I said, and felt a worm turning around inside my gut. What had Bonnie said a second ago? "She went back to work."

This is it. It's over.

"Richard," she said, nodding. Marta wasn't the cheeriest person in the world, but you could usually find some trace of a smile on her face. But not today.

Bonnie said, "Can I get you something? A beer? Some coffee?"

"I'm good," Marta said. "A beer's tempting, but I'm on duty and all that." She took a good look at me, at the bruise still visible on my right cheek and temple.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"Stupid basketball thing," I said. "So, you're back on the job." She nodded. "What's up?"

"I'm investigating something that happened last night," she said, leading into this slowly. "And it may be that I shouldn't even be here, asking you anything about it. I should probably recuse myself from this. But then again, there might be a pretty simple explanation and handing this off to someone else wouldn't even be necessary."

"I don't understand," Bonnie said to her sister.

Marta let out a long breath. "I'm investigating a homicide. Someone by the name of William Finster—Billy, everyone called him."

I could barely hear Bonnie's sharp intake of breath. Surprise, no doubt. I thought it unlikely she'd also been googling stories about his demise today. I could sense her wanting to look at me, to exchange glances, to try to read into my expression whether this was news to me, but she could not. I could only imagine what she might be thinking, where her mind was going.

When we didn't respond, Marta pressed. "That name mean anything to either of you?"

Bonnie and I remained stone-faced. I slowly shook my head, but then said, "I think there was a Lodge student by that name a few years ago."

"Yes," Marta said. "He did go to Lodge."

"And he's dead?" I said. "Somebody killed him?"

Marta nodded solemnly. "That's right. We're in the early stages of the investigation. But we do have some leads, as it turns out."

I hoped Marta did not notice me swallowing. My mouth had turned into the Sahara. I reached back to the table for the glass of water and had some. I'd no sooner done it when I wondered how guilty that made me look.

And then I thought of something.

Pictures.

There were pictures on my phone of Billy Finster's place. Shots I'd taken when I went by there in the afternoon. I should just stick out my wrists and tell Marta to put on the cuffs.

"What sort of leads?" Bonnie asked.

I slipped my hand down into the front pocket of my jeans, got my hand on my phone.

"A car was spotted parked near the Finster property," Marta said. "Like maybe someone had been watching the place."

"Okay," I said as I brought the phone out of my pocket.

"One of the neighbors thought it looked kind of suspicious, so they made a note of the plate, the make and model of the car."

I tried to look down at my phone discreetly, brought it to life by pressing my thumb to the button at the bottom.

"Am I boring you?" Marta asked.

"Sorry," I said, glancing up half a second after I opened the photos app. "I muted my phone and thought I felt a text coming in."

I quickly glanced down. The most recent photos were those I'd taken of Billy's place. I tapped the garbage can icon. Once. Twice. Three times.

"Did you?" Marta asked.

"Did I what?" I asked, slipping the phone back into my pocket.

"Get a text?"

"No. Sorry. Go on."

Marta said, "So I had them run the plate, and when I got the result back I had them run it again, because it didn't make any sense to me."

Should I get ahead of this? I wondered. Admit it was me? But what kind of excuse could I come up with that didn't mention the blackmail scheme?

"And so here I am," Marta said. "The plate's attached to a dark blue 2020 Mitsubishi, just like the one out front in your driveway."

Marta looked squarely at her sister and said, "That's your car, isn't it, Bonnie?"