by E. G. Scott
Paul is not in Miami. Illusions is a jewelry store in Cold Spring Harbor. No need to Google search that one. I know it well.
My heart thrums at warp speed. I type in “Royal Palm, Long Island” and 1,023 images register. I click on one of the many endless photos of a gorgeous four-star restaurant on the sound, “a perfect place for a romantic celebration.” It is half a mile from Illusions and within walking distance of the Harbor Rose.
The Harbor Rose. The bed-and-breakfast we stayed in the second night we were married and for anniversaries for years after. Until Paul’s business went under.
Paul seems to be having quite the romantic weekend without me.
I step outside in the hope that the fresh air will quell the emerging headache blossoming behind my eyes. The sky is a beautiful painting of pink and blue and fading yellow in the waning afternoon. He’s practically been in the backyard this whole time.
My phone shudders in my hands. I see my knuckles are white from gripping it so hard. His name surfaces.
Hey baby.
The weather is great.
I hate being this far away.
I’m watching a gorgeous sunset and wishing you were here.
twenty-one
SILVESTRI
I CAN’T NOT fuck with him.
As I look up to see Wolcott walking into the squad room in yet another three-piece ensemble, I give him an exaggerated roll of the eyes. “Again with the fucking vests. You look like Balki.”
“What’s that saying?” he responds. “‘Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.’”
“Well, if you’re looking to become a goat herder on the island of Mypos, you’re on the right track.”
“Just looking for a job that will let me upgrade partners.”
“Aw, but without me, you’d miss out on all the witty banter,” I say.
“And when exactly does that start?” he quips.
“Right,” I say. I point at the cardboard cup on his desk. “Coffee’s still hot.”
“Appreciated. We’ve got Campbell coming in this morning, fresh off of his Florida trip, right?” As he checks his watch, I’m reminded that he’s the only guy I know south of forty who still wears one. Though I guess we’re both just south of forty these days.
“Yeah, he should be in shortly. You ready to work your magic?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Why not. Let me get a few sips of this down,” he says, picking up the cup. “Then we’ll have a little fun with the guy.”
* * *
I’VE BEEN LOOKING forward to this all morning.
I’m set up in the interrogation room when my partner walks Campbell in. I’m practically licking my chops with anticipation. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to really go in on a suspect, and I’ve never had a partner with the kind of interrogation savvy that Wolcott reportedly brings to the table. My idea of a good time.
My partner goes through the formalities of introducing us again and shows Paul Campbell to a seat across the table from me. Campbell is dressed in a pair of dirty Carhartt carpenter jeans and a thin thermal long-sleeve. Wolcott lays a comforting hand on our suspect’s shoulder before rounding the table, unbuttoning his jacket, and taking a seat next to me. There’s a dash of performance to the proceedings. I’m starting to understand the vests.
“Mr. Campbell,” begins my partner. “Thank you for making the time to come in this morning. How was your trip to Florida?”
“Oh, great. Great.” Paul seems distracted.
“You were down there for a real estate convention, no?” I ask. “Where do they put you up for something like that?”
“Umm . . .” He hesitates for a moment, then looks at us. “I need to confess something, Detectives.”
“We’ve been known to dip into the confession business,” I reassure him. “Have at it.”
“I wasn’t actually in Miami this weekend. I had a construction project in town that I needed to attend to, but I didn’t want Rebecca to find out.”
“I’m confused,” I interject. “I thought you were in real estate.”
“Oh,” he explains. “Before I sold houses, I built them. Had a contracting company for many years. Got hit hard in ’08 with the crash and had to pivot a bit.”
“Hmm,” says Wolcott. “So, you still do contracting as a sideline?”
“Occasionally, yes,” Paul explains. “This is a little side project I’m working on at the moment. But I’m keeping Rebecca in the dark about it for now. Kind of a surprise for down the road.”
“Interesting. It’s around here?” I ask.
“A little west of here. A plot of land that I’ve had for a few years. Sort of a retirement plan, if you will.”
“Makes sense,” says Wolcott. “Catch the market on the upswing, build, flip it, and turn a profit.”
“Yeah,” says Paul. “That’s the plan.”
“An enterprising man,” I add.
Our suspect offers a faint smile and looks between my partner and me. We let the silence hang in the air for a moment too long. Campbell shifts in his seat.
“Mr. Campbell,” says Wolcott. “We asked you here today because we hoped you might be able to shed some light on what is shaping up to be a rather baffling case.”
“Sure,” volunteers Paul. “How can I help?”
“Well,” says Wolcott, “we’re hoping you can give us any kind of perspective on this Sheila Maxwell woman. She doesn’t seem to enjoy a big presence around town and is virtually unknown even at the studio where she worked out with your wife. She was a reclusive woman, maybe?”
Campbell takes a moment to consider his answer. “I really only knew her in a limited capacity. We really didn’t have any sort of social relationship, so it’s hard for me to say.”
I lean forward, which catches his attention. “You did use the term ‘kinship,’ I believe. And you mentioned that she had opened up to you about her husband’s infidelity? I ask because these are all details that might help to paint a larger picture. Right now we don’t have much to go on, I’m afraid. Can you maybe remember any specifics about the husband?”
His eyes move up and to his left. “I know he traveled for work a bunch. I guess he was having the affair with a work colleague. Sounded like kind of an asshole, the way she told it.”
Wolcott jumps in. “‘The way she told it.’ That’s an interesting choice of words, Mr. Campbell. Did you have reason to believe that she wasn’t being truthful with you at any point?”
The idea that someone would lie to him appears to throw Campbell for a loop. “I mean, the whole thing struck me as a little weird, with the husband always being away, but I assumed she was telling the truth. Why else vent all of that stuff to me, right? What’s going on here?”
“Exactly what we’re trying to determine,” explains my partner as he lays the scanned copy of the front-page newspaper story on the table between us.
I study Paul closely as he reads the clipping, unconsciously mouthing the words as he goes. When he gets to the part that should be a surprise, he freezes. His eyes widen; then his brow furrows. His eyes dart from the body of the text to the date on the header, then up to us. He looks utterly bewildered. “But, she . . .”
“Was married, to a Daniel Graves,” says Wolcott.
“Kind of a morbid coincidence on the name.” I can’t help myself.
“She kept hers,” Wolcott continues. “Daniel and Sheila were living in San Francisco until a few years ago, when Daniel died in a scuba-diving accident.”
“On their honeymoon,” I add.
“I realize this must be a shock to you, Paul. I know that you’re principally concerned with your family’s safety, and so we really need you to take us through everything, okay?”
He nods silently, dumbfounded.
“Paul?” Wolcott asks. “I
’m going to run you through a string of text exchanges between the two of you from a couple of months back. I just need you to answer me honestly. If this woman is still out there, we don’t want her putting you or your wife or dog in any danger.”
He looks at my partner as if the dog angle hadn’t occurred to him. “Duff?”
“Just trying to be thorough in our considerations,” I add. “She was familiar with your dog, after all. And there’s the suggestion that she may be an unstable person.”
“Okay.” Paul nods absently. “Sure.”
Wolcott pulls the stack of printouts from under the table and sets them down. He begins to flip through them, making brief notations as he goes. A few pages in, he pauses. “Now, here’s where we could use some clarification, Paul.” He taps his finger on a text near the middle of the page. “There’s a flirtatious tone that begins around here.” He scans through to the bottom of the page. “Oh, and here it is. You invite her over to your house, and there’s some suggestive language involved.”
Campbell shifts in his seat and begins scratching his chin. “Okay, guys. I’m going to come clean with you.”
“That’s for the best,” I say.
“There may have been a little more to the relationship than strictly emotional,” he admits.
My partner and I nod understandingly. “We get it,” I say. “You were dealing with some heavy stuff at the time.”
“But I’m not proud of it,” he clarifies.
“She was a good-looking woman,” I say. “They both were.”
He looks confused.
“Sorry,” I clarify. “Sasha Anders.” His body uncoils slightly when I mention the name. “You see, my partner and I are dealing with two missing women, so we sometimes think in pairs.”
“Yeah,” Campbell says. “Sasha was attractive. But it’s not like that between us. At least it hasn’t been for a long time. Not really my type these days.”
“Oh no?” asks Wolcott. “Weren’t they about the same type? Physically, I mean.”
“I guess they were,” says Paul. “I just meant that Sasha is kind of, I don’t know, boring.”
“Got it,” says Wolcott, as he continues to sift through the text printouts. “Okay, some photos of you two lovebirds. I’ll just assume these are you,” he continues, referring to the crotch shots and the photo of a nude male’s back. He stops, suddenly, and looks Campbell in the eye. “Now, here’s where my curiosity gets the better of me.” He pulls the page from the top of the stack and places it in front of our suspect. “Could you read that for me?”
Campbell looks at the page and hesitates. He looks up at my partner first, and then at me, and finally reads out loud the highlighted words. “‘I will fucking end you.’”
Wolcott enjoys a long, deliberate inhale and squares his shoulders. “Now, do you see where that might beg some questions, Paul?”
I can see the gears spinning behind our suspect’s eyes.
“Detectives, I understand how that might look. You have to remember, I was really at the end of my rope. This woman had been stalking my wife and me around town, as you can see from those earlier photos. She was clearly unstable, and I didn’t know what else to do. She wasn’t responding to reason or logic, and the only thing I thought might work would be a show of force. In my desperation, I made a bad decision. I never would have followed through on it, but I responded in the heat of the moment, in a final attempt to get her out of our lives.”
“You use the word ‘final,’” Wolcott points out. “But you couldn’t have known at the time that it would be your final interaction with this woman, could you?” I feel like I’m watching a surgeon operate.
I’m impressed by how quickly Campbell recovers. “I just meant, in hindsight, you know. It just felt at the time like she was on the brink. I was scared for myself and my wife. It was really jarring.”
“I can imagine,” says Wolcott. “And just to clarify, that text exchange was, in fact, the last contact you had with Ms. Maxwell, correct?”
I watch Campbell’s eyes shift up and to his right before returning to meet my partner’s. The liar’s tell. “Yes, that was the last time I had anything to do with her, yes.”
Wolcott props his right elbow on the table and begins to stroke his chin, all the while looking at Campbell across the table from him. I watch Campbell do his damnedest not to blink while my partner considers him. I wish I’d brought popcorn for this.
“Okay, then, Mr. Campbell,” says my partner, in a tone that dispels the tension immediately. He places his palms on the edge of the table and stands up. I follow, as does our suspect. Wolcott rebuttons his suit jacket and rounds the table, where he takes Campbell by the shoulder and gently guides him in the direction of the door. “Thank you so much for coming in today. We’ll be in touch with any developments on our end, and please do the same if you hear or see anything.” He holds the door for Campbell, who can’t leave fast enough.
“Will do, Detectives,” says Campbell, out of the side of his mouth. “Thank you.” He doesn’t make eye contact with either of us on his way out of the interrogation room.
We step out into the hallway as we watch Paul Campbell hurry off and disappear around the corner. My partner lets the door close behind us and turns to me. A sly, satisfied smile takes over his face. He nods.
“He’s going down,” I say.
“Yes, he is.”
twenty-two
PAUL
Suspicion Surrounds Honeymoon Drowning of Seasoned Diver
THE HEADLINE FLASHES in my head like a blinker. God, I fucking knew it. She was lying to me all that time. And she was even crazier than I thought. She made that poor son of a bitch drown. Then lied about him. For years. Jesus. Why didn’t I listen to myself? I could sense it all along. What a fool.
The spring sunlight is glaringly bright as I exit the station house and cross the lot. I squint as I head for the Jeep. I make it to the driver’s-side door before I’m caught by a wave of nausea that churns my insides. She wasn’t just there to scare us. She was there to kill us. She’d done it before. And she was determined to do it again.
I force myself to open the door, get inside, and start the engine. I’m sweating profusely and can barely grip the wheel, but I need to get the fuck out of this parking lot and away from this place. Who knows if those two dipshit cops are watching me from a window. Take it slow. Breathe. Breathe.
I pull out onto the highway and make it half a mile down the road before I’m forced to pull over onto the shoulder. I leave the Cherokee running as I race up to a line of trees and lose my stomach on the edge of the wooded patch. The coffee is bitter on the way back up, and the aftertaste of bile stings my throat and nostrils.
I look at a patch of discolored grass in the clearing before the trees, and suddenly I’m digging again, muscles burning. Dragging the horribly limp body to its shallow grave. As I move to kick the tarp into the hole, it unfurls. Sheila wriggles out and stares back at me. “It should have been you,” she whispers.
The sound of a tractor-trailer horn whips me back into the moment. My hands are on my knees, and I’m panting. Get your shit together. I walk slowly back to the Jeep and take a seat. My head is throbbing, and there’s a hole burning through the center of my stomach. I turn the engine off, as I don’t trust myself to drive right now.
I can’t breathe. I throw the door open and hop out of the seat, nearly falling over in the process. I make my way around to the front of the Cherokee and lean on the hood. The warm steel feels reassuring under my palms. I drop my head in the direction of the ground and let out a lung-shredding scream.
* * *
THE LAST TWO NIGHTS were both the same. I stole away in the dead hours and drove out to Smithtown Bay. I needed to dig up the body, as I’d made a terrible mistake. I pulled up to the spot, parked, and grabbed my tools. The ground gave easily, so the sho
vel sufficed. I dug and dug, but it felt like an eternity before I’d made any headway. I fought through the exhaustion until I finally saw the tarp. I cleared the rest of the dirt away and dragged the body out of the hole. When I unwrapped the tarp, I saw Rebecca’s lifeless eyes staring back at me.
Each night, I bolted up in a cold sweat, relieved that my wife wasn’t sleeping next to me. My dear wife, who thought I was in Miami, even as I slept in a motel room just a few towns away from her.
* * *
MY LUNGS BURN. I’m hoarse from screaming and my head is pounding. I need to get back out to Cold Spring Harbor to check on the crew. I peel my sweat-soaked hands off the hood and walk around to the driver’s-side door. I exhale deeply and key the engine.
As I pull back onto the highway, a Crown Vic sails by. I pick up speed and catch up with the car. I pull past it and check out of the corner of my eye. Not Wolcott and Silvestri. Those clowns are starting to irritate me. I’m annoyed that I’m paying them this much mind, but they’ve got fuck all on me. There’s nothing on record to connect me to the lot in Smithtown Bay, and thanks to Javier and his crew, there’s now enough DNA in the Cold Spring Harbor basement to turn a forensics lab inside out.
* * *
“INS. FREEZE!”
“¡Cabrón!” The guys’ heads whip toward me. “¡Chinga tu madre!”
“Just fucking with you guys.” I laugh. “Javier, take lunch whenever you want.”
“Thanks, pendejo.”
As he rounds up the crew, I take a look at the skeleton of the home we’re building. The joists are laid in cleanly, and I’ve got the cherry already picked out for the floors. The boys are making good time this morning. I’m relieved I was able to get these guys lined up for the stretch. Detail-oriented workers make all the difference. Plus, they’re willing to bust their asses on the weekends, and their immigration status leaves me with some room to negotiate.
