by Megan Goldin
‘I intend to catch her killer,’ I reassured him. ‘But I’ll need your help.’
When it comes to homicides, most are committed by someone known to the victim. More often than not, it’s an immediate relative. A husband. Or a wife. They’re also the easiest to catch because, when you dig deep enough, there’s always evidence. I’ve had cases where we accessed old internet searches and found a husband who googled suffocation techniques, three months before his wife was suffocated by a supposed intruder who didn’t so much as leave a footprint in the muddy garden outside.
There’s often a money trail too; unusual transfers of money, or a prescient consolidation of assets that avoided probate issues after an extremely premature death that the spouse could not have anticipated – unless he or she orchestrated it.
I’m always on the lookout for an obvious motive. In this case, there was not a shred of evidence that Matthew West had anything to do with his wife’s death. No motive. No opportunity. There wasn’t even circumstantial evidence.
There was plenty of raw information from the time of Laura West’s disappearance that I would have liked but was never collected. The original investigator seemed to have had a hard-on for Matthew West. I suspected it was because he was a betting man and he followed the odds: straight to the husband.
The trouble was that he didn’t pursue any alternative suspects, and he did little in the way of investigating the secret corners of Laura West’s life. What went on outside her marriage? What were her human frailties? What obsessed Laura West? What kept her up at night? He hadn’t looked. It’s those kinds of holes that make it that much harder to reinvestigate an old case years later.
‘You were a speaker at a conference on the weekend Laura disappeared?’ I looked up from the file as I asked Matthew West the question.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I presented a paper.’
‘Do you recall how you travelled to Charlotte for the conference?’
‘I drove up on the Friday evening and returned on the Sunday afternoon. That’s when I discovered that Laura had gone missing.’
‘Why drive instead of fly? You could have gotten there in half the time by plane.’
‘I like driving,’ he said. ‘It relaxes me. With a two-hour drive, it’s a toss-up whether you get there quicker by plane or car, especially if the plane’s delayed.’
‘True,’ I agreed. ‘Flights can take longer than planned with airport security so vigilant these days. It’s sometimes less hassle to drive.’ He lifted an eyebrow as if to ask if that was the best I could do with the mirroring technique.
‘Did you drive up with anyone?’
‘No,’ he said without hesitation. ‘I drove there alone on the Friday evening and returned alone after lunch on the Sunday.’
‘What time was your speech at the conference?’
‘Saturday. Around lunchtime. I can’t remember if it was before or after lunch. It was one of those awkward speaking slots where people are either hungry and don’t want to listen, or they’ve just eaten and are inclined to nod off.’
‘Are you sure of the timing?’
‘As sure as I can be about an event this long ago. I speak at dozens of conferences a year. They tend to blend into one another after a while.’
‘Do you recall what you did after your speech?’ I asked.
‘There were workshops. Other presentations. I probably networked. Grabbed a coffee with colleagues. That’s what I usually do at these conferences.’
‘Those are generalities. You may or may not have done any of those things. Can you give more detail about your movements that day? Perhaps you can recall the names of colleagues you talked with at the conference?’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘I can’t. It was years ago. I don’t even remember what I did last month, let alone all those years ago. Surely all that information is in the file? The police questioned me extensively at the time.’ He motioned to the dog-eared folder in front of me.
‘I’m afraid the original detective is deceased,’ I said. ‘We have his old files, but there were some gaps in the information. We have confirmation you were at the conference. We also have confirmation that you delivered a speech early Saturday afternoon and that you attended a breakfast event on the Sunday morning. We have no specific confirmation that you were seen between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.’
That wasn’t entirely true. In fact, according to the original case file, several people recalled seeing Matthew West during the Saturday afternoon and at the conference dinner that night. I conveniently forgot to mention that, because I wanted to see how he reacted to the possibility there might be cracks in his alibi.
‘I was at the conference all weekend,’ he insisted. ‘I was at the main dinner and most of the seminars. I wouldn’t leave my wife and baby daughter to attend a conference and then play hooky.’
‘I understand that,’ I said. ‘Can you recall your specific movements in the afternoon after you gave your talk?’
‘All these years later? I wish I could tell you but even my memory is not that good.’ He rose to his feet and inspected the view of the street through the venetian blinds. A muscle flicked in his jaw. He was visibly trying to calm down.
‘Do you seriously think I murdered Laura?’ He turned to look at me directly. I said nothing. ‘Things were great between us. We’d just had our first child after years of trying. We’d been together since we were students. We were – it sounds trite, but we were soul mates. Why are you wasting your time on me when you should be finding her killer?’
‘Professor West, please don’t mistake my questions for conclusions. I’m not making conclusions. I’m not suggesting that you had anything to do with your wife’s murder. All I’m saying is that there’s a certain period of time over that weekend that is not fully accounted for and it would be helpful if you were able to provide details so I could verify your movements.’
I said nothing more while my words sank in.
‘If you don’t suspect me for Laura’s murder then why do you need to verify my movements?’
‘Because,’ I responded patiently, ‘I need to officially rule you out as a suspect so I can focus my time and energy on finding the killer.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He put down his glass with a clatter and sat back down in the chair. ‘I just don’t want more time wasted when Laura’s killer is still out there.’
‘That’s why I want to dispense with these preliminaries quickly. So please take a moment to think about whether there is anyone else who can verify your movements from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning on the weekend that your wife was killed.’
‘There’s so much I’ve blocked out from that period, I think to shield myself from the trauma,’ he said after a moment’s thought. ‘I’ll need more time to remember.’
‘There is some information from the original investigation that might jog your memory,’ I announced as I opened another file.
‘Such as?’
‘Are you aware of a payment on one of your credit cards that indicates you bought gasoline twenty miles from your home at around 4 p.m. on the Saturday of the conference?’
‘That’s impossible,’ he said. ‘I was in Charlotte at the time. Perhaps I put fuel in the car on the drive to Charlotte and the gas station registered the payment with a delay?’
‘Perhaps,’ I conceded.
‘Or perhaps Laura put gas into her car. She sometimes used my American Express for the points. In fact, she had three credit cards with her when she disappeared.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that was in the file too. Do you recall whether Laura’s cards were used after her disappearance?’
He shook his head. ‘They were never used again.’
‘Did you cancel her credit cards once it became clear she’d disappeared?’
‘It wasn’t something that I thought about doing. It was stressful dealing with Laura’s disappearance; the police, the media, the cloud of suspicion that seemed to inexplicably hang ove
r me. And then I had to manage with a baby. Alice was a terrible sleeper. She’d scream for hours from colic and she missed Laura terribly. So for the first few days, it didn’t sink in that something bad had happened to Laura.’
He took a sip of water.
‘To tell you the truth, detective, I thought perhaps she needed a time-out,’ he said. ‘Laura was like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like a pressure cooker,’ he answered. ‘Everything would build up until she couldn’t contain it anymore and then she’d go somewhere to pull herself together. That’s what I thought had happened when she didn’t come home. I never imagined that she’d been abducted and murdered. It didn’t cross my mind to cancel her credit cards. What if she was lost and needed to pay for a ticket back to me? Or needed food? I left those credit cards open in case she needed to use them.’
‘And they were never used? Not for a single purchase?’
‘Laura’s credit cards were never used again,’ he said. ‘I kept imagining that she’d walk through the door any minute. Then one day passed, and the next, and there was no sign of her. I still made excuses. She’d had a breakdown. She was in a fugue state. She’d lost track of time. When they found the car – that would have been four or five days after she went missing – that’s when I realised she might not ever come back.’
‘You mentioned that she sometimes went away,’ I asked. ‘Where would she go?’
‘She had a friend with a beach house at Hilton Head. Or she’d stay at an old college friend’s apartment in Manhattan. One time she flew to Amsterdam for the weekend. There was never any set place. She’d just go wherever, based on her mood.’
‘After your daughter was born, did Laura frequently disappear on these trips?’
He paused as if to think through the question. ‘Not really. Maybe a day here or there, but Laura wouldn’t leave Alice’s side for more than a couple of days. She was devoted to her. And she wouldn’t go away without telling me and arranging suitable babysitters.’
My phone vibrated. It was a text from Sammy. ‘Joe swore at me, Mom. And FYI, he was suspended from school.’ I sighed. It was going to be a long night when I got home.
‘Now, getting back to the conference,’ I said, returning to my notepad. ‘Do you recall specifically whether you attended the gala dinner on the Saturday night? It was at a French restaurant I believe.’ I checked the file. ‘Chez Marcel?’
‘I don’t have any particular recollection of the dinner. But I’m sure I was there. I almost always go to the dinners at these conferences. It’s rude not to turn up, especially when you’ve presented a paper. They usually take group photographs at the dinners, perhaps the organisers still have photos?’
‘I’ll check,’ I said. ‘When did you first hear that Laura was missing?’ I deliberately changed tack. I needed to hear it in his own words without him having time to think about his answer.
‘The sitter,’ he said. ‘We had a lady taking care of the baby and she called me on Sunday morning to say that Laura wasn’t there. That our bed didn’t look slept in.’
‘What did you do about it?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I told her that Laura had probably come home late on Saturday and left the house early on Sunday. Laura was working on a research paper and she never worked from the house. She found it too disruptive. She worked at the university even on the weekend. She’d say a university campus on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning was the quietest place on earth.’
‘You weren’t worried about Laura’s safety when you were told she hadn’t come back?’
‘Not at all. Mrs Dellamore wasn’t either, from what I recall. She was annoyed because she’d expected the babysitting job to be finished by Sunday lunchtime and, with Laura not responding to her phone and me in Charlotte, it meant she’d have to be there at least until the afternoon. I offered to pay her extra for the inconvenience. That was all.’
‘So your exchange with the babysitter was more transactional in nature?’
‘Yes, you could say so,’ he said. ‘We – I – never suspected that anything bad had happened to Laura when Mrs Dellamore called me. It was really about calming Mrs Dellamore. She was upset her weekend plans had gone awry.’
‘Do you remember when you started worrying?’
‘It was while I was driving back from Charlotte on the Sunday afternoon. I don’t recall the time but I’m pretty sure it was still light out. Mrs Dellamore called me again. Said she still hadn’t heard a word from Laura but she needed to get going soon. I told her I would be there within an hour. I couldn’t think of a single reason as to why Laura had been out of touch for, by then, twenty-four hours. Even if she’d been immersed in work, Laura would have called to find out how Alice was doing.’
‘Why didn’t you stay at the conference hotel?’ I asked suddenly.
‘Sorry?’ he looked up at me in surprise at the switch in subjects.
‘In Charlotte. You said you go to these conferences largely to network, yet you didn’t stay at the hotel where the event was being held. Why not?’
‘I can’t remember. It was so long ago. Perhaps they didn’t have vacancies that weekend and I had to stay at an overflow hotel.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. I’d already checked with the hotel where the conference was held and according to their records they had not been at full occupancy that weekend. ‘If you didn’t stay at the conference hotel, then it would be most logical that you’d stay nearby. A hotel a short walk away.’
‘Yes, I suppose that would make sense,’ he admitted.
‘Yet you stayed at the Clairmont.’ It was a boutique hotel on the other side of town from the conference centre. It was one of those places with separate villas set around a garden. The website marketed it as a romantic getaway for couples. Privacy guaranteed.
‘Why did you book at the Clairmont?’
‘No idea,’ he said quickly. ‘My travel agent usually made my bookings. Or sometimes Laura would book if she was coming with me. Actually,’ he said, as if struck by a sudden recollection, ‘that’s probably the reason. Laura must have made the hotel booking. She had initially been scheduled to give speak at the conference as well. Laura was very particular about the places she stayed. If memory serves, the Clairmont was roomy and private. It would have been an ideal place to stay with the baby.’
‘Do you recall why your wife cancelled her speaking engagement at the conference?’ This piece of information was new to me.
‘God, I wish she had gone.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘If she had then none of this would have happened.’
‘Why didn’t she go?’ I repeated.
‘I really don’t remember. Do you remember what happened five years ago?’
I remembered where I was four years ago. I remembered every last detail from the day Danny was killed. What I was doing in the minutes before he was shot. Where I was at that exact moment in time when he lay bleeding on the side of the road. Where I was when the paramedics shocked him back to life with a defibrillator. I remembered the entire day as if it happened in slow motion.
Yes, it was years ago. Yes, who can possibly remember what they were doing last month let alone years ago? But when your ‘soul mate’ disappears, and has possibly been murdered, then every second of every moment around the time that it happened is ingrained in your mind for ever. Do you know why? Guilt. The survivor always wonders what he or she could have done differently to have changed the course of events..
That’s why I didn’t quite believe Matthew West when he said he couldn’t remember what he’d done on the day his wife disappeared. It was the only part of his story that didn’t ring true.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t recall why Laura didn’t attend the conference. It was a tough year for her, adjusting to having a baby. She tried to cut her workload. These conference presentations take hours of work. Laura probably pulled out because she didn’t have the bandwidth.’
‘Did Laura spend time
in the country?’ I changed the subject again. ‘Hiking or horseback riding?’
‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘Laura was never an outdoors person. She was fair-skinned. She burned easily and as a result she tended to avoid the sun. Also, she was allergic to animal fur. We had to give away my pet dog when we first married. Why do you ask?’
‘The body we found in Kellers Way was wearing riding gear when she was killed,’ I said.
‘What do you mean, riding gear?’
‘Her body was found wearing knee-high black boots with a thick heel used for riding. She wore a tailor-made riding jacket as well.’
‘Laura was afraid of horses,’ he said. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, we’re quite certain,’ I said. ‘We found traces of horse manure and hay in the tread of the boots. There’s a good chance that Laura would have been around horses shortly before her death.’
Chapter Nineteen
Julie
It’s easy enough finding Emily on campus once I have her class schedule. Thank you, Matt, for keeping meticulous records of your students.
Emily has back-to-back classes most mornings from nine to eleven. I arrive a few minutes before eleven and wait for her on a polished timber bench outside the psychology department lecture halls.
Not even Matt would recognise me if he walked past me in the corridor. I’m wearing a college sweatshirt, paid for in cash at the campus store, and a baseball cap that covers a shoulder-length light brown wig made from real human hair, which I rented at a costume store. My face is framed by navy-rimmed glasses with clear lenses, bought at a discount pharmacy at a strip mall across town.
I stifle a yawn as I wait for Emily’s lecture to finish. I slept badly last night, troubled by the latest fault line to run through our marriage. I can’t compete with a dead woman.
Matt is mourning Laura all over again. Who better to console him than Emily? Her resemblance to Laura is uncanny. It makes me more determined than ever to fight for Matt. I won’t lose Alice just because that bitch Emily wants to steal my husband.
