And she needed to gamble on that now.
Logan was clearly unsettled by her words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I see. All right, that’s interesting, especially because the discovery of a body on your family’s land has been reported on the local television news programs. The police aren’t releasing any details yet, and of course I can’t discuss the particulars of an active investigation, especially one that’s moving as fast as this one is. But I think we both know more than we’re saying on this subject.”
Logan looked terrified, confirming Gin’s suspicion that her vague insinuations had had the desired effect of convincing him that he was under scrutiny. Logan knew something about the body discovered near the cabin. The trick would be to get him to tell her. Right now, he thought that lying was his best option; she needed to find a way to convince him that telling the truth would work in his favor.
“So let’s talk about Jonah.”
“I already told you, I don’t know him.”
“Not well, you said. But surely you have impressions, opinions, perhaps casual encounters that gave you some insight into who he is.” Gin smiled encouragingly, trying to defuse some of the tension in Logan’s eyes. “It’s just human nature that we form impressions of everyone we meet, even if it’s a brief encounter. Studies have shown that in the first ten seconds after we meet someone, we form opinions on as many as two hundred distinct qualities. And not just superficial things like gender, race, and physical characteristics, but far more subjective things like whether the person is kind or intelligent or generous. People even feel confident in making guesses about things like whether a person has siblings, is in a relationship, or earns a good income.”
“But nobody can know all that,” Logan protested. “Not from just meeting someone. And if they think they do, they’re wrong.”
Gin nodded, pleased that she was getting him to engage in the conversation. “You’re absolutely right. But what’s interesting is that taken in aggregate—that is to say, when you add all of those impressions together—some people tend to be highly accurate in their guesses. And it makes sense, if you think about it—these guesses come from the accumulation of all the experiences a person has had, encounters with people who might be similar or opposite. People who are highly observant and empathic obviously do the best; these qualities correlate with sensitivity and intelligence. And Logan, it’s pretty clear to me that describes you.”
Logan had been about to take a bite of his burger, but he set it down instead. “You don’t even know me,” he said, so bleakly that Gin’s professional barriers weakened. This, she thought, was one unhappy kid.
But she wasn’t here to diagnose him, so she set aside her emotions and pushed harder. “Well, I also have the advantage of having read your file.”
She waited to gauge Logan’s response to this lie. When he looked frightened, she pushed forward more assertively. “We know that you score high on intuitive reasoning and emotional intelligence. Given that advantage, you must have some impressions of Jonah. Especially if he might be involved in something illegal, I hope you’ll consider sharing them with me—with my guarantee that this is off the record.”
Again, Gin was staying within the parameters of truth, though perhaps not the entire truth.
“I don’t know,” Logan said. He picked up the burger again and took a bite, giving himself time to think. After washing it down with soda he said, “Jonah is smart and he works hard. He got like the highest score in the class. I get the feeling his dad expects that from him. That he pushes him hard, you know? And, his mom left. Jonah says she told his father that she couldn’t deal with him. With Jonah. So, I mean, that would hard, you know?”
“I see. How was he with the other kids? Is he someone who gets along with people?”
“I mean … I guess. As much as anyone, anyway. We were all just thrown together, there were kids from all these different schools.” He paused, thinking. “He knew some kids from the private schools, I think he probably knew them from the country club or something.”
“What were his interactions with them like? Friendly?… Competitive?”
Logan shrugged. “Normal, I guess. He kind of kept to himself.”
“Did you ever talk to him about Dead Lands 2? Because that’s something you have in common.”
Logan looked at her warily, and Gin guessed he was trying to figure out if she already knew the answer, if she was trying to test him.
“Yeah, a couple times,” he finally said. Bingo. “I’m pretty active on the forums, so he asked me about that. And we’re two of the only players to have gotten to Skull Boss. So we talked about that. But I never actually saw it. I kind of had the feeling he was making it up.”
“Skull Boss,” Gin repeated. “Is that a level of Dead Lands?” She’d looked the game up after viewing Logan and Jonah’s Facebook pages. Half a dozen parental advisory groups had called for the game to be banned for its extreme content.
“It’s an unlockable. Like where you have to reach a certain level in a certain amount of time, and then you have to do it again with this like random handicap.” Another shrug. “It’s almost impossible if you don’t play professionally. But that’s not like why I play or whatever. I know I’ll never make pro. I just like the strategy. And the art.”
“What about Jonah? Did you get the impression that he enjoyed the violence for its own sake?” Gin chose her words carefully, speaking gently and maintaining eye contact with Logan. “Do you think he might be capable of violence in real life?”
Logan stared at her with a troubled expression, his eyelashes fluttering, his hands twisting his napkin much as he’d unwittingly destroyed the packet of crackers. For a moment she was certain he was about to speak, but then he changed his mind.
“How would I know?” he whispered hoarsely. “I didn’t know him.”
* * *
Soon after, Logan declared that he was tired, and Gin had no choice but to drive him home. A single light was burning in an upstairs window. Gin wondered where Cindy thought he had been this evening. Or whether, when she returned home from her low-paying job, with her abusive boss, she’d had energy left to do anything but get Tiffany her dinner and then crawl into her bed.
“Listen, I want you to have my phone number. Can I text it to you now, just so you can call me if you ever feel like it?”
“You said that tonight was confidential. That nothing we said would go further than our conversation.”
“Yes, I did. And I stand by that.”
Logan must have detected the slight hesitation in her voice—Gin had meant the promise when she made it, but if she was asked in an official capacity—if she was ever under oath, or if the investigation went in a direction that required corroboration on her part—how could she keep that promise? Why had she even made it in the first place? Gin mentally kicked herself for being out of her depth. Her work had been instrumental in solving dozens of murders, hundreds if you counted the war crime victims, but she had never interrogated the living, only the dead.
And the only promise she’d ever made to the dead was her silent one that she had learned and adopted from her boss in Chicago, Chief Medical Examiner Reginald Osnos, who over the course of his long career had made a practice of beginning each autopsy with an unspoken promise to honor and respect the journey that had brought the person to the table while attempting to find all the answers that science could provide.
But only two nights ago she had also lied—deliberately, brazenly—to a man who only wanted to get to know her better. She’d violated her contract by speaking about an active case. And she’d colluded with Tuck in an investigation he was not legally allowed to conduct. Oh, and she’d knowingly manipulated Liam Witt, to get him to lie to his supervisor.
There were so many violations of her own code of ethics, if not outright breaking the law, that Gin couldn’t keep track any more. Her involvement had begun innocently enough, then been complicated
by Jake’s misguided desire for vengeance, then somehow morphed into something much more personal. Somehow, she had to bring closure to the families of the two dead men—maybe as much for herself as for them. And if the intruder in her home, her kidnapping and imprisonment, weren’t enough to dissuade her—then nothing was going to stop her now.
For better or worse, Gin meant to see this through to the end.
“Look, you seem like you could use a friend,” she said, making one last try. “What’s your phone number?”
He opened the car door and got out. Then he leaned down and rattled off the number.
“Good night, Logan,” she said, as the boy got out of the car and slammed the door shut without looking back, and then she texted him quickly while she still remembered the number. Call me any time—this is Dr. Gin Sullivan
She let the car idle while she watched Logan dash up the front steps and let himself into the house. A moment later a second light came on upstairs. The curtains rustled in the window, and she thought she saw Logan’s face briefly peering out, before the curtains went still.
The small, shabby row of townhouses was silent and reproachful, hunkered down at the edge of a town that, like its residents, seemed to have lost its urge to thrive. While Trumbull embraced change a few miles up the river, turning its shuttered mills into workspaces and upscale eateries, Greenport succumbed little by little to decay, until it seemed that it would end up like the abandoned houses in the flats, choked with vegetation as they were slowly reclaimed into the earth.
Gin eased the car out of the drive and headed back toward Trumbull, following the meandering path of the river, an inky blackness out her window. She was home in no time, traffic nonexistent this late at night.
A powerful melancholia had her in its grip, and she was exhausted, having only managed a few hours of sleep earlier. The light in her parents’ window winked out as she gazed at the house from her car; they had turned in for the night.
A text chimed just as she was about to get out of the car. She checked the screen and saw Stephen Harper’s name.
Wheeler wants rush on autopsy for cemetery guy. Can you make 10:15 Monday morning?
Gin sighed. It looked like work was going to continue to be her solace for the time being.
Yes, I’ll be there. Goodnight, Stephen.
Then she got out of the car quickly, so that no more trouble could find her tonight.
21
After spending Sunday relaxing, helping her father in his garden and taking a long walk with her mother, trying to reassure them that she was taking no risks, Gin was ready to return to work on Monday morning. She was blow-drying her hair in the yellow-tiled bathroom adjacent to her room when there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find Madeleine, dressed for work in a tailored beige linen suit, holding two mugs of coffee. She handed one to Gin.
“You have a visitor,” she said, one eyebrow arched. “He promises not to take too much of your time.”
“Jake?” Gin asked, her heart stuttering. Was he back in town? Had their last conversation changed his mind?
Madeleine frowned slightly. “No, it’s Tuck.”
“Oh.” Gin winced, hoping her mother wasn’t worried by his presence. Evidently, Tuck had expected her to call the minute she woke up, and when she hadn’t, he’d taken matters into his own hands. “Mom, look, I—”
“Despite my obvious reservations about the work you’re doing, I happen to think Tuck has been roundly mistreated,” Madeleine said crisply. “I have access to certain information in my role as mayor, and suffice it to say, there is no solid evidence of any substantive case against him. So while I of course expect both of you to uphold the highest professional standards, and for the love of God stay out of harm’s way, I don’t see any harm in speaking to the man. Besides, I made him some toast.”
“Mom!” Gin looked down at herself in dismay. She hadn’t brought her bathrobe home with her, so she was wearing an old swim team robe that she’d found stuffed in the bottom of her dresser. It barely grazed her thighs. She was going to have to make time to go back and get the rest of her things soon. “I don’t have time to change if I’m going to get to Pittsburgh in time—”
“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Madeleine said sweetly, turning and heading back down the stairs.
Gin followed, fuming. If she didn’t know better, she would think her mother was encouraging her decidedly inappropriate relationship with the chief of police. But she was probably only hoping that Tuck could provide Gin with an extra measure of safety.
Tuck was seated at the head of the table with a half-eaten slice of buttered raisin bread toast in his hand. “Thanks, Mads,” he said. “this is amazing.”
“Mads?” Gin echoed incredulously.
“We have a good working relationship,” Tuck said, shrugging. “What can I say?”
“Gotta run,” Madeleine said, setting her mug down in the sink. She kissed Gin’s cheek as she passed by her. “Good luck today, honey.”
Gin took a seat at the table, awkwardly tugging the hem of her robe to make sure it didn’t slip up.
“Sorry to stare,” Tuck observed, grinning.
“Perhaps you could stop, then.” Gin aimed for a stern tone, but came up a little short. “What are you thinking, coming here? I told you I’d call you. Anyone who drives by could see your SUV in the drive—”
“I came on my bike,” Tuck said mildly. “Cherie and I have started biking to school when it’s nice out. Might as well take advantage of my little compulsory vacation. Hey, I don’t suppose you’d fry me up some bacon to go with this, would you?”
“Tuck,” Gin said, exasperated. “I have to be at an autopsy in less than an hour. Wheeler called a rush on it.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Gin stared at him. “How do you know? And what’s so important that you had to come over here at this hour?”
“On the first question, my answer isn’t going to change, Gin. I don’t want to talk about who I’m getting my information from. Suffice it to say that I’m up to speed on Gluck’s grave, and the new body … I need to know what you learn today at the autopsy as soon as you get out. How about you meet me at that bar in Squirrel Hill after?”
Gin blinked in surprise. She’d accompanied Tuck to a seedy little tavern in Squirrel Hill, a section of Pittsburgh, once before. That time he’d introduced her to an ammunition specialist who lived above the bar. “We’re going to see Dusty?”
“Not this time—but we’re guaranteed privacy.”
“You couldn’t have asked me this over the phone?” she demanded.
“Yeah, I guess, but then I wouldn’t have gotten a chance to have breakfast with the mayor—or to see you in that thing, for that matter, which is going to fuel months’ worth of daydreams—and most importantly, I wouldn’t have been able to give you this.”
He pulled a tiny Tupperware container from his pocket and snapped off the lid. Inside was a mound of foliage—feathery leaves and sturdy stems with a single, slightly crushed flower with white petals and a purple center. It resembled a wildflower Gin had often noticed on her runs.
Gin took the box and examined it carefully. “Was this found near the burial site?”
Tuck looked bemused. “No, actually. It’s just the first thing to bloom in our yard. Cherie picked it herself. She specifically wanted you to have it.” He stood and carried his cup to the sink. “I don’t have much of a green thumb, Gin. Consider that an invitation to teach me.”
After he left, Gin floated the little flower in a drinking glass filled with water, and carried it up to her room, where she set it on her nightstand.
* * *
Gin pulled into her parking spot with moments to spare, and raced through the building to the morgue. No one was in the sink area, but Gin still took care to scrub completely and gown up. Years of habit did not allow her to take any shortcuts.
She made it through the doors at 10:19. Immediately she was confronted with the noxi
ous odor of a decomposing body. Stephen was poised over the table, and to Gin’s surprise, the only other person in the room besides the autopsy assistants was Captain Wheeler.
“Good morning, Gin,” Wheeler said. Her face was obscured by the mask, but her silver hair showed under her cap, and her expressive eyes flashed behind her stylish red glasses. “Thank you for agreeing to sit in.”
“Hi, Gin,” Stephen said. “Was traffic bad?”
“No worse than usual—and I’m sorry to be late,” Gin said, glad that the mask would obscure her blush. “Especially since you’ve had to deal with the smell.”
Wheeler shrugged. “I put some peppermint oil in my mask. It helps, some. But how do you deal with it? You’re around this a lot more than me.”
“I know this sounds odd, but you kind of get used to it,” Gin said. “I mean, it’s never pleasant, but it’s just part of the job.”
“I don’t even use Vicks or oil or anything anymore,” Stephen said. “I just try to get in the shower before my wife gets home.”
Wheeler raised her eyebrows. “Well, I’m impressed. And grateful. Douglas Gluck’s wife is demanding that we release her husband’s remains for reburial. Naturally, we would like that as well, and as soon as possible. I want to shield the department from any negative exposure on this one. So far we’ve kept the existence of the second body out of the press, but it’s imperative that we process this with haste.”
“Will Bruce be joining us?”
“He had another obligation this morning,” Wheeler said. “But I’ll be sure to fully brief him as soon as he is free. And, of course, he’ll have access to Dr. Harper’s notes and the lab results, which Morgan King assures me they will process as quickly as possible, given the circumstances. I expected fingerprint results this morning, but given the staffing situation, it seems they’re delayed.”
In the Darkest Hour Page 20
