Before She Knew Him(33)

“Massachusetts, Scott. It’s where you live?”

“I wish it was Maine,” he said, and Hen, even from five feet away, saw the life go out of him.

The girl began to howl and shake his shoulders, then Hen heard the sirens and caught the distant pulse of red lights.

The EMTs were the first to arrive, followed by two uniformed officers in a police cruiser, one of whom asked Hen if she was a witness.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d like to make an official statement. I know who killed him.”





Chapter 18




Matthew had been in the interrogation room for just over an hour when his lawyer, Sanjiv Malik, arrived, wearing a slightly rumpled suit and with a two-day beard.

“Sorry,” he said to Matthew as he settled himself into an adjacent chair. “I didn’t get Mira’s message until an hour ago. How long have you been here?”

“We got back from Portsmouth about noon and the police were waiting there for me. What did she tell you?”

“Everything she knows, which isn’t much. You were arrested?”

“I agreed to come in for questioning, and when I told them I was going to leave, then I was arrested. They say they have a witness who positively identified me at the scene of the crime. It’s ludicrous. I was asleep with Mira all last night, and—”

“She’s given an official statement. You won’t be here long. They’ve just made a mistake, is all.”

“I don’t even know . . . Who was it again who got killed?”

Sanjiv looked at his notes. He was distantly related to Mira on her father’s side, although Matthew always suspected that Mira had been introduced to him as a potential husband around the time that Matthew and she were dating.

“The lead singer of the band that had been performing at the Rusty Scupper that night. They were called the C-Beams.”

“Right. They told me. I did know that band because they played at a place near me called the Owl’s Head.”

“Oh,” Sanjiv said.

“I mean, I didn’t know them, but they were playing there on a night when I had dinner. It’s just a coincidence. The only reason I remember it is because someone I work with knows a member of the band.”

“Which one?”

“I think it was the one who got killed, but I’m not sure. The police officer said his name was Scott.”

“Scott Doyle.”

“I think that’s probably him, but I never knew his last name. Who says they saw me there?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out.”

Matthew had barely slept the night before, lying in bed while he went over and over in his mind the events that had taken place outside of the bar. Hen had been about fifteen feet from him. He could see her perfectly, but he was in the shadows and there was no way she could know for sure that it was him. Plus, he had an alibi, an incredibly strong one. Mira would say he was there by her side all night. He doubted very much that she would even mention that she’d been drinking. And any physical evidence was now gone. He’d driven back to Portsmouth via back roads and pulled over at an abandoned gas station on the edge of a salt marsh. He’d thrown the baton, wiped clean of prints, out into the water, and he’d buried the jackknife and the stun gun, plus his hat and gloves and shoes, underneath a broken piece of asphalt where there had once been a parking lot. After that, he’d returned to his hotel room—no one had seen him—and he’d showered and gotten into bed, not even bothering to wake Mira.

The hardest part of the day had been trying to act surprised when they’d returned to their house on Sycamore Street and been confronted by two detectives with a search warrant for the premises.

“Matthew, can you think of anyone . . . Is there anyone you know who might want to mess with you?” Sanjiv asked.

It was a question that hadn’t been asked yet by either of the two detectives.

Matthew took a breath. “Actually, I think there is someone,” he said, and then proceeded to tell all about his neighbor and how he believed she had already sent a police detective from Cambridge to his house to investigate an old crime.

“Why do you think it’s her?” he asked.

“Well, it’s embarrassing, but I googled her, just because I was curious, new neighbor and all, and she has a history of accusing people of crimes they didn’t commit. So, it’s a possibility—ridiculous, I know—but for some reason I thought of her right away this afternoon when the police were there.”

“What’s her name?”

“Henrietta Mazur,” Matthew said.

“You need to tell the police everything you just told me. Exactly as you told it, okay?”

Matthew said, “Okay.”



He was released just before five o’clock. Mira drove him home, and as they passed Henrietta’s house, windows dark in the encroaching dusk, he craned his neck to see if he could see any signs of life.

“What are you looking at?” Mira asked.

“I want to see if our neighbors are home.”

“Why?”

“I think that Hen was the witness who said I was at that bar last night.”

“What?”

Back inside their home, after drinking a much-needed Diet Pepsi, Matthew told Mira about his suspicions.