Friends Like These(20)

“And who the fuck are you?” The young guy stepped to the side so he could address Finch directly.

“Finch,” he called back and took another sip of his drink. “That’s who the fuck I am, and I’ll tell you what— that mess of wood you set up out there looks to me like you’re planning on lighting the house on fire or some shit. Add a little gasoline and boom. Lift off. Maybe it just scares the shit out of everyone sleeping here with some smoke. Maybe it jumps to the house and does a whole lot fucking worse.” Finch got up and sauntered closer, leaned back against the wall. He was enjoying this. “Is that the plan? Set the house on fire maybe and make it look like some drugged-out degenerates did it?”

The younger man smirked and shook his head.

“Come on, Luke,” the old man said. “We’ve said our piece.”

Luke pinned me again with his alarming blue eyes. “You’ve got until tomorrow.”

And with that, they turned and headed down the steps and toward their car. Stephanie nudged me out of the open doorway.

“It’s freezing.” She slammed the door and deadbolted it. Then she leaned in close and whispered, “What the fuck is going on here, Jonathan?”

But what was I going to say? Especially to Stephanie, of all people. The best-case scenario was that Peter had made an honest error, trying to execute a very simple task. Worst case? He was siphoning off our renovation budget. I did know that was possible.

“Actually, Peter mentioned he was having an issue with the contractors. I completely forgot until they were standing right there.”

“Uh-huh,” Stephanie said, eyeing me skeptically.

“He’s withholding a payment until they fix some shoddy work,” I went on, more quietly. “They probably saw the cars, knew it was me and not Peter, and decided to try and shake me down. It’s nothing. I’ll deal with it. I just didn’t want to get into it right then.”

Stephanie looked a tiny bit hurt that I wasn’t coming clean. Once upon a time, I told her all my secrets.

“Okay, whatever you say.” She was letting me off the hook. Stephanie could be harsh, but she always knew exactly how much you could take. She turned to the group, smiled, and clapped her hands together like a camp counselor. “Who’s hungry? Because I, for one, am starving.”





DETECTIVE JULIA SCUTT


SUNDAY, 5:32 A.M.

It’s pouring as I drive toward the scene, roads empty, houses all quiet. Almost dawn, the sky is breaking a pale gray at the edges. I try to take a deep breath, but my lungs feel stiff.

Is it helpful that Ace Construction is involved, even peripherally? I mean, not especially.

According to Maeve, there are issues between Jonathan and Ace Construction, some dispute over money that Jonathan conveniently neglected to share. Maeve only mentioned it offhand at the very end of our brief interview. After that call from Dan, I’d been mainly focused on wrapping things up so I could get down to the scene.

“You think this conflict with Ace Construction is related to what happened, Ms. Travis?” I asked Maeve.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She looked taken aback at the suggestion, though what had been the point of bringing it up otherwise? “But they did seem very angry. The younger one especially. Luke, I think his name was. It was him and an older guy.”

“Mike Gaffney?” I hated the feel of his name in my mouth.

“He didn’t give his name. But Luke called him Dad, I think.”

A fancy weekend house— no surprise Ace Construction had been the ones renovating. These days, they’re the biggest and best contractor in the area. Back in the day, when Luke was a teenager, Mike Gaffney did mostly small jobs like renovating our bathroom. I still remembered my mother yelling at Jane and Bethany— always inseparable— to stop deliberately huffing the paint. They’d be dead within days. The smell of drying paint still makes me nauseous.

According to the show notes, The River had spent a whole episode on Mike Gaffney. But he’d been interviewed at the time of the murders and, in the end, there’d been nothing to connect him except that work on our bathroom. Plus, he’d had an alibi.

I wonder what else this group might have “inadvertently” left out, aside from this problem with Ace Construction. Their descriptions of the night were suspiciously similar, right down to the pasta Maeve made: penne arrabiata. They’d all called it exactly that. And gave the exact same time window that Keith and Derrick had gone out for cigarettes, “nine thirty to nine thirty-five.” Drugs— I suspect that’s what they’re keeping from me. Could be they were all so high earlier they’re not exactly sure what happened. No matter how many times you tell people you don’t care about the drugs— you’re a cop. They’ll still believe you do.

Drugs could also be the reason we’ve got a dead body in a car. Could be a buy went south. The local dealers have a habit of getting unreasonably greedy.

As I round the next corner, I see the woods lit up in the distance like a sports field. There are more than a dozen vehicles lining the road, mostly cruisers, plus a larger crime scene vehicle up ahead, a shiny metal box with NEW YORK STATE FORENSIC INVESTIGATION UNIT written on its side. I drive past the line of cars until I spot an officer up ahead with a flashlight.

I roll down my window as I pull to a stop. Charles— Chuck something— I’m pretty sure.