Nine Lives(29)

“Okay. You want one, too?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Aaron came back into the living room with two IPAs from Fort Orange Brewing. “Did I leave these here?” he said, as he handed her the tall can.

“Probably. I don’t drink much beer.”

Aaron sat, which was a start, although it was more like he was crouching on the final inch and a half of the seat of the chair by the entryway to the living room. The chair where Jessica usually dumped her mail.

“So, is there somewhere you can go, somewhere you have absolutely no connection to?”

“Was Arthur Kruse questioned yesterday afternoon?” Jessica said, ignoring his question. “You said he was, right? Do you know if he said anything about his father?”

“I don’t, honestly. It’s not my case, now, any more than it’s yours.”

“But you’ll still get me his father’s contact information if you can, right?”

He took a large swig of his beer, foam sticking to his unshaved upper lip area. Jessica took a sip of her own beer, and thought it was like sticking a pine cone in her mouth.

“I passed along what you’d said about your father and Arthur Kruse’s father and their possible connection. I can get you his contact info, but you can’t call him until after he’s been questioned. You know that.”

“I know that. I just can’t help but think that there’s something there. I mean, there has to be a connection between us.”

“You keep saying that, and I agree. But don’t you think it’s a possibility that you were somehow just randomly selected?”

“I don’t. Not really.” Jessica sipped some more beer. It was growing on her. “I think if you randomly selected nine people in the United States, the results would be more diverse. Racially. Age-wise. Income bracket.”

“There’s some age diversity. People in their thirties and forties. Frank Hopkins was in his seventies. You’re a woman of color. I don’t know about income, exactly, but it doesn’t seem like Ethan Dart is exactly rolling in the dough.”

“Yes, but he’s not poor, is he? He’s not part of the underclass, even though his income is low. And I’m a woman of color but I’m adopted. It’s significant. I know it is. There’s no diversity among the parents of the nine people on the list.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t know that, but I suspect that. And if it were a truly random list, then I still think why not have ten people on it instead of nine? Look, I know I’m just making assumptions, but it’s not like I’m on this case so I’m going to go ahead and make them. And if I were on the case, what I would do is build up a profile of all of the parents and look for similarities there. That’s where they’re going to find them. And look for strange events in the parents’ past, like unsolved cases, things like that.”

Jessica was talking fast, and Aaron said, “Slow down a moment, will you?”

“Sorry. I’m speaking my thoughts out loud. It’s just that I know that the nine people are not random, that there’s a connection, and that whoever is doing this is not going to stop until we’re all dead. God, I sound like I’m in a movie. I feel like I’m in a movie.”

“It’s going to get a lot harder for him or her as the days go on. There’s going to be lots of police protection.”

“Like for Arthur Kruse. No, I know. But there’s not protection right now for Jay Coates, or for Alison Horne, or Jack Radebaugh.”

“There will be. We’ll find them.” Aaron put his can of beer on the floor in front of him. It looked as though it was empty. “Look, I know you’re avoiding this question, but I do think it would be better if you go someplace else while this case continues. Being here is not a good thing. Going to your local grocery store, going to the Club Room. Not a good idea. We can send you someplace, as you know, but if there’s somewhere you want to visit …”

“I can think of a place. Maybe.”

“Okay, good. Don’t tell me about it. I’m going to get one more beer before I hit the road, and then you should make arrangements.”

Aaron ducked into the bathroom first, before heading to the kitchen. Jessica thought of the place she had in mind. It was somewhere in mid-coast Maine, that was all she knew. Two years earlier she’d gone to her college friend Darlene’s wedding, and ended up hanging out the entire time with a woman named Gwen Murphy. She’d known Gwen in college as well, but they hadn’t been close. That weekend, however, they’d bonded, even fooling around a little after the reception, something Jessica hadn’t done since college—fool around with a girl—back when she’d considered herself a true-blue bisexual. And one of the things she remembered from that wedding was Gwen telling her about a house she’d inherited from her grandmother, a cottage on a peninsula in Maine, and how Jessica should use it for her next vacation. She hadn’t taken Gwen up on that offer, probably because she didn’t know if it was an offer for her to have a vacation alone or a vacation with Gwen, but she thought she’d get in touch now. If the cottage was available, it might be perfect. And there was very little, almost nothing, to connect her with Gwen. They hadn’t even texted or emailed since the wedding.

Aaron was pacing again, holding his second beer. He hadn’t asked Jessica if she wanted one, which probably wasn’t rudeness and had more to do with him knowing her well enough to know she wouldn’t.