No One Will Miss Her(44)

Murray guffawed. “Ridiculous fucking car,” he said, and Bird smirked again at the accent: Fackin’ cahh. “Some folks use a valet garage down the street, but there’s a Lexus in the back and an empty spot next to it. Probably that’s where your Mercedes would be. No sign of anyone trying to break in or anything. And no sign of the husband.” Murray scowled, and Bird wondered if the other man had his own reasons to dislike Ethan Richards.

“Good,” Bird said. “Thanks, Murray.”

Murray nodded. “You got it.” He put the blue-and-white into gear, then paused, sucking his teeth. “You said ‘good.’ So you’re not here about the lady’s husband?”

Bird grinned. “I’m here about the lady’s boyfriend,” he said, and Murray let out a short bark of satisfied laughter.

“That’s rich,” he said. “All right, you sure you don’t need me to stick around?”

“Nah.”

Murray nodded and gestured at the radio. “Then I’m gonna get my ass in front of a TV in time to see Judge break down crying like a little girl when the Sox clinch,” he said, laughing. Bird grinned, tipped the Boston officer a mock salute, and watched as Murray drove off, disappearing down the street and around the corner. The wind rustled in the trees; a few dry leaves skittered over the curb and into the street, chasing one another past elegant homes with ivy crawling up their corners, stone steps leading up to their front doors, chrysanthemums planted in window boxes that hid the discreet wiring of high-end security systems. Bird started across the street, glancing up at the lit windows of number seventeen as he did so, and caught his breath. Adrienne Richards stood there, a dark silhouette against the glass, looking down at him as he looked up.

Bird was still considering whether or not to wave when she turned away. For a moment, he was overcome by the sense that she’d been watching for him, and waiting; he half expected her to appear at her front door, opening it before he could knock. But there was no further movement behind the windows as he crossed the street, no snap of a dead bolt drawing back in anticipation of his appearance. He mounted the stone steps to number seventeen, and pressed a finger against the bell.

Somewhere around the time he crossed the border from Maine to New Hampshire, on the heels of his conversation with Jonathan Hurley and his realization about the origins of the photos in Lizzie Ouellette’s little album of “dreams,” Bird had tapped into a profound and intense dislike for Adrienne Richards. By the time he arrived outside her door, he had decided that she was at least as bad as, if not worse than, her conniving fraud of a husband, and that she deserved to be dragged over the coals as hard as humanly possible for her involvement with Dwayne Cleaves—which made it jarring when the door opened and he found himself immediately apologizing.

“Adrienne Richards?” he said, and watched her nod, her eyes wide, as she peered out through the crack in the door. “I’m sorry to bother you so late. I’m Detective Bird, with the Maine State Police.”

The door swung wider as he held his ID up for examination, and Bird looked at Adrienne as she looked at his badge. She was pretty in person, but not the way he’d expected. There was no sign of the pouting, posing, attention-seeking rich bitch he’d seen in pictures and read about in the news; unfiltered and in real life, Adrienne Richards had a haunted, vulnerable look, with a soft mouth and striking pale blue eyes that widened as they met his.

“The state police, you said?” She chewed her lip. “Why?”

“I have a few questions for you. Can we talk inside?”

She hesitated, then swung the door wide. He stepped in as she stepped aside, the scent of something light and citrusy trailing behind her. The events of that morning, the blood-soaked quilt being drawn away from Lizzie Ouellette’s lifeless body to the angry buzzing of a hundred thirsty flies, seemed suddenly very far away.

“Were you expecting company tonight?” he asked.

Adrienne shut the door firmly and gave him an odd look. “What makes you say that?”

“I saw you at the window. I thought you might be watching for someone.”

“I was just . . . sitting. It’s a nice view,” she said. A short set of stairs rose up behind her, and she turned, beckoning him to follow. “We can talk up here.”

Bird watched her back as she ascended, taking in her outfit (bare feet, sweatpants that looked like they were made of silk, an artfully distressed gray sweater that probably cost a thousand bucks and came with its sleeves pre-frayed), her hair (twisted up on her head, that funny pinkish-copper color that Jennifer Wellstood had called “rose gold”), her posture (tense, but normal for a woman home alone getting an unexpected visit from the cops). There was a photograph on the wall where the landing turned a corner, Adrienne and Ethan posing on a hilltop terrace under a light pink sky. A sea of sun-bleached buildings were set into the hill behind them, with the real sea just beyond, stretching blue and endless to the horizon. She was blond and tanned and smiling; he was planting a kiss on the top of her head.

“Nice picture. Is that Greece?”

She turned, leaned in, squinted. “Yeees,” she said slowly. “The islands. We honeymooned there.”

“Looks beautiful.”

“My husband isn’t here,” she said abruptly. She moved away, climbing the last three stairs to the second floor and then turning to look down at Bird where he still stood on the landing. She crossed her arms, shifting her weight. “I still don’t know what this is about.”